What will happen to us?
“Hey, hey, hey,” Ted interrupts, sounding every bit a lawyer, and I hate him for it. There’s no hesitation on his part as he moves to stand between Bryan and Paul. “Let’s all take a step back and mellow out.”
The door opens just as Paul starts to speak, and a detective strides into the room. Everyone stills. It’s Detective Locke, the same one from the hospital. He wears a crisp white shirt buttoned to the top with a dark tie and matching jacket. His first name eludes me even though I’m pretty sure he was in my freshman algebra class in high school.
“Everything okay out here?” he asks. He doesn’t smile at any of us as he scans the room.
The men exchange awkward glances. I try to catch Lindsey’s eye again, but Bryan’s body blocks my view. Detective Locke motions to Paul. “Let’s start with you and your wife.”
THREE
KENDRA
Detective Locke has been bombarding us with questions for over an hour. Maybe longer. I can’t make sense of his words. They come from his mouth and float around the room. I don’t bother to chase them. What’s the point?
My son is gone, and he’s never coming back.
Nothing changes that.
I keep waiting to wake up, for Paul to jiggle my arm and tell me I slept through my alarm clock again. I want to wipe the sleep from my eyes, push the horrid images back into the land of sleep, and wake in a world where Sawyer still exists.
“Kendra?” It sounds like Detective Locke is calling me from the end of a long tunnel. “Kendra?”
How long has he been calling my name? I lift my head and try to focus on him as he peers at me from across his desk. His face is a perfect square. Green eyes with specks of gold surrounding his pupils. They’re deep, impossible to read. The light coming in through the window behind him is too bright. It makes my head hurt.
“Did Sawyer mention being angry with Jacob or Caleb?” He gazes at me with hawklike precision.
“No, not to me.” The Xanax makes my tongue thick. I speak like I have a mouthful of marbles.
“Did you notice any recent changes in his behavior?”
It takes too much effort to shake my head.
Paul answers for me, “We didn’t notice anything weird. He was moody, but he wasn’t moodier than any other teenager.”
Sawyer is our happy one—the easy kid. Reese is our problem child. Always has been.
“Any changes in his sleeping patterns?”
“He slept a lot, but all teenagers sleep a lot.”
Except mine. He won’t sleep again. The loss claws at my chest, stealing every wisp of air from my lungs. I’m going to scream. That’s what happened in the bathroom. Not again.
I grab for Paul’s knee next to mine.
“Paul . . .” It’s all I can get out. My mouth is too dry to speak. Teeth stick to my gums.
Detective Locke turns his attention back to me. The intensity of his stare is gone and replaced with concern. “Are you okay?” he asks, getting up from behind his desk.
I shake my head. Screams bubble like lava in my chest, exploding in sounds that must come from me, but I’ve gone behind the glass in my mind, where it’s safe. I place my hands on the cool surface as I watch Paul take me into his arms as if it’s possible to comfort me.
FOUR
LINDSEY
Detective Locke looks just like he did in high school—square shoulders, angular jaw, clean cut—like he came out of the womb ready to join the military, and that’s exactly what he did as soon as we graduated. He was at boot camp the week after our ceremony. I haven’t seen him since and had no idea he was Norchester’s lead detective until he strode into Jacob’s hospital room the first night. We were never friends, but our graduating class was under two hundred people, which meant everyone knew everyone else. Most of us stay in touch, especially those of us who live close, but he’s never attended any of our high school reunions, and I haven’t seen him at any of the weddings of former classmates.
He had a partner at the hospital that night who followed him around as they hovered in the background outside of Jacob’s room, but he’s by himself today. I still don’t know anything about him. I’ve scoured social media and can’t find anything. He doesn’t even have a Facebook profile. What kind of a person doesn’t at least have that?
He points to the two chairs sitting in front of his desk while he moves to take the swivel office chair behind it. I slide into the straight-backed wooden seat on the right, still warm from whoever sat here last. Was it Dani? Bryan?
Kendra and Paul were in and out quickly. Kendra’s wails cut their meeting short. Her sobs started small and worked their way up to a heart-wrenching crescendo reverberating throughout the building. I’ve never heard someone cry like that. It took everything in me not to go to her. Andrew sensed my knee-jerk response, and if it weren’t for his arm around me, I might not have been able to stop myself. We all stood when Kendra came out like we were honoring the bride at a wedding.
The Schultzes went next. Their session dragged on for over two hours. Dani looked stricken when they came out, but she can’t stand anything hinting at trouble, and this room reeks of it. There’s nothing on any of the dirty white walls except chipped paint and scratches. His desk is cluttered with papers and files. His meticulous appearance obviously doesn’t transfer to paperwork. There’s not a single picture frame on his desk. Does that mean he doesn’t have a family or that he prefers to keep his personal life private? Gosh, I hope it’s the latter, because people without kids have no idea what it’s like to be a parent. They think they do, just like I did before I had kids, but they’re clueless.
Am I supposed to call him Martin? Detective Locke? I clear my throat, anxious to get started. I can’t stand being away from Jacob for so long. He had a terrible night last night. Spiked a 102-degree fever and sent all his machines into panic mode. Andrew’s fidgeting next to me isn’t helping my anxiety.
“Was Jacob depressed?” Detective Locke asks, wasting no time on formalities and small talk like he did in the hospital.
“Not at all,” I answer without hesitation. “I know everyone says that teenage boys are the worst communicators and you can’t get them to do more than grunt in response to your questions, but Jacob wasn’t like that. We talked every day. Our relationship was open and honest. He came to me with things. All my children do. If he was having problems or feeling down, I would’ve known about it.”
He looks at me like I’m in denial about what he’s getting at, but I’m not.
Self-inflicted gunshot wound.
That’s what the doctors in the emergency room said when they told us about Jacob’s injuries. The same line is listed in his chart, but I skip over it whenever I scan his reports for the latest lab results and neurology tests. He might’ve shot himself, but he would never kill himself on purpose. Never. Jacob was happy, and happy kids don’t try to take their own lives, especially when they have everything going for them.
“Sometimes depression looks different in teenagers than it does in adults. Did you notice any irritability? Change in his appetite?”
Andrew bursts into laughter that’s quickly followed by red-faced embarrassment at his poor timing. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . you obviously don’t know Jacob.” He wrestles with his emotions before continuing. “Our boy likes to eat. There’s no problem there.”