TELLING DAD THAT I was thinking of becoming a cop may have been the least of the problems we had between us, but it was a problem nonetheless. He wasn’t happy about it. He didn’t like the police any more than I did. Maybe even less. They’d never solved my mother’s murder, and in his eyes, that was just as bad as being the murderer. It wasn’t logical, but I could understand where he was coming from. The crimson memories of my mother were the worst memories I had, and every time I thought about her murderer, walking around in the world, totally free, while she rotted beneath the ground, the crimson fused with indigo betrayal that blanketed me with such hopelessness, it was like I was the dead one. At least on the inside.
But how much of Dad’s outrage over Mom’s death was genuine, and how much was a front? This was a question that had been nagging me for months now, ever since I’d discovered Mom’s ties to Vanessa Hollis’s escort service, and Dad’s complete and total lie about not knowing anything about the Hollises at all. Something fishy was going on, and I hated that the one man in this world that I thought I could trust was the source of my unease.
I hated it, but I accepted it. Because I didn’t have a choice.
Every time Dad left the house for any amount of time—and with his job as a photographer, he was constantly on location—I busied myself with trying to figure out what exactly he was hiding from me, and how. The problem was, when you’ve been hiding something from someone you live with for over ten years, you get pretty good at hiding. I had searched the entire house, top to bottom, twice, and had found nothing. Only a dusty, locked metal box beneath his desk, and even that I had run across by accident. And I couldn’t crack the combination to save my life. Or to avenge Mom’s. Or whatever it was I was trying to do.
I came home from the physical therapy parking lot and plopped the manila envelope on the kitchen counter, grabbed a glass from the cabinet and turned to the refrigerator to fill it. I was so irritated by my run-in with Chris, I almost didn’t see Dad sitting at the kitchen table, poring over some paperwork of his own. He looked up when I dropped the envelope.
“Bad day at the station, Officer?” He said it like he was teasing, but he still had a bitter edge to his voice whenever he brought up my future plans. And to think, just a few months ago at my graduation, he was desperate for me to have future plans.
I took a long drink of water. “For your information, I’m not even applying. I decided today.”
He blinked, pulled off his glasses, and laid them on the paperwork. “Oh, really? You okay with that decision?”
“Would I make it if I wasn’t okay with it?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, how about, yes, I’m totally okay with my decision.”
“Doesn’t really seem like it.”
I took another drink. “Don’t pretend like you’re not thrilled about it.”
He rubbed his eyes with forefinger and thumb. “Well, no, if you’re not happy, I’m not happy. You know how this goes. I’m your dad. I love you.”
I ground my teeth together to keep myself from asking why a dad who loved me so much was keeping things about my own mother from me. How a dad with such love for his daughter could lie to her for her entire life.
“I’m happy,” I said instead.
“Nikki,” he said, in that voice I’d grown so sick of ever since that night at Tesori Antico. I’d been a mess when I came home from the hospital that night. Filthy, bloody, emotionally wrecked. There was no hiding anything from Dad at that point. Luna had gotten away again, and Chris was at death’s door, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw Vanessa hitting the ground, blood blooming around her, the same crimson that bloomed around my mom. How was it possible that they bled the same?
After, there had been investigations and statements and questions and questions and questions. All the while, Dad tiptoeing around me, using that voice, as if he was half-afraid that talking too loud would make me break. And, honestly, it might have. “You don’t have to keep up the act with me. I know you’re scared. They’ll find her. They will. In the meantime, let me help.”
I rolled my eyes. Here we go again. Was I scared? Hell, yes. I was scared shitless. I would be a moron not to be scared. Luna had attacked me too many times for me not to be scared. And she obviously could literally get away with murder. She was still out there, and someone was helping her. And I’d killed her mom. With Chris out of commission, she and I were the only two who knew, and I intended to keep it that way. She could hardly turn me in to the police, so she had to want me dead more than ever. Every time I thought about her, my whole world filled with asphalt gray and black. I was so scared I could hardly walk upright.
But I was tired of being scared. I was tired of looking over my shoulder. I was tired of Dad’s goddamn annoying Soothe Scared Nikki voice. And at the same time, I wished like hell that I could just let him soothe me. That he could make things better. I wished I could open up to him, tell him about everything that had gone on, cling to him for help and support. I hated myself for being so stubborn, but I’d done it for so long, I didn’t know any other way.
“I know they’ll find her,” I said. “But I’m not going to be out there looking for her. And before you ask, no, I don’t have another life plan. But I will come up with one. Maybe I’ll . . .” I paused, at a loss. My life had been all about the Hollises for so long, I didn’t even know how to think about anything else.
