Jade just stares at her.
“What are you saying?” she says at last. “This is—I was at a random gas station, I happened to look into the bargain bin—”
“You were at your most vulnerable, your most broken,”
Letha says, about to cry. “And you reached out for the first thing you saw, held it as close as you could, like armor. Like it could protect you. And it has, hasn’t it?”
“A Bay of Blood?”
“Slashers,” Mr. Holmes says.
“She’s kind of been hiding in bad behavior too,” Hardy’s compelled to add.
“What—what—” Jade says, her thoughts swirling, only some of her words finding her mouth. “What are you saying?
My mom did something to me?”
“Your dad,” Letha says, barely loud enough to register.
“My dad?” Jade blurts out.
“Happens more than it should,” Letha says. “And among Native Americans, the percentage is even—”
“You think he’s why I was at the doctor in Idaho Falls?”
Jade asks all of them, polling this jury now.
Yes, none of them say out loud.
Jade closes her eyes in pain, slams her fingers into her gunky hair and pulls, turns around on her combat heels, giving them her back, and—she doesn’t want to do this, doesn’t want to have to deploy the nuclear option, but what else is there?
“You’re a father, Sheriff,” she says, no louder than necessary. “Would you have ever done this to your daughter?
To Melanie?”
“Jennifer,” Mr. Holmes says sharply.
“Jade,” Jade spins back around to hiss at him. “And aren’t you always the one saying read between the lines, sir? Try this on, then. All this… all these accusations, all this textual evidence, whatever. Who’s to say I didn’t pack that in intentionally? Why would a girl like Letha ever give me the time of day if she wasn’t feeling sorry for me? Maybe I wrote it like that to tug on her heartstrings, make her worry about me. Whatever it takes to get her here, talk her into my harebrained scheme about slashers and final girls.”
Mr. Holmes just stares at her about this.
“What was your mom arguing with herself about in the car that day?” he says at last, super calmly. “Don’t think, just answer.”
“What was she—？”
“ ‘Will she, won’t she?’ ”
“Will she leave my loser dad, won’t she leave my loser dad,” Jade says without missing even one single beat.
Before Mr. Holmes can press her on this, she spins around again, glares out across the glinting water, arms crossed.
“Apologize to the sheriff,” Mr. Holmes says.
Jade lowers her head, closes her eyes, says, “Sorry, Sheriff.
That was out of bounds.”
“You were scared,” Hardy says back, and Jade closes her eyes harder, because she knows not to take this bait. If she nods yes to this, then the next question will be Scared of what?
The truth? And if she says she wasn’t scared, then what she did to Hardy was just cruel.
There’s no way to win. Same as ever.
Why she even gets her hopes up anymore, who knows.
“We’re just trying to help,” Letha says.
Jade opens her eyes to the brightness and tears spill down both cheeks. Tears she fucking hates.
Instead of wiping them away, she slashes her right hand back in the direction of Mr. Holmes, because she can smell his nicotine on the air. He slips the butt between her waiting fingers.
“It’s not your fault,” Letha says again, still right there.
“No,” Jade says again, breathing smoke out, finally turning around so they can see her wet face, see what they’re doing to her here. “It’s not what you think. Fathers don’t do that to daughters, not even fathers as sucky as mine, as Indian as mine. I would say you’ve seen too many Lifetime movies, but if you’ve seen too many movies, what does that mean about me and my slashers?”
After maybe three seconds, Letha has to smile about this.
Jade grins with her, takes another long drag, handing the cigarette back to Mr. Holmes before exhaling.
“Just saying,” Hardy says, getting his own cigarette going, having to lean down into his cupped hand the way cowboys in westerns always do, “it would explain an awful lot. Your—all this gothic stuff, the way you dress, your attitude, the trouble you’re always—”
“That’s just me,” Jade tells him, blowing her smoke out now, as underline. “Horror’s not a symptom, it’s a love affair.”