Fifth period became a sort of hell for Cooper over the next few weeks.
Tom's absence in yearbook cut like a blade. Cooper would find his eyes trailing down the bank of computers, searching for a shock of white hair or the flash of a camera lens. But Tom was still in the hospital, slumbering in a coma he might never wake from.
The bleak atmosphere that had fallen over the class persisted into the final days of January. Even Mike and his silver tongue couldn't dispel the tension in the room. And eventually, he stopped trying altogether.
Mike. The thought of him was another festering wound. Did you kill her? The question hovered on the tip of Cooper's tongue each time their eyes met over the rim of their screens. Did you and that brother of yours lure Venus to her death to bury your sins? And what about Tom? Rachel? For your sake, I hope you're innocent. Otherwise, Calla is going to—
"Cooper?"
He jumped out of his seat. "I...oh." He cleared his throat, embarrassed. "Mrs. Greenfield."
She smiled down at him. "The bell rang five minutes ago, honey. I'm locking up."
He blinked, looking around the computer lab to find it empty. "Oh. Sorry, Mrs. Greenfield."
"That's quite alright." She dug around in her bag for her keys while he packed up his things, dispelling his dark thoughts.
A wasted effort. No matter how many distractions he attempted to lose himself in, he always came back to the same worries, the same names. A string of them, scrolling across his brain at all hours of the day.
Mike. Astrid. Stephanie. Blake. Gareth. Tom. Mike. Astrid Stephanie Blake Gareth Tom Mike—
He stepped outside, his bag over his shoulder, and sighed at the scene before him.
Vincent and Calla were waiting for him at his car, staring awkwardly into the distance—anything to avoid direct eye contact with the other. He inwardly cringed.
Calla noticed him first. She raised an eyebrow, as if in challenge. Are you going to stand there all day?
With another heavy sigh, he approached. "Are we still on for fajita night, then?"
Vincent twisted around, startled. "There you are."
"Here I am," he muttered, jamming his keys in the driver side door. The lock gave way with a satisfying thwump. He dropped into his seat and unlocked the passenger door manually—just one more inconvenience he had to deal with, now that his car had decided to quit on him altogether.
Vincent jammed himself into the backseat with a few mumbled curses. Calla took her seat without a word.
"Don't get me wrong," Cooper started, breaking their silent standoff. "Super stoked to get the band back together. But this guy could really use a nap."
"The detective knows we went to the cemetery," Calla said without preamble.
"Oh, look at that. I'm wide awake." Cooper turned to her, incredulous. "And when were you going to share this fantastic bit of information?"
She shrugged. As if that were answer enough.
"Imagine my surprise," Vincent said dryly. "She dropped that dime on me five minutes ago." He leaned forward, his hands braced against the back of Cooper's headrest. "The old creep is following us everywhere. Including the party. Isn't that a little...suspicious?"
"I don't know about suspicious," Cooper said with a frown. "Deranged? Unhinged? Goddamnit, I left my thesaurus at home."
"Hold on." Vincent grudgingly turned his attention to Calla. "How do you know he followed us? To the cemetery, I mean."
She stared straight ahead. "He told me. We had an...interesting exchange."
"Told you when?" Cooper demanded.
"The day before the party." She fiddled absently with the ends of her hair. "At Tom's. He must've followed me there. Said he'd spotted me running around his neighborhood."
Vincent frowned. Whatever bad blood existed between the two of them, even he didn't like the idea of the detective spying on a young girl unawares.
Even if that young girl had claws and teeth.
Cooper analyzed Calla's profile. She was all angles and shadows, her every move calculated. When she turned to face him, she had a dangerous gleam in her eye. "That man is becoming more trouble than he's worth."
"Should we add him to your hit list?" Vincent muttered—rather unhelpfully, given the circumstances.
"Maybe we should," she mused. When Cooper checked his rearview mirror, he found Vincent staring at the back of her head in alarm.
"She's joking," Cooper said, shooting her a warning look that said, let's not push him too far.
Fine, she seemed to say back, rolling her eyes. "Vincent is right."
"About the hit list?"
"About the detective," she hissed. Her calm demeanor cracked. Suddenly, she was a coiled snake, preparing to strike. "It's not just the cemetery or the party. He was at the station, too. The morning we were brought in for questioning, after Venus took her little tumble."
