“The kids?”Jem asked, tipping his head toward the hall.
A hint of stubbornness hardened Lucy’s mouth, like she might insist on getting down to business.But then her shoulders softened, and she rubbed her face.“Fielding is upset; he doesn’t really understand what’s happening, although I’ve tried to explain, and he doesn’t like being cooped up with ‘the little kids.’He’s ten years old.All he knows is that the police took his dad, and his big brother won’t come out of his room.The kids stayed home from school today, but I can’t do that forever, and it’s going to be worse—” She had to stop, and she hugged herself as she drew in another breath.“I don’t even know what they’ll say to them.Whatever hurts the most, I guess.That’s how it usually is.”
“And Daniel?”Jem asked.
She shook her head.Then she cleared her throat.“I didn’t have anything to do with—with what happened.”She leaned forward, picked up a football from where it had been abandoned on an ottoman, and held it against her stomach, arms wrapped tight.“I didn’t kill Brennon.”
Tean nodded.“We know.”
“No,” Jem said.“We don’t.”Tean opened his mouth, but Jem put a hand on Tean’s knee and kept speaking.“So, start at the beginning.Tell us what happened.”
Lucy’s gaze fixed on Jem’s hand, which was still resting on Tean’s knee.Slowly, her gaze came up, and awareness flickered in her eyes.
“From the beginning,” Jem said quietly.
“I don’t know when it started,” Lucy said.
“What Brennon was doing?”
Lucy swallowed.“That’s all I could think about last night.Not about Ammon.Not if he was okay or if he was—” She raked her nails over the pebbled surface of the ball, and they made a soft, unpleasant ticking.“How did I miss it?How could this have been happening and I didn’t know?Didn’t have any idea?He’s myson.”The word was so thick in her mouth that it was almost unintelligible, and she started to cry again.She shook her head, but this time, the tears didn’t stop, and when she finally continued to speak, the words were clotted and uneven.“Daniel has always struggled with his mental health.You know.”This last bit was directed at Tean, who nodded slightly.“He’s hurt himself.Tried to—tried to kill himself.We tried medication.Prozac.Lexapro.Zoloft.Celexa.We tried combinations.Cymbalta.The doctor wanted to start him on lithium, and we had this medicine cabinet full of drugs that hadn’t done anything but make him quiet, and—and then a miracle happened.”She squeezed her eyes shut and ran her hand across her cheeks.
“What?”Jem asked.
“Ammon gave him a blessing, and Daniel got better.”
It was another Mormon thing Jem had picked up from casual exposure during his time in care—men in the church gave blessings by putting their hands on your head and saying they were giving a blessing.Sometimes if you were sick.Sometimes for other reasons.
Frowning, Tean leaned forward.“Ammon and Brennon.”
Lucy nodded, still wiping her eyes.
Tean must have seen the confusion on Jem’s face because he said, “If it’s a blessing for the sick, they always have two men.One of them anoints, and the other seals the blessing.”
“Brennon is—was—the Young Men president,” Lucy said.
“It’s a calling,” Tean said.“That’s the term for responsibilities in the church.So, he would have been in charge of organizing activities, lessons, that kind of stuff for the boys twelve to eighteen.There used to be a lot of overlap with the Boy Scouts program, but I think there’s less of it now.”
Jem nodded, but what he said was “They put this guy in charge of the teenage boys?”
“Everybody loved Brennon!”Lucy’s voice was sharp.“It’s not like anybodyknew.Do you think we’d have been okay with it if weknew?”
“What was he like?”Tean asked.
She was silent for a moment.“Charming.Funny.Personable.He and Audra—God, everyone wanted to be their friends.They’ve got this beautiful house.Their kids are…different.”And then, in a tight voice, she said, “Oh God.”
“They gave Daniel a blessing,” Tean prompted.
Lucy sat there, raking her fingernails over the football again, that soft ticking sound making the hair stand up on the back of Jem’s neck.“It didn’t happen all at once.But Daniel started going to Mutual because Brennon would pick him up.And then Daniel started hanging out with boys from church.He’d go on camping trips.He wanted to play on the church basketball team.”Her nails stopped.“Now, I wonder— I don’t even know if therewerecamping trips.I don’t know if he ever went to a friend’s house.For all I know, every time he walked out of here, he was lying to my face.But he was doing so much better.He was so…happy.I don’t think I ever wondered why Brennon was taking such an interest in him.It all seemed so natural.That was Brennon’s job, to take care of those boys.To help them.He was the answer to our prayers.”
“When did you find out what was—what Brennon was doing?”
“Daniel failed a test.Pre-calc.So, no phone.That was our rule: no phone if you can’t keep your grades up.And then Ammon walked into his room to get him for dinner, and Daniel was on his phone, texting someone, which was impossible because Ammon had locked up the phone in his desk.I wasn’t home, so I only know what Ammon told me.Daniel tried to—” Something like disbelief colored her voice.“Daniel tried to hit him.When Ammon went to take the phone, Daniel tried to fight him.Hedidhit him; Ammon showed me the bruises that night.”She had to swallow again.“Ammon said it was like he went crazy.”
“The phone?”Jem said.
“Ammon said it was a burner.You know, the kind you can buy at a gas station, and you reload with a card.There were messages on there.Pictures.”She closed her eyes; Jem wondered what she was seeing, what nightmares she was playing back for herself on a screen only she could see.“You could see Brennon in some of them.”
“Christ,” Jem said under his breath.