Page 23 of Thicker Than Water
My lips tingle, as if with static electricity. My head tips forward—muscle memory—almost closing the space between us.
At the last second, I remember to veer, pecking him on the cheek.
Wyatt scratches his jaw, and I know he’s trying to mask his disappointment. My chest pings, a single note of pain I do my best to mute.
“Thanks for the info,” I say, sliding into my jacket, zipping it up. “I know you could get in trouble for that, so… I appreciate it.”
On my way to the front door, I pick up my purse, Wyatt shadowing me to see me out. “But when the police get that blood test back,” I add, turning back for a moment, “they’re going to kick themselves for wasting all this time. Because Gavin Reed’s killer is still out there, and he’snotconfined to a hospital bed.”
Chapter SevenJULIA
Aiden tries to leave for school without me noticing.
I’m at the kitchen island, holding a mug of coffee, the receipt with Gavin’s address—in Jason’s handwriting—laid flat in front of me, when I hear him creep down the stairs.
“Aiden?” I call, and there’s a measure of silence, as if he’s wavering between joining me in the kitchen and making a run for it. But then he lumbers into the room, backpack and guitar case slung over his shoulders.
“You weren’t going to say goodbye?” I ask. “Or have any breakfast?”
“I’m running late.”
I look at the time on the microwave. “You still have twenty minutes until the bus.”
“Parker’s mom is picking me up. We’re going to practice a little before school.”
“Oh, you and Parker’s mom jam out together now?” I ask, but herolls his eyes at the joke. I open a cabinet, pull down a pack of PopTarts to toss to him. “Here.”
“Thanks,” he mumbles, catching it. He turns to go.
“How ’bout I pick you up from school today,” I say, and he freezes mid-step. “I’ll take you to the hospital so you can see Dad with me and Auntsy.”
His back is rigid as he answers. “I have drama club.”
“I can email the teacher. I’m sure they’d understand.”
Aiden spins around, mouth drawn back in a snarl. “What would be the point? Dad’s still in a coma. We can’t ask him to explain why the cops are after him—about a guy who had hislips sewn together.”
His animosity surprises me. Not the tone of it, but the target. I think of him in our room last night, all the ways he’d left it open and undone. Was that what he was doing, searching for an explanation that Jason can’t currently give?
“Kids at school are calling whoever did this the Triple S Killer,” he adds.
I frown at the moniker.
“Stab, suffocate, stitch,” Aiden explains. “They say it was, like, a ritual. That that’s why the killer used three kinds of violence. They say he’s prowling the streets with a needle and knife in his pocket. And the cops think that’sDad.”
I hold back a queasy sigh, hating that, even at school, Aiden can’t escape the gossip, the rumors, the news. I stifle a shiver, too.Knife in his pocket.
“Honey, I know it’s confusing,” I try, “about the police and—”
“The evidence,” Aiden cuts in.
I resist glancing at the receipt on the counter. “Right. But that’ll all be cleared up soon.”
“And what if it’s not?” he asks. “What if they only find reasons to look at him harder?”
“Like… like what?”
There’s something dark in his expression, a specific hostility I’ve never seen before. For one unnerving second, I worry he knows what I don’t: where Jason was for those missing hours after the conference.
