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CHAPTER

34

I HAD NO IDEA how much time had passed, but when I woke up, we were outside under a black sky even thicker with stars than the night Sonny had taken me up to the satellites. It had been morning when I’d explored behind the wall. It was night now. A long day.

I sucked in as much oxygen as I could. The air was clean, tinged with sage and creosote and the lingering scent of smoke that probably came from the lining of my nose.

“Tell me about Johnny,” George demanded.

“What about him?” I pretended not to remember what I’d said in the cave.

George gritted his teeth. “You were going to tell me something you remembered about Johnny.”

I was still on my back on the ground, but I turned my head to look at George. He was crying silently now, tears running down his cheeks.

“What happened to your son?” I lightened my tone. “George, what happened to sweet Johnny?”

Johnny Clark might have been sweet, but I didn’t know one way or another.

George blinked away what I thought might turn into more tears. “Hazel, Johnny’s death is on your hands, your father’s.”

“What?!” I tried to sit up, but my stomach roiled. I went back down.

My father had been strange, but I didn’t want to believe he was a killer. I wasn’t either.

“You really don’t know?”

“George, you need to tell me what happened,” I said. I’d sobered a little more with a blast of adrenaline, but I couldn’t be sure if my words were coming out slurred or not. I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t manage it.

“You weren’t a part of those classes?”

“No. I didn’t even know they were happening.” I paused. “The students were all under eighteen. I was younger than the group by a few years. I was in Tucson part of the time too. Considering what the classes were about, the parents should have been notified. They never were. Right? Did you know about them?”

“I didn’t know until the day your father came to my home and asked about a box of your mother’s items. I was so mad at Johnny because I knew he’d taken the box. I’d seen it in his room. I … he had to be disciplined for stealing, didn’t he? I disciplined him hard. Too hard.” George cried harder now. “He put together that … thing just to prove a point. He thought Silas would like it. He thought Silas would like it!”

I just wanted to sit up, but I still couldn’t quite manage it. “Jesus Christ, George, what happened?”

“Your father blamed you.”

“For what?”

“He said it was your knife.”

“What knife? I wasn’t there,” I said. “Ever. I swear to you, George.”

The flash of a memory came back to me. It was so vivid that I could almost smell the eggs cooking on the stove.

“Hazel. You left your knife in the museum again.”

“I did? Sorry, Dad.”

“I think I’m going to keep it for a while. You need to grow up a little more before you can have it back.”

My feelings had been hurt, but his reprimand wasn’t mean. As I looked back on it, he’d been sad, so very sad. I took his words and didn’t challenge him.

I’d just come home from Tucson. I remembered the moments now, but there’d been no reason for them to have stood out over the years. Until now. And then Wilmot was gone the next day. I’d never seen the knife again. Until I saw it in the box. That was surely the knife I’d had back then. Wilmot packed it away with my mother’s things. I wished he’d just thrown them away.

Damn.