What were the girls arguing about? What had Poppy given to her sister? Where had they gone off to?
More notably, why had Hugo said he wanted her to have
this again? She couldn’t recall him
providing a specific reason, only that he seemed to consider it of some
importance.
The contents were perplexing, maybe, but she wasn’t catching the importance.
What some people
deem important doesn’t amount to a pile of Astroturf in a florist’s world.
Yet the man at her side was oddly still and silent, chewing
the inside of his lip thoughtfully. Jon
didn’t seem to consider as insignificant as the opening of Al Capone’s vault.
“Jon?”
He didn’t turn her way.
He didn’t express lack of understanding at why she’d been given this. Her souley only posed, “I understand if you
don’t want to watch the other one, but do you mind if I do?”
The downward tilt of naturally upturned lips sent a
shiver of apprehension all the way down to her toenails. He’d seen something. Something he didn’t like and that she had
been oblivious to.
“Why? What
happened there that I’m missing?”
“Nothing,” he responded without conviction. “I just wanna see ‘em come back so I can
maybe tell where they went.”
He was lying. She
didn’t know why but he was, and Delaney didn’t like it.
“Those are my kids, Jon.”
She unlaced their fingers while delivering the stern reminder. “I have a right to know whatever it is.”
“And I have a responsibility
to keep from unnecessary pain,” he returned with equal sternness and a healthy
dash of irritability. “My sheer fucking
speculation doesn’t qualify as a reason to hurt you. Now, let me watch the other one and see what’s
there. If it validates what I think I
saw, then I’ll tell you.”
Freeping stubborn man!
Those were her babies, in the last moments that she could truly call
them hers. This wasn’t his to lord and
rule over.
“You remember how you don’t like me keeping secrets? Back at you, buddy. Don’t hide things from me, especially this.”
He wasn’t impressed with her haughtiness and snapped, “I’m
not hiding, I’m trying not to be an alarmist!
Now, the other video is three goddamn minutes and forty-two seconds longer than the first one. You can wait five minutes for me to see how
this plays out. Can’t you?”
Okay, so maybe she wasn’t so much mad that he wouldn’t talk
as she was worried about what he could say.
Jon wasn’t an alarmist. He was the voice of reason, even if it was a
loud voice. That’s why this was so
bothersome.
“Play the other one again first,” Delaney mulishly
insisted, believing that she could find the source of alarm for herself. She wasn’t stupid. She’d merely been distracted by seeing her
girls’ faces for the first time in so long.
Everything else had fallen to the background, but this time she’d pay
closer attention.
Blue eyes cut sharply her way and nostrils flared with
exasperation, but Jon didn’t deny her.
He tapped the touch pad to replay the first video and watched along with
her.
Delaney took careful note of how both girls were dressed. Violet wore purple floral leggings and a
lavender tee that had belonged to Delaney, while Poppy had jean capris and layered
tank tops in minty green and gray. Both of
their hair swung in disheveled waves – one auburn and the other dark – as they shook
adamant heads.
Nothing out of the ordinary there. Her daughters were beautiful, but neither was
the type to spend hours on clothes and makeup unless it was a special
event. On this day, they’d both stormed
out of the house with nothing more than their phones, car keys and whatever was
in Poppy’s pants pockets. Delaney wasn’t
even sure they had their licenses with them, although they’d taken their shared
car to Hugo Langfelder’s house.
Zeroing in on their body movements instead of facial
expressions, she registered that the fingers digging into Violet’s arm were as
fierce as Poppy’s drawn brow. The older
twin was determined to bend an impulsive Violet to her will, and the fingers
that delved into her back pocket were just as determined.
Rather than the mystery object being a total blur to
Delaney on this run through, it was identifiable as a little square pouch. A white one.
Or was it clear with something white inside?
“Stop.” It was a
request that she was already fulfilling for herself, along with backing the timer bar up
a few seconds. “I want to see that
again.”
Jon didn’t try to stop her. He just let it happen while sliding a solid
arm around her waist.
When Poppy withdrew the pouch from her pocket, Delaney stilled
the frame. It wasn’t a close-up view. The camera was probably ten feet away, and
the little pouch was smaller than a teabag, so it was hard to positively
identify. Knowledge of what came in the following
minutes was the only thing that suggested it might be…
“That’s heroin, isn’t it?”
The strong arm squeezing her close was as gentle as Jon’s,
“I don’t know.”
