Hushed (19 page)

She shrugged. “Because how awkward would
that
have been? Them finding out their son’s a fairy–”

“
Excuse
me?”

“–and that the guy sitting next to him is his boyfriend. I was trying to save you more than him. Otherwise it would’ve been pretty funny.”

Evan scowled. “So you aren’t really…”

“I said I liked guys just fine,” Sam said with a shrug. “I meant it. Can’t say I’ve ever been with a girl, but don’t knock it ‘til you try it, I guess.”

Archer’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. An odd show of kindness, but he was grateful for it. He couldn’t say being outed in front of a group of strangers would’ve been the worst part of his weekend, but it sure wouldn’t have been the highlight, either. Maybe it’d been more for Evan’s sake than for his. But either way the words stuck to the inside of his throat, and he had to work them free, hoping they conveyed their meaning as strongly as he wanted them to. “Thank you.”

Sam straightened up and turned to leave with a flippant wave and an equally light grin.

“Don’t thank me. Just take care of my baby brother, keep him out of trouble, and we’ll call it even.”

Trouble.
Archer couldn’t help it; he laughed.

Sunday, November 2
^nd

The stairs leading to Archer’s apartment had an ominous, unwelcoming feel. A great maw ready to devour him whole. He stared from the driver’s seat of his car, hands clutching the steering wheel too tight. Evan knocked on his window, and Archer jumped. “Going to stay in there forever?” he asked, muffled through the glass.

He got out, bag slung over his shoulder. “Dreading life,” he admitted. They trailed up the steps, halting outside the door while Archer searched for his keys. “Coming in?”

“Nah, just wanted to make sure you got back okay.” Evan shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m so behind on homework it’s not even funny. Are you gonna be all right on your own?”

Archer didn’t want to remind him that most of his life had been spent on his own. “I think I’m good. I won’t be running to your door in tears anytime soon.”

“No, but maybe I like it when you need me.” His smile was a shy one, and Archer wondered if he’d ever get over that. Part of him hoped not. That same shyness he’d found so insufferable before, he now thought endearing.

He shook his head, smiling. “I think I need to do less of
needing
people, honestly.” As he turned to unlock the door, Evan grabbed his arm and pulled him back around. Barely a breath separated their mouths.

“Want me, then,” Evan murmured against his lips. “If you don’t
need
me, at least want me.”

Archer felt dizzy with the rush of heat to his face. His lashes lowered. Maybe Evan wasn’t the only one who could feel awkward and shy. “I do.” Wanted. Needed. No matter how much he fought against it. Evan kissed him solidly. Archer didn’t think he’d ever get tired of that, either. He leaned into it. Wasn’t nearly satisfied when they pulled apart.

“Homework,” Evan breathed.

He sighed. “Go on. I’ll come by tomorrow.” Evan traipsed off downstairs. Archer waited until he was across the parking lot, heading for his own building, before going inside.

From the couch, Vivian looked up at him, gaze cold. “There you are.”

He froze. The sound of her voice made him want to crawl out of his skin.

“Here I am.” Slowly, he eased the door closed. “What’re you doing here?”
And why haven’t I taken your key yet?

“You said you’d be home and I could see you.”

“I said I would call.” He clicked the lock in place and set his bag on the dining table. Vivian stood, sidestepping the subject.

“You were with Evan? I thought you two weren’t talking.”

She’d heard them. How much had she heard, he didn’t know. Archer unzipped the bag, pulling out clothing to be washed. He didn’t look at her. “We talked it out. Things are all right now.”

“All right how?”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“All right as in, you’re friends or…” She gestured. In the dark of the apartment, he only barely made out how red her eyes were. Either she’d been drinking or crying. Probably both. “You two are pretty close, is all I’m saying.”

Archer set the clothing aside and faced her, expression carefully drawn. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She shrugged, long lashes lowering, brushing against fine cheekbones. “I just thought you and I…”

His insides twisted. A year ago—hell, a
month
ago—he would’ve jumped at the implication. Him. Vivian.
Together
. What he’d always wanted. And she’d said something to that degree the night she asked him to kill Mickey…but now? He had a hard time looking at her.

“Why now?” he asked. “Why
now
, after all these years? I flat-out asked you to be my girlfriend in high school and you said no. What could’ve possibly changed?”

Vivian sighed. Her small hands pressed to his chest. So delicate, so deceptively harmless. Like she couldn’t hurt a thing in the world. “Archer… I was stupid and young. You and I, we’re the same now, right? Just monsters. We can’t trust anyone but each other.”

I don’t trust you.

