Every Inferno Read online

  And problems

  I have responded to these words

  With a fire of my own

  Fire that brings more words

  Of bad news,

  Of anger,

  Of problems

  But I am trying

  To move away from the fire

  And you keep coming with me

  And your words are the right ones

  And sometimes you make

  Unbreakable cycles seem breakable

  The group started clapping, and JJ let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

  “I NEVER realized just how stupid-boring Moreville is.”

  JJ had to laugh at that. They were in the library a week later, once again scouring the newspapers from the weeks after the fire, looking for any other little clues they could find—and it was true, their town was dead boring. JJ was pretty sure he’d lose his mind if he had to read one more piece about a bake sale or a grandson who came all the way from New Hampshire to visit their grandparents. Barf.

  “Huh.” JJ clicked on an icon for a headline from the local paper that he’d never noticed before.

  CLOTHING STORE OWNER MOVES ON AFTER LOSING HER PARTNER

  MOREVILLE—These days, Darryl Lane knows a few things about fighting grief by keeping busy. As she balances a baby on her hip while waiting on a customer at her used clothing store, Second Time Around, one can’t help but think that she could use some help around the place.

  One would be distressed to know that Lane had plenty of help just a month ago—until she lost both her business partner and best friend to the Bijou Street Movie Theater fire.

  Lane, along with Marilyn Jones, has owned Second Time Around for almost four years. The business has thrived in the small community of Moreville, where people always seem eager to sell old clothes as they buy used ones. Three weeks ago, the staff of Second Time Around was rocked when it learned that Jones, along with her husband, Jacob, had been in the Bijou Theater during the fire and had not survived.

  “I’m still in shock,” Lane says about learning the news. “Marilyn and I have known each other for well over fifteen years. We went to school together. Opening this store was a culminating moment in both of our lives. We were so proud of it; so proud of each other. I still can’t believe she’s gone.”

  Lane celebrates the life of her lost best friend in many ways, particularly through her children. Lane currently has custody of Jones’s young daughter, Penny, the baby she often brings to work with her these days. Lane has already vowed to adopt Penny and raise her alongside her two sons. Jones’s son Jacob, age five, was badly burned in the Bijou fire and is currently recovering in Moreville General. Darryl is planning to adopt him as well.

  “We know it will be a long road for JJ,” she says of his recovery. “He witnessed some terrible things that day. I’m confident my family can become the support he needs right now.”

  As for keeping the store open during such a difficult time? “I never even considered closing it,” Lane says with a slight smile. “I know how much it means to Marilyn that I keep it open. For her.”

  JJ gagged a little, but he forced himself to examine the picture at the bottom again. There were four people in it. JJ easily recognized three of them. One was dating his aunt right now. One was a younger, but no less menacing-looking, Darryl. The last face he knew held the beautiful and soft smile he remembered so well: his mother’s. One was a stranger.

  He focused his blurring eyes on the caption below: The staff of Second Time Around, together at a party two weeks ago. From left, Darryl Lane, Lucas O’Dell, Marnie Sanfras, and Marilyn Jones.

  Marnie Sanfras? Who was that? JJ had certainly never heard of her. Of course, he’d never heard of Lucas O’Dell until two weeks ago.

  “Hey, McKinley? Do you think this woman is worth checking out?” JJ pushed the ledger over to McKinley and tapped the picture.

  McKinley read the caption. “Interesting. She worked with your mom and Lucas?”

  “Yeah. I still don’t trust him. I’m probably just crazy and paranoid, I know. Darryl said herself Lucas doesn’t have a tattoo.”

  McKinley considered that. “Still, there’s something about him that bugs you. Maybe it’s even just that he knew your mom and you didn’t know him. Talking to this Marnie woman—about Lucas or your mom—might help somehow. Maybe.”

  “Maybe.” JJ shrugged again. “How am I supposed to find her, though? I mean, I doubt she still lives here.”

