“I’m fine,” she replied, too fast to mean it. No one was fine after they saw that.
The next song on the CD started, and when the drums pattered an opening, one of NARKOTIKA’s best-known songs, Cole laughed, silently, a laugh that saw no humor in anything, ever.
Isabel stood up, suddenly ferocious, like the laugh had been a slap.
“My work here’s done. I’m going to go.”
Cole’s hand reached out and curled around her ankle. His voice was slurred. “IshbelCulprepr.” He closed his eyes; opened them again. They were slits. “Youknow what-do.” He paused. “Affer the beep. Beep.”
I looked at Isabel. Victor’s hands pounded posthumously on the drums in the background.
She told Cole, “Next time, kill yourself outside. Less cleanup for Sam.”
“Isabel,” I said sharply.
But Cole seemed unaffected.
“Was just,” he said, and stopped. His lips were less blue now that he’d been breathing for a while. “Was just trying to find …” He stopped entirely and closed his eyes. A muscle was still twitching over his shoulder blade.
Isabel stepped over his body and snatched up her purse from the couch. She stared at the banana I’d left there beside it, eyebrows pulled down low over her eyes as if, out of everything that she’d seen today, the banana was the most inexplicable.
The idea of being alone in the house with Cole — with Cole, like this — was unbearable.
“Isabel,” I said. I hesitated. “You don’t have to go.”
She looked back at Cole, and her mouth became a thin, hard thing. There was something wet caught in her long lashes. She said, “Sorry, Sam.”
When she left, she shut the back door hard enough to make every glass Cole had left on the counter rattle.
CHAPTER EIGHT
• ISABEL •
As long as I kept the speedometer needle above sixty-five, all I saw was the road.
The narrow roads around Mercy Falls all looked the same after dark. Big trees, then small trees, then cows, then big trees, then small trees, then cows. Rinse and repeat. I threw my SUV around corners with crumbling edges and hurtled down identical straightaways. I went around one turn fast enough that my empty coffee cup flew out of the cup holder. The cup pattered against the passenger side door and then rolled around in the footwell as I tore around another turn. It still didn’t feel fast enough.
What I wanted was to drive faster than the question: What if you’d stayed?
I’d never had a speeding ticket. Having a hotshot lawyer father with anger-management issues was a fantastic deterrent; usually just imagining his face when he heard the news kept me safely under the limit. Plus, out here, there wasn’t really any point to speeding. It was Mercy Falls, population: 8. If you drove too fast, you’d find yourself through Mercy Falls and out the other side.
But right now, a screaming match with a cop felt just about right for my current state of mind.
I didn’t head toward home. I already knew that I could get home in twenty-two minutes from where I was. Not long enough.
The problem was that he was under my skin now. I’d gotten close to him again and I’d caught Cole. He came with a very specific set of symptoms. Irritability. Mood swings. Shortness of breath. Loss of appetite. Listless, glassy eyes. Fatigue. Next up, pustules and buboes, like the plague. Then, death.
I’d really thought I’d recovered. But it turned out I was just in remission.
It wasn’t just Cole. I hadn’t actually told Sam about my father and Marshall. I tried to convince myself that my father couldn’t get the protection lifted from the wolves. Not even with the congressman. They were both big shots in their hometowns, but that was different from being a big shot in Minnesota. I didn’t have to feel guilty about not warning Sam tonight.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t realize my rearview mirror was full of flashing red and blue lights. The siren wailed. Not a long one, just a brief howl to let me know he was there.
Suddenly a screaming match with a cop didn’t feel like such a brilliant idea.
I pulled over. Got my license out of my purse. Registration from the glove box. Rolled down the window.
When the cop came to my window, I saw that he wore a brown uniform and the big weird-looking hat that meant he was a state trooper, not a county cop. State cops never gave warnings.