by David Bell
All of a sudden, I got it. “Are you saying she’s threatening to show them to Sam?”
Blake’s face unclenched for the first time in a few minutes. “More or less, that’s what she’s told me.”
“So what? You and Sam were broken up. You dated someone and gushed at her. Sam can’t hold that against you forever. Just get married and move on.”
Blake nodded. “I really laid it on with her. Look, I don’t know what all I said in the heat of the moment. I was just spilling my thoughts.”
“Then just come clean with Sam about what you may or may not have said, that you may have gotten a little carried away, and she’ll forget it. This is really odd behavior for you. Worrying so much about this. You’re all tied up in knots over what you said in a letter to this Jen. It’s no big deal.”
“Sam does like to see the best in people. Everybody, not just me.”
Blake’s assessment of Samantha rang true. She struck me as one of the most guileless people I’d ever met. But I didn’t believe she saw Blake simply as a reclamation project, a chance to show that her empathy and patience could outlast anything he could throw her way. When Sam and Blake were together and things were good between them, she did smooth his rough edges. She brought things out in Blake—patience, calmness, sensitivity—that no one else did. And Blake helped tether Samantha to the ground, helped her appear less naive. Despite everything they’d been through as a couple, they struck me as a good match, the best I’d ever seen Blake part of.
And what would happen if Sam saw a note written by Blake pledging his devotion to another woman?
It would be awkward and strange for them. For Sam.
But not worth ending a relationship over.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out and saw a text from Amanda.
Are you coming soon? Sleepy baby.
Sorry. Hurrying.
“Just ask for the letters back?” I asked as I put the phone away.
“I’ve tried that. Many times. But she won’t really take my calls anymore. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve called her or talked to her. We’re at loggerheads. She won’t budge. As the wedding approaches . . . I just don’t want anything to blow this for Sam and me. We’re almost to the finish line.”
Maybe I was slow off the mark. Maybe the wheels in my mind didn’t turn as quickly as they should have.
Maybe I just couldn’t comprehend that Blake would ask me for the kind of thing he had dreamed up.
But I didn’t see where any of it was going.
I had no idea.
“Do you want me to recommend a lawyer or something?” I asked. “I’m not sure a respectable attorney would get wrapped up in something this insignificant. Or petty. Or whatever you want to call it.”
Like I said, Blake was several steps ahead of me. He shook his head, his eyes slowly closing and then opening again. They remained clear as a mountain stream.
“No, you’re going to get the letters back, Ryan,” he said. “You’re going to go into her house and bring them back to me.”
CHAPTER SIX
I felt my eyes widen. If anyone in the coffee shop had been looking at me, they would have thought I was joking around, making some kind of ridiculous face, the kind of thing I did to entertain Henry at home.
But the emotion was real and genuine. What Blake was saying sounded completely and utterly nuts.
“You want me to go talk to this woman on your behalf? Why? She doesn’t know me—”
But he shook his head. “You’re not going to talk to her, Ryan. It’s past the time for talking. You’re going to go into her house and take the letters. And you’re going to bring them to me so Sam never has to see them. I didn’t say anything about talking to her.”
It seemed as though the music, which had been playing softly over our heads, dropped to an even lower volume. And across the room someone broke out laughing, a sharp, mocking sound that caused me to look their way and then back to Blake.
“You’re crazy,” I said, shaking my head. “Seriously. I have to get home. I can’t believe you dragged me over here for this bullshit.”
Blake acted as though he hadn’t heard me.
“It’s simple,” he said. “Tonight at ten o’clock. She’ll be out. She always is on Thursdays. I know the door code. I know where the letters are. She has a keepsake drawer in her bedroom. The letters were there the last time I was in the house. That was a few weeks ago. They’ve always been in there. I should have taken them, but it would be too obvious. You just go over, go in, and get them. Easy as pie.”
“You want me to break into a complete stranger’s house?”
“Not break in, Ryan.” Now he shook his head at me. “I said I know the code. At least, I think I do. Unless she’s changed it.” He scratched his chin distractedly for a moment. “But you just go in. No breaking in. No busting down doors. Nothing like that. And you’re not stealing her TV or her computer. Just taking the letters I wrote. They’re my property, really. They’re my words.”
“If you go into someone’s home without permission, it’s breaking in. Even if you know the door code. The cops won’t make that distinction. Besides, maybe she’s scanned or copied the letters already. It could all be for nothing.”
“I can’t take any chances.”
“Why don’t you do it?” I asked. “Why drag me down into your mess?”
“I can’t. What if someone saw me? What if something went wrong, and I got caught? Then it would all come out. And Sam’s parents . . . her dad . . . even the smallest hint of impropriety, and he’d lose his mind. I can’t have that happen. Not when Sam and I are so close to the finish line.”
“But I can? I can risk getting caught? You think it’s okay if I get arrested. I have a child. A wife.”