  McKinley scoffed. “JJ, we’ve just spent the last three hours realizing how tiny-ass our town is, and you’re worried we won’t be able to find this chick?” He shook his head. “So much for me thinking you were some amaze-balls detective. We’ll go ask my mom.” He pushed back the hard-backed library chair and stood up, stretching. “She knows everyone in this town.”

  JJ fidgeted. “Uh, sure. Go for it. Call me and tell me what you find out?”

  McKinley laughed. “Oh no. You think you’re getting out of it that easily? You’re coming too, Buster. Why are you so afraid of my parents, anyway?”

  “Not afraid,” JJ mumbled. No, a nervous wreck was more like it. McKinley’s parents were just so… nice. So put together, always smiling at JJ and offering him cold drinks. JJ spent every moment he was around them certain that at any moment they’d realize he was an ex-alcoholic screwup who was corrupting their son and ship him out of their home. “I have a lot of homework,” he whined.

  “Nope.” McKinley shook his head. “We do this detective thing together, JJ. Let’s go.”

  “Fine,” JJ grumbled. “But can we stop off at the hospital on the way there? I have to pick up the schedule for my community service next week.”

  “I thought you finished your hours.”

  “I did. But they still need people. So I offered to stay on.”

  McKinley’s eyes widened. “Jacob Jasper Jones, if I wasn’t worried that you’d completely flip out if I did it in public, I’d stick my tongue down your throat right now.”

  That made JJ laugh… and silently thank McKinley for not doing it. He might be coming to terms with liking guys, but he wasn’t ready to tell the world about it the way McKinley did.

  McKinley came into the hospital with him and waited patiently while one of the nurses found JJ’s schedule. “Thanks for staying on with us, JJ,” she told him. “We’re really short people right now.”

  “Yeah,” said JJ. He told her good-bye and nearly ran right into Jeremy when he turned around.

  “JJ,” Jeremy nodded. “Nice to see you. Who’s this?”

  “This is McKinley,” JJ told him. “McKinley, this is Jeremy, one of the physical therapists here. McKinley, is uh… my boyfriend.”

  It was the first time he’d ever used the words, and he was surprised to hear them come out of his mouth.

  McKinley nudged him. “Dude, I appreciate you actually getting the words out, but it will be a lot nicer to hear when you don’t sound like you’re being tortured into saying them.”

  Jeremy barked out a laugh, and JJ looked at him in surprise. The entire time he’d been working there, he had never even heard Jeremy chuckle.

  Jeremy caught his glance and shrugged. “I remember those days.” He shook his head. “You guys have… fun. Have a fun day.” He walked off, and McKinley and JJ headed to McKinley’s house to keep “working the case,” as McKinley liked to say.

  Sure enough, McKinley’s mother knew who they were talking about. She told them that she had gone to school with Marnie’s sister, and she was pretty sure Marnie still lived on Willow Street in the house with the cow mailbox. Then she insisted JJ stay for dinner, and he spent the whole time terrified he was going to spill spaghetti sauce all over her tablecloth, and McKinley spent the whole time “accidentally” brushing him on the knee, trying to make exactly that happen.

  But there were plenty of good parts about the evening. Like the fact that no matter how nervous JJ got, he didn’t want a drink once the entire night.
Not with McKinley sitting there next to him, smiling sideways at him in between bites.

  CALLING WOULD have been easier, JJ thought, as he looked up miserably at the large gaping green house in front of them. It was the Saturday morning after they’d found the article. Snow had been coming down hard all night, and JJ had been planning to sleep in, but McKinley wasn’t having any of that. “We know where she lives,” he had told JJ the night before as he insisted that they meet at 9:00 a.m. “We need to get on this clue right away.”

  JJ had looked at him incredulously. “You’re not Alex Cross, you know,” he’d said.

  “Who’s Alex Cross?” McKinley had asked.

  JJ shuffled his way up the stairs and toward the doorbell. All night long he’d been rehearsing what he might say to this woman he’d never even heard of, this woman who supposedly knew his mother. And he still wasn’t sure what he was going to say.

