Homewrecker

53 - 𝓲𝓷𝓿𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭

I spent nearly another hour at Spring's Diner with Aniston Hale, leaning over the table in between bites of the famous cheese I also ordered to answer the questions that were usually embedded in the tangles and tangents of her sentences, before she decided that she probably had enough for her podcast and asked for the check, informing me it would probably go up on the internet in a couple of weeks.

While she paid for the meal, establishing earlier that it was her treat, she told me, "You can trust Clara, by the way. I know that sounds random, probably because it is, but you can. Trust her, I mean. She's my best friend and you've spent an hour with me, you must know how difficult of a job that is."

I just nodded, watching as Andi wandered away from our table and toward the front of the restaurant. I was about to tell Aniston goodbye and follow her, when she spoke again.

"My dad was murdered about ten years ago. He was a Mexican immigrant and the police didn't really care about his care either. Bare minimum investigation there too."

"Sounds like we need a new police department."

She made a face that wasn't entirely disagreeing. "Yeah, well. But she got the cops to take another look at it a few years ago when—okay, not my story, but she did. It still hasn't been solved yet, but they found a witness last year who heard shouting and saw someone get into a car when he was killed. Unfortunately, murder investigations, especially cold ones, take a really long time to solve but she never lets anyone there forget about him again."

"I don't trust anyone at the police department, not just her. It's not a personal thing. But how am I supposed to know who's on my mom's side and who's on David's, ready to cover up whatever comes up?"

"Didn't you say that you didn't believe the theories online?" Aniston asked, pointing the pen she used to sign the check at me, her gaze narrowing slightly.

I sighed. "I don't. But the investigation would've gone public from the start if it weren't for his political reputation for this stupid election. And the fact that he paid them. It's just very obvious that's his concern, not finding who killed my mom."

"You know who's concern that is? Clara's." I looked away, resisting the urge to groan loudly. "It really is. She's a good cop, and, honestly, the only one who's been truthful with you, right? She told you about the murder investigation when your parents didn't, and she told you about the donations when Detective Marsh was trying to save his job instead. So, if she would tell you the truth about those things, which could've actually gotten her fired, why would she lie about not knowing why the investigation was kept quiet?"

I took in a breath, then felt it deflate somewhere in my lungs and slump my shoulders, feeling as the strength in my gaze wilted until it fell down to the chairs pushed back into the table. Aniston received her credit card back from the waitress and stood up, collecting her notebook and pens, stuffing them into her purse before turning to me with a soft smile. "You know, trying not to care is more exhausting than actually letting yourself care."

She left before I could've countered, although I wasn't sure that I would've even if she had given a couple of seconds to consider a response, and I ambled over to the front of the restaurant where I saw glimpsed Andi a few minutes ago. She was standing in front of the wall of names, crouched behind one of the emptied tables and tracing the list of names with her fingers. When I approached her, she pointed to one of the names near the table leg.

"I found yours," she told me, tapping her manicured nail against my name etched into the wallpaper in blue ink. I only looked at it for a split second, searching the names written around it in multicolored types of ink before I found hers. Just above it, like I remembered it. "That's your mom's, right?"