head against the warm spray of air. I am in Maui. I am in Tahiti. I’m on the beach and I have a tan. A handsome boy looks at me and I smile.
The dryer stops and I look in the mirror and I see her. Mom . I look just like my mother. It was unintended genius.
Hayden, awakened, seems to agree.
“I miss Mom. Do you think they found Dad?”
I indicate the second box of hair dye. “Your turn, Hayden.”
My brother knows what to do. He climbs up on the counter and lays his head in the sink as I wet his hair with lukewarm water. It reminds me of when he was a baby and Mom washed him in the sink instead of the tub. I hold onto that memory for a second. He scrunches his eyes shut as I rub in the dye. When I’m done, he will be transformed. He’ll no longer be the little boy with the shock of blond hair, the one that makes him look like he’s stepped out of the home page of a cute kids’ clothing website. While he was getting his disgusting green apple gum, I was shopping for a dramatic change, a way to erase what happened to us. To no longer be the kids we were. I didn’t really notice the name on the dye box until that very moment.
Dark and Dangerous.
I break into a smile for the first time in hours. It is a weak smile and kind of twisted, but it’s real. It makes me think of my mother—she would have laughed at my choice for Hayden’s dye job. And I would have laughed right along with her.
Chapter Four
Cash: $113.30.
Food: None.
Shelter: Ferry bathroom.
Weapons: Same crappy scissors.
Plan: Going to the bank.
THE NEXT MORNING WE SNEAK out of the bathroom. The front page of The Seattle Times stares out from the blue metal vending box and my heartbeat starts hammering like a nail gun. Fast. Despite a mostly sleepless night, I am now as awake as if I’d guzzled ten lattes in a row. The ferry smells of fresh coffee and donuts, but as hungry as I thought I was, I no longer want to eat. I cannot focus on anything—only the photographs of our house in Port Orchard and the image taken of me at the beginning of the school year.
I despised that photo back then.
I hate it even more now.
My eyes follow the headline.
PORT ORCHARD MURDER MYSTERY STUNS NEIGHBORHOOD
FATHER DEAD, MOTHER AND CHILDREN MISSING
Hayden studies the newspaper’s front page with the same intensity as I do. Glancing at him I see that his mouth is open and I’m pretty sure his expression is a genuine jaw-dropping gawk. I pull three quarters from my pocket, damp from a night in the bathroom, and slot them into the machine. The coins fall one by one. I remove all the copies of the day’s edition and, with a quick glance around me, I shove all but two in the recycling box. I hold out one for Hayden. One for me. I don’t want him hovering over me. I need to see what the reporter scraped together in the hours after our father was murdered.
We slide into a hard, molded plastic booth near the galley, across the boat from Princess Angeline’s portrait. Her beer-bottle glass eyes still penetrate mine when I look over at her, but I don’t care.
My heart is pounding and wetness blooms under my arms and wicks into the only shirt I have. But right now I feel more anxious than gross.
The victim was Rolland Cassidy, 42. Missing are his wife, Candace, their daughter, Rylee Ann, 15, and their son, Hayden Joseph, 7 …
No one ever calls us Rylee Ann and Hayden Joseph, and since neither of us had those names a very long time, they don’t incite much recognition. My photo with my old hair does, however. The picture of the house does.
The last family member seen was the 15-year-old girl, who talked to a neighbor around 4 p.m.
“Things like this don’t happen here,” said the neighbor, who preferred not to be identified. “Things like this don’t happen to nice people like the Cassidy family either . ”
I want to call Mr. Swanston, because I’m pretty sure he’s the unidentified neighbor, and tell him how this is exactly what happens to nice
The dryer stops and I look in the mirror and I see her. Mom . I look just like my mother. It was unintended genius.
Hayden, awakened, seems to agree.
“I miss Mom. Do you think they found Dad?”
I indicate the second box of hair dye. “Your turn, Hayden.”
My brother knows what to do. He climbs up on the counter and lays his head in the sink as I wet his hair with lukewarm water. It reminds me of when he was a baby and Mom washed him in the sink instead of the tub. I hold onto that memory for a second. He scrunches his eyes shut as I rub in the dye. When I’m done, he will be transformed. He’ll no longer be the little boy with the shock of blond hair, the one that makes him look like he’s stepped out of the home page of a cute kids’ clothing website. While he was getting his disgusting green apple gum, I was shopping for a dramatic change, a way to erase what happened to us. To no longer be the kids we were. I didn’t really notice the name on the dye box until that very moment.
Dark and Dangerous.
I break into a smile for the first time in hours. It is a weak smile and kind of twisted, but it’s real. It makes me think of my mother—she would have laughed at my choice for Hayden’s dye job. And I would have laughed right along with her.
Chapter Four
Cash: $113.30.
Food: None.
Shelter: Ferry bathroom.
Weapons: Same crappy scissors.
Plan: Going to the bank.
THE NEXT MORNING WE SNEAK out of the bathroom. The front page of The Seattle Times stares out from the blue metal vending box and my heartbeat starts hammering like a nail gun. Fast. Despite a mostly sleepless night, I am now as awake as if I’d guzzled ten lattes in a row. The ferry smells of fresh coffee and donuts, but as hungry as I thought I was, I no longer want to eat. I cannot focus on anything—only the photographs of our house in Port Orchard and the image taken of me at the beginning of the school year.
I despised that photo back then.
I hate it even more now.
My eyes follow the headline.
PORT ORCHARD MURDER MYSTERY STUNS NEIGHBORHOOD
FATHER DEAD, MOTHER AND CHILDREN MISSING
Hayden studies the newspaper’s front page with the same intensity as I do. Glancing at him I see that his mouth is open and I’m pretty sure his expression is a genuine jaw-dropping gawk. I pull three quarters from my pocket, damp from a night in the bathroom, and slot them into the machine. The coins fall one by one. I remove all the copies of the day’s edition and, with a quick glance around me, I shove all but two in the recycling box. I hold out one for Hayden. One for me. I don’t want him hovering over me. I need to see what the reporter scraped together in the hours after our father was murdered.
We slide into a hard, molded plastic booth near the galley, across the boat from Princess Angeline’s portrait. Her beer-bottle glass eyes still penetrate mine when I look over at her, but I don’t care.
My heart is pounding and wetness blooms under my arms and wicks into the only shirt I have. But right now I feel more anxious than gross.
The victim was Rolland Cassidy, 42. Missing are his wife, Candace, their daughter, Rylee Ann, 15, and their son, Hayden Joseph, 7 …
No one ever calls us Rylee Ann and Hayden Joseph, and since neither of us had those names a very long time, they don’t incite much recognition. My photo with my old hair does, however. The picture of the house does.
The last family member seen was the 15-year-old girl, who talked to a neighbor around 4 p.m.
“Things like this don’t happen here,” said the neighbor, who preferred not to be identified. “Things like this don’t happen to nice people like the Cassidy family either . ”
I want to call Mr. Swanston, because I’m pretty sure he’s the unidentified neighbor, and tell him how this is exactly what happens to nice
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