Cooper briefly considered the ramifications of reaching across the seat and throttling her. He probably wouldn't walk away from something like that unscathed. Then again, the sheer satisfaction of getting away with it at all was tempting. "She didn't take a little tumble, you insensitive asshat."
"Oh, boo-hoo." She tossed her ponytail over her shoulder "We need to consider the very real possibility that the detective is—"
"What?" Cooper rose to her bait, exasperated. "Following in his son's footsteps? Come on. Someone would've noticed if a grown ass man was sneaking around the party. There's no way he could've pushed Tom down those stairs."
Calla tensed. "I'm not saying he's directly involved. I don't see how that would be possible. But the timing of it all is rather..." She glanced over her shoulder. Vincent gazed back at her, wary. "Suspicious."
"Okay. So he's onto us." Cooper settled his head back against the seat. "There's not much we can do about that."
"Did Tom ever discuss his asinine theories with the detective?"
Cooper glanced in her direction, but she had only eyes for the boy in the backseat. Vincent bristled at her question, folding his arms across his broad chest. "Why are you asking me?"
"Don't play coy." Her words deceptively soft. "You two were working together for some time. Tom confided in you. Did he ever mention turning to someone else close to the case? Someone desperate, like Detective Michaels?"
Vincent shook his head, adamant. "No. And if he did, he never mentioned anything about it to me."
She watched him for another moment. "And what about you?"
"What about me?" His glare turned scorching.
"You were so very desperate for answers." Calla smiled her empty smile. "Desperate enough to turn to anyone who would have you, I'd wager."
He shot forward, invading her personal space. Like a bull in the arena. "I wouldn't betray either of you like that."
"No?"
"Enough," Cooper snapped. Anger burned the back of his throat. "Enough. Calla, if Vincent says he didn't talk to Michaels, then we have to trust him." She arched an eyebrow, but he cut her off before she could formulate a decent rebuttal. "The alternative is just...endless paranoia. We've got enough enemies as it is. If we don't trust each other, then what the hell are we doing?"
Vincent sat back, exhaustion weighing him down. "You have to know I wouldn't do something like that. I suspected..." He sighed. "I don't know what I suspected. But after everything, I knew whatever secrets you two were hiding couldn't be good. I knew well enough to keep my mouth shut."
Calla's lips remained firmly sealed. Progress, Cooper thought, desperate for any bit of silver lining.
Silence settled over them, heavy and awkward and not at all as it used to be. To absolutely no one's surprise, Calla was the first to grab her bag.
She popped open the passenger door, letting in a gust of cold air. "I'll walk home. The detective can't follow all three of us." She pulled out a crisp bill from her front pocket. "I've got twenty that says he follows me."
"No chance," Vincent chimed in from the backseat. "I say he follows Coop."
"I'll take those odds," Cooper pitched in, relieved at the turn in conversation.
Calla stepped out of the car with her usual fluid grace. "I almost feel bad about taking your money." She gave them one last, lingering look. "Almost."
# # #
When Cooper stepped into the apartment, everything felt just as it had when he left earlier that morning: his hoodie thrown over the back of a dining room chair, the low drone of the television a pleasant hum in the background. The sweet scent of apple cider and vanilla lingered in the air; his mom liked to keep a candle burning when she could. Their apartment often reeked of changing seasons. Lilac in the spring. Ocean breeze in the summer. Pumpkins in the fall.
He liked the apple cider best.
Cooper dropped his bag by the door and wandered into the kitchen. He wasn't alone. His mom stood at the stove, dressed in a pair of ratty sweats and an old t-shirt. She'd taken to wearing her golden hair in an unkempt bun tucked at the base of her neck; it was too short to pile atop her head, the way she'd done for so many years.
He moved past her, reaching for the cabinet over her head. "Hey."
She made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat, her eyes fixed on a pan of chicken. A pan of burning chicken.
"Mom?"
She didn't move.
Cooper doused the flames before any more damage could be done. Only then did she blink, as if coming back to herself.
He peered down at her, uncertain. "Are you okay?"
She touched her cheek. Her eyes had that glazed look they sometimes got when she was upset about something and trying not to let it show. "Oh. Sorry, sweetheart." Flustered, she pushed aside the smoking pan. The chicken was most definitely a lost cause. "Shit."
Cooper stared at her. She never used that sort of language, not even when it came to work-related drama. Not that he was one to judge, but it still felt...off coming from her mouth.
