“Yes.”
Everett glanced back and forth between them, torn between being worried about his mom and wanting to really look at his dad. His hair was longish, curling a bit like Everett’s in waves that covered his ears and reached his collar.
“Jones,” he heard his mom whisper as she stood up. “You actually called the police?”
“Sure. Anything for my boy.”
“But that means . . .”
“Yeah, I should probably find a back way out of here while I can.”
“You’re leaving?” Everett croaked past the lump that was choking him half to death.
“Sorry, little man.” His smile creased his eyes into bright crescents of warmth. He had scruffy stubble, but he somehow looked healthy instead of disheveled. The deep tan probably helped. Everett imagined him on a beach in sunglasses, smiling at the waves.
His gaze dropped to the wet blood on his dad’s light-blue shirt. “There’s a back door in the kitchen,” he suggested softly. He was sure Mom would protest, say that Dad needed to face the consequences of his actions, but she only blew out a deep breath and tipped her head toward the doorway.
His dad threw his good arm around Everett’s shoulders and pulled him in tight. “Lead the way, Son.”
When his mom stepped ahead of them, Everett moved forward, and then he saw Mendelson and yanked back. The cop wasn’t moving, maybe not even breathing. His ruined face was a smash of different wounds, blood coating his skin. But he was breathing, because a bubble of blood swelled from a crooked nostril. It popped, and the next one slowly began to form many seconds later. So he wasn’t dead, but he looked close. His mom kicked the gun even farther away, sliding it toward the kitchen.
Everett was holding tight to his dad and watching his mom’s cuffed hands ahead of him when she jerked to a stop at the kitchen doorway. The sirens were drawing nearer, not close yet, but not far, and they needed to keep moving.
“Mom—”
“Don’t look, Everett,” she ordered. “Jones, you keep him with you.” Then she peeled off to the right, away from the door.
Everett looked, of course, and his mom was bent over a puddle of blood. He spied a man’s arm, and legs in a pair of jeans, but then his dad was guiding him to the doorway.
“How will you get away?” Everett asked, worried that his cracking voice sounded like a whine to his dad, who was somehow still joking and cool even though the patch of blood had soaked through more cotton.
“Don’t worry about it. I left the car in another driveway, but . . . Well, let’s just say it’s not in my name anyway. So I’ll hike out. No worries.” He said no worries, but his eyes darted nervously toward the door. “Speaking of, I’d better be going.”
“Yeah.” Everett followed him out when he opened the door. The sirens were louder now. “Bye, Dad,” he said, trying to be strong and calm, but his dad laughed at that, and swept him into a huge hug.
“I love you, Everett. Take care of your mom. I’ll be in touch.”
“I love you too,” he said, which seemed like an odd thing to say to someone he didn’t know, but it felt true. It felt like he loved him.
And then he was gone, slipping straight back from the house and angling the opposite way from how Josephine and Everett had escaped. Everett watched him as the whine of the sirens grew more piercing.
“He’s breathing!” his mom yelled. “Alex is still breathing!”
Everett spun around and stumbled over the threshold, rushing back into the house. He still couldn’t see much of Alex Bennick past his mom’s back, but he did see a bloody knife in a pool of horrible red next to her foot.
“Everett, go sit on the couch, keep your hands up. When the police get here, yell to them that it’s safe and we need an ambulance. Don’t go near Mendelson.”
Everett didn’t think. He wasn’t scared. For the first time in forever, he wasn’t scared at all. He raced into the living room as he heard car doors slamming out front. He dropped to the couch, and he raised his hands.
Then he heard his mom begin to cry in quiet, choking sobs, and he finally felt safe to cry too. His mom and dad had saved him. And they would all be okay.
CHAPTER 37
“Are you seriously working at a party?” Lily asked as she strolled beneath the trailing edge of the weeping willow and into the shade beneath.
Alex lay in a cheap lounger he’d brought over, a tattered spiral notebook in his hands. “You already put me to work at a party, remember?”