Not Quite Dead Yet — Chapter 28

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‘Mom?’ Jet called through the empty house.

Not empty.

Reggie scuttled around the corner, launched himself at her. ‘Hello, hi, is that the Regmatron?’ Jet tickled his ears, one-handed, fingers down his spine to the base of his helicopter tail. ‘Who’s a good boy?’ she asked, because she always did. ‘Who’s a good boy?’ Reggie yawned, pattering over to Billy, wagging for him too. ‘Of course Mom’s out when I need to speak to her.’ Jet straightened up. ‘All this talk about Please come home, Jet, but she’s not even here. And she calls me useless.’ ‘She’s got to be back sometime.’ Billy closed the front door. ‘We can

wait.’ ‘We have time,’ Jet said.

Ms were hard to say now, one side of her mouth too weak to press her lips together, speaking out the other way, smiles cut in half. She only knew because she’d tried to smile at Billy this morning, when he made her pancakes for breakfast. Got up early to do it. Better than fries.

Jet followed the dog, through the doorway into the living room. Here again. No pools of blood or spatter anymore, but Jet knew where they’d been, scrubbed away, painted over.

Billy held his breath, walking through behind her.

He’d seen it that way too.

Held Jet’s lifeless body, seen the insides of her undone head. His voice breaking as he screamed her name, breaking something inside Jet too as she’d watched and rewatched the doorbell footage.

Billy shouldn’t have ever seen something like that; he was too good for it.

He breathed again when they reached the kitchen.

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Reggie pounced on a balled-up sock, discarded beneath the bar stools, grunting as he showed it off to them. His wagging tail disturbed the two dish towels hanging by the stove, made them sway. Marching avocados and lemons, an incomplete set.

Jet kept going, through the laundry room to the side door.

She pulled down on the handle.

It was locked now, lesson learned. Just too late to make a difference.

She flicked the catch and tried again, pushing the door open.

Reggie was first out, barging past, off to dig a hole for his sock and lose it forever.

Then Jet stepped out, then Billy, not one word between them, like they both knew exactly where they were supposed to go without ever needing to

say it.

To the pool.

It was covered now, a white plastic cover, creamy against the surrounding ash-wood deck. Wouldn’t be uncovered until the summer, or late spring, or whenever Dad decided they’d had two sunny weekends in a row and it was time.

Jet wondered then if they’d ever replaced the water, or if it was still the same water that drowned Emily, hoping the chlorine would take the death out of it.

Her footsteps echoed on the deck, coming to a stop. Billy’s too. ‘You were here that day.’ Jet stared at the pool. ‘Do you remember it?’ Billy chewed his lip. ‘As much as any eleven-year-old can remember a

day like that.’

Jet nodded. ‘Tell me again.’

‘When we found her?’ ‘The whole thing.’ Billy took a breath, filled himself. ‘It was a nice day. I was out in the yard with Mom, helping her plant a new flower bed. Sunflower seeds, I think.

They still grow there now. Dad was inside cooking, or maybe he was out at the store picking up stuff for a barbecue later. He came back, and he said Luke had been knocking on the door, asking to come play with me. Which was …’ Billy paused. ‘Well, Luke never wanted to play with me. He was thirteen, I was eleven. And you were mine – m-my best friend. But you were out at that spelling thing, so Dad asked if me and Luke wanted to play soccer outside. We played for a little while. And then … see, I was thinking

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about this last night, after we found what we found. And I thought it was strange at the time, but I haven’t thought about it in years.’ ‘What?’ Jet looked up from the pool. ‘So, we’re playing soccer, one on one, and Dad’s referee and Mom’s still gardening. And Dad throws the ball for us, but it goes right into the bushes at the back of the yard, against the fence. We both go in, me and Luke, to find the ball, because it was really overgrown back there. And I find it, and we come back out. And Luke’s arms got all scratched up, and I remember Dad making a big deal out of it, seeing if Luke wanted a Band-Aid, asking Mom to go inside to get some cream. Think he felt responsible. But …’ Billy locked eyes with her. ‘I don’t know how much you can trust my memory. But the thing is, what I remember –’ ‘– Billy.’ ‘I think Luke’s arms were already scratched up before we went into the bushes. He was wearing a T-shirt, and I was sure of that at the time.’ Jet studied his stormy eyes. ‘What kind of scratches?’ ‘Lots of them,’ Billy said, ‘all over both arms. Little ones. The kind you’d get if you climbed through a bush and got scratched up by thorns, or if someone scratched you, like in a fight. The police asked about them later, when we were giving our statements. We all told them about the bushes: me, Mom, Dad, Luke. But …’ Billy’s eyes darkened, lines pulling around them. ‘Last night, I was thinking, there’s something else too. Luke said he hadn’t been in the pool at all that day. That’s what he told us, and the police

