I didn’t want any more bad news. Ever. “Good first.”
“Alice is awake. The doctors say she doesn’t show any deficits yet. They’ll need to keep her under observation for a while and run more tests, but they think she’ll be okay.”
I let myself smile. It died quickly. If that was the good news, I could guess the bad. “The blood in Mandy’s trunk was Vilsack’s, wasn’t it?”
Mark nodded. “They’re going to question Mandy. Chief McTavish says you and your mom can’t be part of the interrogation, for obvious reasons, but you can listen if you want.”
Normally, I would have plowed him down to get there and listen. Maybe it was the pounding in my head. Maybe it was how disconnected my brain felt. Or maybe it was the feeling that’d been growing inside me since Alice and I were sitting on that rock in the water that all of this was too hard and I wasn’t strong enough to handle it.
Whatever the cause, the police station was the last place I wanted to be. Doubtless it was another sign of my weakness, but I couldn’t face Mandy or the situation just yet.
That said, I didn’t want to sit here, either. I couldn’t even drum up the enthusiasm to look at engagement rings anymore. I wanted that to be a good memory for us, without this hanging over it.
I picked my spare set of keys off the key rack by the door. “Actually, I want to go to Dad’s Hardware and see if they can make me a duplicate key. This is currently my only one, and with my luck, I’ll lose it.”
Mark didn’t argue or question, and I loved him for humoring me. I did catch him sending a text to someone—probably my mom or Chief McTavish.
They could think what they wanted about me not coming down to the station. For once, I didn’t care.
Given all that had happened, I didn’t expect Becky to be the person manning the key-cutting machine, but she was.
We stopped in front of the desk, and she shrugged. “If The Sunburnt Arms is closing down, I’ll need to take more hours here eventually. I need the money.”
I wasn’t surprised she knew. Two older gentlemen we passed on the way in were already talking about Mandy being taken into custody. If scientists wanted to discover how to travel at light speed, all they needed to do was observe the way news traveled in this town. “That obvious what I was thinking?”
Becky shook her head. Her dangling earrings bounced off her cheeks. The happy motion of her earrings looked out of place in contrast to the red around her eyes and edging her nose. She’d obviously been crying this time. “It’s what I would have wondered if the roles were reversed,” she said.
Becky didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t offer any more information. I pushed my keys across the counter. “I need a spare set made from these.”
Becky picked them up and examined the clicker attached to the keys. “For your car?”
I nodded.
She handed them back. “Keys for pretty much any car built after 1995 have a transponder chip inside. I could copy the key, and it’d look identical, but it’d never work in your car. You’ll have to go to a dealership.”
“There’s one on the other side of town,” Mark said quietly behind me.
We might as well continue our wild key chase.
Telling Becky to have a good day would have seemed insensitive. Neither of us were going to have a good day. “Thanks anyway.”
Becky rolled her lips in. “I’m really glad you’re okay. I’m so sorry…I wish…” She shook her head. She held my gaze as if willing me to understand what she couldn’t manage to say.
She didn’t need to apologize for Mandy. I stuffed my keys back in my pocket. “Me too.”
Mark linked my arm through his. He glanced back over his shoulder, but didn’t say anything until we were almost to the doors. “I didn’t realize you two were that close. I know you went to a support group meeting with her back when we suspected her, but she seems really upset.”
She had seemed especially upset. More so than I would have expected given we were barely beyond the acquaintance stage. Then again, she did credit me with preventing former Chief Wilson from hurting anyone else, and a lot of her grief probably stemmed from her damaged faith in Mandy. They’d worked together for years. They might have even been closer than Mandy and I were—than I thought Mandy and I were.
Besides, even though I’d only attended a single meeting, I suspected support group members bonded more quickly than people who met other ways.
Mark chauffeured me to the car dealership, where I ordered another key, and then we headed for Quantum Mechanics to sign off on whatever repairs Tony needed to make to my car. Fix-A-Dent was technically the body work shop in town, but Tony was the one I trusted with my car. I also wasn’t willing to face a stranger right now, who I’d have to explain the strange damage to. Well, you see, I was holding an unconscious woman while sitting on a rock at the bottom of a steep drop… That wouldn’t sound crazy or made-up at all.
By the time we reached Quantum Mechanics, though, I felt like someone had vacuumed out all my energy.
“Do you want me to go in and take care of it?” Mark asked.
“And grab whatever I left in my backseat, please.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and laid it on the seat beside me. “In case you want to call your mom.”
I did want to talk to my mom, but not now. She’d want to tell me about Mandy’s interrogation and whether or not she’d pled guilty. A nap seemed like a better way to go.
I’d always thought you weren’t supposed to sleep if you had a possible concussion, but Dr. Santos said that was only if I was showing symptoms like dilated pupils and trouble walking. And so long as someone woke me every two hours to check for worsening symptoms. Mark definitely wouldn’t take more than two hours in Quantum Mechanics—Tony wasn’t much for small talk—so I might as well let my eyes drift shut.
I laid my head back into the headrest.
Mark’s phone rang. I glared down at the screen. Fair Haven PD.
Ugg. I couldn’t let it go to voicemail. Despite having taken a personal day, Mark might still be needed for something. Plus, it could be my mom. She’d know by now that my cell phone was sunken treasure. Even once they pulled Alice’s car from the lake and I got my credit cards and driver’s license back, my phone would be trash.
If it was my mom and I didn’t answer, the consequences would rival the ten plagues in the book of Exodus.
I picked up the phone and swiped my finger across the screen. “Mark Cavanaugh’s phone. Nicole speaking.”
“I knew Mark would be able to get a hold of you.”
