“I said I was there on her behalf,” Adam said, and his voice was slow and cold. “That’s what I said, and that’s what I meant. Would you like to take issue with it?”
“Yes,” Kent said, not backing down, not on this point, not when Marie’s name had been invoked. “I take issue with it. I don’t know what sort of scheme you had in mind at the time, but it boils down to a lie, and you can’t tell me it doesn’t. You’re not a detective, and nobody’s hired you to do anything. So you’re out masquerading as one and telling people that Marie sent you? The first half is pathetic, the second I take personally.”
“You take it personally.” Adam’s voice had gone absolutely empty.
“That’s what I just said.”
Adam gave a small nod. “And you’re entitled to do that. Because she was your sister.”
“She was our sister. I don’t understand how you could use her name like that, how you can even suggest that, twist her into whatever lie—”
“Not a lie.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Keep calling it one, Kent. That’s fine, but it won’t become one. You say I’m not a detective? I’ve got a state license that says otherwise. You say I wasn’t there on Marie’s behalf? You better believe you’re wrong on that count. You better know that.”
Kent stepped back, put one hand on a locker, and leaned against it. Let a few seconds pass, trying to let the building anger ebb away. Then he said, “What are you doing, man? What in the world do you think you’re doing?”
Adam sat down on one of the long benches in front of the lockers, braced his forearms on his knees and looked at the floor and took a deep breath. Kent could see his back muscles spread out under his T-shirt, could see his big shoulders rise. Loading dock muscle, Coach Ward had called it. That’s the kind that moves freight, boys. That’s what we want. I don’t give a damn if you look pretty in the mirror, I want you to move freight.
“What did they tell you about the situation?” Adam said.
“Which situation? The woman you interviewed? Or Rachel Bond?”
“Rachel.”
“I know that she went to you looking for help finding an address. I know that she lied to you about her age, and the police probably didn’t cut you much slack on that, but you’ll cut yourself less slack on it.” He was almost surprised he’d said that; it wasn’t a thought he had expressed to anyone else. “I know that you gave her an address.”
“And you know what happened when she went there.”
“Yeah. Yes.”
Adam nodded again.
“So that’s what I know,” Kent said when it was clear his brother was not going to speak. “Today, I was told about your contact with some woman who the police don’t want you dealing with. I was told what you said to her. I didn’t like what I heard.”
“I can imagine not.”
“Tell me, then. Tell me what you’re doing, Adam.”
Adam lifted his head. “I’m going to find him.”
Kent stared at him. Adam’s eyes were clear and cool.
“Rachel’s murderer,” Kent said.
“Gideon.”
For a moment Kent thought: There he went. Finally. All the way over, it was bound to happen, he was bound to tip and now he has— but then Adam added, “That’s what I like to call him. I needed a name. That one works.”
Kent was scared for him now. Anger had faded to fear, and he said, “Don’t talk like that.”
“The name helps me.”
“No, it doesn’t. Adam, they are not the same person.”
“The hell they aren’t. One abducted and murdered a teenage girl. So did the other. They’re close enough to share a name, at least. Shit, you and I do, and how much do we have in common? They can share a name.”
Kent said, “He’s dead, Adam. The man is dead.”
“Marie’s Gideon is dead. Rachel’s is not.”
Kent wanted to tell him to shut up, stop using names, but that wasn’t going to accomplish much. He couldn’t look into that unsettling, empty stare anymore, and turned to face the white light in the office as he said, “Don’t get in their way, Adam. Please.”
“The police. You don’t want me to get in their way.”
“That’s right.”
“Because you don’t think I can find him.”
“I don’t know if you can or not, but I know it’s not your place to try. I know you’ll cause problems if you do, I know—”
“The police,” Adam said, “looked for Marie’s killer for four months.”
“And they found him.”
“Police in another town made a random stop and caught a break. The police assigned to find Marie’s killer, though? They were not close, Kent. They were not close. And he was supposed to be in prison the whole time. He’d been missing for months, and how good a job did the police do then? How quickly did they find him?”
Kent reached up and rubbed his eyes. He hated to think of it, hated to remember it, but Adam lived in a temple of memories, he could not move forward, his past was his present.
“Don’t do this. Even if you could help, they won’t let you. It’ll only make things worse.”
“Because it’s not my place.”
“Because they’re cops, Adam, and, yes, they will be upset because it is not your role.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It is my role, it’s the only one for me. So this, this is my place. Because this Gideon? This one belongs to me.”
“Stop calling him that.”
“It’s the right thing to call him.”
Kent dropped his hand, looked at him, and said, “Please, Adam.”
“What did they want from you? What were you supposed to accomplish? Just get me to step away? Get me to call Salter back? What?”
“All of the above. But I called you because… because I didn’t like what I’d heard.”
Adam said, “You should see the place.”
“What?”
“Where she died, Kent. Where I sent her. You should see it. Desolate, empty, dangerous. If I’d bothered to give it a look first, she never shows up there. If I’d known where I was sending her, everything changes. I sent her to a place I did not know. That’s why it happened.”
