“I don’t know.” He looks at Autumn for an answer. She shrugs.
Lona picks at her nails, purposely ignoring him.
“Now!” Joel shouts.
She snubs him and marches to the sink to clean up the yogurt that’s running down the wall. “Go to hell, Joel.”
He rakes his fingers through his hair on his way out of the kitchen, abandoning her in the dark when he turns off the light. His office door bangs against the wall, making Lona jump. She lowers her head, her long nails clinging to the counter, sobs heard before her shoulders begin to shake. She slides to the floor with tears on her cheeks. Watching her crumple leaves me feeling empty. There is no home here, only a giant wall holding them as prisoners.
I use Sean’s shoulder as a crutch to stand, pissed off that Lona has the nerve to cry over her daughter, that she has the nerve to feel sorry for herself. I may never come back here. I don’t want to hear how cruel she was to Heather, or arguments over the Andersons’ botched marriage and their hatred of one another. I don’t want to hear that they use Heather’s death to punish one another either. I can’t take it. I just can’t.
Heartbroken, I gesture to Sean and Autumn that it’s time to head back to the truck. Droplets of sweat on my palms have turned to ice. My socks are wet, my toes numb. We’ll all have frostbite if we stay out in the cold a second longer.
“You gonna be okay?” Autumn asks, her teeth chattering.
“No. I need to get the hell out of here before I take your gun and kill them both.”
19
I gave Autumn only a quick kiss when I took her back to the bar to get her car. She understood I needed to be alone. She didn’t complain, completely tolerant of my mood swings and all my other baggage. She’s a rare gem in Northland’s crummy wasteland.
But that was Monday. Two days later, we still haven’t talked about what was said at the Andersons’, sending only a short text here and there to keep in touch. I let her know Lona Anderson hasn’t become a hit-and-run statistic or been in any mysterious accident. Not yet, anyway. And I haven’t talked to my dad, or responded to Sean’s barrage of questions about Heather and the note, and what happened last year after Jake and I left the party. As I’ve said to him before, Jake fell through the ice. There’s nothing more to tell. But he keeps nagging me about it. He thinks I’m not remembering. And I keep saying he’s wrong.
Two days.
I’ve spent two days in bed, staring at the ceiling, tossing my football in the air like I did when I was a kid ticked off over pointless groundings. Two days taking Ibuprofen for my head and back, wishing I had Autumn’s bottle of Vicodin. Two days of not shaving, showering, or brushing my teeth. Two days of being depressed and in total shock.
Lona doesn’t want me to read the suicide note because she’s hiding the fact that she’s a disgusting slut. She’s to blame. Not me.
She cheated. She got pregnant and had the audacity to tell Heather, pitting Heather between her and Joel. I’ve heard of people doing some sick shit, but I never thought a wealthy, educated woman like Lona Anderson would stoop to the level of tabloid talk show shame. She used Heather. I have to believe that’s what happened. Heather would’ve been crushed for her dad, for her parents’ relationship, for the destruction of the entire life she’d known. It crumbled that night, and I wasn’t there for her.
“Dylan, wake up!”
I roll over and stare at the blank wall where a map of New York State once hung, torn down one night in a drunken rage. Colored push-pin map tacks marked the spots Heather and I had traveled to during winter and summer breaks from school. Blue, green, purple: lakes, parks, and museums. Yellow: our favorite beaches. Orange: her favorite shopping trips. Red: where we’d made love along the road, one time at a rest stop in broad daylight, another time at a cheap ’60s motel, the neon sign of a sparrow flashing through the side of the thick curtained window. My memories of those trips are clear, only our final night together is fogged by an eternal sleep.
“Dylan, get up!” Sean bangs the wall, calling up from the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m sleeping.” I drop my football on the floor.
