Chapter 77 The Evidence Drop

Chapter 77 The Evidence Drop
The kitchen clock says 6:42 PM.

My mother stands by the laminate counter, her back to me. Her shoulders are sloped forward as she presses her thumbs on the edges of her plastic lunchbox container.

"I put the left over chicken in the blue bowl," she says, her voice flat with the exhaustion that always sets in before her twelve-hour shift even begins. "Don't leave the stove on if you heat it up. And make sure Leo takes his evening anti-inflammatory. He was limping on the stairs this afternoon."

"I will," I say. I am standing by the sink, holding a damp dishtowel in both hands, twisting the fabric into a tight cord around my fingers. "I'll make sure he takes it."

Leo sits at the small wooden table in the corner. His bad leg is stretched out straight beneath the table, his heel resting on the linoleum floor. He has his hands clasped over his stomach, his chin tucked into his collar. He doesn't look up when our mother speaks, and he doesn't look at me. He just stares at the salt shaker in the middle of the table.

Our mother sighs, a dry, rattling sound, and grabs her insulated lunch bag. She hooks her car keys around her index finger, the metal keychains clinking together. "I'll be back at seven-thirty tomorrow morning. Keep the deadbolt locked."

"We will," I say.

She steps toward the door, her work boots squeaking on the linoleum. She taps the doorframe once with her knuckles and steps out into the hallway.

The wood door swings shut. The brass latch clicks into the strike plate. A second later, the metallic slide of the deadbolt echoes through the small apartment as the lock falls into place.

The second the sound of her footsteps fades down the concrete stairwell, Leo moves.

He reaches into his front pocket, pulls out his black smartphone, and drops it face-up onto the center of the kitchen table.

The impact makes the glass salt shaker jump. The screen of the phone is already lit, the white glare casting a pale square onto his face.

"Look at it," Leo says.

I stay by the sink. I don't want to move. My legs feel like they have been filled with wet sand. "Leo, I have to finish the dishes—"

"I said look at it, Maya," he repeats. He doesn't raise his voice, but there is a tremor in his chin that makes me freeze. He taps the glass screen with his index finger to keep the display from sleeping.

I slowly let go of the dishtowel, letting it drop into the soapy water in the sink. I walk the four steps to the table, my sneakers sticking slightly to the floorboards. I stop at the edge of his chair and look down at the screen.

It is an anonymous message thread from a number with a local area code, but no name. There are two media files attached to the message.

The first photo is dark, but the resolution is sharp. It is Jackson’s silver sedan, parked under the yellow sodium light behind the commercial district on Tuesday night. The passenger-side window is rolled halfway down. My face is visible through the opening, my hair messy, my chin tilted up as I look at Jackson, who is partially visible in the driver’s seat. The digital timestamp in the corner of the image reads 12:04 AM.

The second photo is taken from a higher angle, likely from the parking deck across the street from the Oakhaven theater. It shows the side exit doors at 6:02 PM on Tuesday. Jackson and I are walking side-by-side. Our hands are laced together, his fingers wrapped around mine, our wrists overlapping just before we pulled them apart in the lobby.

My breath hitches, the air catching in my throat like a dry splinter. The room seems to tilt slightly to the left. "Leo—"

"Who sent me these, Maya?" Leo asks. He finally looks up at me, his eyes wide and dark, the skin beneath them bruised from lack of sleep. "They came through twenty minutes ago. No name. Just the pictures."

"I don't know," I whisper. My mind flashes instantly to Raph—to the way he watched me from his front porch, to the quiet, angry way he looked at Jackson’s car when it idled at the corner through his kitchen window. "I swear, Leo, I don't know who took those."

"But they're real," he says. He leans forward, his hands flat on the table, his chest pressing against the wood. "You were in his car at midnight. You were three towns over with him on Tuesday afternoon. Holding his hand."

"It’s not what it looks like," I start, the words coming out in a rush. "We had to meet. We had to talk about—"

"Stop lying!" Leo suddenly screams. He slams his fist down onto the table, the force of the blow making the salt shaker tip over, white grains spilling across the dark wood. "Stop lying to me, Maya! I’m not Mom. I’m not blind. You’ve been sneaking out. You’ve been lying about where you are after school. You’re back with him."

