by Karen Rose
“No, not at all.” For long minutes they sat in silence. “What was her name, David?”
He shuddered out a weary sigh. “Megan.”
“And she was eighteen, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you love her?”
The harshness in his laugh made her wince. “Not as much as I loved myself.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died,” he said flatly. “Murdered by her step-father. Is my interrogation finished?”
“You said you’d answer my question,” she said quietly. “I’m thinking that who you are now has a great deal to do with who she was then.”
She waited a long time until finally he sighed. “I don’t even know where to start.”
She ran a hand down his arm. “How about, ‘Once there was a girl named Megan’?”
He swallowed. “We met in junior high. She was my first dance, first date. First kiss.”
“So what happened?”
“Time passed. We went on to high school, drifted apart, but we were still friends. Then my brother Max went pro and everything changed. He got drafted into the NBA. His life changed, and so did mine.”
“For the better?”
“At the time I thought so. I was sixteen and already so full of myself. I played on my school’s baseball team, my coach said I was a shoo-in for a scholarship. I was good-looking. Girls wanted me. Lots of girls. Then, that was everything.”
“What happened to Megan?”
“I’d left her way behind by then. I was an athlete. I needed the prettiest girl in class, the fastest. Megan couldn’t compete. I felt sorry for her… social awkwardness.” He said it with self-recrimination. “I shouldn’t have, not for that anyway.”
“Then for what?”
“Her dad died when we were in junior high. She had a little brother and her mom worked hard to support them. Then when Megan was sixteen, her mom remarried. Life was supposed to get better for them, but her stepdad was a piece of work.”
“Oh no,” she whispered sadly, as if she already knew what was coming.
“He yelled at them, all the time. Nobody knew he hit them, but we should have. But I was busy,” he said scathingly, “being popular. Having fun with the beautiful people.”
“It’s just a face,” she murmured, understanding now. “David…”
“I was busy,” he continued, as if she’d said nothing. “Going to dances, playing ball, basking in being the brother of an NBA star. I never cracked a book. The smart girls did my homework. My mother prayed for me every day, begged me to straighten up, fly right. But what did she know? I had the world by the tail.”
“How did the tail break?”
“We were seniors and there was a party. One of the kids’ parents were gone for the weekend and we were partying hard. Kegs, bottles, weed. Lots of girls. I got drunk. And Megan showed up.”
Olivia said nothing. His jaw was tight, his eyes staring straight ahead, unseeing.
“I was so drunk, so self-involved, that I didn’t see she had a black eye. It was dark and the music was too loud and I assumed she’d come for the same reason the other girls had. For this face. I kissed her, and for a minute she held on. Then I pawed at her. Ripped her blouse and she tried to push me away. Nobody ever pushed me away.”
“It made you angry.”
“Yeah. Then she started crying. Said she needed my help. Needed my car. She needed to get away. But I was mad, so I pushed her away, told her to ask somebody that…” His throat worked as he tried to finish, but his voice broke. “That cared. She was just Megan from down the street. I was David, Mr. Perfect.”
Olivia rested her hand on his back, felt him flinch, but he didn’t pull away. “And?”
“The party went on. No one saw her come in or leave. She was a nobody. We were popular. I didn’t give her another thought the rest of the night. I’d never been drunk before and the next morning I had a horrible hangover. All I could think was that I needed to get home before Ma got back from Mass or she’d kill me. And then I passed Megan’s house.”
“You remembered what you’d done?”
His lips twisted. “I had a vague recollection of what she’d said, that she’d cried. But I didn’t understand until I passed her house. There was a cop car parked in front, lights flashing. My heart started pounding. I stopped my car and ran to the front door and… I saw her. The cop inside tried to block my view, but he was too late. I’d already seen.”
“She was dead?” Olivia murmured.
“They all were. Her mother was on the stairs. Her head… He’d beaten her head in with a bat. Megan was in the middle of the living room floor.” He drew a shuddering breath. “He’d beaten her, too. She was lying on top of her brother, shielding him. There were clothes everywhere and an empty suitcase against the wall.”
“She’d been running away.”
“She tried,” he said hollowly. “He must have caught her. Flew into a rage. Killed them all, then shot himself.”
“What did the police do?”
“That day? They asked me what I knew. I said I didn’t know anything. I never told them she’d come to me the night before.”
There was hatred and contempt in his voice, all for himself. Her heart ached for him, even as she struggled for the right words to say. “And after that day?”
He shrugged listlessly. “Then it was old news. There was no mystery to solve, other than why the hell no one had stopped him before he killed three innocent people.”
“Did you ever tell anyone what happened?”
“No. I tried, a couple of times. I tried to tell my dad that summer, but I couldn’t stand to see how disgusted he’d be with me. Dad was already hurt by my brother Max who was playing pro ball by then. Max had a new set of friends and hadn’t been home in a while. He was living the high life and my folks were brokenhearted.”
He sighed. “I couldn’t even tell my priest. I went away to college that semester and failed miserably. I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing them, dead. I was losing my mind. I had to talk to someone, so I scraped my money together and bought a plane ticket to see my brother Max in LA. We’d always been so close and… I trusted Max not to hate me.”