Sean stood in my bedroom doorway yesterday and said it was time to stop inventing stories in my head, that I shouldn’t be so fixated on the unknown. I told him being fixated on the unknown is why I’m still alive, and how I’ve been able to sort out part of that night. Bits and pieces, daydreams of what I think I remember…
“Dylan, it’s been a long—”
“Heather.” I raise a hand for her to stop, killing the engine of my truck. “I heard you the first time.” I rest my hand on top of the steering wheel, my eyes focused on the smoke trailing off my cigarette.
She stops talking and waits for an answer, but I feel a weight on my chest and can’t breathe. She scoots next to me, close enough that I smell her strawberry lip balm, her hands unusually cold when she brushes my cheek. My gaze remains straight ahead, not on her.
“I’m late. I gotta go,” I say, puffing on my cigarette, keeping it pressed between my lips so she can’t kiss me.
She sucks in a sharp breath. “Since when are you such an ass?” She gets out and slams the door with all her might like our relationship is over for good.
“Dylan!” Sean calls again.
I didn’t kiss her goodbye? I thought I did. I thought I told her that I loved her. Why can’t I remember?
“Hey Dylan. I said, Eddie’s here.”
“What?” I spring out of bed and grab my hoodie from my footboard, scrambling to get dressed.
“Eddie’s here.”
“I heard you, Sean. Don’t let him in.”
“Too late. He’s in.”
I tie my flannel bottoms and walk to the landing, staring down at Ed. He’s wearing sunglasses, but it’s evening, and dark outside. “Get the hell out of my house.”
He pulls his baton and widens his stance. “You got one minute to explain why the Andersons filed a report about boot prints around their home. One minute.”
“It wasn’t us,” I say.
“Us?” His lips twist. “I never said there were more than one set of prints.”
“Oh.”
“Get down here.” He taps the railing with his baton.
“No. Seriously, get out of my house.”
“Get the fuck down these stairs!” He bangs the railing.
After a loathsome sigh, I schlep down the steps, grabbed by the arm the moment I reach the bottom. He spins me around and cuffs my hands behind my back.
“What are you arresting me for? I didn’t do anything.” He traps me against the wall and leans into my back. “Come on, Ed. Careful with my stitches.”
“You have to read him his Miranda rights.” Sean jumps in and blocks the front door. “You can’t come in here like this. What if I was the one at the Andersons’?”
“Get out of the way.” Ed taps Sean’s shoulder with his baton. “Away from the door. Now.”
“No. This isn’t legal. It can’t be.”
“Sean, don’t say another word,” I warn him.
He reaches for his coat.
“Get back!” Ed pushes him into the living room. “Sit down.” He shoves him onto the sofa. “If your puny ass lifts off that seat, my baton will be up it quicker than you can clench it shut, you hear me?”
“Sean, I’ll call you from the station. Stay here, okay?”
He leans back and crosses his arms with a frown and a headshake.
Ed’s fingernails prod the back of my neck. I’m forced out the front door without boots or a coat. He opens his Tahoe and pushes me inside. The scent of beer is on his breath when he crosses the seat belt over my chest. He sucks in a wad of snot, spitting it onto the street as he shuts the door in my face.
“Pig,” I whisper.
He walks around the Tahoe and drops into the driver’s seat, sniffs, sucks in more snot, rolls down his window, and spits.
“R
epulsive,” I add.
“Hush up.” He takes off his sunglasses and puts them between us.
“You have no proof I was at the Andersons’ house.”
“Don’t need it.” He starts the engine and pulls onto the street.
“You haven’t read me my rights.”
“Don’t need to.”
“I’m supposed to be in the back seat.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“What does matter, Ed? That you come out number one in your department no matter who you hurt?”
He swats the back of my head. “I said, hush up.” He drives in the direction of the station, the heater on full blast, vents aimed at my face. I turn away from the hot air drying out my eyes.
Damn that Lona Anderson. She did this. She told the police to arrest me. Bet she even mentioned the unreported break-in at her house.
“What matters, Dylan”—Ed clears his throat—“is that your girlfriend left a body at my place the other night.”
