Chapter 42

Chapter Forty-Two

By the next morning, there's no shortage of news coverage about Alison Danzinger. I've seen the footage of the river where Alison's body was found no less than five million times. I keep watching it again and again and again.

School gets called off, so it's just me in the house, alone, obsessively watching the news. I want to give Slug a call or send him a text, but I'm scared someone is monitoring our phone lines or something like that. Anyway, the only person I really want to talk to is Daisy.

My mother walks in the door at about four o'clock, a large duffel bag hung on her shoulder. I jump off the couch to help her carry it inside, but she's much more interested in hugging me, so I drop the bag.

"Oh, Tommy." She squeezes me much too tightly. But unlike my father, my mother's much smaller than I am and couldn't hurt me even if she wanted to. "I was so worried about you!"

"I'm fine."

"But that girl…" My mother pulls away from me. "They found her dead, didn't they?"

"Yes. They did." And now I can talk about her in the past tense all I want.

She's quiet for a moment, pressing her lips together.

I take the opportunity to grab her bag again. "I'll take this upstairs for you."

Before she can protest, I hurry upstairs with the duffel bag on my shoulder. I bring it to my parents' bedroom and leave it on the bed. My father hasn't slept here for the last two nights, but he never bothers to make the bed, so the sheets are still in disarray from two days ago. It looks like he could have slept here last night. Nobody can prove otherwise.

When I get downstairs, my mother is standing in the living room, wringing her hands together. "Tom, where is your father?"

Great. She's barely stepped in the door and already she's started in about this. I thought maybe I'd have at least until dinner. "At work, I guess."

"I called the store. He didn't come in again today."

I lift a shoulder. "I don't know then."

"Did you see him this morning?"

"Yes."

She chews on her lower lip. "You know, his car is in the garage. I was going to pull mine in, but his is already there."

"I guess he walked wherever he went."

As if my father ever walked anywhere. He never passed up an opportunity to drive drunk. But he's got plenty of friends who could have driven him somewhere.

I knew the car would make my mother suspicious. But it would be worse to abandon it somewhere on the side of the road, where the police could easily discover it.

She frowns. "But you saw him this morning?"

"You asked me that. I told you I did."

She drops her eyes. She seems to be looking at something. I'm driven nuts trying to work out what, when suddenly she blurts out, "What happened to my rug?"

Oh Christ, the missing rug. I forgot about that. "I spilled cranberry juice all over it and it got stained, so I threw it out."

"You threw it out?" Her eyes widen. "Tom, you shouldn't have done that! I could have gotten it cleaned."

"I'm sorry. It was a really bad stain, and I figured there was nothing we could do."

"Is it still out by the curb then or…?"

"Sorry, the garbageman took it to the dump. It's too late."

"Oh, Tom," she sighs. "I wish you hadn't done that. I really loved that rug. I know it was a little ragged and it snagged our feet, but I've had it for a long time and I was attached to it."

Somehow, I imagine a similar conversation would take place between the two of us if I told her what really happened to my father.

"Anyway…" She looks down at her watch. "I'm going to lie down for an hour or so, then I'll get started on dinner. Do you think your father will be home in time to eat with us?"

"He said he probably wouldn't."

She doesn't look surprised. "Okay, just the two of us then."

She trudges up the stairs to the bedroom, her shoulders sagging. I watch her go all the way up, and I wait for the sound of the bedroom door closing before I turn on the television to watch the news one more time.