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Chapter One
Brooklyn Walsh
December 2005
Tuesday — 7:14am
“Thisiscrazy.”
Brook couldn’t agree more with her best friend.
They had done some foolish things over the course of their short lives, but this ranked right up there with the time that they had climbed down the tree right outside of her bedroom window.
Two stories high, in the rain.
Needless to say, neither one of them had made it to Nate Brimmer’s keg party last year. They had both been grounded for a month, and that wasafterthe emergency room visit for Sally’s broken wrist.
“We technically aren’t doing anything wrong,” Brook tried to point out, but Sally wasn’t buying a word of it. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as the snow flurries turned into a huge white sheet in front of the vehicle. “You’re a good driver, Sally. Plus, you said yourself that your mom had new snow tires put on the car last week.”
They had lied to Sally’s mom about why they needed to borrow her car. If Mrs. Pearson ever found out that they had driven to Peoria in the snow, Sally wouldn’t be driving anywhere for the rest of the school year. Brook needed to make sure that didn’t happen.
“Once we see where Jacob is going, I promise you that we will drive straight back to Morton.”
Brook decided to stop talking when a tractor trailer passed them on the highway. They didn’t even have the radio tuned into their favorite station. For some reason, they had turned it off when they were waiting for her brother to leave the house. It was as if they thought that he could hear the music three houses down. Brook had Sally park in front of Mr. Mason’s house just to be safe.
There was something wrong with Jacob.
Really wrong, although Brook hadn’t told Sally the extent of what she believed Jacob had done.
How could a sister believe that her brother might have murdered someone? Saying something so horrendous out loud might give truth to the statement, and Brook couldn’t bring herself to do it. She just couldn’t, which was why Sally was only aware of half the story. She thought that they were out to prove that Jacob was stealing money from their parents, and not earning it at the so-called job that he claimed to have in Peoria.
Sally had no idea that Brook believed her brother had killed Pamela Murray, a young girl who had gone to their school. As a matter of fact, her body had been found five years ago, almost to the day.
“How sure are you that Jacob is stealing from your parents?” Sally asked once the tractor trailer had passed and given them some breathing room. She had even relaxed her grip on the steering wheel now that the white sheet of snow had cleared. They were left with a clear view of Jacob’s car. “I mean, don’t you think they would have noticed that they were missing money?”
“Jacob is smart.” Brook turned one of the vents toward her. The heat was finally at full strength. She’d been so cold lately. The stress over getting caught had made it hard to relax, so the warmth of the air was most welcome. “If Mom sends him to pick up milk, he’ll add on ten dollars at the checkout counter. He’ll bring home milk, and no one notices that it cost more than it should. If Dad asks Jacob to get cash out of the ATM, Jacob will add twenty dollars to the amount and then say that he forgot to get a receipt. I don’t think that my dad ever checks the account against his withdrawals.”
Jacob had chosen not to go to college. He claimed that he was working at a car dealership in Peoria, but Brook was pretty confident that her brother had no such job. If she could prove to her parents that her brother was lying, then there was a good chance they would believe her when she told them about the sketch book that she’d found in his desk drawer. More specifically, they would believe her about the drawing that depicted Pamela Murray’s face being…
Brook quickly swallowed back the bile that hit the back of her throat as she recalled the memory of finding Jacob’s sketchbook.
“Are you okay?” Sally asked as she quickly glanced in Brook’s direction. “You don’t look so good.”
“Just getting a bit car sick,” Brook said dismissively, lowering her arm. She hadn’t even realized that she’d pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “Thanks for doing this with me.”
Brook had hatched the plan over a week ago. Since they were out of school for Christmas break, it had been easy to convince her mother to let her stay overnight at Sally’s house.
“What are best friends for?” Sally asked as she turned her attention toward the road. “What’s the plan, anyway? If Jacob pulls into the car dealership, do we keep driving?”
Brook had also turned her attention to the car that her parents had given to Jacob at his high school graduation last year. The four-door sedan wasn’t new, by any means. The Ford Taurus was ten years old and had belonged to her father for as long as Brook could remember.
“Look.” Brook pointed to the right blinker on Jacob’s car. “Your brother is turning off the highway.”
Sally sighed with relief as she flipped her own turn signal on so that the car behind them would know they were taking the exit. She preferred driving back roads at a lesser speed, which came in quite handy right now. She wasn’t following Jacob too closely, and another car had swerved in front of them at the last second. When they came to the stoplight, the buffer prevented Jacob from spotting them in his rearview mirror.
“Shouldn’t he have taken the next exit?” Sally asked as she sat a bit straighter in her seat. “Plus, he’s making a right. I know this area, because my brother’s math tutor lives out this way.”
Brook didn’t have to remind Sally to hang back, especially after the car in front of them had turned left. No one was between them and Jacob now, and he would probably recognize Mrs. Pearson’s vehicle. While Sally might not have been happy about it, Brook’s tension eased when the snow picked up a bit more.