“You won’t get caught, Ryan. And I know I can trust you. I’d ask someone else, but who else can I count on as much as you? You’re one of the few honest people I know. Shit, maybe the only one. You and Sam. But I can’t ask her.”
“If I get caught breaking into someone’s house—my job, my reputation. What would people think of me? What would Amanda think of me?”
“That’s why you’ll be careful. And you’ll do it right.”
I picked up my mug and drank without thinking. The coffee had turned lukewarm and too bitter. I almost spit it out, but I choked it down and pushed the mug away with the back of my hand.
“It’s been nice seeing you again, Blake,” I said, although I no longer felt that way. “I guess. I know you don’t want advice, but since we’re friends, I feel compelled to offer some. Just talk to Sam. Start your marriage in a good place, with none of this craziness. That’s the best shot you’ve got. Not this cloak-and-dagger shit that can only lead to more problems.”
I scooted my chair back again, but before I could stand, Blake’s hand came across the table, landing on top of mine like a handcuff. I felt the coolness of his skin, the roughness of his palm. He locked eyes with me.
“Are you going to do that with Amanda, Ryan?” he asked. “Are you going to go home tonight and sit down with her while your son sleeps in his nice room upstairs and wipe the slate clean? Are you going to tell her everything she doesn’t know about you? She’s pretty no-nonsense. She’s a tough nut.”
“I’ve never done anything like this.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about. You know what I mean. Hell, you’re so worried about your reputation and your position, you’d have to come clean to everybody in this town to feel safe, wouldn’t you? And if everyone knew . . . well, there’s legal jeopardy.”
“What are you saying? Are you threatening me?”
“You’ll do this for me, Ryan. You’ll do it or every single person in this town will know the one thing you don’t want them to know about you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Blake
Norton and I met during our freshman year at Ferncroft College, a small liberal arts school in the rolling hills of central Kentucky with about two thousand students, thirty minutes away from Rossingville. We first got to know each other when we joined the same social club during the fall of our freshman year.
These social clubs weren’t really fraternities. Ferncroft didn’t allow the Greek system on its beautiful, stately Gothic Revival campus. The college took itself too seriously for that. They wanted to be like Harvard and Princeton. They wanted to be considered the “Ivy of the South.”
So, going all the way back to the school’s founding in the nineteenth century, students, both men and women, joined social clubs. Ostensibly, they were philanthropic organizations in which students raised money for worthy causes, volunteering their time on weekends and evenings at soup kitchens and blood drives and tutoring programs.
But the social club members engaged in all the things someone might associate with a fraternity or sorority. We drank. We held parties. We carried out elaborate pranks.
Our club was called the Sigil and Shield and, like all of the clubs at Ferncroft, it was coed. Had been since the nineteen sixties. And, during our time at Ferncroft and largely due to Blake’s influence, we became known as one of the hardest-partying clubs on campus.
We threw large blowouts for every occasion—Arbor Day, Groundhog Day, Easter, fall break, you name it. If someone farted or went to the bathroom, we threw a party. Everyone drank at these events. Everyone danced and yelled and let loose.
Sigil and Shield also made a big deal out of being exclusive. We admitted only the right kind of student, someone we all believed would fit in with the rest of us. Someone with the right degree of coolness, intellect, and ironic detachment. To that end, we made anyone wishing to join go through a rigorous series of tests.
In other words, we hazed.
We didn’t call it that, of course. Especially not after one of our rival clubs, the Kings and Queens, was disbanded by the university during our sophomore year when one of their pledges was rushed to the hospital with alcohol poisoning.
So we told our pledges we had to “interview” them.
We all knew what that meant. The pledges knew. The members knew. Even the administration knew. And they were willing to turn a blind eye as long as the tuition dollars rolled in and the enrollment stayed up. As long as the alums who went on to successful careers opened their checkbooks and gave back to the school.
Blake and I were never ringleaders in the club. We never bothered to run for or hold important positions. We went along for the parties and the fun, but otherwise we flew below the radar.
Aaron Knicely was an awkward kid who wanted to get into Sigil and Shield. Desperately. His desire to be one of us oozed out of every pore on his body.
He was a small kid, a freshman when we were seniors. His clothes never looked quite right. He never knew the right thing to say. At parties he stood around, shifting his weight from one foot to the other like a nervous child.
He was never going to get into Sigil and Shield. Never. As soon as members laid eyes on him, they wrote him off.
But for some reason, he stuck around through the pledge process. He took whatever the members dished out and came back for more. He showed a lot of spine, to be honest, and while I never said it out loud to anyone else, I found myself with a growing sense of admiration for him.
The night before the official invitations to join went out, we spent one final evening with all the potential members. One more party, one more chance for those supplicants who the current members of Sigil and Shield were on the fence about to make the right impression.
The rest of what I have to tell you about that night I’ve had to reconstruct by talking to others, including Blake, and reading things in the news. To say I had too much to drink would be an understatement. I’m not sure I ever drank more in my life.
Or remembered less.
Snatches still come back to me.
I remember the party starting. I remember doing shots of tequila until I couldn’t see straight.