She turned to him, dazed. "I'm sorry. I—"
"Mom." He gently squeezed her shoulders. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's that stupid detective." The words seemed to burst free of their own accord. Her voice shook. "He came here this morning to tell me he'd been keeping an eye on you."
His arms dropped as if scalded. "Detective Beitch?" He asked the question hopefully, but in truth, he already knew the answer.
"No." She sounded miserable and angry. "Michaels. That poor man. I know he's been through hell." Her expression soured. "But he overstepped. He has no right to come here and tell me about my son. As if you're anything like his boy." She bit her lip, looking suddenly guilty. "I know that's a terrible thing to say."
Michaels. Of course he'd come here. He'd been everywhere else—the station, the cemetery, the party. Why not invade his personal life, too?
Is that why he was at the school today? To "keep an eye" on me? Cooper wondered, schooling his expression into one of polite confusion. Inside, he'd gone quite still. The calm before the storm. Thankfully, his mom wasn't look at him.
"Gerald Michaels came here," he said softly. It wasn't a question.
His mom pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I know he went through a terrible, awful thing. Losing his son like that. And the way people treat him around this town..." She turned back to the stove and jabbed one of the burnt chicken filets with a fork. "But goodness gracious. The audacity of that man. Just because his son had a psychotic break doesn't mean we should have to put up with his... his delusions!"
"Mom—" Cooper tried, stepping forward.
She dropped the chicken back into the pan and turned, startling him when she placed her hands on either side of his face. "You're a good boy, Cooper. You are. I don't care how many rumors this town spreads or what that awful man has to say." Her voice broke. "You're my good boy."
Her lower lip trembled, and he knew she was about to fall apart completely. Cooper wrapped his arms around her. His heart ached when she began to sob in earnest then, mumbling about her boy and this wretched town. My good boy, she kept saying. Maybe if she said it enough, it would be true.
Cooper took a steadying breath. I'm going to kill him.
His mom pulled away and gave him a watery smile. "Cooper. Baby, sit down for me."
He did as she asked, pulling out a chair at the dining room table. She joined him a second later, ringing her hands around a faded kitchen towel.
"Your father was not a good man."
Cooper stared anxiously down at his hands. He had no idea where she was going with this, or why. But after the day she'd had, he wasn't about to interrupt her.
He looked up in time to catch her clasp the wedding band she always wore on a chain around her neck. "I never...I never wanted to talk about him like this. I didn't want to change the way you thought about him."
He wanted to tell her she couldn't possibly change the way he thought about his old man, because he'd always hated the very thought of him. He'd been a terror in their lives. A dark shadow. And his death had been the best thing to happen to their family in a long, long time.
His mom drew in a deep breath. "He was...hateful. And he hurt me, in more ways than one. He would've hurt you, too. If I'd let him."
Cooper reached across the table to take her hand. She smiled at him. This time, her eyes were dry.
"Then the crash happened." She squeezed his hand. "Cooper, I...I'm so sorry. But I thought you deserved to know the truth after all these years."
He searched her face. "I already know about the car crash. Dad...died instantly. Didn't he?"
He could tell by the look on her face that this truth that he'd harbored all his life was, in fact, a lie. She closed her eyes and shook her head. "He was still alive when the paramedics got to him. They took him to an emergency room in the city. When I got there, he was..." She hesitated.
"Mom," Cooper said slowly. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you're a good boy. A good man," she corrected herself, smiling again. She gave his hand another squeeze. "You're nothing like your father. You're nothing like what that detective thinks you are, or what this town thinks you are. You are good, Cooper Daniels."
His eyes began to burn. She was wrong. If only she knew what her son had become.
"What happened?" He swiped at his eyes with the back of his free hand. His grip on her fingers tightened. "What happened to him?"
"He was...unresponsive." Her eyes were unfocused, replaying an old memory. "The doctors...they said there was a very good chance he'd wake up. Give him the night, they told me. They couldn't be sure of anything, of course. And in the end, it was my decision." She slipped her hand out of his and wrapped her arms around her middle. "I didn't wait the night. I signed the DNR papers and just...waited it out. Waited for him to go."
Cooper could see now why she'd left out the details of that night. Trying to explain to your child why you'd elected to let their father fade into the afterlife was a lofty task for anyone.
"Ted knows," she continued, staring down at the table. "He was one of the first responders that night. This was back in the day, before he'd won the election. He escorted me to the hospital. And he helped me with it, after...after it was done."
