by Nina Laurin
“This man is a monster.” Colleen is sobbing. She’s a wreck—I know they played it up on purpose to pull at viewers’ heartstrings and drive their hatred of the suspect to a boiling point, but she just looks like she partied too hard, for far too long, and didn’t notice her best years were behind her. Her dry, black-dyed hair has six solid inches of salt-and-pepper roots, and her eyebrows are tattooed on—badly. Her face is the color and texture of a leather purse.
“He killed my baby girl. He killed her. I can’t even have a last look at her pretty face. My baby girl was everything to me.” She smears tears with the heel of her hand, and my mouth twists in a grimace. As far as I know, her “baby girl” barely registered on her radar for most of her life. The internet wasted no time turning up the sordid facts either. Colleen’s home in northeast Denver, a dilapidated little bungalow, had seen its share of interventions by child protection services. Adele did dismally at school and spent several months at a time in foster homes while her mother cleaned up her act. Colleen was never outright abusive—she was one of those who actually do love their children, in their own way; they just can’t bring themselves to make any sacrifices to show it. Such as getting out of bed earlier to make them breakfast and taking them to school. Or doing homework with them instead of going out to get drunk at a dive bar with a new boyfriend. I’ve seen my share of those parents—it’s heartbreaking.
“Please help us find him. He has to pay for what he’s done.” Colleen breaks out in ugly sobs. Figueroa takes her place, doing a poor job of hiding her victorious grin. My brother is easily the most hated person in the country right now.
Next, the screen cuts to an “expert in child psychology.” A blond journalist speaks to him and the camera at the same time: “But do you think this is somehow connected with the crime he committed back in 2002?”
The man looks vaguely familiar. I glance at his name as it scrolls at the bottom of the screen, and it’s terribly familiar too, in that can’t-quite-grasp-it kind of way. He looks straight at the camera as he talks.
“What you have to understand is that Eli Warren should have been locked up for life. He never should have been allowed to walk the streets as a free man. Eli Warren is a psychopath of the most dangerous variety, someone with no remorse or conscience. He’s done this once before, and now he did it again. And like last time—”
Unable to stomach any more, I turn off the TV. Once my rage has cooled to a manageable point, I pick up my phone. For a moment, I contemplate calling Milton but my throat squeezes, and I’m not sure I could muster so much as a word.
I check the time. The AA meeting starts in a half hour, which means I have just enough time to drive there but not to change or make myself look decent. It’s hard to believe I last showered this morning. It feels (and looks and smells) like it’s been a year. My shirt has sweaty crescents under the armpits, and since it’s pale-gray cotton, they’re extra obvious. My face has a mirrorlike oily sheen, especially around the nose and forehead, the circles under my eyes a deep blue.
I splash water on my face and then use more water to slick down the flyaways sticking out to and fro from my ponytail. They’ll go back to the way they were before I get to the meeting. But I think Sunny also helped herself to my tube of hair gel, because it’s nowhere to be seen. Ditto my only belt, so my jeans, which have gotten saggy around the waist and hips over the last day and a half, shall remain saggy. I put on another shirt, a black T-shirt I fish out of the hamper that looks clean. Then, just as I pull it over my head and realize it’s way too big, I notice it’s one of Milton’s. With that stupid Lacoste crocodile over my heart.
My eyes start to burn. If I’d still been hesitating, my mind is now made up. I just need to do something with myself so I don’t dwell on everything I’ve lost.
Or everything I might still lose.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Much was made by the defense of the fact that Eli Warren pulled his sister out of the fire. Surely, if Warren had no remorse and no compassion, he would have let her burn?
But after assessing Eli Warren, I could only come to one conclusion. He rescued his sister because he was hoping she would take his side and help him lie that the fire was accidental. When she finally told the investigators what she had seen and heard the night of the fire, he realized that his pawn had disobeyed and turned on him. Eli Warren saw that as betrayal of the highest order.
—Into Ashes: The Shocking Double Murder in the Suburbs by Jonathan Lamb, Eclipse Paperbacks, 2004, 1st ed.
Fifteen years earlier: before the fire
“What were you even doing there? Why?”
Andrea leans her forehead against the car window. She’s nauseous and exhausted. Her puffy coat had saved her from a broken arm, the ER doctor said, and instead she merely bruised her shoulder. She did, however, have a concussion.
She doesn’t remember getting to the ER. She doesn’t know how long it was before someone found her or before she regained consciousness. She only knows that Eli was nowhere around.
“Why did you go there all by yourself? I told you—”
I wasn’t by myself, Andrea wants to say but doesn’t. There’s no point. “Where’s Eli?” she asks instead.
