I twisted my arm and reached deeper into the back of the cabinet, where I found three raggedy manila envelopes that I pulled out. The thickest packet contained report cards for as many years as I had lived with my grandparents. I skimmed them with amusement. I had been a talker when I was young, but any low conduct marks were negated by As and Bs down the line after each subject. Oh, except the D in math in fourth grade. Fractions killed me.

I stuffed the report cards back into their longtime home and lifted another envelope. When a rectangular Mass card from my mother’s funeral fell out, I knew I’d hit the jackpot—if I could call articles about a murder a jackpot. Since I was in super-sleuth rather than abandoned-daughter mode, I decided I could. I pored over the words, even though I’d read an identical card hundreds of times. My own copy had been folded into a tiny square and shoved inside a pocket of my soccer uniform shorts, many years ago.

I set the card beside me and upended the envelope, emptying the contents. Various newspaper clippings and folded papers spilled onto my lap. The newspaper clippings from the Detroit Times were about my mother’s murder. One of them even contained a sketch of the might-be murderer. Though it wasn’t very descriptive, looking at it gave me goose bumps. It could have been one of millions of men. The face peering out from the newsprint didn’t look familiar at all.

I scanned the articles but they didn’t mention any names, just a description of the events of that night and a plea to readers to contact Crime Stoppers if anyone had information. I didn’t remember anything about that night, which I should consider a good thing. It was bad enough that I was there to witness it. I don’t think I could handle having the details burned into my memory.

Every article was from an inside section of the newspaper. Why hadn’t my mom’s murder been on the front page? Why hadn’t there been organized manhunts for her killer, like there were for others? What kind of murder was good enough to be the lead story on the eleven-o’clock news?

She was one of many. We didn’t live in small-town USA. Detroit was always in the running for murder capital of the country.

I picked up the Mass card from my mother’s funeral again and reread her name until my vision blurred.

I was so young when my mom died that I don’t remember anything about her. I knew what she looked like only because I’d raided all of my grandparents’ photo albums in search of her. There were no pictures of her displayed in their house. Why have a picture on display when it could increase the likelihood of someone asking about her? Especially if that someone was me, a disregarded daughter desperately craving snippets about what my mother was like when she was alive.

Had she been excited to be pregnant with me? Was she sarcastic and wisecracking like the rest of my family? Would we have fought or been best friends? What would my life have been like if I had been raised by my mom? Was it horrible and ungrateful to think that way when my grandparents had sacrificed the best years of their retirement to take care of me? Would I have loved my mom as much if she were alive as I loved her dead?

But I realized a long time ago that life moves on despite the “I wonders” and “what-ifs.” The only choice I had was to go on, hoping I’d realize that I was strengthened by it all. How long would it take to get there?

How long would it take for me to stop wishing I was the one who had died that night? How many times had I wanted to take her place, instead of being forced to live without her?

Unsure of how long I sat staring at the words printed on the back of the Mass card, I snapped back to reality when I heard a car door slam. I shoved the papers into the raggedy envelope, rammed it back into the metal cabinet, and locked it. Then I slid the key into its plastic box, attached it to the back of the cabinet, and ran around my grandparents’ bed.

As I rushed down the stairs, I smacked right into Grandpa, unable to put on the brakes in time.

“Sorry,” I apologized, taking a step back up the last stair.

“What were you doing?” he asked. He looked past me, as if someone else would appear.

“Trying on Gram’s boots,” I lied. “I wanted to wear them out this weekend.”

Lying came fairly easy for me. I didn’t do it often, but when I did, it was believable. Another defense mechanism I’d built up to hide my feelings and not allow people to get too close.

“Boots, eh? Not snooping for Christmas presents?” he asked, backing away from the staircase so I could jump off the last step.

“Come on, Dedushka! Would I do that?” I laughed.

“Of course not, Audushka,” he said and rolled his eyes. “Stay out of there until after Christmas. I know how you like to peel back the wrapping on the side of presents.”

“Geez,” I cursed, edging past him, scowling in exasperation. “I did that one time. I was eight!”

People in my family never forgot anything they could use against you later.

Chapter 8

“He was such a jerk.” Kristen leaned forward to switch the radio station as I drove us through the streets of Grosse Pointe Woods, a suburb of Detroit. She landed on the country channel.

“Country? How are we even friends?” I asked, reaching over to turn the dial back to the local alternative station. “My car, my music.” I batted her hand away as she leaned in to change the channel again.

Kristen fell back against the passenger seat. “Fitness instructor, kid lover, charitable giver. I thought he’d be like you—but a guy, you know?”

“I told you, he was only helping at the center because of some frat’s community service hours,” I said. “And for the record, I’m not sure how I feel about you comparing your dates to me.”

“Chill. It’s not like I want to jump your bones. I just thought he’d be like you, all Mother Teresa and shit.”

“Get out of my car.” I shot her a sidelong glance.

“Mother Teresa wouldn’t have talked to me like that.” She snickered and pulled down the visor to fluff her curls in the mirror.

“Well, of course not. I don’t think she had a car either.”

“Ha-ha,” Kristen deadpanned. “Have you changed your mind about doing bad things with Crazy Hair?”

“He’s a client. Viktor would kill me.” Which was true, but allowing myself to do bad things with him was no longer an option after my breakdown at Kerby Field.

Breakdown at Kerby Field had a nice ring to it. I’d have to keep that title in mind in case anyone wanted to make a made-for-TV movie based on my future book, Memoirs from the Psych Ward.

“Can I do bad things with him?”

“No!” I protested. Too quick and too loud. Was I scowling at her?

“You totally want him.”

“But I can’t have him.”

“We’ll see,” she sang. I turned up the volume on the radio.

We were on our way to pick up Scott and one of his friends whom we didn’t know. They were hitching a ride with us so they could meet up with friends of theirs in Canada. Lacy had a thing for Scott, and although she was in Marquette visiting her grandparents, we’d agreed to give him a ride anyway. I didn’t know what she saw in him. Scott was one of the biggest jerks I’d ever met.

“Hey, girls,” Scott greeted us as he climbed into the backseat. “Jeremy, girls. Girls, Jeremy.”

“Thanks for the ride,” Jeremy slurred, collapsing next to Scott.

Great. As if Scott wasn’t annoying enough, he and his buddy had already been drinking.

“Why do you go to Canada if you don’t even drink?” Scott tugged on a piece of my hair that hung over the headrest. I flicked my head to make him stop. As Lacy’s boyfriend, Scott had observed me on many nights restraining myself, and he never let a chance to tease me about it pass. He’d never graduated from seventh-grade dickhead mentality.