  “Hello?” The woman who answered the door was a little younger than his mom would have been, maybe in her thirties. She was mousy-looking, with brown hair and a sort of slumped expression, but she was definitely the woman from the photo.

  When a few moments of silence made it clear that JJ wasn’t going to be saying anything anytime soon, McKinley finally spoke. “Hello, Ma’am. I’m McKinley, and this is JJ. We’re here because we heard you used to work at Second Time Around.”

  The woman’s face suddenly rewrote itself with surprise, recognition, and regret. “Marilyn’s son,” she whispered.

  JJ wasn’t surprised when they were invited in.

  “I had heard that Darryl adopted both you and Penny,” Mrs. Sanfras said, pouring soda into cups for both McKinley and JJ as they sat in her living room. “But you said you’re living with your aunt?”

  “Yeah.” JJ shrugged. “I tried living with Darryl, but we didn’t get on too well. She did adopt Pen, though, Mrs. Sanfras.”

  She snorted. “Call me Marnie. And that woman’s an ice queen. I hope she’s treating Penny better than she treats every other person on the planet. You’re lucky to have escaped her grasp, JJ.”

  JJ decided he liked Marnie Sanfras.

  “Darryl is… well, you know what she can be like. It was your mother who hired me, you know, and I adored her. I was fresh out of college, back living with my parents, and I couldn’t seem to find a job as a teacher, which was what I really wanted to do. Working for your mother was nice in the interim. She loved Darryl, and insisted to me that I just never got to see the kinder side of her. And I swear to this day that I never did. That woman showed me almost no respect. After the fire, I quit that job within a month.”

  “Why didn’t Darryl like you?” McKinley asked, reaching for another cookie.

  “I suspect it started when I couldn’t get along with her brother, Lucas. He was in college, taking courses at UVM, and your mother and Darryl hired him on part-time. Man was a pain. Did nothing but moon after your mother all day. Of course, she was a saint about it—always kind when she put him off, never complained to Darryl. Still, I thought it was obnoxious, and I wasn’t shy about saying something to him. He hated me after that.”

  JJ almost spit out his soda. “Mooning? You mean… he had a crush on Mom? She was married! With two kids!”

  “Yes, yes, I know. He did, too. Lord knows your father dropped by often enough to visit. But the boy was obsessed. He followed her everywhere, picked up extra shifts when she’d be working. Marnie’s eyes suddenly grew sad. “She was an amazing woman, JJ, I’ll give Lucas that. I’m sorry you didn’t get to know her better.”

  JJ kept his gaze on his soda. “Yeah. Me too.”

  He’d forgotten what he was going to say next, but he was saved by McKinley. “Listen, you don’t know if Lucas had any tattoos, do you, Mrs. Sanfras?”

  “Tattoos?”

  “Yeah.” Now JJ stepped in. “It’s kind of why we’re here. See, I’ve been having this dream, and I’m pretty sure it’s of the arsonist. And in it, he has this tattoo of a paintbrush. I met Lucas for the first time recently, and he has a cast covering his whole hand, so I can’t tell if he does or not. And my aunt says it’s crazy to think someone like Lucas would do something like that, but….”

  Mrs. Sanfras frowned. “Are you asking if he could be the arsonist, JJ? I don’t think so.” She set down her drink. “I never thought Lucas was right in the head, JJ. Chasing after your mother the way he did, some of the strange things he said.” She frowned. “When he and I did have a disagreement, or whenever he became upset, he would do especially strange things. Pace the store talking to himself. Very odd. Still, do I think he could do such a thing to all those innocent people?” She shook her head. “That’s much harder to believe.

  “I can tell you that I never saw such a tattoo on his hand. However, his right hand and wrist were bandaged in the days just before the fire. When I asked him what happened, he refused to tell me. He just said he’d had an accident.”

  McKinley cleared his throat. “You mean… bandaged up like they do after someone gets a tattoo?”

