Spilled Blood by Brian Freeman Page A

it’s even worse here because we don’t have the resources to deal with it. We’re all in the crossfire.” She looked into the dining room where the torn curtains billowed in through the broken window. “Literally.”
    “Olivia is going to pay the price for this war. Michael Altman is going to come down hard on her. If she didn’t do it, I need to figure out what really happened that night.”
    “I wish I knew.”
    “Did you see her go out on Friday?”
    “No, she’s become an expert at slipping out without me knowing. It’s worse with the chemo. I go to bed and sleep like the dead.”
    It was an unfortunate turn of phrase, but Chris let it go.
    “You said she’s been keeping secrets. Do you have any idea what she’s hiding?”
    “I don’t. She shuts me out. She’s a deep, deep ocean, Chris. She’s not a little girl anymore.”
    “Did she ever talk about Ashlynn Steele?”
    He was surprised to see Hannah hesitate, as if the question made her uncomfortable. She took a long time to answer. “Sometimes. Ashlynn was the enemy for kids around here.”
    “Which kids?”
    “Make a list. There are at least forty kids between the ages of thirteen and nineteen here in St. Croix. Any one of them would blame Ashlynn for who her father is. It was terribly unfair.”
    He couldn’t help his first thought: You’re taking Ashlynn’s side when our daughter is accused of killing her? Then he realized that Hannah was right. He was being unfair, like the others. Ashlynn was dead. She was the victim.
    Hannah got up abruptly, cutting off their conversation. She took their coffee mugs, put them in the sink, ran water over them, and wiped the mugs with a towel. Without looking back at Chris, she said, “I’m sorry, I know I’m not being much help. I appreciate your coming here for Olivia.”
    “I wouldn’t have done anything else.”
    She turned around, and her eyes were warmer. She studied him up and down. “You’re looking good, Chris. You’ve lost weight. Good for you.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Are you involved with someone?”
    “No.”
    Hannah looked genuinely sad. “Still addicted, hmm?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “There are a lot of drugs that control people. For some it’s cocaine or alcohol. For you it’s adrenaline. Money. Work. Deals. It doesn’t matter what you inject. It’s still addiction.”
    He felt himself getting angry. He’d heard this before, but he tried not to fire back the way he had in the past.
    “We’ve been down that road, Hannah,” he said softly.
    She stopped herself, biting her lip, as if she realized it was too tempting to fall into old habits. “Yes, you’re right,” she agreed. “We have.”
    Chris returned to the town of Barron at ten o’clock. He found his motel room wrecked.
    The door hung ajar, splintered where someone had kicked it in. Inside, his clothes had been knifed into shreds and strewn like confetti around the room. The papers he’d gathered about the case had been stuffed into a garbage pail and burned. The room stank of melted plastic, and the carpet had a singed hole, revealing charred floorboards. Multi-colored spray paint made streaks around the walls and across the bed linens.
    Someone had used a black marker to write on the bathroom mirror.
    Fuck Olivia Hawk. Fuck St. Croix.
    He tried to put himself inside the heads of teenagers who could feel such primal rage, and he couldn’t. He didn’t get it. All he could see was the work of animals.
    The motel owner, Marco Piva, stood beside Chris. “I am so sorry, Mr. Hawk,” Marco told him. “My house is a couple hundred yards behind the motel. I didn’t hear anything until the fire alarm started going off. I ran down here, but the bastards were already gone.”
    “It’s not your fault, Marco,” he said.
    “I’ve called the police.”
    Chris thought about Hannah’s dismissive attitude toward the police and realized she was right. There was no protection. There was nothing to be done. “I’ll deal