The Departed

“Then he told me I had to start standing up for myself, too. He might not always be around—said something like, ‘The bullies stop when you make it clear you won’t be a target, Tiff. So why are you being a target?’
    “I stopped being a target.” She pushed a hand through her hair, her hand shaking. “He was right. It’s not always easy and I get into fights some, but most of them have figured out that I’ll fight back now. I’m even more likely to, with him gone.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Because I have to,” Tiffany said simply. “He got in a lot of trouble for that—almost got kicked off the team—he could have lost his scholarships and he knew that, and even though my parents understood, they grounded him for three weeks. But he did it for me. And now he’s gone—I owe it to him.”
    “Maybe you owe it to yourself,” Dez said, her heart breaking. She understood, better than the girl knew. But she doubted the girl would get that—kids always thought they had a lock on unique problems. And it didn’t matter, anyway. Not in the long run. She could understand without the girl realizing she did relate, all too well.
    “You know, your brother doesn’t sound like the type who’d take the easy way out. He just doesn’t.”
    “No.” Tiff reached up, wiping away a tear, leaving a black smear of eyeliner. “But he left that damn note…and it’s his handwriting, you know?”
    A shiver raced down her spine only seconds before she heard Tristan’s voice.
    “It’s not my damn handwriting. I can tell you who wrote the note, although the fucker will lie about it.”
    Meeting Tiffany’s eyes once more, she smiled. “Thanks for talking to me. I appreciate it.”
    She kept quiet until the girl disappeared from sight, saying nothing, not even looking at the ghost standing next to her.
    Then, still keeping her gaze focused straight ahead, she murmured, “Well, then, you need to tell me who he is. Where I can find him—and Tristan, we need to move quickly if you’re right about them killing some girl. I don’t want another person to die if I can help it.”
    She felt his rage—felt it in the sharp cold that cut through to her bones—felt it in his misery.
    “His name is Kyle Spalding. He used to be one of my best friends.”
    “And how do you know he wrote the note?”
    From the corner of her eye, she could see the derisive smirk on his face.
    “Because that’s what he does. He forges handwriting—it’s, like, his thing .”
    * * *
     
    TAYLOR Jones knew he shouldn’t be doing this.
    Twenty-five years had passed since he’d lost this child. The first one he’d failed…
    Logically, he couldn’t carry this burden, but logic and the heart, logic and grief, they didn’t mingle well.
    He’d been fourteen, after all, and he hadn’t even been watching her—he’d been at school. Football practice, something he hadn’t wanted to do, but it was expected, after all.
    He was a Jones and the men did sports.
    Just like the women learned to cross-stitch and cook and marry the right sort of man.
    Even though Anna had only been six, she’d already begun learning both skills, while their mother drilled into her head all the needed bullshit about what sort of clothing she should wear, how she should sit and speak and act…at age six.
    Personally, Taylor had thought it was all a bunch of bullshit, Anna expecting to “marry well” as the main goal in her life—it was so fucking archaic, straight out of something from a book in a time long past, he’d always thought.
    But their family had a lot of bygone traits and skills.
    Like his father’s habit of keeping a piece on the side.
    His mother’s habit of ignoring it.
    A functioning alcoholic, that’s what Elsa Jones had been, floating through their grand house, sipping her cocktails and pretending to be the happy wife at all the social functions, just as a good mayor’s wife should.
    It all fell apart after Anna disappeared. Sweet, pretty little Anna—his baby sister, somebody who had made him laugh. Made them all laugh, even Mother at times. But then Anna had disappeared and everything changed.
    His father tried, Taylor knew. The old man did his damnedest and Taylor, at least, had that. But Elsa…a couple of years after it happened, Elsa took one of her cocktails and made it special.
    She never woke up.
    Taylor wasn’t entirely sure he had even grieved over her death. Harsh, strident words still echoed in his ears all these years