after.’ ‘Yeah, I know,’ Jet said. ‘He hadn’t.’ ‘He said he’d been inside all day, playing PlayStation. Didn’t know where Emily was, got bored, came around to see if I was free to play.’ ‘Yeah, that sounds right.’ ‘Except,’ Billy said, ‘when we were playing soccer, when I got close, to tackle him, I think I could smell it on him, in his hair.’ ‘What?’ ‘Chlorine,’ Billy said, eyes widening, mouth too, a flash of his bottom teeth.

Jet looked back at the covered pool, a switch in her heart, throwing off

the pattern. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

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‘No, I’m not sure. It was so long ago. And maybe it’s only because of what we saw in Emily’s messages. But I think … I don’t know. Sorry.’ Jet chewed the inside of her cheek, felt nothing, only knew she’d broken the skin when she tasted the metal bite of blood. It was seventeen years ago; Billy was just a kid. Jet couldn’t really trust her own memories of that day, so that ruled Billy’s out too. Luke did go in the pool later, after. Billy was

probably getting confused. ‘What happened next?’ she said. ‘When we finished playing soccer, Dad was starting the grill and Luke was going home. But then Luke realized he’d forgotten a key and wasn’t sure if any of the doors were unlocked at yours. Mom said she’d walk Luke back, make sure he got in OK. I went too. Followed my mom everywhere back then.’ He sniffed. ‘We tried the front door first. Knocked. No one answered. We thought Emily had probably gone out. So Mom walked us around the side to try the doors at the back. It was open, that side door.’ He pointed to it, the one into the laundry room. The same one Jet’s killer had walked through. ‘Me and Mom were just about to leave when Mom looked over here and …’ He trailed off, eyes flickering over the covered pool. ‘You saw Emily,’ Jet said, not a question. ‘You couldn’t really see her,’ Billy said. ‘Just the colors. The shape. On

the bottom of the pool.’ Jet swallowed. ‘Mom screamed when she realized. Screamed so loud. Luke ran back over. Dad heard, across the road. He came running. So did Mr Griffin, from next door.’ Billy closed his eyes, like he could see it all again, unfolding in front of him, seventeen years gone in a blink. ‘Dad was the one to jump in, right away, all his clothes. He swam down to the bottom. Those were the longest few seconds I can ever remember. He came back up without her.

Said that her hair was stuck in the drain and he couldn’t pull her up. He told Luke to run inside and find some scissors. Luke did, fastest I’d ever seen him move. He jumped in the pool to get the scissors to Dad. Dad went under. Even longer this time. Came back up with Emily in his arms, hair

ragged, half cut away.’ Billy moved closer to the pool. ‘He got her out, right here.’ He bent to touch the exact tile. ‘Luke helped, pushed her legs up. And then Dad started CPR. But … she was already blue. I remember thinking that – that it was too late. Mr Griffin called the

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ambulance. And Mom, she was hugging Luke. And I watched. Right here.’ He stepped back and pointed at his feet, where he’d stood as a little boy. ‘Dad refused to stop, the whole time, even though I think we all knew. The ambulance arrived maybe ten minutes later, took over. And then it was only a couple of minutes until you got home with your parents.’ Billy looked over at her finally, back here and now. ‘You were still holding your little trophy.’ Billy choked up, coughed into his fist. ‘I’ll never forget the sound your mom made, when she saw Emily.

