Page 43 of Where Daisies Breathe (Star Meadows #2)

AVA

I ’ve been in shock before, but this is on an entirely different level. I keep replaying in my mind how I read in Clover’s diary that she was dating a secret guy who was older. I never considered the guy was in his forties—at least that’s how old he’d have been when Clover and him were dating.

And he is—was my father…

Nausea twists in my gut. How can this be real? Why didn’t Clover ever tell me? Does my mother know?

And why did the person running around in the woods want me to know about this?

Wouldn’t they want to cover it up if they were connected to this cult?

If it’s my aunt, she has to be connected to it, so why would she offer me this secret?

To do the right thing? Highly unlikely since she’s taunting me with it.

It has to be something else.

I think back to that car ride when we moved here…

I think back to the phone call I received from an unknown caller, where I believed I heard Trystan in the background.

I think about the photo we found on the cliffside with the girl in it. She was too old to be my aunt’s daughter, but she could’ve been her sister.

What if my father killed my aunt Marissa's sister because he was with her the same way he was with Clover?

And what if my aunt Marissa killed him that day on the cliff to get her revenge?

My aunt is so timid, but again, so was I. And I’ve felt that rage before, the one where you want to let all the pain go and just set everything on fire. What if she found out my father killed her sister and unleashed it on him?

“Oh my god, I think I’m going to be sick,” I mumble, hugging my legs to my chest.

My mind fills with thoughts of Ellis out there in the dark, in the woods, where bad things happen, how he could be out there with my aunt, who very well could have blood on her hands. I don’t know what to do. He told me not to call the police, but what if he’s hurt? Or worse.

“Are you okay?” Clara asks me as she sits in the chair across from mine.

“I… I don’t know,” I answer honestly. My gaze lowers to the photo.

My fingers are shaking, and yet they feel numb.

“If Clover was dating my… dating my father, then that means he may have killed her.” It takes all of my willpower not to puke all over the floor.

“If not, then it could’ve been Jason. Either way, I’m connected to this because I’m connected to both of them, which means someone in my life killed my best friend. ”

“Hey.” She places a hand on mine. “It’s not your fault. You know that, right?”

I unevenly shake my head from side to side, my eyes welling with tears. “I don’t know… It just feels like every connection I have is toxic, and I think that toxicity applies to me too.”

“No, it doesn’t. You’re one of the kindest people I know. And you’re here, in this place you hate—which I’m starting to understand why—so you can help solve all of these murders. That’s brave, Ava. Really brave.”

I raise my gaze to her. “Even if it turns out my family are the killers?” A question sears in my tone, asking the question: Do you really believe that about me?

Because I’m not so sure I do.

“You are not responsible for what your family does. And you’re trying to stop what they’re doing. You’re nothing like them.”

Maybe she’s right.

But I’m not so sure I’m fully convinced of the truth of that yet. Perhaps once I’ve helped lock my family away, I will be.

“I’m worried about Ellis.” I rise to my feet and make my way to the window. The porch light is on and casts a glow across the space of land across the street. “He ran after that person who looked like my aunt. What if she’s hurt him? We wouldn’t even know.”

“He has his phone on him, right?” she checks as she moves up beside me.

I nod, allowing the curtain to fall closed. “He does. But what if he’s unconscious?” Or dead? That thought I keep locked up inside the crevices of my mind. “Or what if he can’t get a signal?”

Clara worries her lip between her teeth. Exhaustion is creeping into her features. “Maybe we should call the cops.”

“Ellis said not to,” I remind her, directing my attention back to the window.

Doubt pierces me like the moonlight piercing the sky.

Am I choosing the wrong path by not calling the cops?

I’ve been down a similar path before, where I didn’t call them, and look what that did.

I pull the curtain back and look out into the night.

“I’m going to try to call Ellis. And if he doesn’t answer, then I may have to call the police. ”

She frowns as I retrieve my phone from my pocket. “Wait… What if he's hiding and his phone rings?”

I hesitate with my finger hovering over his contact button. “That’s a good point… I don’t know what to do. I can’t sit here and do nothing. Ellis wouldn’t do that if it were me out there. I think I?—”

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Clara and I both startle, our attention darting to the front door where the knocks came from.

“Aves, it’s me,” Ellis says from the other side of the door. “Open up, please.”

