She barely heard it. She stared out the window, watching the evening fall. The sky glowed red through the large tree in their yard. She did this sometimes, stared into space, felt herself alone, felt her mind drift. It had been a long day. She got up early for her uncle’s funeral service, and then made awkward conversation with the few relatives and friends who came back to the house. She took a nap in the afternoon, but rather than making her feel better, the nap made her feel more tired, more sluggish.
She’d felt off her game for a few days. Lazy, lethargic.
Why?
They finally knew the answer. The man on the porch wasn’t her uncle. There was no prize to bring home for her mother. Ashleigh thought all along that just knowing something for sure would help, but she saw that for what it was-a falsity. A lie. Only one thing could make everything better: bringing her uncle back. Short of that, she had failed. Even the reburial had felt a little hollow. When she stood next to her mom, leaned in against her, felt her warmth and comfort, Ashleigh understood how tough her mom really was. She had been through so much, and still Ashleigh could do little to change it all.
Her grandfather must have knocked more than once. He always acted like such a freak about coming into her room. She knew he wouldn’t just barge in without knocking, so when he opened the door and appeared at the foot of her bed, she knew he must have knocked several times, but she couldn’t hear him over the sound of the music.
She sat up, pulled the buds out of her ears.
The old man stood there, looking down at her. Something showed on his face. Was it fear? Was the old man scared?
“What’s wrong?” Ashleigh asked.
He didn’t answer right away. For a moment, he looked like he couldn’t talk, like he spoke and understood a different language and had no idea what the gibberish coming out of her mouth amounted to. “Grandpa?” she said.
“You should come down and see this,” he said.
The local news was playing on the TV. Neither one of them spoke. They took their spots-Ashleigh on the couch and Grandpa in his chair. What they saw shocked Ashleigh. She had wrongly assumed a plane had crashed or some nutjob had blown up a building. What else would have prompted her grandpa to come to her room and ask her to watch TV with him? But it was bigger than anything she could have imagined.
The screen showed a blond-haired guy, a reporter, holding a microphone and reading off a yellow legal pad. Ashleigh recognized the backdrop. The brick building, the traffic moving in a circle behind the reporter. He was standing near the courthouse and police station downtown, and he was talking about her uncle Justin. It took her a moment to catch up to the words, to really hear them and register them in her brain…
“Sources tell us that the break in the case came about as the result of a witness coming forward, someone who had this information for quite some time but only now chose to reveal it to the authorities. Police are keeping that witness’s name and identity a secret from the media now. And I want to emphasize that no charges have been filed against Raymond Bower, the local man now inside the police station talking to authorities, but sources are saying charges could be filed sometime soon…”
Ashleigh looked at her grandpa. He held one hand to the side of his head, like something or someone had delivered a strong blow. But his eyes remained wide-open, staring at the screen.
“Grandpa? Are you okay?”
He nodded but didn’t speak.
“That name,” Ashleigh said. “Raymond Bower? That’s Michael’s dad, right? I mean, he’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”
“Used to be. A long time ago.”
Ashleigh looked back at the screen. The reporter was gone. In his place was the photo Ashleigh had seen so many times, the one she kept on the shelf near her bed. A portrait of her uncle Justin, smiling, his head turned slightly to his left. It was the only image Ashleigh carried in her mind of him, the only way she ever had and ever would see him.
“Did you-?”
She meant to ask if the news surprised him, if he thought all along that Raymond Bower might be involved in Justin’s death. Surely he suspected something, right? Did things like this ever come out of the blue?
But she broke her words off and stopped. Her grandfather was still staring at the screen, but his eyes were full of tears. That sight shut Ashleigh up, froze her. She didn’t know what to do or say. She’d never seen her grandpa cry.
“I loved that kid,” he said, his chin quivering. “I loved him like my very own.”
Chapter Fifty-one
When Janet came in the door, she saw Ashleigh sitting on the couch, the television playing a game show. Ashleigh never watched that kind of mindless television. She hardly ever watched television at all. But there she sat, her eyes glued to the screen. She looked up when Janet came in.
“Mom?”
Janet heard something in Ashleigh’s voice, a hint of a plea. Or fear. Something not quite right, not quite normal. Or was it just Janet herself superimposing her own emotions onto her daughter’s? Janet had driven the whole way home thinking about what she had learned that day and evening. Michael was gone, Ray with the police. Would it end right there? Would Michael just walk-run-away from her and the town and never look back? Never say good-bye?
“What’s wrong?” Janet asked.
“Did you hear all this?”
Janet understood. Whatever was happening at the police station was playing out on the news. Ashleigh knew. Everyone knew. Ray Bower was talking to the police. He might be charged.
But what about her dad?
Ashleigh read the look on her face, saw the question there.
“He’s in his bedroom,” Ashleigh said. “I think you need to talk to him.”
“He knows?”
Ashleigh nodded. “We watched it together. He came and got me out of my room. It’s weird, Mom. I don’t think he wanted to watch it all alone.”
Janet looked past Ashleigh and down the hallway toward her dad’s room. “Thanks, honey. I’ll go talk to him.”
“Mom? Do you think Ray Bower killed Justin?”
Janet didn’t look at Ashleigh as she answered. “I do, yes, but I have to go talk to your grandpa now.”
Her dad was seated on the side of his bed, his feet on the floor. The TV was off-a rarity. He didn’t look up when Janet came into the bedroom. He remained seated, his head in his hands. Janet closed the door behind her.
“You know?” he asked, his head still down.
“I heard about it.”
“I’m going down there.” He didn’t stand up, but he rocked back and forth a little, creating motion with his body. “I have to.”
“To do what?”
He didn’t answer. He kept rocking.
“Dad? What do you think you can do down there?”
He said something, the sound muffled by his hands.
“What?”
“I don’t know.” He lowered his hands and stared at the wall. “I don’t know.” His rocking stopped. “He took away everything I had. One man. He took it all away.”
“Let the police handle it, Dad.”
