Page 59 of Thicker Than Water
But now I picture Gavin on his back lawn, the way his neighbor found him after two days of rain—his stomach sliced, his breath jammed in his lungs, his lips woven with thread. Those details have always made one thing clear: Gavin’s murder was not only purposeful, but personal, too. Because the killer didn’t simply smother Gavin and flee.
He went to great lengths to keep his mouth shut.
Fingers tingling, I hold the report closer to my face. I begincombing the rest of it, unwilling to miss another quote that could be important, that could helpbuild a case, as Lou said. But on the second to last page, my eyes skid to a stop. Air tumbles out of me.
It’s an additional witness statement, from someone sitting at the bar that night. Only, this time, it’s not the person’s account of the evening that’s stolen my attention. It’s their name.
Jason Larkin.
Chapter SeventeenJULIA
After Maeve leaves, the day oozes by, sludgy and slow. At some point, I return to the couch and eat—dazed, unhurried bites from a bowl of cereal I accidentally filled with water instead of milk, my mind too crowded with the echoes of Maeve’s story.
When she first told me about it—how Jason obsessed over Gavin driving her home from the holiday party, how he made her second-guess her safety, how he pestered her with questions that kept her up at night—I struggled to process the details, wondering only how my husband could harbor hatred for a man I never knew anything about.
But now that I’ve had time to absorb the story, I recognize the role Jason played.
He kept asking me, over and over, exactly what I remembered, Maeve said,like he was desperate to do something about it if his suspicions were true.
Desperate to rescue her, she meant.
It fits into the pattern that has only recently taken shape for me. I can imagine Jason, sleepless and tortured by his thoughts, grinding his teeth against that nightmare: Gavin slipping Maeve a drug, then touching her in places she could no longer feel.
I can imagine, too, how that nightmare might have superimposed itself over another: the memory of his freshman sister, drunk and fumbling in a stranger’s bedroom, as a senior boy held her against a wall.
I see how Jason would obsess over it—the possibility that he didn’t do for Maeve what he did for Sienna, that he failed to protect her, when protecting people is what he does.
But how far would that obsession take him?
Beside me on the couch, my phone dings with a text.
JULES,Sienna’s written, beneath a group of photos.I have SO MUCH to tell you! First, some context: Henry Hendrix—the Higher Home Improvement guy, the one Gavin turned in to the IRS—accosted Gavin at a restaurant ONE WEEK before his murder. These are from the arrest report, a drunk and disorderly offense. Henry knew about Gavin cooking the books!! See the highlighted sections of Exhibits A and C (aka the first and third pics) for the SMOKING FUCKING GUNS.
I zoom in on each photo to scrutinize the small print. As I read, I try to catch up with Sienna, to piece together the narrative she already seems committed to. Admittedly, my breath hitches on one line in particular—I could fucking kill you for this—but when I look at the other section she’s highlighted, I don’t understand the significance.
Why is “you should have kept your mouth shut” a smoking gun?I text her.
Her response zips onto my screen:GAVIN’S STITCHED LIPS!!
I cock my head, unconvinced.
That’s just an expression,I reply—but I don’t add what else I’m thinking:So is “I could kill you.”
On its own, maybe, Sienna writes.But with everything else? The report makes Henry sound insane with rage. He THREW A GLASS! He’s a violent dude who clearly had motive!! And that’s not all. LOOK AT THIS.
She sends another photo, and when I focus on the part she’s circled, I stop breathing. My fingers shake as I type out a response:Jason was there?
Not only there. A witness. He saw his boss get attacked—which he never mentioned to me—and made a statement to the police:Mr. Larkin said he didn’t know Mr. Hendrix personally but he’d been talking to him at the bar when Mr. Hendrix suddenly got up, crossed the restaurant, and started yelling at Mr. Reed.
My grip on the phone loosens. Couldn’t the cops use this—Jason’s presence at another instance when Gavin was attacked—as more evidence against him?
And why was Jason at this bar? He’s not one for solo drinking. For a second, I see him there with Maeve, the two of them smiling above icy martinis, and my stomach goes sour. I look at the date on the report, but it doesn’t ring a bell. He’s worked late the past few weeks, gunning for that promotion, adding customers to his schedule well into the evenings. Or maybe that was another lie.
JASON WAS THERE!Sienna reiterates, and I’m not sure why she seems excited until her next text rolls in:What if Henry’s framing him?
I frown at the phone, the connection not computing, then respond with a question mark.
There’s def more to figure out, Sienna writes.But it’s too big a coincidence to be nothing. Jason met Henry the night Henry first attacked Gavin, they TALKED at the bar, and days later, Jason became the prime suspectin Gavin’s murder. Maybe Jason told Henry he worked for Integrity Plus. Maybe Henry thought he was in on Gavin’s gutter machine scheme. Either way, he could have planted the evidence in Jason’s car after he killed Gavin.
