Page 55

The burned-down husk of the building behind it, none of it left standing.

Piles of blackened bricks. Bent, curling metal that might once have been the stairs.

A collapsed section of the roof, bite mark through the middle.

Ash. Soot. All color leaked away except black and gray.

The parking lot full of white vans and blue logos looked otherworldly, out of place, still alive, here in this graveyard.

‘Luke,’ Jet called, tearing her eyes from the burned building where she’d almost died, back to her brother. ‘What are you doing?’

The truck behind Jet and Billy was still running, still breathing, beams on, lighting up their stage. Luke in one spotlight, Jet three steps behind in the other.

‘I’m just looking,’ Luke said, a crack through the middle of his voice. ‘It’s all gone.’

Jet sniffed. ‘Yeah. That tends to happen, Luke, when you cover something in gas and set it on fire.’

She took another step forward.

‘Did you know we were inside when you burned it down? Were you trying to kill me?’

Luke didn’t answer, but one of his shoulders tensed, flinching toward his ear.

‘Did you know I was inside?’

Luke sighed.

‘You did,’ Jet said, reading the answer in his silence, the wind howling through it. ‘You tried to kill me.’

‘No.’ Luke found his voice. ‘I knew you’d have time to get out. I was just trying to stop you.’

‘Stop me from finding out about the invoice fraud?’ Jet said. ‘The workers’ comp insurance, the payroll taxes? What happened with Henry Lim? Well, you didn’t stop me. We found them all. You’ve been busy, Luke.’

He turned suddenly, face rearranged around his rage, blinking against the headlight.

‘I was saving the company!’

‘Someone should have saved it from you!’ Jet’s left hand was in her pocket, around the gun, her letters folded behind.

Luke could be scary, but she wasn’t scared.

‘And you did, by the way, almost kill us. Me and Billy. Me. You probably think it doesn’t count, because I’m dying anyway, but it does count, Luke.

It matters. Some things are more important than a company. ’

Luke shook his head.

‘They are, Luke.’ Jet hardened her voice, tightened her grip. ‘You know, it’s because of Emily. Why you’re like this.’

Luke laughed, a breathy, hollow sound.

‘Why does everyone always want to talk about Emily?’

‘Why don’t you?’

‘Because it doesn’t matter, it was seventeen years ago. Grow up, Jet.’

Jet pressed forward, leaves rustling, whispering under her feet.

‘It matters, Luke. Emily dying changed everything. Mom blamed me, you know?’ She sniffed.

‘I overheard her, after the funeral. Said that if I hadn’t gotten to the final of that competition, if I hadn’t won, she and Dad would have been at home and Emily wouldn’t have drowned. Do you know what that did to me?’

Her chest seized, squeezed her heart for just a second, and then she let it go, that guilt, because it wasn’t hers anymore.

‘But Emily’s death wasn’t my fault.’ Jet tilted her head, stared her brother down. ‘It was yours, Luke.’

His face folded up, a scowl, made uglier by the shadows from the beam. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You drowned Emily, didn’t you?’

Luke laughed.

‘You’ve lost your mind.’

‘No, it’s still just about in there, Luke. Tell me the truth. Did you kill her?’

Still laughing.

‘Emily’s death was an accident, Jet.’

It was the laughing that did it.

‘Did you kill her?!’ Jet screamed.

She pulled the gun out of her pocket, pointed it at Luke, straight through his chest.

Not laughing anymore.

‘You have a gun?’ he said. ‘Why the fuck do you have a gun, Jet?’

‘Jet,’ Billy said, behind.

‘Tell me!’

‘You’re not going to shoot me, Jet.’ He stepped forward, hands raised.

‘I have about twenty-four hours to live,’ she said, gun shaking in her hand. ‘You think I care about shooting you after everything you just did to me?’

‘You won’t.’ Another step.

Jet aimed the gun, pulled the trigger.

A crack that split the night in half.

Luke’s eyes snapped wide.

The leaves exploded at his feet.

Jet pulled the gun up again.

‘Did you kill Emily?!’

Luke fell to his knees, hands up, the scowl gone, replaced by fear.

‘Luke!’

He closed his eyes and screwed his face.

‘I didn’t mean to!’ It started as a shout, ended as a whisper. ‘I didn’t want to, I swear. But once I started, it was already too late, because she’d tell, and I had to just keep going. Just hold her head under, until she stopped struggling.’

Jet stepped back, breath heavy in her chest, weighing her down. She’d already known, but now she knew. Bile up her throat, tears too, breaking out of her rubbed-raw eyes.

‘She was fighting you,’ Jet said. ‘She wanted to live.’

‘Scratches all up your arms.’ Billy’s voice behind her, standing in the darkness.

Luke slumped, two handfuls of leaves.

‘Why, Luke?’ Jet said, lowering the gun. ‘Why would you do that to her?’

He started to cry. ‘Because she said something. You know Emily could be cruel. It made me mad. I just … I lost my temper. Then it was too late to take it back. Couldn’t take it back. I wish I could take it back!’

‘What did Emily say?’ Jet eyed her brother like a cornered animal, not trusting his tears, not all the way.

Luke wiped his face. ‘All I did was jump in the pool, splash her a little bit. That’s all. She didn’t need to say that, she didn’t need to –’

‘– What did she say, Luke?’ The gun rattled against her leg.

