I wish they hadn’t phrased it that way. It’s intentionally misleading. “You were right about Mason. He—”
“Mason’s in jail? They can’t take him to jail, can they?” She puts her hand over her mouth. “I can’t believe they’d take a kid to jail. He must be terrified. I have to do something.” She grabs her bag and starts shoveling her books and papers into it as fast as she can. I reach across the table and grab her arm.
“He’s not in jail.”
She stops and turns to look at me. “He’s not?”
I shake my head. “It’s a bit of a messed-up situation, but he’s not in jail.” She pauses putting her things away and fixes her attention on what I’m about to say next. “I want you to know that I don’t particularly agree with how things were done, so I just want to make that clear from the get-go.” She eyes me suspiciously with her hand still on her backpack, like she hasn’t decided if she’s going to pack up and leave yet. “Detective Layne is under incredible pressure to put everyone at ease about what’s going on and make them feel like he’s got everything under control. You know how people get in Tuscaloosa.” She nods her understanding. It pretty much goes without saying, but I had to make the point just in case she’s forgotten what it’s like to live there. “Anyway, Mason has been a person of interest in this case from the beginning. The investigators have just never released that information publicly until now. It sounds much scarier than what it is; I promise you that.” Her brow is furrowed. Her green eyes lined in black are full of distrust. I reach across the table and squeeze her hand. “Basically, it just means they suspect he had something to do with the crime, but he hasn’t been arrested or formally charged. The part about him being in custody is misleading because people automatically assume exactly what you did, and Mason’s not in jail. Tuscaloosa doesn’t have a juvenile detention center.”
“So he’s at home?” A flash of surprise on her face.
“No, but that’s kind of a separate issue. Him being removed from the home had nothing to do with what happened to Annabelle. It—”
She jerks her hand out from underneath mine. “What do you mean by ‘removed him from home’？ Where’d he go? What are you talking about?”
“The Tuscaloosa Family Services Division placed him in temporary foster care after doctors found suspicious bruising on his arms and three old fractures in various stages of healing on his body.” I stop there. I planned to tell her how it all went down and that I’d unintentionally played a role in it, but I’m going to wait until I get a better idea of how she’s feeling about things. Detective Layne would be pleased.
She sinks back into her chair, slowly digesting the information. I can’t tell if she’s angry or about to burst into tears. “I don’t understand. How did family services get involved?”
“It’s kind of a long story.” I want to get to the important parts, but mostly I want to avoid talking about this because I don’t want her thinking I purposefully set any of this up in case she reacts like Genevieve.
She crosses her arms on her chest. “I’ve got time.”
“Genevieve gave us all Mason’s psychological-testing reports from back when he was a kid up until now. I noticed a couple strange things about his tests, so I wanted to test him myself and see what I found.”
“What kinds of things did you notice?”
“Just some irregularities. Stuff you wouldn’t normally see.” I’m being intentionally vague. Detective Layne said to leave things open ended so we can see what she discloses on her own. I don’t give her a chance to interrupt or ask another question before continuing just in case it’s not so easy to dodge. “The reason I was testing him that day was related to the case, but then everything turned.” I take a few seconds to organize my thoughts and stay focused. It’s hard when they’re jumping all over the place. I need to slow down. Start at the beginning. “I noticed some—”
“How’d you get her to let you do that? She normally doesn’t let anyone near him. Especially not alone. It’s like if he’s away from her care for even a minute, something terrible will happen to him.” She rolls her eyes, playing with her necklace. It’s the same one she wore before.
“I told her that I wanted to evaluate him to see if he’d regressed in his functioning after the trauma so we could take our findings to the media afterward. I said we could try to get them to run a story about how the police weren’t handling the case properly and that a young boy’s life was suffering.” I watch her carefully.
Her eyes grow wide. A smile teases at the corner of her lips. “You tricked her into letting you test my brother?”
“I did, but only because I thought it would give us helpful information about what really happened.” Now I know exactly how Detective Layne feels. “There was no real legal reason for me to test Mason, so I had to make something up.”
Amusement lights up her features and puts a huge twinkle in her eyes. “Oh my gosh. Does she know?” I nod. She puts her hand over her mouth and squeals. “She’s going to be so mad.” She takes her hand down, and there’s a big smile underneath. “I love that you played her like that.”
“I didn’t ‘play her like that.’” She makes it sound so calculated, and it wasn’t. Genevieve took it the same way. That’s what caused all the drama, and I don’t want to do anything to reignite it.
“Girl, you better watch out,” she says with the silly grin still plastered on her face. “You think you met my mom before? You’re about to really meet her now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Our conversation is interrupted by the server, and we quickly place our orders. Neither of us takes time to look at the menu. We go with the french toast we ordered last time even though it’s lunch.
“What do you mean?” I repeat once they’ve left.
“As long as you agree with her and go along with everything she has to say, then she’ll be your best friend in the whole world. But disagree with her? Go against what she says? God forbid, hurt her? She’ll turn on you so quickly you won’t know what hit you. I’m warning you—she’s vicious.” Her voice goes cool.
“I’m not afraid of your mom.” Not the way she is, anyway.
“You should be,” she says. “Genevieve is a terrible person.”
“You’re the only one who thinks that,” I blurt without thinking, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
“What kind of a mother drops their own daughter after they decide they don’t want to do beauty pageants anymore? Because that’s what Genevieve did to me when I was ten years old. Ten.” She holds up her hands, five fingers spread out on each one. “She dropped me like I never existed. Like we had never had a relationship. Much less a close one. All the attention? Gone. Affection? Gone. Love?” She laughs, but it’s filled with so much raw pain I can feel it. “She ripped out the emotional plug and left me like I’d never meant anything to her. I got dumped by my mom.” She works her jaw, struggling with her emotions before going on. “But that wasn’t the worst of it. I had to live in a house with someone who didn’t want me around. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be a ghost in your own house? To be treated with complete indifference? I despised every second I was there. Each time that I was around her. Have you seen my high school transcripts?” She snorts. “I was involved in everything. Anything that kept me out of the house. You should worry about the kids who never want to be at home.”