Could she feel the pounding of his heart beneath her palm, he wondered. “Can I ask you something?”

“What is it?”

“If the cops took you in, would you tell them I was in on it?”

A flicker of uncertainty passed Vivian’s face and her expression steeled. “I thought we agreed. We go down together or not at all.”

No. They hadn’t agreed on much of anything lately. “I wouldn’t tell them it was you, if they brought me in. I’d let them pin it all on me.”

Vivian touched his face. “You’re so sweet. But let’s not talk about it right now. I haven’t been able to think of anything else all weekend.”

It shouldn’t have stung like it did. Couldn’t she even lie and tell him she wouldn’t turn him over? He looked off, feeling the knotted tension creeping into his body. All the relaxing he’d been able to do at Evan’s…undone by a few minutes with Vivian. “I have homework to do. Maybe you should head out.”

She looked stricken. “I thought I’d stay here.”

“It’s been a long week and I’m behind.” He’d told Evan he didn’t trust Viv not to drag him down if the police asked, but the reality of it weighed so much heavier on his heart than he wanted to admit. Where was his sweet, bubbly Viv? A few weeks back, he could catch glimpses of her once in awhile, but she seemed a million miles away now.

“Fine.” Viv drew back and snatched her purse from the couch. “But I’m going home whether you like it or not. I’m not hiding out in a hotel until you decide to give me
permission
to leave.”

Archer closed his eyes.
Play nice, just for now.
“Vivian…”

“Forget it. I should’ve known it would be like this.” She tore open her purse, digging, he assumed, for her keys. “Evan shows back up and you’re not interested in me anymore. I get it.”

Oh, that was
hilarious.
He might’ve laughed if it wasn’t so unsettling and stupid. “That’s not what it is and you know it. Will you just—
Vivian.
” He grabbed her arm when she stalked past him, wrenching her around to face him. “You’re overreacting.”

Her eyes met his, smoldering, daring. “Am I?”

How nice did he play? How far did he take this and for how long? What if this never ended? He felt sick. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She sniffed, but didn’t look entirely convinced. “So I can stay?”

What did he say? What would Evan say? “Tomorrow. Let me get caught up on everything for classes this week and you can stay tomorrow.”

Placated, Vivian nodded. “Tomorrow.” She rose up on tiptoe, kissed his mouth, and slung her purse over her shoulder. As she walked out the door, she gave him a wave like any other wave she’d ever given. But the way she said “I’ll see you later” felt more like a threat than a promise.

Monday, November 3
^rd

“I don’t know. She doesn’t want to be alone. Maybe she doesn’t trust me.” Archer looked out his front window for the umpteenth time, always bracing himself to see Vivian standing on his porch. No sign of her. He could hope she’d gotten caught up at The Grove or with school. Maybe she wouldn’t show up at all.

“
I don’t know. Maybe.”
Evan sighed on the other line.
“I wish I had some kind of answer for this. I keep trying to think of one, but…”

“It’s my mess.” Archer let the curtain sweep across the glass again. “I should tell her she’s on her own. Otherwise, it’s going to get worse. Maybe it was Marissa’s death but she’s just…”

“Completely lost it?”

He closed his eyes. Was Vivian crazy? Had something snapped in her head? “I don’t know. Maybe.” Maybe, maybe, maybe. She’d never been the most emotionally stable person, but this was different. “She’s never acted like this with me.” Vivian had also never killed anyone before. Archer knew from experience taking a life changed a person, twisted something in their brains.

“She’s never come close to having you walk out on her, either,”
Evan said softly. “
That’s what it is, don’t you see? You and Marissa were the two constants in her life. She’ll do what she can to get her hooks back in you.”

With Marissa gone, he had no one to shuffle Vivian off to. No one to ask for advice. Roxy wouldn’t be able to handle her, not in this situation. Not with Vivian this far gone. Evan only reaffirmed his own thoughts, and that wasn’t a good thing.

As he opened his mouth to respond, someone knocked. He froze. They knocked again. “…I have to go.” He hung up without a proper good-bye. Vivian wouldn’t have knocked. Before he even opened the door, he half-expected Detective Patterson to be standing on his porch.

It wasn’t Patterson. Archer didn’t recognize the dark-haired man staring back at him but by the way he dressed, he was an investigator of some kind.
Of course it wouldn’t be the same guy. Different murders.
He forced a thin smile.

The man scratched his jaw. Didn’t smile. “Evenin’. You Archer Pond?” He didn’t wait for an answer and whipped out an ID. Detective Larry Stevens. What was it with this investigations unit having the dullest names? “Mind if I come in?”

