Page 88 of Thicker Than Water
“He didn’t say he killed him.”
Sienna’s brow wrinkles. “Yes he did.”
“No,” I press. “He didn’t.”
“He was talking about not helping Maeve at the holiday party,” Sienna says, “not helpingme, initially. And it”—she spins her hand through the air—“whipped him up into a frenzy when he saw Maeve drive Gavin home from the conference. He said that’s why he killed Gavin.”
“No. He never said, ‘That’s why I killed Gavin.’ He said, ‘That’s why Gavin died.’?”
Sienna frowns at me, considering my correction. “Okay, but—given everything else hedidsay… is there really a difference?”
My heart chugs in my chest, steady but insistent, because there might be. There might be.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I really think we need to talk to Maeve.”
Sienna’s lips purse in thought. “Okay.” She reaches for my phone. “Let’s call her.”
Turning on Speaker, she holds it between us as it rings. Once. Twice. But the third ring is truncated, cut off mid-trill.
“She declined the call,” Sienna says.
She tries again, jabbing Maeve’s name on the screen. This time, it goes straight to voice mail, and I feel something harden like cement inside me.
I glance at the hallway, down which Beck is back where he started, waiting for Jason to wake. Except now he has the warrant he’s been itching to serve.
I picture Aiden back home, his pain turned physical, cramping him into a fetal position as he replays our talk from last night, when both of us were convinced his father’s a killer.
But there was so much, then, we didn’t know. So much we still don’t.
I spring up from the couch, tugging Sienna until she’s standing too. “We need to go there,” I say. “To Maeve’s house. Now.”
Chapter Twenty-FourSIENNA
As Julia rings Maeve’s doorbell, the cut beneath my bandage pulses with pain.
Maybe I didn’t clean it right. Maybe I’m headed for infection. Either way, the pain has a crooked rhythm, a beat as erratic as a broken heart.
Half a minute passes, no answer at the door, no footsteps inside. I lean over the porch railing, trying to peer into Maeve’s window, but gauzy curtains obscure my view.
“What do you want to do?” I ask Julia—because this was her plan. I don’t blame her for teasing out the details, analyzing each word her husband said, but I’ve been looking for loopholes all week, testing out theories that absolve my brother of guilt, and today, Jason proved me wrong—in such unbearable ways.
“You lookin’ for Maeve?” a voice calls to us. On the tiny lawn of the adjacent town house, a woman pats down soil in a flowerbed. “She left about an hour ago.”
“Do you know where she went?” Julia steps forward to ask.
“Nope. She had a bunch of moving boxes and painting supplies, though. If that helps.”
“Oh—thanks,” Julia says. Then she frowns at me: “Moving boxes?”
I shrug. “Maybe she’s bringing stuff to her store?”
Julia’s eyes brighten. She snatches my bandaged hand. “Let’s go.”
As she hustles down the porch steps, I don’t share her urgency, but I feel something glow inside me, warming the places that Jason’s left cold: right now, it’s the two of us again—heading somewhere together.
“Where did Maeve say it was?” Julia asks. “Near the Barnes & Noble?”
“Yeah, in a strip mall. Next to a yoga studio, I think.”
