Page 36 of Thicker Than Water
Chest searing with every breath, I don’t reply, and in a few seconds, I end the call.
I burn my mouth on molten cheese.
We’re back at Jason and Julia’s, huddled around a Hawaiian pizza, and I’m not like Aiden or Julia, who blow on each steaming bite to cool it down. My teeth are tearing through dough and ham and pineapple, because any minute now, Lou Ackerman’s going to call me back.
I contacted him right after hanging up with Wyatt, but his assistant told me he was in meetings all afternoon and would reach out after six. That was at two o’clock, and four hours seemed an impossibly long time to wait. As I watched my brother in his bed, noting the changes in his bruises and bandages, the tick of my pulse felt like the tick of a clock, each second wasted, each second another chance for Nate Hyde to taunt my nephew, for the cops to get this wrong.
Julia’s phone pings with an email. “Oh!” she says as she reads it. “Good news! Ms. Pickett says they’re still letting you go to the semiformal tomorrow.” She beams at Aiden, forcing cheerfulness, but Aiden only chews his pizza, avoiding her gaze. “She says she understands you’ve got a lot going on, and they’d be happy for you to make up for the fight with two detentions next week.”
“Does Nate Hyde have detention?” I ask.
Julia’s smile slips a little. “She didn’t say. But that’s good, right, Aid? I know you were excited about the dance.”
“I’m notexcitedabout it. It’s just a thing to do. But all people are going to be talking about now is Dad. Nate was telling everyone he’s the Triple S Killer.”
“I take it back,” I say. “Detention’s too good for Nate. Let’s send him to the stocks! Or, hey, how ’bout that island where theLord of the Flieskids go?” I lean toward Aiden to nudge him with my elbow. His lips twitch for a second, but he doesn’t smile.
“Look,” I try instead, “if Nate or anyone else gives you any shit, just tell them the truth.”
“Yeah?” Aiden says. “And what’s that?”
There’s venom in the question. It feels like poison spit in my face. I look at Julia, but she’s focused on her pizza, scrutinizing the cheese, picking at the crust.
“That your dad is innocent,” I say. “That the cops are complete and total screwups, and anyone who would act like Jason’s beenconvicted when there hasn’t even been an arrest is just a know-nothing lowlife who’s talking out their ass. That the last person on earth who would ever hurt someone, let alone kill them, is your dad, because he’s good and kind and—”
“Okay, Auntsy, stop!” Aiden cuts in. He jolts his chair back, the legs scraping against the floor with all the suddenness of a record scratch. He stares at Julia. “Can I eat in my room?”
Julia blinks at him, as startled as I am by the interruption. “Uh—sure, honey,” she says. “Just take some extra napkins.”
He picks up his plate, grabs the stack she holds out to him, and stomps away from us. I wait until he’s out of earshot before whirling toward Julia. “Take some extra napkins?”
“In case he gets pizza on the carpet.”
“Yes, I know what napkins are for. That’s all you have to say to him?”
“I already talked to him at the hospital.” She takes a large bite, then chews and chews and chews, until I’m sure the pizza is nothing more than mush in her mouth. “While you were reporting Nate Hyde’s mom to the police chief,” she finally adds.
I hold my gaze steady, gesturing for her to continue. When I lied to her, back at Jason’s room, telling her it was the police chief I’d called instead of Wyatt, I felt a pinch of guilt at how easily she believed me. It was mostly true, though. Wyatt said he’d tell the chief, so I simply revised the story to cut out the middleman. No need to explain why my ex was the first person I thought to call, or what he said about the money in the warehouse.
“And I told Aiden,” Julia says, “that violence is never the answer, even if he was provoked.”
“Okay, but what about the way he keeps talking to us, or even how he’s talking about Jason? He seems so… pent up with anger—not that I blame him, but he doesn’t need to be angry atus. It’s notJason’s fault he can’t defend himself, and you and I are doing everything we can to prove his innocence.”
Julia stalls by taking another bite. I wait her out, crossing my arms, but just as she swallows, my phone rings on the table.
I spring up from my chair, jabbing at the screen to accept the call. “Hey, Lou, thanks for getting back to me.”
“Of course,” he says, “but I’m sorry to tell you I don’t have anything new to report.”
“That’s fine, because I do.”
I run through it all again, our discovery in the warehouse, the names Julia recognized as Integrity Plus’s customers, and when I’m done, there’s a long pause before Lou sighs.
“I specifically advised you not to do something like this. You understand you’ve compromised that evidence, right?”
“Yes, yes, I’m sorry, okay? But this has to be a lead. There must be some way we can tip off the police about it. If not about the boxes of cash, then about the customers they should look into. I have pictures of all their—”
“And you say the names in the notebooks wereJason’scustomers?” Lou asks.
