Page 75 of Thicker Than Water
I crouch down in my seat. What the hell is Wyatt doing here?
Peering above the dashboard, I watch as he gets out of his car. He stretches. He’s not in a hurry. Not in his uniform.
He strolls toward Henry’s car, where Henry’s still staring at his phone. Did Wyatt follow him here, too?
Maybe I got to him. Maybe Wyatt’s given a second thought to my theory. Maybe—my lungs expand, light as helium—he really is on my side.
Thud, thud, thud: this time it’s Wyatt, knocking on Henry’s window.
Henry’s head turns. Wyatt raises one hand in a motionless wave, then steps back as Henry opens his door.
I sit up a little higher, watching their body language for tension, apprehension.
Wyatt says something to Henry.
Henry’s mouth moves with a response.
And then, at the same moment, they laugh.
Not quietly, or politely. Not merely a chuckle. The two of them pitch forward, as if their laughter has thrown them off-balance.
With my bloody hand, I grip the wheel. Shock blasts through me like a fire hose.
As they head up the sidewalk, toward the community center’s door, Henry claps Wyatt on the back. Wyatt returns the gesture, and for a few seconds, they huddle close together, their faces turned toward each other—officer and suspect—smiling like two old friends.
Chapter Twenty-OneJULIA
I sip my coffee at the counter, staring at the blood on Jason’s blazer.
I’ve memorized each drop, could draw each streak in my sleep. Not that I’d be able to sleep right now; I’m on my third cup of coffee since dawn. All night, after Aiden AirDropped me the photo, I studied it in the dark, eyes wet and throbbing.
Before Jason slid into bed with me last Friday, did he wash his hands? Did he watch Gavin’s blood spiral down the drain? Or, even now, are there traces of it on our sheets? Specks of red I kept myself from seeing? I tilt my ear toward the laundry room, where our washer thunks with a bulky load, then return my attention to my phone.
I don’t know what to do with the photo. It’s evidence. I know that much. But if I show it to the police, they’ll question Aiden, and the thought of that—my son forced to testify against his father—makes me feel like I’m zipped into a dress too tight.
The blood has a strange pattern. I zoom in for the hundredth time. Drops like buttons near one of the cuffs. Streaks like claw marks across the fabric. When Aiden first showed me the photo, I thought those streaks meant Jason had tried to wipe the blood from the blazer, clean his clothes of the crime. But now I see it differently: he was wiping the blood off his hand.
Maybe I should tell the police that I was the one who took the photo. I can pretend Aiden never saw the blazer, never carried this burden for almost a week on his own. But what would it matter in the end? The police already have a warrant; they’re not looking for additional proof.
Proof. That word curdles the coffee in my stomach.
The knife, the blood, the blazer. Jason’s hands on all of it.
I set down my mug. Pick up my phone. But suddenly, it’s not Jason’s hands I see; it’s his face, some future version of it, scuffed with hurt when he learns I turned in the picture. It shouldn’t matter to me. He lied, he cheated, hekilled. But somehow, it’s still enough to give me pause.
And then there’s Sienna.
She would never forgive me. We simply wouldn’t survive it. There’d be no more Movie Nights, no jokes that feel like home, no hands that always find each other, even in the dark. She’d demand I move out, deem me unworthy of the house she grew up in. Our business would go under, our partnership severed, our days and lives instantly untethered.
The thought of it almost doubles me over with pain.
Strange that I don’t feel this way when I think of losing Jason. It hurts to imagine life without him; it’s dizzying, disorienting—but it isn’t debilitating. It’s not the crippling panic of losing Sienna. Jason and I were pressured by my pregnancy to commit to each other so young, and of course I grew to love him, but maybe the truth of that love is more complicated than I’ve ever allowed myself to believe.Maybe my marriage was made more fulfilling because Sienna, who I instantly adored, was a part of it. Because she and Jason were a package deal.
It’s breathtaking, really—how much of my life is tied to her. Not just my husband, but my home and career, as well. For years, I’ve believed these threads were bound in an unpickable knot. But now, as I return to the photo of Jason’s blazer, it feels so loose, so close to unraveling.
“Jules?”
I hear her say my name.