Her heart cracked. “What did he say?”
“I never told him. When I got to his place there was a real party going on. I saw all the booze and women, and I guess I snapped. I was thinking about the party that night, how stupid I’d been. I threw all Max’s booze bottles out the window, told his guests to go home. Max thought I’d come to save him, make him go back home. I think he needed someone to set him straight and by accident, it was me. Max came home, reconciled with our dad, then that same night there was an accident. My dad died and Max was paralyzed. My mom was just devastated and Max couldn’t walk. He needed help with his physical therapy. He needed me.”
“Like Megan had needed you.”
“Yeah. So I threw myself into helping Max and some days there were blocks of hours I didn’t think about Megan. Everyone thought I was so noble. I was just trying to stay sane. I was just trying to make the pictures in my mind go away.”
“Like Lincoln. That’s what you understood. You pitied him.”
He drew a breath. “I keep thinking, ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’”
“It’s not the same at all,” she murmured. “But I can see how you drew the parallel. Somehow Lincoln knew you understood. Maybe you were his first real human connection in a long time.” Olivia laid her cheek against his arm. “That’s a helluva secret to have carried around for eighteen years.”
“Isn’t it, though?” he said wearily.
“But you didn’t kill Megan and her family. Her mother was the adult and she stayed with a dangerous man. Why didn’t Megan go to the police? Why did she come to you?”
“I guess in her mind, we were still friends. She probably still had a crush on me. I never shunned her and we’d sometimes talk in the hall, between classes. Like I said, I felt sor
ry for her. Looking back, I can see how isolated she’d become. How she walked around with her head down. I thought she was just sad because she wasn’t popular.”
“You were a teenager, David.”
“I know, but still.” He drew another breath and she realized there was more. “I went home after seeing her all… broken. I kept trying to remember what she’d said, wondering why she’d come to me. Then I remembered she’d rushed up to me between classes the day before the party, asked if I’d found the note she put in my literature book. I was busy so I said, ‘Sure.’ She asked if I’d do it. I had no idea what she was talking about and said, ‘Sure,’ without even stopping. I found the note the day she died.”
“What did it say?”
He pushed himself to his feet wearily to take his wallet from the pants he’d thrown over the chair and pulled out a worn, creased sheet of paper. Unfolding it with care, he silently handed it to her.
Olivia found it hard not to wince as she read the words of a girl who believed her old friend was still her best friend. “Her mother wouldn’t leave him and Megan didn’t know who else to trust,” she murmured. “She asked you to pick her up the next night.”
“That would have been the night of the party. She was taking her little brother and they were going to run. She just needed a ride to the bus station. I could have saved them if I had cracked the book to find her letter.”
She sighed. “Okay, you might have saved them. Then again, you might have shown up with your car and the stepdad might have shot you all. The truth is, there were resources for Megan and her mother. Her mother was the adult. She should have called the police. It was a tragedy, David, but you didn’t cause it.”
He refolded the letter, put it back in his wallet, then looked down at her, agony in his eyes. “I still see their faces.”
“Because you’ve got a soul. If you didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. You didn’t know how critical the situation was. If you had, you would have acted.”
He swallowed hard. “How do you know?”
“Because you didn’t ‘become’ the man you are now overnight. Those values were in you, or you wouldn’t have tortured yourself over this for eighteen years. David, you’ve helped so many. You turned a tragedy into a spirit of service. How long will you make that selfish boy pay?”
“I don’t know. But that’s why I worried about what I’d done that night with you.”
“You worried that you forced me? David, you didn’t force Megan, even then. When she said stop, you did. You weren’t civil about it, but you stopped. Didn’t you?”
He nodded. “Yes, I guess I did. But…”
“How many families did you help Dana save in her shelter?”
“Dozens, I suppose.”
“You support the work of the shelters all over town, so more families continue to be saved. Megan was a victim, but so many won’t be. That has to be enough,” she said, “because it never can be enough. There will always be wrongs in the world. We can’t right them all. We just have to do the best we can.”
He sat back down on the edge of the bed. “I know that.”
“But it’s still hard. It’s hard to see people in pain and not fix it. Thank you for telling me about Megan. I know it wasn’t easy.”
“Does it change anything?” he asked tightly.
“You mean about what I think of you? Yes and no. You’re a good person. That hasn’t changed. But about what happened between us?” She shrugged. “You said another woman’s name when you were with me, then you moved here and it was like you didn’t know I was alive. I wanted to hate you. Some part of me did.”
He didn’t look at her. “Do you still?”
“Hate you? No. I understand now what you were afraid you’d done. But I can’t ignore the fact that you loved Dana at one time. That she was still in your mind when you were with me. I think putting that out of my mind is going to take time.”
“And heart,” he murmured. “And trust.”
“Yes. You’re going to have to give me time to trust you. And I still don’t understand why you wasted two and half years of our lives. Why didn’t you just ask me?”
“I was afraid of what you’d say,” he confessed quietly. “I didn’t want to think I could be a monster. Again.”