‘She said I wasn’t even a Mason anyway. That Dad wasn’t my real dad, that I shouldn’t even be here.’ He finally met Jet’s eyes. ‘I just got mad. I thought she made it up, to be mean. I thought that for years, wanted to believe it. But now …’

‘Now what?’ Jet said. ‘Now you know it’s true?’

This was it, wasn’t it? The secret Emily had overheard, the one she’d told Nina, the one Nina threatened Mom with and Mom got her back. About Luke. Emily told Luke that day, and she died for it. Luke wasn’t really a Mason, and Dad wasn’t his dad.

‘Is it true, Luke?’

He stared down at the grass, and Jet stared at him, studied her brother, glowing in the spotlight. Hazel eyes, just like Jet. But those came from Mom. Luke was taller than Dad, bigger, stronger, hair shaved short, but when it wasn’t, it grew wavy. And something else too.

‘There’s a fifty percent chance you should have had polycystic kidney disease too,’ Jet said, working it out as she said it. ‘But not if Dad isn’t your dad. He’s not, is he?’

‘No,’ Luke croaked, looking over his shoulder at the burned bones of Mason Construction.

‘And you know who it is? Did Emily tell you who?’

Luke didn’t look back, eyes lost over there.

‘No, she didn’t. Didn’t have a chance. I only know because he told me.’

‘When?’

‘Wednesday. Before I saw you, before I got home from work that day. Before … the fire.’

‘Who is it?’ Jet asked, stepping closer, Luke’s voice too quiet, now he was looking the other way. ‘Luke?’

‘I thought he was just nice,’ he sniffed.

‘Looked out for me, gave me advice about the company. About anything really. Spoke to me in a way Dad never did. But when he told me, I think I already knew, deep down. I think I always really knew that Emily was telling the truth that day. That I wasn’t a Mason, that this wasn’t supposed to be mine. ’ He pointed, over there, at the ruins.

‘Luke?’

‘He told me I was his son. He thought I already knew, from that day, with Emily. He told me and he said he was trying to help me. Said that you were going to start looking into the company, and that if I had anything to hide, then I needed to hide it.’ Luke looked behind him again.

‘Then I drove home, and you were there, told me that Dad was never going to leave me the company anyway, that he planned to sell it. I just … lost my temper.’

‘Luke!’ Jet snapped. ‘Who is it? Who’s your real dad?’

Luke shook his head, his eyes trailing off to the right. ‘I can’t tell you. It doesn’t matter.’

Jet raised the gun. ‘Yes, you can – and it does matter!’

‘You’re not going to shoot me, Jet.’ He stood up to prove the point.

The gun shook in Jet’s hand, too weak to hold it up this long, finger vibrating against the trigger.

‘I can’t tell you,’ Luke said. ‘Not like this, here. The rest of us have to keep on living when you’re gone.

Don’t look at me like that, Jet. I don’t want you to be gone, you’re my sister.

I’ll miss you every day. I don’t know how we’ll be a family without you.

No one to make fun of my hair. I always loved arguing with you.

I’ll make sure JJ never gets out, for doing this to you. You won’t shoot me, Jet.’

She could.

She stepped forward, pressed the gun right up against Luke’s chest, looked up into his eyes, so like her own.

She could.

She would never. Not even after everything Luke had done. Jet wasn’t like him.

She lowered the gun and Luke actually smiled.

‘Fuck you,’ she sniffed.

‘I know,’ Luke replied.

‘You killed Emily.’

‘Emily’s death was an accident.’

‘How did you do that?’ Jet said, eyes filling again. ‘You were just thirteen. You were strong, but you were fucking stupid. How did you know how to make it look like an accident, her hair in the drain? Going over to play with Billy, to give yourself an alibi? How did you know how to do that?’

‘I didn’t.’

Jet swallowed. ‘You didn’t? Did somebody help you?’

Luke blinked.

‘Was it him?’ she said. ‘Your father?’

Luke ran his hand over his too-short hair, a hissing sound, the wind picking it up, dragging it away.

‘He looked out for me.’

That was all he said.

Returned to the gate, to watch the burned-down building, the wind howling, screaming through the gaps in the rubble.

Jet turned her back on him, followed her headlight beam back to the truck, opening the passenger door, struggling with the gun.

She got it open, leaned in, put the gun back in the glove compartment. Slammed it, a growl in the back of her throat.

‘Jet,’ Billy said, climbing in the driver’s side. ‘Are you OK?’

She didn’t answer.

Her mind was somewhere else, trailing down Billy’s guitar case, to the little black square stuck on its neck.

Her eyes circled it, forming an idea.

She reached out, slid her fingernail underneath it, peeled it off.

‘Jet, where are you going?’

Back to Luke.

Leaves scattering away from her.

Jet joined him at the gate, side by side. Brother and sister, silhouettes against the blackened ruins.

‘I know you didn’t kill me, Luke,’ she said. ‘But I think you might be the reason I’m dead.’

She reached over, touched his arm. Luke could be scary, but he wasn’t now, a muscle ticcing in his jaw, silent tears. Jet let her hand fall away, moving it down, dropping the little square into Luke’s pocket.

‘I’m sorry you couldn’t change.’

She walked away.

Into the truck.

Shut the door.

Another crack that split the night.

Billy released the parking brake.

‘Where –’ he began.

‘– Home,’ Jet finished.