I flinch, stepping back until my calves hit the edge of the radiator. "Leo, please. Don't yell. The neighbors—"

"I don't care about the neighbors!" he shouts, his face turning red. He grips the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turn yellow. "I didn't tell Mom. Do you have any idea what this would do to her? She is working twelve hours a night at that warehouse, taking shifts at the hospital trying to pay down the interest on my clinic bills, and you are running around with the son of the man who put us in this hole!"

"Jackson has nothing to do with his father's company," I say, my voice trembling as I try to hold my ground. "He doesn't make those decisions. He didn't sign those papers."

"He has everything to do with them!" Leo roars, his voice cracking on the final word. He reaches down and grips his left thigh, his fingers digging into the stiff, deadened muscle beneath his jeans. "Look at me, Maya! Look at my leg! I can't walk down the block without taking three pills. I can't skate. I can't do anything because Arthur Thorne’s lawyers spent six months proving that the delivery van that hit my bike had the right of way. They lied. They bought off the local assessor, they paid for the private medical review that denied my second surgery, and they left us with nothing. And you are holding his son’s hand in a parking lot?"

The tears finally break, spilling over my eyelashes and running down my cheeks. I shake my head, my hands rising to cover my face. "Jackson didn't do that to you, Leo. He hates his father. He wants to get away from him just as much as we do."

"Then why is he still driving that sixty-thousand-dollar truck?" Leo sneers, his face twisting into an expression of pure disgust. "Why is he still wearing that varsity jersey? Why is he still sitting at the head table at the sports dinners while you hide in the shadow of his passenger seat like a criminal? He didn't leave his family, Maya. He’s using you."

"He's not using me!" I sob, my shoulders shaking violently. I drop my hands from my face, stepping back toward the table, desperate to make him see. "You don't know him, Leo. You don't see him when we're alone. He cares about me. He’s trying to protect me from his dad—"

"Protect you?" Leo lets out a short, vicious laugh that sounds like breaking glass. "Is that what he was doing junior year? When he took you to those cabin parties and then let his friends call you a charity case when his dad told him to break it off? He broke your heart, Maya. He left you sitting on the floor of this kitchen crying until you couldn't breathe. Have you forgotten the humiliation? Have you forgotten the way the entire school looked at you when he went back to Chloe like nothing had happened?"

The memory of junior year hits me like a physical blow. I remember the cold locker bays, the snickers from the girls on the varsity hall, the feeling of being discarded the moment Arthur Thorne threatened to pull Jackson’s car, his registration fees and buy our building.

"He had to," I whisper, my voice tiny and broken. "His dad was going to ruin him."

"And he’ll do it again!" Leo shouts, his eyes burning into mine. "The second it gets hard, the second his dad looks at his bank statements, Jackson will drop you back into the mud. He does not care about you, Maya. He cares about himself. He’s a Thorne. It’s in his blood to take whatever he wants and leave everyone else to clean up the mess."

"No," I cry, my hands wrapping around my own ribs as if I can hold my chest together. "No, he’s different now. We’re different. I love him, Leo!"

Leo stops. His chest is heaving under his shirt, his breath coming in short, raspy whistles. He looks at me, his gaze moving slowly from my tear-streaked face down to my trembling hands, and then back to the phone on the table.

The disgust on his face doesn't fade. It deepens.

"You love him?" Leo asks quietly. "After everything they did to us? After they ruined our family? You’re telling me you love him?"

"Why can't you understand?" I sob, my knees giving out slightly so I have to lean my hip against the counter to stay upright. "He’s the only person who makes me feel like I’m not just waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Why can't anyone in this family just understand that I want to be happy?"

Leo slowly pulls his bad leg back, his boot heel dragging against the floor with a dry, scratching sound. He grips the armrests of his chair and pushes himself up to his feet. He has to lean heavily on his right side, his body tilted to compensate for the stiffened joint in his left knee.

He stands there, looking down at me from his full height.

"We don't understand, Maya, because Jackson Thorne is a monster," Leo says. "His father is a monster, and he is exactly like him. He takes whatever he wants from you because he knows he can, and he doesn't care who gets hurt in the process."

He reaches down, grabs his phone off the laminate table, and shoves it back into his pocket.

"You have until Friday night," Leo says, his eyes fixing on mine one last time. "You tell him it’s over before he steps onto that ice for the qualifiers. If you don't, if you try even thinking about cheating me like you did last time, I’m showing these photos to Mom the second she walks through the door on Saturday morning. And then she can decide if we’re moving out of this place."

He turns around, his bad leg dragging slightly behind him as he walks out of the kitchen. His bedroom door shuts quietly.