Death in the Family by Tessa Wegert

Author:Tessa Wegert [Wegert, Tessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Gone. That word means something different to me than to most. That’s partly because of my job. Homicide victims are gone forever. I’ll never know them, and I can’t change that; all I can do is try to keep the same thing from happening to someone else. Death is fast and finite. A hawk plucks a pigeon from the sky in a flurry of feathers. One goes while the other stays behind, wearing a shit-eating grin.

There’s more to it, though, because I was gone, too. As far as my family, the media, even the police were concerned, I was as gone as gone can be. The only difference between me and other victims is that I came back.

It was clear Miles believed Jasper was dead, and his case against Ned was strong. The stories I’d been told by Abella and Miles about the previous day, from Flynn’s temper to the tryst in the shed, lined up.

That only generated more doubt. Ned and Bebe’s secret had the capacity to tear apart an already unstable family. It was the kind of thing a person might go to great lengths to bury. So who wielded the shovel? It wouldn’t go well for Ned if Flynn found out about the affair; one conversation with Jasper’s brother was all I needed to see that. But what about Bebe? She had just as much reason to panic, and plenty of excuses for why Jasper was gone. This woman who cheated with her brother’s partner while he worked nearby might be capable of anything.

I wasn’t ready to give up on Flynn either. According to Abella, he routinely abused Jasper. If he was angry about Jasper’s comparably successful efforts to save the family business, or even something as trivial as Jasper’s happy relationship, Flynn might snap. He was quick to pin Jasper’s disappearance on Abella. If he’d done the deed, framing her for murder would serve him well.

It was after four by the time Miles and Bebe left the library and I was finally able to gather my thoughts and check my phone. I’d started hoping McIntyre’s messages contained a bombshell revelation about Ned Yeboah, the ambitious bisexual New York YouTuber who needed Bebe so urgently he threw her over a sawhorse in a freezing-cold shed. To my surprise it was Carson’s name, not Maureen McIntyre’s, I saw on the screen.

There were times, especially lately, when Carson made me feel like a child under a parent’s watchful gaze. He’d say it was for my own good—and maybe it was—but it concerned me that he was reaching out in the middle of a case. He’d made his position clear. What good would it do to keep reminding me I might lose my shit? Couldn’t he at least give me a chance to prove him wrong?

Cut him some slack, Shay. Whenever Carson’s micromanaging annoyed me, I reminded myself what he’d done. Carson saved me. In a way, I owed him my life. Quelling my frustration, I scrolled through his messages.

Been thinking about Tim, his first text read.

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