Page 53 of Come Find Me
I shake my head, but not because I don’t understand. Because I don’t believe it.
“It means they have even more evidence that he fired the gun, Kennedy. An expert will testify to that.” He sighs. “The police believe he shot…her. And then Will tried to wrestle it away from him. And then he shot him, too.”
I shake my head. It’s not possible. My brother studies and builds things. He’s funny in a self-deprecating way. Of the two of us, he’s the rule-follower. The responsible one. He goes to school, and he comes back home, and he tolerates my presence when I have nothing better to do. My brother pales at the sight of blood. He has never hurt anyone. Let alone ourmother.
“That makesno sense.Come on. It was the same as every other night. There is no reason he’d get Mom’s gunjust because.There has to be another reason. Maybe someone else was there, and he was protecting—”
“Kennedy, stop. Everyone at the college…” Joe runs a hand back through his dark hair, but he doesn’t continue.
“Everyone at the collegewhat?”
Joe sighs. “Everyone at the college noticed the tension between Elliot and your mom. They weren’t getting along. There are several witnesses who heard them arguing in her office in the days leading up to…Come on, you had to notice.That’swhat people will say, if called to testify.”
“No, that’s not true,” I say impulsively. But what did I really know? Did they avoid each other at meals? Walk silently to the car in the mornings, with a telling gap between them? Did I hear Elliot’s voice cutting down my mom while I was talking on the phone with Marco?
I was busy with the things I thought mattered then, with Marco, too distracted to see what was happening in my own house. Literally alive, they say, because of this. Because I snuck out to Marco’s when everything turned upside down.
“So? So what if they weren’t getting along? Is that really a motive for killing her? For killingtwo people?”
He frowns. “You know how Elliot was taking one of Will’s classes?”
“Yeah, I know that already,” I snap.
“Well, he was failing the class.”
I shake my head. I keep shaking it as I back away, out of the room. It seems like the very stupidest thing to do, the worst reason to kill someone. Over a grade? An argument? Had he been fighting with my mother about that? Elliot is smart. I can’t imagine him bringing home anything lower than a B—but so what if he was failing? Was that really a reason? That, enraged, he would hear Will come inside, go into the linen closet, where my mom kept the gun hidden, and take it?
But what was I expecting? A good reason? I can’t think of a single one.
“He wouldn’t,” I say from the hall.
“Except,Kennedy…” Joe trails off, not needing to say the rest.
The gun, the residue, the blood, Elliot running from the scene. I am testifyingas a witness.The police have no doubts about what happened next.
I snuck out that night because my mom was going to a department holiday party with Will. She wore a black dress and a red scarf. I saw her readjusting it in the hallway mirror while she looked out the window, hearing the sound of Will’s car.
If I’m not home until after you’re asleep, good night,she’d said, swooping down for a quick kiss on my cheek.
Goodbye, Elliot,she called over my head. Had he responded? Did she frown?
I can’t recall it clearly. Instead, I had been counting the moments until she was gone so I could leave.
I assumed they wouldn’t be home until after midnight. And then I was held up by the storm, and Marco. I didn’t notice how late it had gotten, and I was worried she’d notice I was gone.
But she didn’t.
It was horrific, the simplicity. The police knew what time they’d left the party. They figured she’d only been home for a handful of minutes before everything went wrong.
I didn’t know Elliot had a motive, albeit a terrible one.
This trial is not going to be what I thought—a chance for me to offer another explanation. They already have the details, the reason, and I’m just providing the proof.
Back at home, my parents and Agent Lowell are speaking in the kitchen quietly. I’ve had it with the ambushes, the looks, the hopes that will inevitably be shattered again. It’s just a photo, taken two years ago. Sent to Abby, not to us. What was she supposed to do with it?
I try to sneak by them up the stairs, but the second step squeaks, the traitor, and the voices in the kitchen abruptly halt.
Agent Lowell pokes his head out of the kitchen and announces, “Nolan. We’ve been waiting for you.”
