She takes the tea for herself and backs up to stand beside her mom. “We had different social groups. A year in the real world doesn’t seem like a lot, but in school, it can feel huge. We never had classes together. Never had a sport together. Didn’t run track together. Nothing like that.”
“Do you run track?” Drake looks her up and down. Not like he’s checking her out, though I dislike him enough to wish I could accuse him of ogling a kid, but like he’s searching for the athletic lines her brother boasts. “Run a lot?”
“Yes, sir, my whole life. Not competitively or anything. But while my dad and brother bonded over football, my mom and I ran. It’s quieter,” she murmurs. “Calmer.”
It’s not charging face-first toward a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound dude who wouldn’t mind breaking your neck for a ball.
“Our tutoring sessions weren’t always work, work, work,” she admits, “since we still knew each other at school. I know who her friends are. Who her boyfriend is. Things like that. But it was always surface-level.”
“She was a professional,” Rhonda adds. “Sessions typically went for an hour each, so she’d dedicate the first five minutes to checking in with us all. But once they’d settled in, she was always on task and very detail-oriented.”
I bring my eyes across to Scott. “Did you and your sister double up and sit with Josey for the full two hours, or were your sessions always separate?”
“My sister’s a friggin?—”
“Separate,” Geoffrey cuts in firmly. “Our children have different interests, Detective. Different goals. Different social aspirations. Combining their time to get a single two-hour slot proved useless, because their strengths and weaknesses differed inside the classroom.”
“Scott doesn’t like it when anyone else can listen to his sessions,” Tara adds. “Like, he gets embarrassed when?—”
“I’m not embarrassed! I just don’t like to see your ugly face when I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Scott…” Rhonda hums her disapproval, shaking her head to shut him up. “Don’t be unkind to your sister.”
“I don’t mind if people can hear us,” Tara continues. “But it made Scott uncomfortable sometimes, so then he asked if they could study in his room.”
“Shut the fuck up, you freak! This is why I can’t study with you around. You don’t know how to mind your own damn business.”
“Enough,” Geoffrey snaps, his reprimand coming out like a whip.
“Who said twins were supposed to be close?” Rhonda laughs nervously. “I was so sure they’d be best friends.”
Scott scoffs.No fuckin’ chance, Mom.
“My son has a girlfriend,” Geoffrey adds. “They’re pretty serious, so even though he prefers privacy when studying, he realized being in the room alone with Josey could be construed poorly, so he brought things back to the dining table after just one session away from it.”
“Beth is a really sweet girl,” Rhonda murmurs. “Very affluent family. Geoff’s been talking to him a lot lately about how perception matters. Like, if you hang out with rough kids, you might be perceived as one of the rough kids. If you spend your time with losers…”
“You might be perceived as a loser,” Drake finishes. “Got it. So if he hangs out in a private space with another girl, it might be perceived badly by his girlfriend.”
“Exactly. He’ll be eighteen soon. The higher someone rises and the more successful we become, the more intensely those looking in from the outside will scrutinize.”
“It matters to us that our children conduct themselves accordingly.”
“Great. Are we done now?” Scott pushes off the recliner and slams the three-quarters-full glass of tea back on the table. “I have things to do, detectives. But maybe you could arrest my sister for being a freak.”
“Who needs enemies when you have a brother like him?” Drake beats me to the driver’s side of our cruiser, takes the keys, starts the engine, and says nothing of the twitching curtains at the front of the Prims’ house. Pulling away from the curb, he watches from the corner of his eye as I bring up Josey’s best friend’s address on my phone and set it in the cradle on the dash. “I wonder if that prick has a sealed juvie record already stinking up a judge’s filing cabinet? He’s got a terrible attitude toward women in general, can’t stand his sister’s existence, treats his mother like a maid, bows down to the almighty father figure, and considers himself a real fuckin’ catch with the ladies he hates so much.”
“Add in that he uses both hands interchangeably, and shit’s starting to look a little dicey for him.” I pluck the notebook from my back pocket and scan the scribbles I jotted down while inside their house. “No alibis to speak of, except each other. Father and son claim they were at home watching college football highlights. Tara and Rhonda were at the mall.”
He follows directions just five blocks east and pulls up in front of a house with peeling shutters, but a nice, green lawn. With a rickety porch, but a complete lack of broken-down cars used as ornaments.
This is a family home that speaks of hard work and grit, of doing their best, but not always having spare cash on the side to fix things up.
“Tairneyy Keen,” I recite. “Recent high school graduate, best friends since childhood. Accepted into a college a few hours from here, so the girls were already preparing for separation. However, Caleb said they’d made plans to visit often and stay connected over the phone.”
“Two-parent family. Lower middle class, schoolteacher mom, and janitor dad. They’ve been married twenty-three years and have three children. A son who’s about to turn twenty-one, Tairneyy two years later, then a daughter two years after that.”
Nodding, I close my notebook and unsnap my seatbelt. Pushing the door wide, I climb out on my side and wait at the front for Drake to meet me. “I’d like to get her thoughts on the Prims. Tara said she knew who Josey and her friends were, so chances are Tairneyy knew the Prims. Best friends gossip, so if Josey had a problem with Scott…”