People don’t scream like that, it …’ Jet remembered it too. But people did scream like that. Billy had, when

he found Jet. ‘So it was your mom who found Emily?’ That pit of guilt opening up in Jet’s gut again. ‘Yeah,’ Billy sniffed. ‘She was the first.’ ‘Did she … did she ever talk about Emily after?’ Billy looked at the sky. ‘We sometimes talked about what happened, about that day. She always got upset.’ ‘But did she ever mention … did she know what Emily wanted to tell her, or that she wanted to tell her something?’ ‘What are you thinking?’ Billy asked her.

Jet wasn’t sure what she was thinking, hoped she’d figure it out as she was speaking. ‘Well, Emily’s message said she’d started to tell your mom on that Friday, but then your mom had to leave. So maybe your mom knew something, a part of it, if it wasn’t just a school thing, if it was the secret about Luke, what Emily overheard. And, with Emily dying the next day, maybe she would have thought it was more important, I don’t know. Told someone what she knew, wrote it down or …’ Billy’s bottom lip folded up. ‘She never said anything to me.’ ‘But you were a kid,’ Jet countered. ‘Do you … do you still have any of her stuff?’ Billy glanced back at Jet’s house, his own childhood home hidden behind it. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Dad wanted to throw most of it out, but I made him keep it. It’s all boxed up in the attic. Not her phone or her laptop or anything like that. She took those with her when she left.’ ‘Any of her work stuff, from school?’

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‘Yeah, I mean there were her work diaries, some calendars, things like that.’ ‘From 2008?’ Jet asked, a tiny trickle of hope, filling in that pit in her gut. ‘Probably.’ Billy was still looking toward his house, eyes faraway, farther than that. ‘Mom liked to keep things like that. Had memory boxes from each year, ticket stubs, pressed flowers – you know, that kind of thing.’ ‘Can we look?’ Jet asked, treading carefully. ‘See if she kept anything, wrote anything down, about Emily?’ ‘Yeah.’ Billy turned his back on the pool. ‘I’m not sure we’ll find anything, but we can look while we wait for your mom to come home.’ ‘Reggie!’ Jet called, the dog appearing in a flash of orangey fur, now sockless, front paws stained brown from digging. ‘Come on.’ They crossed from deck to grass, through the side door into the laundry room. Jet almost forgot again, went back to lock it.

Through the kitchen and living room to the front door, Reggie leaving a trail of pawprints, only dirt this time.

‘Love you,’ Jet said, opening the door. ‘S-sorry?’ Billy stuttered. ‘Talking to the dog. Bye, Reg. See you later.’ They walked out onto the drive, past Jet’s truck. Billy had parked it at a strange angle, but Jet wasn’t allowed to criticize now, was she? Onto the street and across the road to the fence outside Billy’s house, through the little gate. ‘Your dad’s at work,’ Jet said, looking at the small driveway to the side of the house, no cars. ‘I know you’re into your breaking and entering at the moment.’ Billy smiled at her, pulling out his ring of keys. ‘But I’ve actually got a key.

Sorry.’ Billy unlocked the front door. The entrance opened straight into their living room. Jet had always thought the Finneys’ house was more like a home, too much stuff in some corners, too little in others, too plain or too bright, tidy but not neat. A yellow couch with a collection of unmatched cushions, still fluffed, the top corners pointy but inviting. The stairs in the far corner painted periwinkle blue, the paint chipped off in a few places,

showing the original white underneath. ‘Come on,’ Billy said, leading her up.

He stopped on the landing, glanced up at the hatch in the ceiling.

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‘Two seconds.’ Billy went over to the big closet, grabbing the pole for the attic. ‘You always used to hide in this closet,’ he said, ‘when we played hide-and-go- seek.’ ‘I was just thinking that. Hey, if we have enough time, I’ll rematch you.’ Billy raised the pole and slotted it into the catch, turning it to lower the entrance, the ladder sliding down with a metallic hiss. ‘I’m six foot two now, can’t hide anywhere.’ ‘Don’t just let me win because I have forty-eight hours to live.’ Hours now. Couldn’t even count it in days anymore. Billy noticed too, tried to move past it, not let it in. He glanced at the ladder, then back to Jet. ‘Do you need help?’ Jet scoffed. ‘I can do a ladder with one arm.’ She put her foot up on the first step, to prove the point, hooking her left elbow under to take her weight. It was slow – one foot, second foot, then shift her arm – but she was still climbing. ‘I’m right behind you if you fall,’ Billy said.