Her heart squeezed. “You know, the night you had too much champagne you told me that you hated weddings because everyone else had someone and you were alone. I wondered how a man who looked like you could be lonely.”
His jaw tightened. “It’s just a face, Olivia. I did nothing to earn it.”
She brushed her fingers against his cheek. “It’s a very nice face. But more important is the man beneath. You’re a good man, David. Honorable and kind. You make the world a better place.”
He looked over his shoulder, his eyes glittering. “I needed you to think so.”
His eyes held hers. She couldn’t look away if she’d wanted to. “I do.”
“I still want you,” he whispered, “more than I want to breathe.”
Her pulse quickened. “Who needs to breathe?” Before she could blink, his mouth was on hers, ravenous and greedy, his hands setting fire to her skin wherever he touched. He tumbled her to the pillows and followed her down. Then she couldn’t breathe and didn’t care.
Wednesday, September 22, 12:25 a.m.
He snugged the knot of his tie, his cop costume complete. Neckties were uncomfortable. Never got how his old man could wear them around the house.
He climbed from the back of his van to the front and drove to a street that paralleled the school’s rear parking lot. The lot was their evacuation spot, conveniently included on the school’s Web page to give the parents a fuzzy feeling about their kids’ safety.
It’s showtime. Voice scrambler in one hand, cell phone in the other, he called the school’s main switchboard, his message memorized.
Wednesday, September 22, 12:35 a.m.
Olivia was almost asleep when a phone rang. “It’s yours,” she mumbled. “Mine plays Looney Tunes.”
David leaned over her and fumbled for his cell. “Hunter.” He abruptly jumped out of bed and, shoving the phone between his shoulder and ear, pulled on his boxers. “What happened?” He grabbed his pants, then his hands went still. “I’m on my way.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “I thought you didn’t have to report till eight.”
“Callback situation. Reinforcements needed on a residence fire out of control.”
“Why didn’t they just call supporting firehouses?”
“They did. This is really bad and we have some men down. The fire spread to the next house and a propane tank blew. Took out part of the block.” He finished getting dressed then leaned down and pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. “Go back to sleep. I may not be back for a while.” He hesitated at the door. “Olivia…”
She knew what he wanted to say, but knew as well as he did that it was way too soon for words they’d both take very seriously. “I’ll be fine. You be careful.”
“Always. I’ll call you in the morning if I’m not back.”
She switched off the light and slid back down under the blanket. Then on an impulse, switched pillows. She could smell him and it made her sigh. She’d nearly dozed off when her cell phone blasted the Looney Tunes theme. Loudly. “Sutherland.”
“It’s Kane. You need to get to the deaf school. Now.”
She swung out of bed, wincing. Her muscles had been sorely taxed. “Why?”
“Bomb threat.”
Adrenaline cleared her brain and she dropped her dress over her head. “When?”
“Ten minutes ago. They’re evacuating the school now. The bomb squad and the fire department are already there.”
Her mind racing, she shoved her feet in the ridiculous heels. “Where are you?”
“Just leaving my house. I’ll be there in fifteen with my lights. Where are you?”
“David’s cabin. I’ll meet you as fast as I can get there.” She grabbed her ke
ys from her purse and headed to her car where she’d left her overnight bag, still talking to him. “Kane, why would someone bomb the school?” she asked, afraid she already knew.
“One, they’re fucking nuts. Two, they have a beef with someone at the school. Three, someone wants the population evacuated from the dorms.”
“Kenny. We talked to twenty-one kids. Only Kenny lived in the dorms.”
“I know. I already told dispatch to have the first responders find him and watch him. I gave them Kenny’s description, just in case there’s confusion on the site.”
“How did they know about him?” She had her bag and was running back to the cabin. “He’s our link to a potential eyewitness, but who told them we talked to him?”
“Could have been anyone at the school. I don’t guess twenty kids kept it a secret.”
“Oh God.” The sick feeling was slinking down her spine. “Kane, I never actually talked to Val. I left her voice mails, but she never did anything but text.”
“Shit. Get dressed and meet me here. I’ll get a unit to check on the interpreter.”
Wednesday, September 22, 12:45 a.m.
It was controlled chaos, he thought. He stood in the trees beyond the back lot of the school, watching the children pour out of the dormitories, all in pajamas. There were more than he’d thought there’d be, ranging in age from five to eighteen, all scared.
They wore shoes, or at least carried them in their hands. His gaze moved to the oldest group of boys and watched for a pair of blue Converse high-tops.
The kids signed busily as the dorm staff herded them to their specified safe area. He was beginning to think he’d never find Kenny, when he saw him. Sandy blond, five-ten, wearing blue high-tops. Standing off to the side, looking miserable.
He took his notepad and scrawled two separate messages, then swaggered over to the boy as he’d seen countless cops swagger in and out of his shop over the years. He tapped him on the shoulder, ignoring the students and staff behind him.
Kenny read the note. Kenny Lathem, the detectives want to speak with you again.
For a moment, he thought the kid would run. But Kenny steeled his spine and nodded stiffly. He started to walk, Kenny in front of him.