Mom flinches. I tell myself I don’t care, that this is what I wanted, but I regret it almost instantly.
“I’ll be back later.” I walk past her and out of the kitchen before she can say anything.
I lock the front door behind me and swing my bag over my shoulder, my coffee in my free hand. Trev’s getting out of his truck as I walk down the path.
“We’re meeting Matt in an hour at his apartment,” Trev says. He pauses, his eyes darting to his truck. “You want to drive to the diner?”
I know it makes him nervous to drive with me, so I say, “Sure.” I catch the keys when he tosses them and climb into the driver’s seat. Trev slides in next to me, buckling his seat belt as I turn the key in the ignition.
“I forgot to tell you last night—I talked to Mr. Wells, the reporter in charge of Mina’s internship.”
Trev’s been carefully looking out the window, concentrating on the trimmed hedges and tidy older houses that fill my neighborhood. But at the mention of Mr. Wells, he turns to face me so fast, I’m afraid he might strain something. “Tom Wells?” he demands.
“Yes.” I turn off my street and head toward the railroad tracks.
“Don’t talk to him,” Trev says, and it sounds like an order.
“Why? What’s wrong with him?”
“He was bugging Mom, after Mina…after it happened. Showing up at Mass, trying to get her to talk, wanting to do a profile on Mina. I told him to leave us alone, but then he started calling the house, saying he had some of Mina’s stuff from her desk after the cops searched it. He wouldn’t stop until I came and got it.”
“I just went over there to ask him if Mina had talked to him about Jackie,” I say. “He said she didn’t. But he tried to get me to talk about Mina on the record.”
Trev’s hands clench and unclench rhythmically; I can see it out of the corner of my eye as the truck rumbles over the railroad tracks and I turn onto a side street lined with dingy industrial buildings. The road’s rough here, bad asphalt that the county’s never bothered to replace, and the truck jerks back and forth when I hit the potholes.
“I didn’t talk to Wells about anything important,” I assure him.
“I know you didn’t,” he says, and relief unfurls inside me that at least he still knows that hasn’t changed. He still trusts me with some things.
“What did he give you?” I ask as I pull into the parking lot. The diner in front of us is a squat little building made up of two big rooms with the bathrooms on the outside instead of in. It’s painted an eye-smarting shade of yellow, with wind chimes made out of old silverware dangling from the porch.
“It was just a bunch of half-filled notebooks, some pens, and a few pictures. I didn’t really look carefully through it,” Trev admits. “I haven’t…It was right after, and Mom was still…” He stops, looking away from me. “It was hard,” he says finally. “Afterward. You were gone, and I was so mad at you, and Mom was…I didn’t have anyone. And I just—I couldn’t. I kept the door to Mina’s room shut and I put the package in the garage and tried to forget about it.”
I want to reach out and grab his hand or raise my own to squeeze his shoulder, like he’d do for me. But I’d probably make things worse.
All we ever do is hold it in. It’s the only way to keep going.
“Kyle and Rachel are waiting for us,” I say.
Trev nods. We get out of the truck and head into the diner. It’s noisy inside, the counter lined with old-time regulars on their stools, sipping black coffee and reading the local paper. The dining room is crammed with tables and mismatched chairs, with just inches between for the waitress to navigate. Rachel and Kyle are sitting in the corner next to the picture window.
“You must be Trev.” Rachel smiles. “I’m Rachel.”
“What happened to your eye?” I ask Kyle as Rachel and Trev shake hands. He looks up from his coffee, his right eye swollen and purple.
“I punched him,” Trev says.
“What?”
Rachel laughs. “Seriously?” she asks Kyle.
“It’s not a big deal,” Kyle mutters.
Trev shrugs and sits down. “He deserved it.”
“Okay, no more punching,” I say, shaking my head. Punching wasn’t going to solve anything. “Let’s just all get along. We all want the same thing.”
After we order our food, we get down to business.
“I asked Tanner about Amy,” Kyle says. “He told me that she has soccer practice tomorrow from five to six. I figured you could talk to her then.”
“I just hope she’ll talk to us,” I say. “If she didn’t want Mina recording her interviews, I don’t know why she bothered to do one in the first place.”
“Her family probably just doesn’t like reporters,” Trev says with a scowl.
“Do you want me to go with you to see Matt?” Kyle asks. “He knows me pretty well because of Adam.”
“Trev’s coming,” I say. “But thanks. I think we’ve got another job for you.” I nudge Trev with my elbow. “Do you think it’d be okay if Kyle and Rachel went over to your house? They can go through the package from the Beacon. Maybe there’s something in Mina’s notebooks.”
“That’s a good idea,” Trev says. “If you want to dig around the garage, you can. It’s the only place I haven’t finished searching yet. There’s still a lot to go through.”
“I’ve got time,” Rachel says. “You in, Kyle?”
Mouth full of coffee, Kyle nods.
The rest of our order comes, and our conversation’s abandoned for the clink of silverware and some really excellent home fries. When Trev goes up to the counter to pay, I ask Kyle, “What do you think of Matt?”
“Like, as a suspect?”
“Suspect, person, whatever. He and Trev were friends; I’m looking for another perspective on him.”
Kyle leans back in his blue wicker chair. “Matt’s a tweeker,” he says. “And he’s relapsed twice. He’s clean now, has been for maybe six months. Adam seems to think this time’s different, but he always wants to think that. Their uncle had to step in this time, really lay down the law. Someone in the family has to go with Matt to meetings so he doesn’t ditch.”
“You don’t like Matt,” Rachel observes.
Kyle’s cheeks redden. “He was shitty to Adam when we were kids. But family’s really important, so Adam always forgives Matt, no matter how bad he acts. Matt is older—he should’ve stepped up when their dad left, but he just caused more problems.”
“Shitty person doesn’t necessarily translate into stone-cold killer,” Rachel says.
Trev walks back to the table. “Let’s get going,” he says, tucking some bills underneath my coffee cup for the tip. He grabs his keys off the table and twists one free from the ring, handing it to Kyle. “There’s soda and stuff in the fridge. Help yourself to whatever. Just make sure to lock up and leave the key under the rock on the porch after you leave.”
“And call us if you find anything,” I add.
“Here.” Rachel unhooks her Batman charm bracelet and fastens it around my wrist. “For luck.” She gets up and slings her messenger bag over her shoulder.
We part at the door, Rachel and Kyle heading across the street. Trev tosses me the keys again and reaches over to turn the radio on once we’re back in the truck.
“I don’t think we should tell Matt we found Mina’s interviews,” I say as we drive past the soccer field, where girls in blue uniforms are chasing the ball across the grass.
“Then what do you want to say?”
“Just that we found a list in her room with his name on it. I want to see how he reacts.”
“Okay, but let me do most of the talking.”
I nod as I pull up to the address that Trev’s given me, a squat brown apartment building with a chipped tile roof and a FOR RENT sign on the lawn. We get out of the truck and walk up to 2B.