I rush to the front door, unlock the lock, and open it up. Ellis is standing on the porch, his forehead smeared with dirt and he has a cut on his cheek. He also has leaves in his hair and a panicked look in his eyes.

His gaze is fastened on the field behind us, but when I open the door, the creak of the hinges shifts his focus to me.

“Hey,” he says breathlessly as I step back and let him inside.

I shut the door and spin around. “What happened?”

“They got away.” Shaking his head, he slips his gun back into his waist holster.

“I was running after them for a while, and I could see them in the moonlight, but then they just vanished.” He rakes his fingers through his hair.

“I’m pretty sure I heard a car engine start up, so I’m assuming they took off in a vehicle, but I never saw it.

” He lowers his hand to his side and releases a gradual exhale.

“I’m pretty sure it was a woman… Did you see the person at all? ” he asks me.

“For a brief second.” A pause of hesitation ripples through, an old habit I want to shatter. “I think it was my aunt Marissa,” I say, and he doesn’t appear surprised, so he’s probably arrived at the same conclusion. I hand him the photo. “When Bailey came back, this was tucked in his collar.”

Ellis takes the photo from me. When he looks at it, he doesn’t seem as surprised by that either.

“That’s my father,” I explain. Does he not recognize him?

“I know.” His gaze lifts to mine.

That’s when I see it…

I step back from him. “Did you already know about this?”

He hesitates. “I wasn’t certain, but I had a suspicion after you mentioned that Clover wrote in her diary that she was dating an older man who was part of the group.

We knew more than likely that this group of people hurting these girls was your family.

And we knew Clover was looking into the death of Zoey.

I wondered if this other guy she was with was your father or your uncle. ”

I line my palm to my chest as breathing becomes complicated. But I refuse to have another panic attack. So I breathe in and out a few times until the motion of my lungs feels more stable. I picture clouds and sunlight, grass below me, warmth on my cheeks, and the smell of daisies…

“Ava, did you hear me?” Ellis’s voice reaches through the tranquility and wrenches me back to reality.

“No,” I answer, not even bothering to lie.

He rubs his lips together. “I said I’m sorry. I know I probably should’ve told you when I first started to wonder this, but I also didn’t want you to have to deal with it until I found out for sure.”

Old Ava would’ve let it slide, but this version is too damn tired.

I cross my arms. “How do I know you’re not lying about anything else?”

He considers my question, then sticks his pinkie out to me. “Because I pinkie swear I’m not.”

We haven’t pinkie swore in forever, but whenever we did, we never broke the promise.

“I pinkie swear I’ll cover for you.”

“I pinkie swear I’ll keep an eye on you tonight.”

“I pinkie swear I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Ellis always kept his pinkie promises.

I hitch my pinkie with his. “All right, I believe you.”

“Good.” Visible relief washes over his features. “From now on, I’ll tell you everything I’m thinking. Well, when it’s about this case.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. I should’ve done it to begin with.”

“You really did turn into a good guy,” I tell him. “Well, I mean, you were always a good guy. But you’re still a good guy.”

“Nice and good, huh?” He rubs the back of his neck. “That’s not always a good thing.”

“It is,” I assure him. “Anyone who thinks differently probably hasn’t experienced the bad and mean of a person.”

He smiles, but weariness resides behind it.

“We used to be like that, though. All of us. Partly bad, I mean.” He sinks onto the sofa.

“When I think back, I sometimes wonder how all of us didn’t end up like Clover and Zoey.

And I’m not just talking about this group of people.

I just think we tested the line of death pretty damn frequently. ”

“I know.” I take a seat beside him, tucking my leg under my butt. “I think about that too. Honestly, I feel like I walked away from the line only after Jason and I divorced. Now I feel like I'm stepping back toward it.”

“That’s not going to happen.” He reaches out and, with a breath of hesitation, rests his hand on top of mine.

I let him.

I feel his warmth flood my hand.

I usually feel so numbly cold, just like how Clover’s hand felt the day she took her final breath.

While I stayed alive.

Ellis might not want me to follow in Clover’s footsteps, and I’ll do my best not to, but I need to keep going forward to figure out what happened to her.

