Chapter 56: chapter twenty-five-2

"Stop calling me Clare!" He flinched, glancing away from me. I wondered then, with a sickening feeling spreading out from my chest, if I reminded him of her, like how Brandon Tomlin always reminded me of his brother. The same eyes watching, even if they weren't actually there. "Sorry," I said quietly. "Can you just—" I nudged the cardboard box with my boots until it reached one of the front tires of Wilson's van. My hands were shoved into my pockets. I was afraid that if I touched it, my fingerprints would cling to it and the evidence would condemn me as much as it did her. But I couldn't leave it there. And it wasn't until I stood at the bumper of his van, my eyes focusing on the fruitless apple orchard in front of me, that I realized where I needed to go. "Can you take me somewhere else?" I asked Wilson. "Like the police station." "You want to take this to the—?" "Yes," I said, noticing that even though he had taken his keys from his pocket, he'd made no move to unlock the van. "We don't have to tell them about you and her. We just need to take this in. This knife could be the one she used to kill Elizabeth Monner." When Wilson still didn't look convinced, that glint from earlier in the school parking lot back in his eyes, I took a step closer to him. "She's one of us. But unlike us, she never got away. Her nightmare did. And we have to do something about that." "We're not talking about some random pervert, Clara. It's Emily, your sister. She could be in prison for the rest of her life because of some of the stuff in there." I nodded, reaching down and grabbing the box through the sleeves of my coat. "I know." The engine was running when I opened the passenger door at the police station. Wilson's fingers were almost dancing along the steering wheel as he gazed at the building in front of him through the windshield. An anxiousness swirled into the indigo of his eyes as he took it in, the red-brown bricks and white pillars apparently as intimidating to him as they were to me. I slowly slid out of the van, something occurring to me as I did. "Why did Bex believe you?" I looked down at the cardboard box I had grabbed from the dashboard, shrugging, my glasses sliding down my nose a little. "She didn't believe me when I told her about Griffin. And if she could believe you, then I don't get why she couldn't believe me." Wilson leaned into his seat. I almost thought he had no answer. No idea why Bex would choose to believe him but not me. "Bex is one of those people who needs proof of everything. But she comes around. It just takes her a minute." There was something in his voice, a softness, something so unusual to hear coming from him. But then I remembered all the other things I'd learned about Wilson that day, and it felt slightly less surprising. "But for the record, I think she does believe you. I think what was so unbelievable to her wasn't that it was Griffin Tomlin or whatever. It was that she'd had no idea." He frowned. "People think you're supposed to notice those things. They expect it to be obvious. And when it isn't, they're ashamed. And you think they're ashamed of you, when actually they're ashamed of themselves for never seeing it in the first place. That's why Bex, and your boyfriend, need a minute." "I don't think he needs just a minute," I whispered, my voice thick. "What if he blames me for Griffin dying? Or he does believe me but he's so—so disgusted by that he can't even . . ." "He probably is disgusted," he replied, and even though I knew this was true, I shot him a look. "He should be. But he's not disgusted with you, or anything you did. You're probably the last person he's disgusted with right now, Clara. People don't always react in the best ways when they're caught off guard, but if they care about you, they'll find a way to make things right. And Kolby cares about you. A lot." "If you believe all that, then come with me inside the police station. Tell them what happened between you two." He shook his head. "That's . . . different. I know it sounds like an excuse, but it isn't. People are going to believe a pretty young girl way sooner than some borderline alcoholic punk with a record. That's just how it goes." I let out a sigh, turning to hop down from the van. "I get what you mean," I said to him, about to close the door, "and thanks for calling me pretty, I think—but no one believes me either." He made a face, one that looked sort of apologetic. "I didn't—" I nodded. "I know. But for a borderline alcoholic punk, you've got a couple of people who already believe you. That's a start, right?" "You're stalling." "I know. But still. It's just something to think about." The inside of the police station was always brighter than I expected it to be whenever I walked inside. When Emily had still been just a suspect in Griffin Tomlin's murder and the police brought all of us there for interrogations, I remembered thinking that everything would be darker, with minimal windows and unsmiling faces everywhere I turned. Instead the walls were a cream color, gleaming white tiles stretched out over the floor, and now, months later, cheap St. Patrick's Day decorations decked the lobby. There were even a couple of black leather couches near the windows in the waiting room, and they had a television mounted in the corner. The receptionist looked up from her computer, her artificial nails clacking at the keyboard, and smiled when she spotted me coming through the doors. "Can I help you?"