I remember dancing with . . . someone.
And I remember going outside. Blake and me and Aaron Knicely.
I know we had more tequila as we walked.
I know Aaron drank more than the rest of us. I know we egged him on.
I know we should have stopped. But we didn’t.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Blake’s hand remained clamped on mine. The contact between our skin started to feel unpleasant, like I’d touched something cold and unknown in the dark.
But I didn’t pull away.
We remained connected in more ways than one.
“Let me ask you something,” he said, sounding casual. “Do you still make those nocturnal visits to the Steiners’ house you told me about? You must, right?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“I wonder if they really don’t know it’s you,” he said, amused. “When they did that cheesy newspaper story, they claimed not to know who the Good Samaritan was. But if they thought about it, if they really looked into it, couldn’t they figure it out? When a crime is committed, the cops ask, ‘Who benefits?’ Well, who benefits from trying to buy off the Steiners?”
Blake didn’t know about Dawn. No one did. I’d gone from assuaging my guilt by giving money to the family to being blackmailed by Dawn. I was being squeezed like a piece of fruit. The small profits generated by the Pig had been mostly going to the Steiner family. What had started as a fun project with friends and a bit of a tax shelter—own a business, brew some beer—had turned into a wellspring for guilt and blackmail money. And now Dawn wanted a big, fat chunk I didn’t have.
And none of the money I’d given them had lifted the burden of guilt I carried. I still saw the accident in my dreams, still saw Maggie Steiner’s face. . . .
“People do good things for strangers every day,” I said. “It’s not an aberration.”
But Blake rambled on.
“The lucky thing for you is that Aaron couldn’t remember much of anything from that night,” Blake said. “He was wasted, and then he bashed his head so hard against the steering wheel, he was concussed, so the whole night was a blur. He knew he’d been at Sigil and Shield, which meant a one-year suspension for the club. We all had the fear of God put into us by the dean. I remember that.” He shook his head at the memory. “They chose to come down on the whole club rather than individuals. After all, Aaron wasn’t actually a member. . . .”
“We were lucky they didn’t,” I said.
“Damn right. I remember you holding your breath all the way up to graduation. You were so worried they were going to jump on us, expel us, and not let us get our degrees. Man, you were obsessed with covering your ass. ‘What if my mom finds out the truth? What about all the sacrifices she made for my education after my dad died? She went back to school. She became a teacher.’”
“Yeah, I know. I was scared.”
“Everybody knows who was in the car that night. It was in the papers. So if a reporter really wanted to dig deeper into those gifts to the Steiners, they could.”
“The reporter called you and me. You know that. And we both told them the same thing—we didn’t know about the money.”
“They’d have to subpoena bank records to really prove anything. And who wants to do that?”
“It’s in the past,” I said. “Aaron did his time.”
Blake pulled his hand away and laughed in a low, snuffling way. When he finally stopped and wiped his eyes, he said, “Did you really just say, ‘It’s in the past’? Really? You’re still bringing the Steiners envelopes of cash, and you don’t want anyone to know about it, but you think it’s in the past? Let me ask you something else, Ryan. . . . Does Amanda know everything about that night yet? Have you ever told her? Does she know about the money you give to comp
lete strangers?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to because he knew I’d never told her my role in the accident. Amanda hadn’t attended Ferncroft. We’d met after graduation, and she pretty quickly knew about the accident. After all, what does someone do when they meet a new person? They Google them. And the information about the accident was right there for all to see. Aaron driving drunk when he hit the other car. One person killed, one injured in the second vehicle. Two of Aaron’s passengers—Blake and me—injured. One—me—injured seriously enough to require hospitalization. Amanda didn’t know that the bad dreams I had several times a year were images of Maggie and Emily passing across my mind during the darkness of the night.
It had been Blake and I who suggested Aaron go perform one of the oldest rituals known to students at Ferncroft College—drive fifteen miles out into the countryside, down winding state roads, and take the sign announcing the entrance to the small town of Gnaw Bone, Kentucky, population 343. Almost every dorm and social club on campus had a stolen Gnaw Bone sign in it.
I knew it all led Aaron to think he had an iota of a chance to be admitted to Sigil and Shield when he really didn’t.
“So Amanda knows all about the accident,” Blake said, “but she only knows what was in the papers. The official story. You were in the car and got hurt. . . .”
“Blake—”
“Oh, yeah. I remember now. There’s the thing with Amanda’s sister. How old was she when she died?”
He waited until I answered.
“Fifteen.”
“On her bike, right? Hit by a drunk driver. Didn’t you say that was one of the things you and Amanda talked about when you first met? How you both had drunk-driving accidents that affected your lives? It would be tough to tell her the truth now, wouldn’t it? You’d have to admit to her that you were behind the wheel in an accident that killed a seventeen-year-old girl. You wouldn’t be any different in her eyes from the monster who killed her sister. If you thought Amanda was pissed over me bumping Henry’s head against a lamp—”