Page 9 of Overkill

Whitlaw was a woman with authority. A woman I would have wanted to be one day.

If I weren’t a fucking criminal…

I wanted to be a lawyer. Now, I would need one.

“I’m going to need you to come in—”

Here it is. I shut my eyes, waiting for it.

“—to identify the body.”

I froze.

I should have known someone had to identify him. That was normal. Right?

The longer I lived under stress, the stupider I became. The less I knew.

“Okay,” I croaked. What was going on?

“Sweetie.” Sheriff Whitlaw reached over the sticky table—sticky from the milk I hadn’t cleaned from the teenagers who depended on me—and grabbed my hand. “Do you have anyone who can do this with you? Some kind of support system? I know you have a lot going on with Marcus and Miriam.”

I shrugged. “It’s just me, now.”

Mom was gone. My grandparents were an ocean away, and I didn’t know them. There were the Grays, sure, but I’d rather take a kitchen knife to my own eye socket before asking them for help. If they knew…they’d blame me for tempting him. Never mind that I was just a child. Never mind that Sheriff Whitlaw had also just been a child when Turner Gray changed her life, too.

“How’s your son?” I asked.

“Cohen?” Her eyebrows shot up to her forehead in surprise.

“Is there another one?” I blurted out before I could stop my sarcasm. Good going, Mels.

But Sheriff Whitlaw smiled and chuckled. “Oh, you know how teen boys are. Thirteen and know everything about everything.”

Her almond-shaped eyes shone with pride even as she complained about him.

“I’m sure Marcus is the same way.” The way she looked at me…it was almost pity. But also, like we were peers. We were not, of course. She was far above me. “You’re doing a good thing, raising your brother and sister like you are. Don’t tell the social worker, but I think it was the right thing to do.”

“I dunno,” I said honestly. “I don’t think I’m doing a very good job as a guardian.”

“It’s tough. Being a sister, but with the responsibilities of a mother. It can’t be easy.”

I almost cried. No one ever said things like that to me. All I ever heard was how I was failing them. How I was letting everyone down and I wasn’t qualified to be their legal guardian or caregiver.

“They’re better with you than their uncle.”

We sat in silence, that weird family line that tied us all together going unspoken. My stepfather, Luke Gray, was the brother of Turner Gray. None of us ever said it out loud. It was a dark, but open, secret of Mourningkill Turner had impregnated a 15-year-old Dagny Whitlaw when he was her soccer coach.

Officially, she was a single mom, and the dad was out of the picture. But we all knew. There are no secrets in a small town!

How did she cope with seeing Turner in her son? A son the Grays would never acknowledge? Did she also look at Cohen and see the man who had hurt her? Did she feel it in the stares of people around her? People who knew and blamed her for being a victim? Did she shrug it off her wide shoulders the way she did everything else? The way I never could?

I saw so much of Luke in Marcus. I wondered if she saw Turner in her son. How did she look him in the eyes? How did she love him when he reminded her so much of someone that hurt her. That abused her.

“Would you like me to come with you?” Worry now mixed in with the pity on Whitlaw’s expression. “I can drive you there and back. I get this is a lot for anyone to handle.”

I smiled, but there was no joy. I smiled to let her know I understood. That I had this. That I’d be okay.

I had to be.