The air of lazy confidence this guy gave off didn’t make him feel as comfortable as trying-too-hard Patterson. Archer stepped aside. “Can I help you?”

Larry Stevens looked around as he came in. Not that there was anything interesting for him to see. Archer’s apartment was far from interesting. “Thank you. Do you know a Mickey Du… Dumb-ant, Mr. Pond?”

Archer bit his tongue, trying not to snicker. “Mickey Dumont?”

“That’s the one.”

“He sometimes hung out with my group of friends.” No point in lying about it. The less he lied, the less they could catch him on. “He was in an on-again, off-again relationship with someone I know. Why?”

Stevens helped himself to sitting at the dining table, where he could scribble in his notepad better. Was he really saying anything worth writing down? Maybe how to pronounce Mick’s last name right. “Are you aware Mickey was murdered?”

Archer frowned. Again, no point in feigning shock, or acting like he was devastated. Anyone who knew him and Mick could attest that they hated each other. “No, I hadn’t heard.”

“You don’t sound very upset.” Larry raised a bushy brow.

He sank down into the chair opposite the detective. “I’m surprised
.
I mean, Mickey wasn’t very well liked, but I didn’t think… You know, anyone hated him
that
much.”

Larry’s pen tapped his notebook. Once. Twice. “He had a lot of enemies, then?”

Tricky territory. If he said ‘yes,’ would Larry-of-the-big-eyebrows ask him for names? “He is—was—kind of a lady’s man. If you could call him that. But he didn’t treat them very well.” Archer stared at the movement of the pen. He couldn’t make out the handwriting. “Drank a lot. Did drugs now and again.”

“And when you say he didn’t treat them very well, you know anyone specific?” Another long look. Archer’s stomach turned. Acting innocent? That was easy. Distancing himself from the person. Casting off suspicion. But how did he get Vivian off the hook? Anything honest he could say would only condemn her.

He met the detective’s piercing stare and found he couldn’t say a word. Trapped. Nothing he could say. If he incriminated Vivian, she’d be sure to drag him down with her.

“I don’t think it’s really my place to…”

“You’re close with Vivian Hilton, is that right?”

Slowly his hands slid off the table and into his lap to hide the trembling. “More or less.”

“More or less.”

“We’ve had a bit of a rough patch lately. She stopped talking to me and most of her friends.”

“Because of Mickey.”

He knows all this already. Who told him?
Had he already spoken to Vivian? Some of the others from The Grove?

“Because of Mickey, yes.”

Larry nodded. Scribbled more. “I’d like to hear more, if you want to keep talking.”

In other words, he could keep going, or he could be brought in for questioning, lawyer and all. He couldn’t withhold too much, and couldn’t be too willing to help. Less attention. If the detectives were here, maybe they had no physical evidence to tie Viv to the scene. If so, then his honesty wouldn’t hurt her any.

“Vivian has been in quite a few bad relationships. Mickey was worse than most. Knocked her around a lot, manipulated her into cutting people out of her life.” His eyes locked onto that moving pen again. What was he writing?
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
“She and I had a fight about it. She stayed here for awhile, but eventually went back to him, so I…decided I didn’t want to bother anymore. You can only be there for someone so long before their bad decisions get to be too much, you know?”
Distance yourself. Better that way.
Guilt gnawed his insides raw.

A slow nod from the detective. “And has she contacted you at all recently?”

More he couldn’t lie about. Someone could attest to seeing her at the apartment. His phone records would show how many times she’d called. “She was here… Friday night, briefly. But I went out of town to visit a friend so we didn’t talk much. And she called over the weekend, stopped by again Sunday night…”

He had the detective’s full attention now. The pen stopped moving. “Was she acting at all strange when you saw or spoke to her?”

Guilty.
His heart twisted and tore at the seams. After everything he’d done wrong, the lives he took, how could he let them pin her down for a single murder?

But it wasn’t single. That poor girl didn’t deserve anything. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

“No,” he said, and his voice came out steady despite his wavering resolve. “Just…like Vivian. She’s been kind of spacey lately anyway, ever since her Mom died. Grief and all that. You know?”

Larry seemed to snap out of his transfixed stare and wrote down one more thing. A small smile tugged at his mouth. Had he said too much? Had he given something away? Archer wanted to rip the notebook out from under his hands and find out. “Thank you. Just a few more questions and I can let you get back to your evening…”

Archer closed his eyes and tried not to sigh. At least it couldn’t possibly get any worse.