“No, Adam. Whoever did this… he wouldn’t have just gone away.”
“Maybe not. But, Kent? Read your own damn slogan.” Adam pointed at the banner above the locker room door, the one the players passed under ahead of every game, every half, every practice. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACCEPTING A LOSS AND EARNING ONE.
Kent shook his head, frustrated but running out of words, because words never seemed to work on his brother. At least not Kent’s.
“Funny, you being in this locker room still,” Adam said. “Keeps it all fresh to you, I bet. For me, it’s been a while. A lot of shit that went down in here I can hardly remember. Being in here brings it all back, you know?”
Kent was happy that he wasn’t talking about Gideon Pearce anymore, so he rolled with it, said, “Yeah, I’m sure it does.”
“There was a kid, had a locker right over there…” Adam pointed into the corner. “Rodney Bova. Got thrown off the team for trouble with the police. You remember him?”
“Sure.”
“What was that he did?” Adam was squinting, thoughtful. “Stole a car, maybe?”
“Set it on fire.”
“No shit?”
Kent nodded. “They sent him to a juvenile detention center.”
“He was your age?”
“Yeah.”
“Any good?”
“No. Wanted to play receiver but couldn’t catch a cold. Ward moved him to defense but he never played.” Why in the world were they talking about Rodney Bova? All the things he needed to say to his brother, all the people they needed to discuss, and somehow they were locked in conversation about a random kid they’d played with more than twenty years ago? He tried to steer them back to what counted. “Adam, you’ve got to understand that
Stan Salter is going to return to talk with me, and when he does—”
“When he does,” Adam said, “you can tell him the truth. Tell him you’ve washed your hands of me. Tell him good luck and God bless, and that it doesn’t involve you. Then let it sit.”
“I wish you would—”
“Then let it sit,” Adam told him again, and he rose from the bench and walked out of the locker room. The field showed itself, dark and windswept, for a moment when he opened the door, and then it clanged shut and Kent was alone in the pale white light, surrounded by his quotes and posters and bits of inspiration. Outside, Adam headed away from him and into the night. Kent wondered where he was going. It was impossible to know.
He wondered if he should have asked.
16
CHELSEA WAS IN THE YARD when Adam returned, pouring sunflower seeds into a birdfeeder, fumbling in the dark, spilling half of the seeds into the leaves as she struggled to balance the weight of the bag in one arm and the position of the feeder with the other. He braced the feeder for her and said, “Why in the hell couldn’t this wait until morning?”
“One died.”
“What?”
“It was on the porch. Flew into the window. You know how they do that sometimes.”
“So it flew into the window. It didn’t starve to death.”
She shrugged, indifferent to that logic. “All the same, I thought I should fill the feeders.”
She was wearing loose sweatpants and a tank top, nothing else, hadn’t bothered to put on a jacket before she stepped into the cold night. This wasn’t atypical. She liked the cold, embraced it. He’d found her on the porch one winter morning in the predawn wearing just jeans and a bra, exhaling long breaths and watching them fog. When he asked her what the hell she was doing, she just smiled and said there was nothing like lung-care advice from a smoker.
Once the feeder had been filled she turned to face him and said, “Where have you been?”
“Talking to my brother.”
“Really?”
He nodded, still looking at her standing there barefoot in the dead leaves, her nipples taut against the thin fabric of the tank top, and, as was often the case, he found himself overwhelmed with desire for her. It was one of those things that was supposed to wane over time, wasn’t it, that teenage hormonal rush? Somehow it never had, with her. And if he’d been able to control that back when he was a teenager, if he’d just taken care of his responsibilities…
“What did Kent have to say?” Chelsea asked.
“Not much.” Adam took her in his arms as she gave him a skeptical glance.
“Kent just wanted to have a casual talk?”
“Yeah.” He kissed her, and she returned it for a few seconds before breaking away.
“What did he really want, Adam?”
“To tell me not to get into trouble,” Adam said, and then he wrapped his fingers in her hair, a touch like satin, and pulled gently, forcing her head back in the way she liked, and put his lips to her throat.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“Do what?” he whispered, tracing her collarbone with his tongue, his hands sliding down her back and over her hips, her body pressed against his.
“Try to distract me. It doesn’t work.” But her voice had gone softer and deeper and now she had her arms around him, too, her fingernails biting into his back, pulling him tighter.
“Thought you wanted my mind in other places. That’s what you said last night.”
“What I want right now,” she said, “is not your mind. We’ll get to that.”
He picked her up then, and she wrapped her legs around him and locked her ankles behind his back as he carried her into the house. She was light and he could have gotten her all the way to the bedroom easily, but they didn’t make it there. The living room floor was closer.
They made it to the bed eventually, though, and they were there, still sweat-covered and breathing hard, when she placed her palm flat on his chest, put her face just above his, her lips hovering so close he could feel her breath as she spoke, and said, “What changed?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your mood. I’m not complaining, trust me. But what changed?”
Purpose, he thought. I know where I’m running now. But he said, “I just need you. Okay? Don’t interrogate me about it.”