“You’ll . . . what?”
“I don’t know . . . paint swimming pools or fix roofs or sell refrigerators. Does it really matter?” I heard the defensiveness in my voice and tried to force myself to tone it back a bit.
“Yes. It does. It matters a lot. It’s your life we’re talking about. You’re an adult now. It’s time to start acting like one.” He replaced his glasses and checked his watch. He took a deep breath and began gathering together his papers. “And we’ll have to talk about it later, because I have a meeting to get to. I’m sorry.”
Thank God.
“It’s okay. I’ve got some thinking to do, anyway.” Translation: I have to go through your shit while you’re gone so I can figure out what you’re hiding from me, and why. One plan at a time, Daddy. One plan at a time.
He stacked the papers in the middle of the table and stood. He came over to me and kissed me on the top of the head. “You okay?” he asked. I nodded. “I’ll set the alarm, just to be safe.”
“Fine.”
“You know where the panic button is.”
“Yes.”
“Let Hue in.”
“Dad, I’ve got it. Go.”
He looked at me a second too long, as if he was debating whether or not to leave, then nodded once and headed out. “You know how to get ahold of me. I won’t be long. I can be right here if there’s an emergency.”
“Okay, okay, okay,” I mumbled, going to the back door to let in Dad’s latest safeguard—a lumbering boxer with too-big feet and more slobber than you could stuff into twenty dogs’ mouths. Dad thought his name was Hugh, and I was fine with that. But really it was Hue—a nod to Peyton’s rainbow. I liked being the only one who knew that. I opened the door and Hue bounded in, stomping across both of my feet on the way by. “Ouch. Good to see you, too, buddy. Guess you’re on duty.” I reached down to scratch his ears, but he was circling me too fast to catch. I laughed, despite myself.
I hadn’t been lobbying for a dog, and part of me thought this was more overkill in the Kill Family Homestead Arsenal of Self-Defense, but if I were being totally honest, I slept a hell of a lot better when Hue was beside me than when he wasn’t.
I sat on the floor and let Hue leap and bump and cover me with kisses, trying to catch an ear here or a neck there for a good scratch, then finally stretched out on my back, giving in to the crazy dog frenzy until I heard Dad set the alarm, and then the click of the front door closing behind him.
“Okay, okay, dinner,” I said, pulling myself up off the floor and filling Hue’s bowl with kibble. He dove in eagerly, making disgusting crunching and slurping sounds, just like always. “Bon appétit,” I said. “I’ve got work to do.”
I went upstairs, detouring to paw through Dad’s dresser for the thousandth time. Nothing but socks and underwear and T-shirts and an old pair of swim trunks that I had literally never seen him wear. But nothing that answered a single question, or raised a single doubt. To any casual observer, Dad was just a normal, kind-of-boring dad.
Which I knew was a fucking lie. Normal, kind-of-boring dads didn’t hide potentially deadly secrets under their desks in a little locked box.
In my desk drawer, under the black notebook where I’d stashed the letter Peyton had left for me, was a pocket-sized spiral notebook. I opened it and was immediately showered with colors. Purple, sea green, black, orange, red, cornflower blue. Row after row of numbers. Every possible combination I could think of that might have meaning to Dad.
Sea green, bronze, mauve, melon, silver. Mom’s birthday. Neon pink, purple, mauve, melon, pink. His birthday. Pink, black-and-white checkered, mauve, bronze, cornflower blue. Mine.
I went downstairs to his office, crawled under his desk, where the box was, and stretched out on my belly. For a while, I had been taking the box to my room to work on, but I was jumpy as hell when I did that, and convinced that Dad would notice that the dust had been wiped off in the move. Every tiny noise made my heart leap into my throat, and once Hue came into the room and startled me so much that I had to curl up around him and sit quietly for half an hour to calm myself.
I spun the dial a few times to clear it, took a deep breath, and started trying combinations.
Our house number.
Our phone number.
Mom and Dad’s anniversary.
Model numbers of all his cameras.
My license plate.
His license pl—
I froze, my fingers still clutching the dial. License plate. I was blasted with a memory, an image that sucker punched me. Luna, sprinting through the parking lot behind Tesori Antico, her blond hair flying out behind her like a cape. The smoky chemical smell of fired gunpowder enwreathing me, my ears muffled and ringing from the gunfight inside. My chest hitching with quick breaths from fear and exertion as I chased after her. My eyes burning. My throat dry.