§

As soon as Detective Stevens left an hour later, Archer locked the door and grabbed a piece of paper and pen, trying to recount everything he’d been asked and what he’d answered. To memorize. To keep his story straight. All he could hope was that anything he said didn’t contradict anything Vivian might’ve told them if they’d already spoken to her.

When he was done, he called her. The second ring cut short and went to voice mail. Either she was on the other line or she’d pressed the
decline
button. He gritted his teeth and hung up. No voice mails. Couldn’t text. Nothing that could be monitored. Hell, her line could be tapped. He would have to see her in person.

Viv hadn’t called back by the time he reached her apartment, but Archer spotted her car in the parking lot. All the more reason to be irritated. Showing up there was risky enough; he’d told the detective he and Vivian weren’t talking much. He could formulate an easy excuse.
Wanted to make sure she was okay. She should hear about Mickey from a friend.

It took four or five knocks before she answered, eyes bleary and hair sleep-mussed. Archer pushed the door open and slipped in past her.

“You need to give me back my gun, Viv.”

She rubbed her eyes, shutting the door behind him. “What—?”

“My gun. You have my gun.” He didn’t see it anywhere in plain view. Why hadn’t she given it back by now? It wasn’t like she needed it. “A detective came to talk to me today, and I—”

“I know, he was here.” She folded her arms across her chest, keeping herself modest because her too-thin tank top didn’t do it. “I told him Mick and I broke up awhile ago and I haven’t seen him since.”

Archer brought his flurry of thoughts to a slow, grinding halt. He needed to breathe. Keep himself collected. “How long is ‘awhile ago’? Everyone at The Grove knows you were together just a few days ago. If they find some of your DNA at the apartment but you told them you haven’t been there in a few weeks…” When Vivian frowned and shrugged, he narrowed his eyes. “This is
important
, Vivian. Our stories have to match or they’re going to know something’s up.”

“I couldn’t tell them he and I had a huge fight the day before he died, right? When they asked about the bruises, I fed them some line about falling out of bed.” She huffed and glided past him for her bedroom. He followed. No gun on top of her nightstand or dresser. She must have hidden it.

“What’d you tell him about me and you?”

“That you’re my best friend. What else would I say?” She threw herself back onto the bed. “I told them I saw you Friday night before you went out of town. The hotel I stayed at was a place Mom and I vacationed once, wanted to honor her memory, blah blah…” She waved a hand flippantly. Something in her tone made him want to smack her.

Don’t use Marissa to your benefit.

He sank onto the foot of the bed, sighing. “Maybe it was enough. Maybe they’ll leave us alone now.”

The mattress shifted behind him and Vivian’s arms slithered around his middle. Her cold hands wormed beneath his shirt, palms flat against his stomach. Archer inhaled sharply, back rigid. She nuzzled her face against the curve of his neck.

“You said not to worry, right?” she hummed against his ear. “I’m not stupid. I know how to play guys like the detective into believing me.”

Yeah, she did, didn’t she?
You’ve been doing it to me all these years.
But she was still just a frightened little girl beneath it all. At the first sign that her games weren’t working, she would break down. She would leave it for him to fix…and this time he wasn’t sure that he could. Or that he wanted to.

He removed her hands from under his shirt and got up. “I need to get home.”

Vivian’s big blue eyes looked lost in such a way he almost felt bad. Almost. But they hardened a second later and the Vivian he didn’t recognize was back. “What, going to see
Evan?
I thought you were staying with me tonight.”

Archer skipped over Evan’s name cautiously. “You said
you
wanted to come over. So come over. But I need my gun.”

She
hmph
’d and looked down, picking at lint on her shirt. “I don’t have it.”

His breath hitched. “I’m sorry.
What
?”

“I don’t have it,” she repeated. “I threw it away.”

“You threw it…” He pushed a hand through his hair, gripping it too tightly. “…Okay. Okay,
where
?”

“In the ocean, duh. They can’t catch either of us with it, right? At least if they find it, they won’t know whose it is.”

His hands shook. Not from anxiousness. Not from nervousness. Anger. “Vivian… That gun was registered under
my dad’s name
. I took it when I moved out. You better hope they don’t find it, because if they do they’ll link it
right
back to me.”

“Link back to you.” The way Vivian stared at him, he realized she didn’t care.
Him.
He hadn’t said anything about her. She truly would let him take the fall for it, and maybe the most regret she’d have was that he wouldn’t be around to do her bidding anymore.

“…I need to go.” He spun away. Halfway out the door, Vivian whimpered after him.

“Archer…”

“
What?
”

“I love you.”

Her words were like a chain around his throat, jerking him to a halt, strangling the breath right out of him. He planted his hands against the doorframe. His head dropped.