She didn’t respond, still searching his eyes.
“You’re usually tense after talking to your brother. Why not tonight?”
“Maybe because I had the good sense to drink first,” he said, and then, because a drink sounded like a hell of a nice idea, he got up and poured a Scotch and returned to bed.
“Let’s try this again,” she said. “And this time, why don’t you tell me the truth?”
It was silent for a moment. She took the whiskey glass out of his hand and took a swallow. He traced the tattoo she had just over her hip, low on a stomach that shouldn’t be so flat and taut on a woman in her late thirties. It was a cat’s eye, shaded golden and outlined in bold black. She hated cats. Loved dogs, hated cats, had a cat’s-eye tattoo. It made sense to her, if nobody else. She just liked the look of it, she said. It had a hold on him, but not an altogether good one. He knew the tattoo artist who’d done it—her husband—and there that eye was, watching him in the night. Reminding him at all times that he was in bed with a married woman, and that Travis Leonard was coming back eventually. Then what? Would Adam sit back and hold his breath, waiting for the good news that they’d caught Travis with a stolen car, that he was going back to jail, a good long bust? What a beautiful life he had. What a beautiful damned life.
Chelsea said, “You didn’t kill the girl, Adam.”
“Rachel.”
“What?”
“Use her name. She’s not the girl, she’s not a body in the morgue, she’s—”
“You didn’t kill Rachel,” she said, and that stopped him before the boil. He closed his eyes. The tattoo would never close its eyes, but he could close his.
“I know. But I didn’t help.”
“There’s a lot of difference. And you’re going to deal with it by, what, disappearing?”
“I’m not going to disappear. I’m going to make sure that he doesn’t.”
“He?”
“Whoever did it.”
“Let the police do their job.”
“I don’t want to do their job. I want to do one that’s a little different.”
“Adam…”
“Gideon Pearce should have been in jail the day he murdered Marie.”
“So you’re a vigilante now, that’s it? That’s the right thing?”
“If I’m going to pull a trigger, I’d rather the barrel be in his mouth than mine.”
She looked at him for a long time and said, “It’ll be in both at once.”
“Better than just the one of us.”
She lifted his chin with her index finger to make him look her in the eyes. It was dark in the room, though, and all they could exchange were shifting shadows.
“Get some help, Adam. Talk to someone.”
“I’m going to find him.”
“That’s not what I mean by help. I mean you need to find a—”
“A shrink, a priest, a doctor with an open prescription pad. Yeah, I know what you meant.”
She dropped her hand from his face, and for a moment it was quiet. Then she said, “It won’t take long for the police to learn what you’re trying to do. And then you’ll have problems.”
“I know it.”
“You can’t stop, though? Not even for a few days, not even for long enough to step back and realize that all of this—”
“No, Chelsea. I can’t stop.”
He took the whiskey back from her and finished it and they lay together in the silent dark.
Warm breath on his ear, a cool palm on his chest. Something whispered. Adam wanted to respond, but his brain clung to drunken sleep and reminded him that he was going to be hurting tom
orrow, that he’d hit the Scotch a bit too hard before the end, and Scotch, as was its generous way, might have let him slip off into sleep tonight but would certainly make him pay the bill come morning, with interest.
Sleep on, then. Burrow deeper, darker.
The palm was on his shoulder now, and it grew fingers, and the fingers had nails, and they squeezed. The whisper again, rising, nearly a full voice.
“Baby. Adam.”
He tried to turn away, but Chelsea shook his shoulder and now she’d won, sleep was on the retreat.
“Let me be,” he said, or tried to say. His voice was hoarse and choked.
“It’s Rachel’s mother.”
He opened his eyes, turned to see that Chelsea was pressing his phone to her chest, the bluish light of the display spilling over her breast.
“What?”
“She called five times. I finally answered. She wants to talk to you.”
He sat up, the hangover already throwing a few experimental punches even though the alcohol was still too thick in his bloodstream to be called into the ring yet.
“Here,” he said, holding out his hand. His voice croaked again, and he cleared his throat, tasting the smoke from his last cigarette. She passed him the phone and he climbed out of the bed. The alarm clock said it was twenty past three. He walked out of the bedroom and into the living room, where the darkness faded to light from the heat lamps that sustained the snakes.
“Hello,” he said, and he was pleased with his voice—it sounded clear and sober enough to get by, at least.
“Didn’t want to wake you,” Penny Gootee said, “but figure if you were any bit as good as your word, you wouldn’t care. So it’s the right time to call, maybe. Just right.”
Hers was a voice that was not clear or sober enough to get by.
“It’s a fine time. Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right. You really just ask me that?”
“I’m sorry.”
He paused, waited.
“They bury my daughter this week,” she said. Her voice reminded him of her eyes the last time he’d seen her, shot through with misplaced blood.
“I know it.”
She let it go for a few seconds before she spoke again. This time she seemed to be trying harder, a drunk’s careful tightrope walk over the treachery of words, wielding a thick and clumsy tongue as the balancing rod.
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