  Mrs. Sanfras seemed to be carefully keeping her voice even. “Yes, I suppose. Yes indeed.”

  All three of them were silent for a moment.

  “JJ,” Mrs. Sanfras finally said, “I suppose it’s admirable, this desire you have to find the person who wronged your family. Still, I feel I should add here that it is highly unlikely Lucas is the culprit. Yes, I’ve always thought some counseling would be good for him, and yes, I can’t say for certain he did not get a tattoo before the fire. But I can confirm that Lucas cared very deeply for your mother. It’s hard to imagine him doing anything to harm her.” JJ nodded. What she was saying made sense. So why was this meeting only further convincing him that Lucas was the arsonist? Mrs. Sanfras smiled and patted his hand. “You know, I’ve requested to have Penny in my class next year.”

  “You teach at Penny’s school?”

  “I sure do. I was hoping to have you as a student as well, but you ended up at the other elementary school in Moreville, didn’t you?”

  JJ nodded. “You should probably be glad. All my teachers hate me.”

  McKinley shook his head. “Not true,” he said. “Our creative writing teacher loves him.”

  “That makes sense.” Mrs. Sanfras stood and took JJ’s face in her hands. “You have your mother’s intensity, but you also have your father’s face. And your father, you know, was a poet.”

  “What?” JJ had never heard that before.

  “Well, more of a songwriter, I suppose. He had a small band; they often played in bars around here. He wrote all the lyrics.”

  JJ was floored. Maggie had never mentioned anything about this. “Why didn’t I know that?”

  “The band stopped playing after you were born. Jasper was obsessed with being a good father—insisted on putting you and Penny first. He always said he’d take up playing again when you were a little older.”

  “My father was a singer? And he wrote the songs?” JJ whispered.

  “He certainly did. JJ, I would have liked very much to have had you as a student.” Mrs. Sanfras winked. “I like a good challenge, you know.”

  THE WEEK after the visit to Mrs. Sanfras wasn’t a great one for JJ’s grades. His mind was definitely anywhere but his schoolwork. It was on Lucas, and theaters, and tattoos, and cycles, and sometimes on McKinley, but definitely not on geometrical equations or writing history essays.

  And it wasn’t a great time for that kind of thinking, because the semester was almost over, and midterms were coming.

  A quiz in English class proved that JJ’s recent successes might not even show up in his final semester grades: D+. His teacher smiled apologetically as she handed out papers to the students exiting her class, and she said something about how he’d been on the right track and he shouldn’t let a slip like this get him down. He ignored her, snarled at the paper in his hand, and went off to find Lewis. He needed a drink. Then he remembered he didn’t drink anymore, and he went off to find McKinley inst
ead.

  Only McKinley was in class, like the good student that he was, and he was ignoring JJ’s texts—because good students never answered text messages in class. But Lewis wasn’t a good student, and he eagerly met up with JJ at the bathroom on the second floor.

  Lewis was stoked that JJ had texted him. “Let’s get out of here and go do something. I was worried you were getting boring; we haven’t partied in, like, forever,” he told JJ as they snuck out a back door of the school. JJ had never told Lewis that he’d joined AA, so he just shrugged.

  A few blocks away from the high school was an older, abandoned building that had once been an elementary school. It still had an old swing set next to it, and JJ knew from experience that it was a decent place to get away to during the afternoon without anyone else noticing. Most of the people who lived in that area were at work during the day, and Lewis’s house was on the way there. Which made it easy to stop and grab a bottle of tequila from his father’s liquor cabinet.

  At the park, Lewis drank, and JJ stared at the bottle when Lewis offered it to him. “Uh… maybe I shouldn’t.” JJ stood up and paced around in front of the swing set. McKinley would be so pissed. But McKinley wasn’t around, either, and that stupid spring had itself completely wound up over that D+.

  Lewis snorted. “Should’ve known. You’ve been a total pussy lately.”

  “Screw you.” JJ grabbed the bottle.