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“Are you teaching me how to do my job, son?” the cop used his stern voice, trying to intimidate me. Before I could answer, he barked at me. “Name and address”.
Then he pointed at Clem with his pen, “You can go. But I want you in the station first thing in the morning. Is this the friend you’re staying with?”
“Yes, she’s staying with me,” Hannah answered for Clem. “My father is Harry Spencer”. She used her father’s name to scare him off. I smiled.
“Oh. OK then,” the cop changed the attitude immediately. “Will Mr. Spencer be coming to the station too?”
Harry Spencer was the meanest criminal defense attorney in a thousand miles’ radius. He represented real criminals quite often, and his success rate was skyrocketing. The police and every normal person in town hated his guts.
But no one dared to say so to his face. So everyone just kept licking his ass.
“Sure,” Hannah said and pulled Clementine away from us. Before she got in her car, she looked at me and mouthed a thank you. I nodded and dared to look one more time at Clem, who was sitting on the passenger seat. Her eyes were pinned on me.
Chapter Seven
Clementine
I spent the days after the fire at Hannah’s place. My father showed up the first afternoon for about five minutes. He told me he had to do something, gave me a new phone and a credit card, and left.
“I’ll come back later,” he said.
That was three days ago.
He texted me once to order me not to go to school until he came back and that was it. So, I was laying around all day long at the Spencers’ waiting for him and thinking about my current situation. Everything pointed in one direction.
I was screwed.
The money was gone. Burnt to ashes along with my dreams of freedom. I didn’t have a backup plan. Every penny I had was lost in that stupid fire. Unfortunately, the second floor was also damaged as Hannah’s father informed me, which meant my drawings were gone too.
“You sound depressed. Do you want me to come?” Tyler asked when he called few hours after dad left me the phone.
“No, I’m fine,” I answered immediately. I didn’t need my irresponsible brother here. I needed my money back. But at least he offered. Madison didn’t even bother calling. I knew she was somewhere in Europe now, organizing glamourous events with her fashionable boss, but I would call if she was almost baked to death in her sleep.
And I really was fine. I wasn’t depressed. I was mad at myself for forgetting to take the money out of that pillow when I had the chance. Or my sketches that were spread all over my desk in my room. I could have snatched them.
My anger started mixing with boredom by day three. I had one constant source of entertainment though.
I played over and over again in my head the moment Lucas grabbed me, preventing me from going back inside the house. I remembered the money and I wanted to get it.
When Lucas squeezed me and pulled me back, it pissed me off so much. I wanted to take his skin off with my nails. I dug them in his arms and pressed, and dragged until I felt his warm blood on my fingertips.
And yet it felt good, being so close to him.
I didn’t even want to begin to think about the fact we spoke to each other. Like exchanged actual words. Were we talking now?
Another thing I couldn’t get over was my absent mother.
Everyone assured me she was fine and nothing scary happened to her and yet she didn’t call. Just like her pretty little Madison. I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them coordinated the act of ignoring me.
The Spencers refused to tell me where she was. They only told me that my father was with her, and she was no longer in the hospital.
I wondered if she was badly burnt, and they moved her to another medical center, although I was sure the fire hadn’t reached the sofa at all while she was still lying on it.
Hannah’s parents knew my mother was drinking. I had broken into tears once in their house after a fight with her, and they refused to let me go without explaining what was wrong.
But I sensed my mother’s alcohol abuse made them uncomfortable, so I was avoiding the subject. I knew they must have figured out that my mother was drunk, and even suspected she was responsible, which she was. There was no doubt about that. And yet I didn’t say a word about it, and as I noticed by now, so did they. They were hiding something. On day four of my visit at their house I found out what.
My father arrived that Tuesday and was looking bad. His clothes were wrinkled, which never happened to him. He looked sleep-deprived and nervous. He had a beard that was a few days old and huge dark spots under his eyes.
