Free Hold Back the Dark by Eileen Carr Page A

“When did she leave? Do you remember what time?”
    Jenna gnawed on her lower lip. “We waited until Dad was watching The Daily Show rerun. That’s at like eight o’clock. So it was after that.”
    “And when did she come back?” Josh pressed. They knew she had; Norchester had told them he’d watched her walk out the door.
    “Around nine-thirty. I was getting really nervous. The Colbert Report was over and my dad could have checked on us any minute. He does that just randomly. Walks in to see what I’m doing.” She glanced at her dad again. This time the glance didn’t seem quite as loving.
    Josh looked over at Mr. Norchester, too. Apparently there was at least one parent who was keeping track of his kid. He wondered how much longer he would be able to do that. “She just snuck out and left you here? That doesn’t seem like something a friend would do. Why didn’t she take you with her?”
    Jenna’s eyes grew wide. “Do you have any idea what my dad would do to me if he caught me sneaking out? I’d be grounded until I was like thirty, and Mom promised to take me shopping on Saturday! I wouldn’t have gone with Taylor if she had begged me. Besides, I don’t like Flick. I think he’s mean.”
    Norchester suddenly slumped down into a chair and put his head in his hands. Josh supposed it could be pretty overwhelming to suddenly realize that the only reason your daughter wasn’t going to be a suspect in a murder investigation was because she was afraid she wouldn’t get to go to the mall.
    “What did Taylor do while she was gone?” Elise asked. “Did she tell you?”
    “I don’t know.” Jenna’s face went pink.
    “Jenna,” Elise said, her voice making it clear that she didn’t believe her. “What did Taylor do?”
    “She had a bottle of wine that somebody gave her dad. Her and that boy were going to go to the park and drink it and make out. Her parents wouldn’t let her see him, so she had to find ways to sneak out to see him. Her mom had figured out she was sneaking him in at night, so she’d locked Taylor’s windows and was checking on her all the time, and making her take drug tests and stuff. She said they were like the Gestapo.”
    Josh looked over at Elise. They weren’t going to get anything else from Jenna.
    Elise had clearly reached the same conclusion; she stood up from the table. “Thank you, Jenna,” she said gravely. “We appreciate your help.”
    Jenna slumped down in her chair. “I hope so. Taylor will never forgive me.” Then the waterworks started again. Mr. Norchester patted his daughter’s back while she sobbed onto his shoulder that she should have tried to stop Taylor, but she hadn’t known how, and nobody knew how mean Taylor could be now.
    Josh followed Elise out the front door. Forgiving Jenna was going to be the least of Taylor’s problems. Her alibi had just been blown, and she’d just been put back in the running as a suspect in her parents’ murder.
     

    He fingered the lamp cord in his pocket. All around him, his life went on as normal. Everyone doing everything the way they did it every day—the fools. Nothing was as it had been. Food tasted more savory. The spring air was sweeter. Sex was amazing, revelatory. Everything was better, and they didn’t even notice. They trotted along on their paths like the sheep they were.
    Almost everyone he’d ever met was a fool, with the possible exception of Orrin. He would miss him. Everyone else was a touchy-feely sack of tears and fears, a tool for him to use. But in a way, he’d been a fool as well.
    If he’d known how it would feel to take a life, he would have done it long before. The rush of adrenaline when the lamp had connected with the back of Orrin Dawkin’s head had been incredible, nearly indescribable in its wild joyousness. The feeling had coursed through his system like wildfire, making his heart pound and his breath come fast. It had felt so good, he couldn’t think of words for it. It was