In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson (ebook reader for pc and android TXT) 📕

Robert did put the trash out then, he just never put it in the cart. Why? The only thing I can think is that he was walking over to do it but got distracted – maybe by Gene coming out of his apartment and disappearing like a thief down the drive. Perhaps he went to investigate. But why didn’t Robert just tell Nate this? Why let them make a wrong assumption? This one small detail could help clear his name. He wasn’t lying about it. But, I think to myself, dampening my own excitement, even if he isn’t lying about that, he did still meet those men – there’s no denying the photographic evidence – and what the hell was that about?

I head back inside, holding the trash bag. I need to call Nate and let him know.

As soon as I walk back into the kitchen I hear a creaking sound from overhead, which makes me freeze mid-step and stare up at the ceiling. It’s coming from June’s room.

It can’t be Gene as I would have heard him coming back in the car, and Hannah has been staying at Laurie’s, having refused to set foot in the house again, so I know it’s not her. My heart smashes into my ribs, trying to escape my chest. Get out of the house, the voice in my head commands. I put the trash bag down and tiptoe to the back door, then remember that I don’t have a car. Gene has it.

My eyes land on the knife block and I draw a knife from it – not the carving knife, which is no longer there, but a small meat cleaver Robert uses for hacking up slabs of steak before he puts them on the grill – and then I pull out my cell phone and start to dial 911.

There’s only silence overhead now and I wonder if I’m going mad, hearing things, echoes from before. Another creak followed by a loud, high-pitched shriek – a girl’s shriek – interrupts me. Dropping the phone, I run to the bottom of the stairs, and haul myself up them.

‘No!’ a girl screams and I recognize the voice. Hannah!

I skid to a halt on the landing outside June’s room. Hannah’s standing with her back to me in the middle of the room, but when she hears me she turns in alarm.

‘Mom,’ she says, putting a hand to her heart. ‘God, you gave me such a fright.’ She double-takes. ‘Why are you holding a meat cleaver?’

‘What? What are you doing?’ I pant. ‘I heard you scream.’

Hannah holds something up in front of her face.

My hand flies to cover my mouth. ‘George.’

The hamster dangles by its tail from her thumb and forefinger. His little body is limp, his mouth open in a tiny rictus grin. ‘We forgot to feed him,’ she says.

Big fat tears start falling down my face. ‘Oh God,’ I sob, collapsing down onto the bed. ‘George. Poor George.’

Hannah is right there, arms around me, hugging me, as though I’m the child and she’s the mother. ‘It’s not your fault, Mom,’ she whispers. ‘You were in the hospital. I told Gene to feed him.’

I look at the dead hamster lying on the carpet and start to cry even harder. ‘What will June say when she wakes up?’

‘We’ll buy her a new one,’ Hannah tells me. ‘She’ll never know.’

Of course she’ll know, I think to myself. She’s not five. We can’t pull the wool over her eyes like we did that time with the goldfish.

I lean against Hannah. ‘What kind of a mother am I?’ I ask her.

‘It’s not your fault,’ she says. ‘It’s Gene’s.’

‘Stop blaming him for everything.’

‘Stop excusing him for everything.’

‘I don’t . . .’

Hannah huffs and her arm drops from my shoulder. She stands up and crosses to George’s cage. ‘It’s not like we could have taken him when we leave here anyway,’ she mutters, and for a moment I think she’s talking about Gene before realizing she means the hamster. ‘I mean, we don’t even know where we’re going.’

‘You’re going back to college,’ I tell her.

Hannah looks at me. ‘How? I can’t pay my rent, let alone the tuition.’

‘We’ll figure it out,’ I tell her.

She shakes her head. ‘How?’

‘We’ll take a loan.’

She shakes her head. ‘What’s the point? Unless I become a lawyer, which I have no intention of doing, why would I get myself over a hundred thousand dollars in debt? I’ll never be able to pay it back.’ She puts her hands on her hips. ‘I’m not going back to New York.’

‘Yes, you are,’ I say angrily.

She shrugs at me, mind made up. ‘I’m not taking a loan,’ she says, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘And besides, I can’t leave you here with June in the hospital and Dad in prison. How can I go back and pretend like my life is the same when it isn’t? Nothing’s the same. It’s never going to be the same again.’

I open my mouth but she cuts me off. ‘I’ve decided, OK? So don’t bother trying to talk me out of it.’

I close my mouth. It’s her life, I suppose, and what am I going to do? Force her to go? I’m too tired to even try. ‘OK,’ I say quietly. ‘We can talk about it again later, when everything is back to normal.’

Normal. As though that’s ever going to happen. There is no normal anymore. There never will be. I sink back down onto the bed and for a few moments we both just contemplate the room. It’s still an utter pigsty, and now it smells of one too, the gut-churning stink of rotting hamster filling my nostrils. My head drops into my hands. When June wakes up we’ll have to tell her not only that her hamster is dead and her dad is in jail but that she can’t go home either, that she doesn’t have a home to go home to. For once I’m actually grateful she’s not awake.

‘We need