Envy

chapter 45

UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYE of Annie Garnett and the stony faces of his mother and sister, Teagan Larsen slumped into a chair across from the Port Gamble police chief. The boy who wanted nothing more than to be the man of the house after his dad left suddenly dissolved into tears. If the thirteen-year-old had been on the cusp of adulthood a moment before, all of that was gone.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really, really sorry.”

Mindee was crying too. She’d set all of this in motion, and the outcome had been devastating to everyone involved.

“Honey, this is my fault,” she said.

Starla didn’t say a word. She’d seen enough cop shows to know that every utterance she made could be used against her. Starla didn’t intend to go down with the ship. She, more than anyone, had something greater to lose.

My brother is a loser. My mother, a damned hairstylist. A secondchair stylist at that!

Chief Garnett patted Teagan on the shoulder, not so much to comfort him but to keep him focused on what he had to say.

“Teagan,” she said, “I need you to tell me what happened.”

Teagan looked up with flooded eyes. “It was an accident. I swear it was.”

“Do we need a lawyer?” Mindee asked. It was the first indication that she knew that whatever it was that had transpired in Katelyn’s room was potentially the subject of a criminal investigation. Apparently, it had slipped her mind that they were sitting in the office of the Port Gamble police chief.

“Up to you,” Annie said, somewhat coolly. “We can get to the truth either way. Teagan, what do you want to do?”

“I want to talk,” he said. “I want to tell Mr. and Mrs. Berkley that I’m really, really sorry. That what happened was my fault, but it was an accident.”

His word choice was interesting: an accident, but his fault.

Annie waited for Teagan to look up. There seemed to be no guile in the boy’s damp eyes just then. Whatever he was about to disclose was going to be the painful truth.

Every rotten detail.

“Then you need to tell us what happened, okay?” Annie asked.

Mindee spoke up again. Her eyes were puffy from her own tears. Her voice creaked a little with the emotion of the moment. She had so much to answer for right then, but now it was her son’s turn and she was worried.

“Are you absolutely sure he doesn’t need a lawyer?” she asked.

“If it was an accident, there’s no need for it,” Annie said.

Mindee turned to Teagan, who up to that moment had barely looked at his mother or sister. When he did, there was no doubt what he felt about either one of them. He’d been living his life alone in house number 21. Starla was caught up in the wonderland she’d created of her own life, and her mother had dragged Jake Damon into her bed. Everyone was so busy doing whatever it was they’d wanted to do to make themselves happy. Teagan had been left to his own devices.

He’d always liked Katelyn. A lot.

Teagan looked at the chief. “I used to think that maybe, you know, if we were both the same age we’d hook up. Be boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Teagan took a gulp of air.

“When I saw those notes Jake was writing to her—at least I thought it was Jake—it made me so mad. I mean, he already had my mom and then he was going to steal Katelyn away from me too. Forget that.”

“Steal her away?” Mindee said, now touching her son’s shoulder. “She wasn’t interested in you, Teagan.”

Teagan shot his mother a frosty look and removed her hand. “Mom, you don’t know anything about me or Katelyn or anyone. Not even your precious Starla.”

“Don’t drag me into this,” Starla said. Not surprisingly, the first words out of her mouth were meant to preserve her character in a very messy situation.

“Your pregnancy started the whole thing,” he said.

Mindee gasped.

Starla shook her head. “I’m not pregnant.”

Teagan shrugged; it was a dismissive gesture and it brought a smile to his face. It wasn’t often that Starla squirmed.

“Maybe you’re not now,” he said. “But you thought you were.”

Starla looked at her mother before glowering at Teagan.

“You’d better not be,” Mindee finally said.

“Oh, shut up, Mom,” Starla said. “I wasn’t pregnant. And I’m not pregnant.”

Annie steered the conversation away from the mini family feud.

“What about the pregnancy, Teagan? What did that have to do with anything?” she asked.

Teagan grinned a little more. In that, the worst moment of his life, he’d found something that brought a smile. “I found that gross pregnancy test kit in the trash. Mom makes me take out the garbage because I’m a boy, and the garbage is too nasty a job for a princess like Starla. Like she ever lifts a finger around the house anyway. And Jake? He never does anything but come over to hook up with my mom, so I guess he’s too beat to do anything.”

“Don’t talk about Jake like that,” Mindee said.

“Mom, do you ever hear yourself? You put Jake, Starla, anybody ahead of me,” Teagan said.

Mindee, heeding some of her own advice, kept her lips zipped.

Annie pushed a can of soda in front of Teagan and the boy took a sip.

“That’s interesting, Teagan, but what about the pregnancy test?” Annie asked. “What did Katelyn have to do with it? I thought you said you found it in Starla’s trash.”

“I did,” Teagan said. “I thought it was funny. I thought if I brought it over to Katelyn’s she and I could, I don’t know, get closer because we could share something nasty about Starla. I logged on to the account and read the e-mails and chats that Jake … I mean, my mom was doing. By the way, Mom, you’re really twisted to do that to her.”

Mindee’s face turned a deeper shade of red. It was a harsh statement and she’d deserved it.

“I know,” she said, stumbling over her monosyllables. “I went a little Mama Grizzly that night.”

She didn’t want to say she was a little drunk on boxed wine when she’d started the e-mailing. That would make her sound even more pathetic than she was.

“Go on, Teagan,” Annie prodded.

Teagan swallowed the rest of his drink and asked for another. His mom would never let him have two cans of pop at home, but this was the police station and she wasn’t in charge.

“My mom spent all her money for Christmas on Jake and Starla, and I was pissed off.”

Mindee unzipped her lips. “That’s not true! I got you several wonderful things.”

Apparently, it was difficult to keep them closed.

“Do you mind, Mindee?” Annie said, cutting her off once more. “This isn’t about how fair you are to your kids, but I suspect if you were fair in your attention to them none of us would be sitting here right now.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Teagan said, clearly enjoying the focus on his mother’s child-rearing expertise—or lack thereof.

“What happened next, Teagan?”

“I pretended to be Cullen Anthony and IM’d with Katelyn and told her I wanted to come see her. That I promised to come and I had a surprise Christmas present for her.”

“The pregnancy test kit?” Annie asked.

“Right. I didn’t tell her that because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. She said her grandparents were going to leave early and I should come over at about nine. She’d leave the window unlocked. She told me how to climb up the trellis, which I already knew, because I had done it before. She didn’t know it. But I did. I guess that makes me sound like a perv, but I never spied on her. I only looked in her window when she was gone. You know, to see what she was reading or whatever so I could be a better boyfriend.”

“A secret boyfriend,” Annie said.

“Yeah, secret until I guess she realized that I cared about her.”

“So you went over there that night …”