I won’t respond to that. Autumn said she had nothing to do with it. Certainly, cops in another district were getting Ed back for something. Indisputable.
“I’m not a happy camper, buddy.”
I turn farther away from him and shut my eyes, but instead of darkness, I see an image of the Andersons’ fridge. Heather’s photo. Lona’s reminder card for the Women’s Clinic.
Heather must’ve walked in on her parents in the middle of a fight after I dropped her off. They were arguing about the pregnancy. No, arguing about Lona whoring around. That’s what happened. And Heather overheard.
She walked in.
She heard.
“I’ve given you warning after warning.” Ed’s words are distant.
Heather was distraught. She grabbed her coat and slid into whatever boots were within reach, racing out of the house to find me.
“There’s no trust left between us,” Ed continues.
Heather left her cell in my bedroom that night. She couldn’t call when she left her house. It’s been the “what if” scenario in my mind all year. What if I had done … what if she hadn’t … what if we … what if?
“You’ve become a burden. A liability, Dylan.”
Her cell was on my nightstand. We rushed out of my bedroom after we fucked so I could get her home and head to the party for Ed.
“You have no value to my department or me anymore.”
I picture her digging through her purse while she was driving, swearing when she realized she’d left the cell at my place. “Shit. Shit, Dylan, you’ve got my phone.”
Jake wasn’t supposed to be at the party. Heather couldn’t call from her car. It was a coincidence he was there. It was by accident she didn’t have her phone.
“Maybe it’s age. You no longer look up to me like you did when you were a kid.”
I gave her cell to the cops. They questioned me for hours, asked if I had talked to her, if I knew where she was later that night. I hadn’t. I didn’t. There was no message from her.
“Remember when you showed me respect? When you said, yes sir, and no sir?”
Lona didn’t tell the cops Heather was upset over me, and she didn’t tell them the suicide was my fault. I would’ve been questioned more if she had.
“You’re just not YOU anymore.”
I turn to Ed.
“You’re not the same kid, Dylan. You died that night, y’know? You died with them.” He gives me a smug look.
I close my eyes, not ready to leave my thoughts of Heather for Ed.
Lona … I know she’s embarrassed and ashamed she shattered the family and traumatized Heather by cheating on Joel, and now she just wants it all to go away. And like me, she’s working to piece the entire story together.
“Let’s end this tonight before you bring me down.”
Jake was a good kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I never thought Heather was also in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t want to believe Ed when he said she went out that night. I couldn’t think of why she would leave her house.
Now, I know.
“It’s over.”
If Jake was at the party, she could’ve been there, too. It’s possible. It’s more than possible. Sean and I didn’t see her, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. She knew it was by the river. I told her what street it was on.
“I’m glad you’re listening for once.”
She went there, needing me, and then she saw what happened. She saw the fight, the guy pointing a gun at my head. Then she saw Jake step in.
“I guess you’ve accepted the fact that your time has come.”
Lona was pregnant.
“One misstep too many.”
Heather saw us kill.
“We’re here.”
She saw Jake bash in a guy’s head with a crowbar. She put it in her note—it was a blow to the head. That would’ve made even the strongest person break. And on top of that, she got drunk … alone.
“Alone,” Ed repeats my last word, breaking my train of thought. “We’re all alone, just you and me, buddy.” His door creaks open and brisk air coffins my body. My nostrils tighten and freeze. I shudder when I realize we’re not at the station. The landscape is bleak. No houses. No people. No moon, or sounds, or smells. Not a street in sight, nothing but Ed coming to the passenger-side door. I lean away when he opens it, but it’s no use, I’m trapped. He unfastens the seat belt and pulls me out by my hair. An uncontrollable flood of terror falls over me. I’m shoved to the ground, landing chest first next to rocks jutting out of the snow.
“Last words?” Ed pauses. Duct tape screeches and tears. He flips me over and seals my mouth. “Too late, buddy.”
