Page 47 of Bad Intentions

I snapped my fingers in front of her face to get her attention.

“What?” she clipped.

I yanked the headphones off her ears. “This is serious, Alysha.”

I had to have a talk with her about the woman, Derek, Victoria, all things grown up, because yes, grown up she thought she was. So I took off the kid gloves. I tried to be respectful. Never thought I’d have to trick my own daughter into respectful behavior in return.

“He has a wife and a kid,” I said. “She drowned. An investigation is on the way.”

Alysha was trying so hard not to cry that her face contorted into a mask, chin trembling—and that was something I’d never seen before, not even when we had fights. She sniffled like a child. My heart cracked. That was how I knew Derek had gotten too deep into her, and there was no point telling an eighteen-year-old who’d never gotten her heart in a twist that the man she was fussing over was a player. Young love doesn’t listen to reason. And if she thought that was love, there was no way I could change her mind. I needed to get him away from her.

I left the room, walked to the kitchen, and stood by the window, listening to the heavy fair traffic on the streets. I thought about what Donna would say—shit was about to hit the fan.

27

JOSIE

“How do we know the drowning wasn’t an accident?” I ask Trevor.

“Well, let’s see. Our guy was in Burnville under a false ID. Or at least per Karen Boots. She was the only one who’s ever seen that fake ID. Derek Sickler, New Jersey, though his Ohio ID is James Derek Sickler. His domestic partner, Sarah Holes, came looking for him. The night she was at Ma Shirley’s Tavern talking to Karen, she received a phone call at her motel room. As per the front desk lady, Sarah Holes drove off in the middle of the night. Three days later, her body was found downriver, her car parked at the Burnville Bridge. Her father was a sheriff, and when he came to town, he told the local police that James a.k.a. Derek skipped town back in Ohio, emptied the bank account, and the sheriff was on his trail. So obviously, James a.k.a. Derek was on the run. His girl comes into town looking for him, and then—what? Goes for a swim in the river? In her clothes? Or accidentally falls in? How convenient.”

“Okay, so let’s say that wasn’t an accident. How do we know that Derek was involved?”

“Aha!” Trevor leans back on the couch, cocking his head at me. “We don’t. But a couple of things from the court transcript are a little suspicious.”

“Like what?”

“Like Alysha Boots’s testimony.”

“My mom’s?”

He nods. “Apparently, she knew Derek had a partner. She said he told her that Sarah Holes was his ex and a psycho.”

“Why are you bringing up my mom?”

“The drowned woman’s father said he got a call from his daughter the night she went missing. His daughter said she was talking to a girl named Alysha who was helping her locate Derek.”

“If my mom was hanging out with him, she would know where Derek was, right?”

“Exactly. Alysha said she never talked to that woman, never met her.”

“Maybe she didn’t.”

“Maybe she lied. Because when everything happened later, fingers were pointed at your mother, not your grandmother.”

I gape at him in shock. This is the first time I’ve heard that my mother was a person of interest in this case.

“Alysha Boots didn’t have the best reputation in high school,” Trevor says, not looking at me. “You know that. Neither did her best friend, Victoria.” He looks at Rika, who nods in agreement.

“I know,” I say, more defensively than I want it to sound.

“Don’t get me wrong, she was a popular girl, if not the most popular girl in town. That didn’t always come with the best, whatchamacallit, decisions on her part, things she did that didn’t fly well with the locals.”

“I get the idea.”

I haven’t talked to many people who had a good word to say about my mom back when she was in school. Grandma always chose the best memories to talk about. We always do this with loved ones who aren’t with us anymore.

My school was a different story. I’d heard plenty of gossip, especially in high school, when everyone was clever enough to pick the worst bits to bully with. I couldn't stand this town growing up. The people who talked trash about my grandma, who called my mom a slut and a junkie, who joked that my father could be any guy in a fifty-mile radius. All the judgmental pricks who were drinking their brains out at farm cribs and screwing in hunting cabins and pickup trucks. Same old. Our generation wasn’t very different from our parents’.