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

won’t stop conjuring up what-ifs and maybes. Perhaps it’s the leaden exhaustion or the paranoia or the drugs I’m taking but my imagination feels amplified, every few seconds conjuring a new theory or suspect.

I head upstairs, deliberately avoiding looking in June’s room, and toss everything I’m wearing into the laundry bin, before showering in record time and changing into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. The jeans fall off my hips and a quick glance in the mirror shows me that I’ve lost weight – a lot of weight. My face looks gaunt, my eyes dark-circled. I hardly recognize myself and I turn abruptly away.

I let out a scream. Gene is standing in the doorway.

He jumps back in fright. I lunge at him, slapping and clawing at his face, the rage pouring out of me. He staggers away from the onslaught, holding my wrists, but still I come at him. The backs of his legs hit the bed and he tumbles down, holding up his arms to cover his face.

I kick his leg and stumble away from him, forcing myself to rein in the fury. ‘You bastard,’ I say to him. ‘You absolute bastard.’

He peeks out at me from behind the barrier of his arms.

‘I met Raul and James. I know everything. I know you’ve been dealing meth and that some money was stolen – money that you now owe. I know your father was trying to help you and now he’s in prison and he won’t say anything because he’s trying to protect us all. I know that it was you who took the photo of June and sold it to that man, that journalist. I know everything, Gene.’

His face turns ashen.

‘Did you think you could keep it all a secret?’

His face crumples. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No!’ I shout. ‘You don’t get to say sorry. The doctors want to switch off June’s life support.’

His head flies up. ‘What?’

‘Someone got into the hospital this morning and turned off her ventilator. If you’d been around you’d know this. The police think it was the same person who broke into the house. The same person who shot your sister.’

Gene stares at me. I see the shock waves pummeling him and I relish it. I want to pound him so hard with the truth of what he’s done that he collapses beneath the weight of it.

‘She went into cardiac arrest,’ I tell him. ‘They say even if she wakes up she’ll be brain damaged.’

Gene takes that in then shakes his head angrily. ‘Don’t let them. How do you know they’re right?’

‘Because they’re doctors.’

‘So? That doesn’t mean they can’t make mistakes. People make mistakes all the time.’

‘This wasn’t a mistake, Gene,’ I say. ‘You knew what you were doing.’

He drops his head and then his body starts to convulse. He curls into a ball on the bed and I realize he’s crying, sobbing like a child. I feel nothing except contempt.

‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ I say. ‘Do you?! This is all your fault. I went to see them – your friends – your drug dealer friends. They threatened me, did you know that? And your father. And your sisters.’

‘It’s OK,’ Gene says in a whisper. ‘I’m getting the money together.’

‘How? Are you going to sell more photos?’

‘No,’ he mumbles through his tears. ‘I’ve pooled all my savings, sold my car and a few things.’

‘My paintings.’

‘I’ve got thirty-two thousand,’ he mumbles, not looking me in the face.

‘How are you going to get the rest?’ I ask, doing the mental calculation. He still needs to find close to fifty thousand more dollars.

He sits up. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a plan.’

‘Yeah,’ I snort. ‘I can just imagine what kind of plan you have.’

He hangs his head in shame.

‘The people who stole the money, Gene – do you know who they were? If you have any idea you need to tell me right now, you should have already told the police.’

He shakes his head, looks up at me. ‘You think I wouldn’t have told someone if I had any idea who it was?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say, shrugging. ‘Would you have? My guess is not, because that means you’d be arrested too and God forbid you ever pay for your screw-ups or that your father or the world ever treats you like a goddamn adult.’

He laughs, a bitter snort. ‘You think I care if I’m arrested? You think I’m doing this to save my own skin?’ He stands up and paces away from me. Next thing I know, he’s whirling back around to face me, fury radiating off him. ‘You don’t think I wish it was me lying in that hospital bed? You don’t think I would trade places with June in a second? I’ve been trying to fix this! I was the one that wanted to go to the police and tell them, but Dad told me not to.’ His voice breaks. ‘We didn’t plan for any of this to happen.’ He looks quickly away, wipes the back of his arm across his mouth as if trying to cancel out what he just said.

‘What did you just say? We?’

‘Nothing.’ He turns his back to me.

‘Gene, what do you mean “we”?’

He doesn’t respond. I study the back of his head, trying to bat away the impulse I have to throw myself on him and start hitting him. Eventually he grunts something.

‘Sorry?’ I say, unsure I’ve heard him correctly.

He turns to me. ‘Dave. Dave and me. We were in business together.’

For a few seconds my brain tries to twist itself around these new facts. ‘Business?’ I ask.

He nods, eyes sliding to the floor. ‘I needed some cash up front. He put some money down about six months ago to get me started. It was just a quick buck for him, you know, a good return.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘a great return.’

Gene flinches as if I’ve lunged at him again.

‘And then he left you to swing when the money disappeared?’ I ask.

He looks up now, startled. ‘No. He’s