Page 20 of A Sea of Unspoken Things

I plucked yellow and green highlighters from the desk and set myself up at the kitchen table so I could start on Johnny’s bank statements. They were surprisingly thin, with only a handful of deposits each month and a fraction of the transactions I usually had on my own accounts.

The payments from CAS were easy to find, two consecutive numbers that showed up regularly, and I highlighted them in green. The first was $1,200.00, the monthly stipend paid to Johnny for his position on the project. The second was $860.00, which was designated as grant funds to be used for research and issued quarterly. These were the sums Quinn needed documentation on, but there was a lingering worry in my mind that it wouldn’t be that easy. That there would be some evidence of mismanagement or bending of the truth because, well, that was Johnny. Any missing funds, I’d cover or account for myself before the documentation went to CAS, because that’s what I always did. I covered for my brother. I’d been doing it for my entire life.

Growing up, Johnny had gotten the bad-twin rap early on. More than once he’d been caught stealing something at the market, andwhen we were teenagers, he’d gotten fired from his first job because he’d swiped cash from the till.

I’d seen it in the way adults looked at us, and even talked about us. Like I was the good half and Johnny, the bad. But what people had never understood about my brother was that he was just willing to do what he thought he had to and there weren’t many lines he wouldn’t cross to make those things happen. He didn’t care about perception or reputation. It was like he’d been born without that hardwiring the rest of us had—the instinctive fear that made you need to belong.

Once, I’d heard a teacher describe Johnny as a solitary species, like one of the animals who don’t live in packs or exist in any kind of societal structure. To Johnny, life was very simple. He only belonged to himself, and his only job was looking after me. The problem was, at some point that became my only job, too—looking after Johnny. And that wasn’t a simple task.

I worked my way through each of the bank statements, using the yellow highlighter to mark transactions that might have been project expenses. Some I’d have to run by Quinn to check their eligibility, but between the receipts I ran across in Johnny’s email and what I’d found on his desk, I hoped it would get me in the ballpark of the amount that needed to be accounted for.

When I got to the July accounting, the largest transaction I’d seen appeared in the amount of $12,397.21. The yellow highlighter hovered in the air over the vendor’s name.

BS 012001

I stared at the number, fixated on the discrepancy between this transaction and the others on the statements. The charge was more than the total Johnny usually had in his account by a significant amount. It was far too much money to be funds from the grant that he’d used for the project, which made me think it had been for equipment. A new camera and a couple of good lenses could easily amount to that much.

I tapped the highlighter on the table. The only person I could think of who might have an idea was also the only person I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone and call.

I pulled it from my pocket and set it on the table, staring at the screen. Micah still hadn’t texted, and while I wasn’t surprised, I had a nagging sense of disappointment that I was ashamed to acknowledge. It had only been forty-eight hours since I’d first seen him, and already I was losing my resolve not to call or text him.

I picked up the phone, unlocking it, before I found the last text he’d sent me. I hadn’t saved the number, which was just a pathetic attempt to ignore the fact that I had it. Sometimes, after a few glasses of wine or after hours of trying to fall asleep, I’d search his name on social media. But Micah had never made any accounts. I’d never asked Johnny for his contact information through the years, and that was intentional. Both because I didn’t have a good excuse, and also because I didn’t trust myself with it.

There was no getting around the fact that I would have to talk to him if I was going to answer the string of questions I had mounting about Johnny. He was the only person I could think of who might know whether Johnny was working with anyone out at the gorge. And if Olivia was right about Johnny and Micah having issues, I wanted to know why.

I’d half hoped Micah would be doing the same thing I was now, trying to find a good enough reason to call me or show up at the house again. But I’d also known in my gut that he wouldn’t. Micah wasn’t going to chase me. Not this time.

I changed my mind more than once before I finally opened the text thread. I changed it twice more before I hit send.

What are you doing tonight?

Heat bloomed in my face and I immediately regretted it. I pressed my hands to my cheeks, letting out a heavy breath. In some version of these events, Micah had just won. And if he didn’t reply, I’d have theanswer to the question I hadn’t had the guts to ask for twenty years. Whether everything I’d done—everything I’dnotdone—had been enough to sever the ties that seemed to eternally bind us together.

My phone buzzed on the table a few seconds later and I dropped my hand, sucking in a breath. But it wasn’t Micah’s name on the screen.

“Shit.”

It was Quinn.

I cleared my throat and impulsively pulled the elastic from my hair, shaking it out. I’d planned to take the call at the diner, but I’d lost track of time.

“Hey, Quinn,” I answered, voice louder than necessary.

The line was silent.

I glanced at the screen, where the call timer was counting. It was connected, but I only had one bar of service.

“Hello?” I pressed the phone to my ear again and the staticky, broken sound of a voice cut in and out. “Hold on just a second.”

I went up the hall, Smoke on my heels as I opened the front door and went down the steps. Another bar lit up, and I tried again.

“Hey, can you hear me?”

“There you are!” The voice cleared. “I’ve got you now.”

“Sorry about that. Service is shit out here.”

“No problem.” Quinn’s washed-out British lilt made his words bounce. “How are you, James?”