‘I’ll crush you.’

‘I’ll catch you.’ And Jet was sure he would, actually.

She reached the top, onto the chipboard flooring, and stood up. She didn’t even need to duck her head under the low beams, but Billy had to, bending double, flicking on a lamp, yellow and dim. ‘Over here,’ he said, crouching lower, heading toward a collection of cardboard boxes.

It smelled musty up here, old, like if time itself had a smell. ‘So … this is her stuff.’ Billy pulled one box off a teetering pile. ‘That looks like the clothes she left behind.’ ‘She didn’t take her clothes?’ Jet stepped closer, speaking loudly over the guilt, so Billy couldn’t hear it. ‘Not all of them, just one suitcase.’ He sniffed. ‘Obviously in a real hurry to leave. Took the important stuff, left everything else behind. Us too.’ Billy grunted, lifting the box of clothes off the pile, placing it down. But there was something else too, on top of the folded shirts and jeans. A small leather-bound photo album. Jet bent to her knees, behind Billy’s back, flicked through it with her working hand while he searched.

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The face of the boy she’d known so well, Billy back then. Holding hands with his mom in a pumpkin patch, scribbled words beneath: Halloween 2006. More and more, Billy growing older with each turn of the page, cheeks sharpening, halfway smile. Jet stopped at a double page, one side empty, just the corners of tape where the photo used to live. Underneath it said: Me and Billy eating ice cream Summer 2009. This must have been the photo Billy had in his apartment, the frame he’d hidden when she moved in.

But that wasn’t the only blank page.

Four years later, there was another gap, another missing photo. Me and Billy testing out our new bikes 2013. Jet ran her finger over the empty space, closing her eyes to bring the scene to life. ‘What are you doing?’ Billy interrupted. ‘Why aren’t you helping?’ Jet straightened up, turned the album to face him. ‘Looks like your mom didn’t leave everything behind. Took the important stuff,’ she repeated his words.

Billy hesitated, eyes lighting up as they flicked over the empty page. ‘Probably fell out,’ he muttered, blinking, the light gone again. He took the album from her, dropped it on the floor, didn’t want to know. ‘Oh, look,’ he said instead, sliding out the box at the bottom of one of the piles, undoing the tape. ‘This looks like work stuff. Math textbooks.’ He pulled some out, grunting at the weight of them. ‘Some papers.’ He dug his hand through. ‘Ah. Here’s one of her work planners.’ He passed it over to Jet. ‘That’s from 2015. The year she left.’ Jet turned the little ring-bound notebook around in her hands, opened the front cover. Beth Finney was scribbled inside, big fancy writing, the y looping over to underline the rest of her name. Jet skipped a few more pages, a little hard to read in this light. Each date had its own page, even the weekends, her scribbles in red or black pen. Notes, reminders, to-do lists with her own drawn checkboxes, uneven little squares with Xs that didn’t stay within the lines. Most were checked off.

Jet read a few.

January 15

Math leadership team meeting at 11.

Order more graph paper.

Extra credit marking.

Speak to Taylor Elliott after class.

Skipped some more pages.

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March 7

Email Mr Elliott.

Order Billy’s birthday present.

That one was checked off. Jet wondered what Billy’s mom had bought him that year, the year he would have turned eighteen, his last ever present

from her.

The knot in her gut pulled tighter.

She sniffed, snapped the notebook shut. ‘2008?’ she asked. ‘I’m looking,’ Billy grunted, his head almost inside the box. ‘That’s 2013.

2011.’ He laid them on the floor, carefully, like his mom might need them again someday. ‘Ah-ha. No, that’s 2006, sorry.’ He buried deeper. ‘2010.

Oh. Here it is – 2008.’ He reemerged with it clutched between his hands, sitting back on his knees. ‘May thirtieth,’ Jet said. ‘Find Friday May thirtieth. That’s when Emily tried to speak to her. She might have written something down. Your mom wrote things down.’ Jet moved closer, leaning over Billy’s shoulder as he turned the pages, flicked halfway through the book. June. Too far. Flicked back. ‘Here it is,’ he said, running his finger over his mom’s writing. ‘May thirtieth. Go over practice tests for AP. Lunch with Sarah. Pick Billy up from practice at 4.’ Billy swallowed, glanced up at her. ‘Sorry Jet. There’s nothing here about Emily.’ ‘You sure?’ She deflated, resting her arm on his shoulder. ‘Yeah.’ Billy flicked the page, checking the day before and the one after. ‘Nothing about Emi– Wait.’ He settled on the day after, flattened the page.