My stomach sinking as I realized she’d gotten too far ahead of me.
She was getting away.
She jumped into the passenger seat of a silver truck. A man with very white-blond hair driving.
The license plate a candy cane stripe and mustard.
“VP,” I said aloud. “The license plate was VP.”
I’d known it this whole time but had been busy trying to put that night out of my mind entirely. I wasn’t ready to recall anything about it. Too many terrifying images tried to crowd in on me—Vanessa on the floor, a hole appearing in Bill Hollis’s head just when he was pointing the gun directly at me, so much blood, waking up on the floor of an empty van, and Jones. Oh God, Jones. But I especially wasn’t ready to recall the fact that Luna got away.
Luna got away.
She got away.
She was insane and angry and now she had absolutely nothing to lose, and I was the one who had taken everything from her. And she got away.
I scrambled out from under the desk, my palms clammy and my heart pounding. I swallowed and swallowed, trying to get the taste of Tesori Antico out of my mouth. I backed against a filing cabinet and closed my eyes, resting my head on the cool cabinet, trying to calm my breathing. Soon Hue padded in and nosed my hand. I turned it over and let him lick my palm.
Get a grip, Nikki. Get a fucking grip.
I forced the image away. The car, the noise, the adrenaline of seeing Vanessa behind me with a knife. Everything except the license plate. VP. It was something. A clue to who was helping her; who she’d gone with. I had been fearing Luna for so long, had been waiting for her to find me and attack me, that it never even occurred to me that I could find her.
I. Could find. Her.
No. I had to find her. If I was ever going to get my life back—if I was ever going to be rid of Luna and Hollis Hell, I had to find her.
I had been waiting, fearing, cowering, for too long.
It was time to be done waiting, fearing, cowering. It was time to go on the offensive. Find Luna Fairchild and put an end to this once and for all.
But how, without Martinez? Having an unfinished police academy application did not make me a cop, by any stretch. And if Chris didn’t even remember what had gone down that night, how could he help me?
I raced up to my room and grabbed my cell phone.
It rang five times before he answered. I had started to worry that he wouldn’t answer at all. He was out of breath.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” I said. “It’s Nikki. Miss Kill. Whatever. Nikki.”
A couple of breaths. “You calling for career counseling? Because I don’t really think I’m qualified.”
A joke. I smiled. Maybe the old Chris was in there somewhere, after all. Beneath the anger and frustration and blank space. “Very funny. When does your comedy show go on tour?”
A couple more breaths.
“What are you doing, exactly?” I asked. “You’re all out of breath.”
“I’m at the gym, if you must know,” he said.
“Didn’t you just leave physical therapy? Aren’t there, like, limits to what you should be doing right now? Like maybe you should be working on your daytime TV and potato chip consumption. Or maybe learning to knit.”
“What do you want, Nikki?” And just like that, humor over. It wasn’t terribly unlike him to get tired of my shit and shut me down, but these days it just seemed to happen . . . faster.
“Are you back at work yet?”
“No. Why?”
“I just . . . need some help finding something.”
His voice got echoey, and I could hear water turn on in the background. “Finding what?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Luna Fairchild.”
There was a pause. I heard the water turn off, and the sound of a paper towel being ripped. Finally, softly, “Why?”
“I know you don’t remember,” I said. “But you trusted me. Like, really trusted me. I need you to just trust me now.”
A longer pause. “The last thing I remember about Luna Fairchild is that she was in juvenile detention. Now she’s not?”
“No, she’s definitely not.”
“It sounds like you know what happened.”
“Bill Hollis happened,” I said. But I didn’t know where to go from there. I didn’t want to be the one to tell Chris all the horror that had happened at Tesori Antico. Surely he would learn that when he got back to work. “I’ll give you the cheat-sheet version. Luna got out of juvie. She came after me. Well, they came after us. And we kind of went to them. But anyway, she got away again. She’s disappeared. Nobody’s heard anything from her, that I know of, since that night. But somebody helped her, and it’s a guy I know I’ve seen before. I just can’t figure out who he is or how he fits into this. And his license plate said VP. I’m thinking if we run that plate, maybe it can help us find Luna.”
There was another pause, during which I imagined him trying to arrange everything I’d just said into a picture that made sense. “And then what?”
My voice rose. “And then put her away. Isn’t that still your job?”
“Nikki, I’m not . . .” A long sigh. “Okay. Meet me at the station tomorrow morning. We’ll see what we can find out.”