Ted. It took Cooper longer than it should have to put it together. Sheriff Marks.
His mom shuddered. "He knew what kind of man your father was. He'd seen the bruises."
Cooper thought then of the picture in the sheriff's drawer. His family had always been close with Teddy Marks. He'd never questioned it before, had never asked why. In a town like Greenwitch, familial ties between local judges and law enforcement weren't uncommon. Even in his earliest memories, the sheriff lingered—waving at him from his cruiser at the local grocery store, or else dropping by the house to share a bit of gossip. That had been back when they'd had a house, and not this little apartment.
But now, he wondered. And so he asked. "Is that why you two are so close?"
He knew the answer before it left her lips. The picture had been of Cooper as a newborn. Whatever relationship they'd fostered had predated him—by what stretch of time, he couldn't be sure. His mom filled in the gaps, the words falling together like bricks upon a row. For once, everything became clear.
"He lost his own wife...goodness. Nineteen years ago? To a drunk driver, years before you were born. I was with him the night it happened, at the little hospital in town. I'd just gotten my nursing license." She looked stricken. "His baby boy was in the car. He lost everything. Just like that." Her hand tightened into a fist against the table. "I was pregnant with you at the time. It comforted him, I think. To have something to look forward to." Her smile was incredibly sad. "To watch you grow up."
Cooper sat back, aghast. He'd never known. For all the gossip this town churned out, it seemed one subject had been left untouched, like so many ashes on the wind. Or maybe he'd never heard such a rumor because he'd never cared to know until now. The thought filled him with shame.
"I asked Ted to keep the truth of your father's death to himself. He did it without question. Looking back, I think he saw in your father what he'd seen in the man who killed his family. Even if it was just an accident." She sighed, cradling her head in her hands, lost in a haze of memories better left in the dark. "Ted's a good man, Coop. Like you."
Kind. Patient. Compassionate. Those were the words he conjured when he thought of his mom. She'd protected him all his life, had put herself in the line of fire to keep him safe and happy and whole. And he'd never known a thing about it, had never even guessed at the sacrifices she'd made.
He never would've thought herself capable of such vengeance. She could've left his father to rot in the hospital, wasting away in his vegetative state. But then there would always be the chance the man would wake up one day, and that knowledge, that possibility, would've hung over their heads like a guillotine.
Amelia Daniels had not given him that chance.
Everyone has their breaking point, he thought, reaching across the table to wrap his fingers around her wrists, pulling her hands back down to the table. He slipped his hand into hers. She'd done what she felt she had to do to protect herself and her child. How could that possibly be wrong?
"You did what you had to." His words were soft. She had to understand that. She had to.
Fresh tears filled her eyes. "I tell myself that. But sometimes..." She glanced down at their interlocked hands. "Those papers I signed killed him, as surely as that crash did."
He knew then that there were no words that could comfort her. She'd lived with this guilt for years. And his father's birthday, the darkest day on their calendar, only served as a reminder of what she'd done—of the life she'd snuffed in hopes that she could build a new one.
But his mom wasn't some villain in a bedtime story. She'd acted in self-defense. She'd chosen the best path for her and her child.
And what would this town think of her, if they knew? Monster, they would call her. Golddigger. He could hear their snide words now. She was only ever in it for the life insurance policy.
Cooper wanted to reassure her, but he didn't know how. How could he explain that he knew what it was to toe the line between justice and revenge? How could he explain that he'd learned the truth of the world—that there was no good or evil? People simply were.
He hadn't always seen things that way, of course. There'd been a time when he believed that the devil must be real, because a piece of him was living inside the girl next door. Now?
Now, he didn't know what to believe. About any of it.
"We're all just doing the best we can," he said at last.
She let out a shaky laugh. "You're all grown up, aren't you?" She lifted his hands to her mouth and kissed his fingers. "You can tell me anything, you know. If something's going on between you and this detective, you can tell me." She gave him a weak smile. "I'm very good at keeping secrets."
Not as good as me. He gave her a soft smile in return and stood, leaning forward to kiss her on the cheek. "I'm not gonna let him bother you again. Okay?"
Cooper could handle the detective. He'd already stabbed his son in the back, after all. If Gerald Michaels tried to screw with his mom's peace of mind again...
I'll make sure the next knife finds its way in his back.