Saturday, May 31. The day Emily had drowned.

Jet leaned even closer, stared down at the writing, her eyes splitting the

words, two layers.

Pick up burgers from store.

Plant flower bed at back of yard.

But that wasn’t everything.

Mrs Finney had written something else on this page, tiny, right at the bottom, not in the lines but sideways across them. The letters slanted, like she’d written them in a hurry, in a panic.

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Billy spun the book sideways and they read it together. Silent.

He was already wet. Before.

A shaky line under that Before.

Jet’s heart doubled, copying her eyes, forcing its way to her ears.

No. Wait. No. Jet couldn’t be thinking that. She couldn’t. Stop it. Stop. ‘He was already wet,’ she said, barely a whisper. ‘Before.’ Billy finished it, the diary shaking in his hands. His eyes found Jet’s, unstable, turbulent. ‘Luke,’ he said.

He didn’t need to say it, the name was already thundering around Jet’s head, throwing itself against the cracks.

She couldn’t think it but she was, she had to. Billy’s eleven-year-old memories couldn’t be trusted alone – but his mom too? ‘You were right.’ Jet sank to her knees beside him, brushing her thumb across Mrs Finney’s writing, to make sure it was really real, not a trick of the light or a trick of her eyes. ‘You thought Luke smelled like chlorine.

Before. Before you all found Emily and Luke jumped in. Your mom noticed it too. He was wet when he came over. He’d been in the pool already. He said he hadn’t, but he lied – he must have been in the pool.’ ‘Why would he …’ Billy didn’t finish, left the thought hanging there, settling over the layers of dust. ‘Billy, those scratches on Luke’s arms. If he … could they …’ She didn’t know how to say it, because saying it might make it true. ‘Did they look like the kind of scratches someone might get, if they were holding someone’s head underwater, if that person was fighting for their life?’ Billy blinked and a dark wave crashed behind his eyes. ‘It was a lot of scratches.’ Jet’s knees gave way. She slumped back against the wooden strut. ‘Oh my god. Did Luke kill Emily?’ Billy sat back too, his mom’s diary still open. ‘I don’t know,’ he whispered. ‘But it looks like, maybe, my mom thought he did.’ Jet shook her head, refusing the thought, not letting it settle long enough to take hold, make itself at home. ‘No. He was only thirteen. I mean, yes, he was bigger than Emily already. Stronger. And they fought all the time, like brothers and sisters do. Luke has a temper, everyone knows he has a temper.

But he can’t have … he can’t … did he?’

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Billy didn’t have the answer, and neither did Jet. Billy’s mom might have, but she was long gone, ten years gone, and whose fault was that?

Jet shook her head again, the world shifting around her, splitting in half.

Everything changed after Emily died, and now it was changing again, coming undone, like Jet’s head. ‘But her hair was caught in the drain, Billy. You saw it. Your dad had to cut her out. How would a thirteen-year-old know how to do that, to stage it like an accident? To come over here so he had an alibi. He was thirteen.’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Is it possible? Could Luke do something like that? Kill my sister? And if he could kill one sister, could he …?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Billy said again, like he’d lost all other words out of his own black hole. ‘No. He had an alibi. He was with Henry at the time of my attack. He didn’t. He didn’t kill me.’ ‘That doesn’t mean …’ Billy glanced down at the page again. ‘Luke can be scary,’ Jet said, echoing Henry’s words, picturing Luke smashing his fists against the steering wheel, reopening the scabs on his knuckles, blood pooling under his wedding ring.

Jet shook her head. Just kept shaking it, making the aches ache harder.

And a new thought, forcing its way through the cracks, clawing up her tightening throat. ‘If it wasn’t an accident, if Luke killed Emily … then it wasn’t my fault.’ ‘Jet.’ Billy turned to her, the storm settling in his eyes, reaching out to take her hand, holding it in her lap. ‘It was never your fault.’

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