“There’s some stuff I need to tell you,” I say to Ellis, noting he has a cut on his forehead. I turn to Clara, who’s gone very quiet. “Can you go see if there's a first aid kit anywhere in here?”

Nodding, she gets up and leaves the room with Bailey following her.

I return my attention to Ellis and tell him what I remember, about that night in the car where my parents spoke about hurting someone my aunt was close to, and how I suspect it may have been her sister.

I also tell him about what I remembered the night I found Clover dying.

That part is complicated because I have to pick at the scab that hasn’t yet scarred over, meaning it might take even longer to heal.

In the end, though, I manage to tell him everything.

By the time I’m finished, his eyes are wide. He doesn’t say much at first but shakes his head multiple times.

“Do you not think I’m right?” I ask. “About my parents killing my aunt’s sister and then her killing my father?”

“No, I think you could very well be right,” he tells me. “I’m just shocked. And not just about that. Clover never had any dirt under her fingernails in the photos that were with her autopsy report, which means someone cleaned that up.”

“You think the killer found her clutch then?” I ask, struggling to maintain an even tone as I have to trudge down memory lane. “I mean, I'm fairly sure the person who ran out of the stall overheard her tell me that.”

“They could have, but the probability of them being able to is pretty low. I mean, she had to have buried it in the park or the woods by the park, but that’s still a broad amount of space.”

“Well, except for the fact that I think she buried it under daisies. Camilla even knew that, but she acted like it was still buried. And during that time of year when Clover died, daisies were pretty scarce, so there wasn’t many spots she could’ve buried it.

Although, when I saw her, she had dirt all over her, like she had been dragged, so…

I don’t know. I have to wonder if she buried it close to the bathroom and someone dragged her in there, because wouldn’t someone have noticed if a person was dragging Clover through the party or to the parking lot, which are the only ways to get to the bathroom? ”

“Yeah.” He retrieves his phone. “Let’s see if we can find photos of the park during that time, and see if there were any daisies around then.”

“Good idea.” I pause. “I wonder if there’s a way to find out if my aunt has a sister. I think maybe I could at the wake.”

His gaze flicks up to mine. “I don’t think you should go to that, especially if your aunt is involved in this.”

“I’m going,” I stress as I grab my phone so I can see if any of my aunt’s relatives have family photos posted online, because I really doubt she has social media.

“I have to, Ellis. My aunt doesn’t know we know that it was her in the woods, so I’ll be okay.

” I don’t wholly believe my words, but I sound like I do.

“But for now, I’ll see if I can find some photos online of my aunt’s family.

” I swipe my finger along my phone screen. “But I’m still going to that wake.”

“Aves,” he starts to protest, but I shush him.

He grows quiet, but I don’t believe this argument is over. Just postponed.

He starts searching online for photos of the park while I search for information about my aunt having a sister.

It takes a while, but I manage to find a cousin of hers who has a lot of photos posted.

I search through those, looking for the face of the girl in the photo, and I end up finding a few in a family album labeled ' Family Reunions. '

And the girl from the photo we found on the cliff is definitely my aunt’s younger sister.

“I found a photo of the girl,” I inform Ellis while showing him my phone. “This is definitely my aunt’s sister.”

His frown deepens as he assesses the photo, then his part. “I think?—”

A loud crash comes from inside the house, like glass shattering, and then Bailey starts barking.

Ellis leaps to his feet, withdrawing his gun. “Stay here.” He hurries off toward the hallway.

I rise to my feet, preparing to rush after him when the front door opens up.

Shit, did I forget to lock it?

I start to stumble back when a woman walks into the house.

Blonde hair, familiar eyes, and she’s holding a daisy.

I blink. And blink again. But she remains in front of me.

“Clover,” I breathe out.

There’s no mistaking it’s her this time. She looks just like how I remember her, only older.

She’s alive.

And she’s standing right here.

Unless I’ve truly gone off the deep end.

She smiles, but her eyes are dead, as if all of her life is burnt out—or she’s been drugged. “Hello, my daisy friend.”

I start to back away when I feel the familiar pinprick of a needle against my arm.

“I’m sorry,” Clover whispers to me before everything goes black.

I try to latch onto reality as best I can, knowing that if I succumb to the darkness, I might forget all of this.

Forget her.

But eventually it wins, dragging me further into the shadows and the darkness of the deadly woods.