He slugs me in the gut, and I howl through the tape. I raise my head in the midst of excruciating pain. He hits me again, my muffled cries causing crowing laughter. I’m hauled away from the Tahoe by my ankles. My torso burrows into the snow over the rocky ground, past pieces of driftwood and down an embankment.
Rocks under the snow. Driftwood cresting the landscape. No life. No noise.
“I know what Heather’s note implies.”
We’re at the lake.
“She saw you kill Jake. Accident or not, she knew you hit him in the head.”
I strain to shout that he’s wrong. It’s not true. It’s not.
“Why can’t you let it go? People don’t need to know what you were doing that night. What if someone finds out I sent you to that party? Move on and forget about that supplier’s house and dumping dead pushers into the river. If the wrong people find out, or if anything gets back to the Andersons or your parents … if they find out about Jake … about what Heather saw … I swear, Dylan. Let’s end this before you destroy more lives.”
Like Lona, he’s protecting himself. He wants the party, the drugs, and the bodies to stay hidden from everyone.
“Can’t you just bury the past like you buried Jake?” He looks down at me. “I’m guessing Jake got in the way, and you either took him down thinking he was one of the dealers, or you struck him so he wouldn’t talk. Only you hit him too hard, didn’t you? Always angry. Always fighting.”
My heels pound the ice for Ed’s attention. My nose is full of thin mucus from the cold, and I’m struggling to breathe.
“Having a problem?” He grips my hoodie and pulls me up so I can try to unplug my nose. Forceful exhales and sniffs. He tousles my hair and walks a few feet ahead, takes out his baton and whacks the ice. He’s testing the thickness, on a search for a weak spot, a way inside the belly of the lake.
I hold still, listening for a car, a dog, any sign of life within earshot, hoping someone saw us driving out here. Hoping someone comes before I’m dead.
“Have you ever felt the water this time of the year? It’s about thirty degrees, like razor blades cutting into your flesh when you drop in.” He knocks the ice with his baton. “Your dad knows the pain. He fell through a frozen pond
when we were kids. Did he ever tell you that? Seems to happen more often than not in this city. Kids love skating—we all wanna be hockey stars.” He continues clubbing the ice, stepping over a small mound. “I was able to pull your dad out. He made it to the side by slithering on his stomach, but the water was cold, Dylan. Hypothermia sets in fast. He almost died. Too bad you won’t be alive to ask him about it.”
Come closer, Ed. Move closer so I can kick you in the face.
“Perfect.” The word detonates in the still night. “I hate to have to do this.”
My heart drums violently. Blood vessels in my head constrict, causing a stabbing pain in my right temple. An adrenaline surge kicks in, except I can’t fight him or run.
“This time, you’re not getting another chance.”
He drags me by my feet. I watch his silhouette and the blackness of the sky, his breath hovering above. It’s not long before his beady, cockeyed glare and big teeth emerge before my eyes, making my hair stand on end.
“You wanna say something?” He smirks.
I flounder about, thinking I might be able to get free of the cuffs, quickly finding out that my thoughts and actions are two very different things. I wish I had my knife, wish I had my cell, wish I had those things and my hands were free so that I could use them. I wish—
He rips the tape away, taking some of my hair with it. “Ed, don’t.” I feast greedily on the air. “Don’t do this!”
“Do what?”
“Kill me!”
“Why not?” he asks, deadpan. “Weeks ago, I said you needed to toughen up, but you’ve only gotten worse. You haven’t paid attention.”
“To what?”
“Anything I’ve said.”
He pretends to smash my face with his baton, making me flinch. “See what I mean? Wimp. Look where we are and what you’ve gotten yourself into. Why did you kill Trevor? Why was that body left at my house? And why can’t you stay away from the Andersons?” He lobs an ice chunk over my head, and I hear a plunk.
Dear God, open water. I turn and see what looks like an ice fishing hole, only bigger. “Don’t kill me!”
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