she was having trouble paying attention. She couldn’t stop thinking about Garland Moses. She couldn’t help but imagine him lying cold on some metal table, his eyes forcibly closed by some flunky who thought it might bring him peace.
Garland was a really decent guy. She liked how he never patronized her or treated her like she was some frail, damaged bird. He teased her. He called her out on her crap. He took her seriously. He genuinely seemed to care about her welfare. But unlike Jessie, he wasn’t so close to her situation that he inadvertently smothered her. As Hannah sat in class, using Ms. Gorton as a kind of human white noise, she realized something surprising: she would miss him.
It was surprising because she had come to learn that she didn’t typically react strongly to loss. Even before her adoptive parents were murdered, she noticed that she wasn’t as emotionally fazed by traumatic events as others. She was pretty good at faking it when she heard about a school shooting or a baby beaten to death by his stepfather or thousands dying in an earthquake. But she rarely ever felt more than the mildest form of something resembling pity.
When her parents were killed, she felt emotions for sure—terror in the moment, confusion at what was going, a sense of loss of normalcy in the weeks that followed. But she wasn’t sure she ever felt true grief at their loss. She wasn’t even sure how that emotion would manifest itself.
She’d seen it enough on television that she was able to model it at their funeral. And in the months that followed she was able to play-act at something approximating mourning. But it never felt real to her.
She wasn’t proud of it. In fact, she kind of hated it about herself. It made her feel apart from everyone else in the world. She sensed that some people were aware of it—Jessie, Dr. Lemmon, and Garland—even if they didn’t address it with her directly. She wished she could change it.
She actually tried in recent months, especially with her sister. Despite Jessie’s flaws, of which there were many, Hannah sincerely liked her. She was funny and tough and whip-smart. She was one of the few people who could relate to what Hannah had been through. She had experienced variations of the same traumas herself so she wasn’t just blowing smoke when she talked about getting it. And she seemed to be honestly trying to be a good big sister to her, to give her some kind of normal home life. Hannah appreciated that.
When she thought of Jessie, a pleasant sensation of affection came over her. She wished good things for her in her work, in her relationship with Ryan, in life. But would she grieve if Jessie was murdered by a killer tonight? She wasn’t sure. She’d miss her, just as she missed Garland. But was that the extent of it?
Before she could ponder the question more, the bell rang. She gathered her things and headed to lunch. As she walked distractedly down the hall, letting routine guide her along the familiar path, the desire to probe her own psyche faded. She allowed her mind to slowly refocus on the present and her surroundings.
The moment she did, she got an odd prickling sensation, like when superstitious people say someone has stepped on their grave. She stopped and looked around the campus courtyard. There was nothing unusual, just “troubled” teenagers wandering to their various classes and clubs and like her, to lunch.
And yet she couldn’t shake the strange sensation that she was being watched. She’d faced far too many real threats to simply dismiss the feeling as an overactive imagination. Once again, she scanned the courtyard, looking for anyone or anything that seemed out of place. But nothing jumped out at her. Still, she stayed alert as she continued to the cafeteria. The tingling didn’t stop until she was halfway through with lunch.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The beach looked less welcoming this time.
As Ryan drove them back to the crime scene so that she could get a sense of the place in daylight, Jessie sat in the passenger seat, letting her mind wander. She stared out the window at the crowds of people who had staked out spots on either side of the Manhattan Beach pier for as far as the eye could see. Whereas last night the beach had seemed almost empathetic, today it looked intimidating.
It was a hot, muggy day. When they left downtown, the