Tearing her eyes from the screen to his somber face,
Delaney demanded, “But you think it is, don’t you? You think Poppy gave – forced upon – Violet the
drugs that killed her.”
“I don’t know,” he repeated more firmly. “And neither do you. The video isn’t clear enough. The shot isn’t close enough. Anything we’re thinking is pure conjecture
and why I didn’t want to tell you in the first place.”
But it made so much sense.
Poppy vehemently blamed Delaney because she didn’t want
to accept the blame. The blame that was
rightfully hers.
“Poppy killed Violet.”
“You don’t know that,” Jon insisted, closing the current
video and navigating to the other file. “It
could be nothing more than a coincidence.
Maybe it’s a tampon, or birth control.
Or motherfucking salt for her fries.”
It wasn’t, though.
Delaney knew this was why her surviving daughter ran – because guilt was
in hot pursuit.
“You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
The words were dull to her own ears, but this had just opened
up a whole new rabbit trail of thoughts that she was busy chasing down.
Why did Poppy have heroin? Where did she get it? Violet seemed surprised by it, so they
obviously hadn’t stopped to score a hit somewhere. Were her girls drug users? Like, legitimate drug users, who did this
every weekend? Is that what freshman year made of them?
No. They were both on the Dean’s List.
Was that a valid indicator, though? Both girls had always been smart. Had they just come up with a way to effectively
manage both their fun and responsibilities?
No. Not Violet.
You know Violet didn’t do this.
She had died the very first time, according to the
coroner’s office. There were no other
traces of toxins in her blood.
“Mou, I need to ask you something, and you’re probably not
gonna like it.”
Dazed eyes turned to the man whose arm grounded her to
the present. “What?”
“Were either of them regular users?”
No. They weren’t. She’d repeatedly assured the police of that
before the coroner’s report ever came back.
But they asked
about Violet, not Poppy. There was no
reason to ask about Poppy. Not when one
of the other kids had a previous conviction for possession.
That young man was the one presumed to have provided the
heroin, although he steadfastly proclaimed his innocence. Innocence that was proven in court. No one had known who Violet’s supplier was.
Now you know.
“Violet wasn’t. I…
I don’t know about Poppy.”
Anger and fear ripped at Delaney’s insides in equal
measure.
Her surviving daughter caused five years – five freeping
years – of torment by blaming her for Violet’s death. Convincingly
blaming her with such vile hatred that Delaney’s own retaliating ire now burned
hotter than the fires of Hell.
It would be easy
to let it consume her. All that time and
all that culpability heaped upon her shoulders could be easily scorched away by
fury, if she allowed it to burn. She was
entitled to let it burn until it
blistered Poppy like she was blistered – but maternal instinct tempered it.
Her mother’s heart beat the heated anger back with a
crashing wave of worry. How was Poppy
now? Had she become a heroin addict living on the street? Was she a junkie that people crossed that same street
to avoid?
Surely to God, Geoff would’ve told her if that was the
case. He’d repeatedly mentioned speaking
to Poppy, throwing it up in Delaney’s face because they were on the outs. He wasn’t dumb enough not to recognize
something that far amiss, and he wasn’t anussy enough to keep her in the dark
about it.
Because if her daughter was sick with an addiction and
Geoff knew…. Delaney would kill him. Literally,
twenty-to-life kill him.
“If that is heroin,” Jon distracted her from the inner
conflict. “It’s an awfully small amount to
cause an overdose.”
“It was laced with fentanyl. That’s what made it lethal.”
“Jesus.”
She knew he was thinking about Stephanie and what might’ve
happened, but Delaney wasn’t in a place to console or reassure him. His daughter was fine and thriving while hers
may be in a gutter.
“I need to find her, Jon.
If she’s become some drug-ravaged statistic because I didn’t fight
harder-“
“Stop right there,” he ordered with a light shake and
pulled her chin around to look him in the eye.
“Believe me when I tell you Poppy is fine. She’s beautiful, hard-working and just
finished her thesis. She’ll have her
master’s degree next month.”
Delaney’s breath hitched in her lungs as the bell rang
for a brand-new bout of bewilderment. There
was relief, sure, because those were things she badly wanted to hear and
believe. His conviction in providing them
was what had her brows drawing together with incomprehension.
“How do you know all that?”
The firm grip on her chin dissolved, and a warm palm drifted
to cradle her jaw. Uneasiness sputtered in
that cracked blue irises that met her inquiry without flinching.
“Because I just saw her this week.”
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