In the rearview mirror, her mother’s face creases with concern. But her expression is clueless, and Andrea figures out what happened before her mother has a chance to answer.
“He’s at home. You scared me to death! I get home from my shopping, and he tells me you took off to the furniture store. By yourself! What on earth were you thinking?”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispers, but it’s too soft, and her mother, annoyed, asks her to repeat it.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” There’s no point in defending herself, she knows. She really should have seen this coming. Eli isn’t the forgiving-and-forgetting type.
“I can’t have you running around by yourself at all hours of the day,” Cassie says.
Andrea isn’t listening. Something preoccupies her, something her mother said. Nothing seems to add up. Maybe it all broke into pieces when her head hit the cold concrete floor but she can’t make the pieces fit back together.
She asks a question but Cassie is distracted. She repeats. “What did you buy?”
“What?”
“When you went shopping.”
“Nothing!” Cassie’s face flares in anger, hot and unexpected. “What the hell does it matter, anyway? We’re talking about you here!”
She goes on. Andrea lets the words flow through her aching head. She pictures them dissolving like ice crystals and evaporating. She cracks the window open to let them out, rests her head on the back of the seat, and closes her eyes.
* * *
Andrea wakes with a sudden jolt. She lies there, disoriented, trying to remember when she managed to fall asleep. She’s sprawled on top of her bedcover, fully dressed, a puddle of drool drying beneath her cheek. On the bed across, she can make out Eli’s prone form under the blankets.
Then she hears noises downstairs and understands what woke her up. Alarmed, she sits up. The digital clock says it’s past midnight. If her mom walks in and sees her, still not in bed, she’ll be mad.
But for some reason, instead of hastily undressing and diving under the covers, she stays still, listening. They’re arguing in hushed but angry voices. Andrea hears the tension in them, humming like a power line.
She gets up, trying to be as quiet as possible, and creeps toward the door. She opens it just enough to slip through and emerges into the hall.
It’s dark out here. All the lights are out except for one downstairs. She hides around the corner at the top of the staircase.
“…don’t defend him. I can’t believe—”
“Cass, calm down. There’s a way out of this.”
“Really?” Her mother’s voice is a low hiss, and Andrea has to strain to make out what she’s saying. “Have you been paying any attention? What if they decide to go through with it?”
“Th
ey won’t go through with anything,” Sergio rumbles, but he doesn’t sound as confident as usual. “Think about it. If they sue us, the whole thing will get out into the open. And they don’t want that right now. Can you imagine what a circus the press will start when they find out that—”
“Whether he did or didn’t do it is irrelevant. We could be in a shit-ton of trouble regardless. Do we even have money for legal fees?”
“We’ll come up with something.”
“We’ll come up with something!” she mocks. “It’s not the nineties anymore, Sergio. The store barely stays afloat. Another year like this, and you can only cut your losses and close. Nobody wants overpriced clunky crap from Italy when you have Ikea around the corner. We’re broke. And this thing could be the final straw after which we end up living on the street. Then what?”
Andrea shrinks back. Her bare feet are freezing on the floor, and it feels like her teeth are about to start chattering.
Her stepfather mutters something under his breath.
“What did you say?” Her mother’s shrill voice cuts through the silence.
“You heard me. Sorry you couldn’t do better but you know how it is.”
The silence lingers, leaden. Andrea doesn’t dare breathe.
“Oh, really?” her mother says softly but her words have an unmistakable edge. “Is that what you think? That you’re so irreplaceable?”
Sergio gives a short, bitter laugh. “Building yourself a life raft already. How like you. I should have known from the start.”
“Fuck you,” her mother says calmly. Steps thunder closer, and Andrea knows she must move, quickly. She retreats, making for the door of her room, and closes it behind her just as her mother climbs the stairs.
Andrea’s heartbeat is frantic, her back sweaty. Halfway between the door and her bed, she freezes and listens. The steps stop in the hall outside. For the next few seconds, the only sounds are her own heartbeat and the soft creak of the floorboards.
Then the steps grow farther and farther away.
She looks in the direction of her brother. His face is smooth, pale, and calm in the dim light filtering in from outside. He’s sound asleep. Or at least faking it really well.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I’m going to my meeting, I text Milt as I’m maneuvering the Cadillac SUV out of the town house’s driveway. Then I think of him chiding me for texting while behind the wheel and set the phone down in the cup holder. I keep glancing at it, nearly missing a stop sign. Bad Andrea. But no answer arrives.
I don’t know what I’ve been hoping for, what the reason was for this childish display. Did I expect him to pat me on the head? To tell me he’s madly in love with me and we’re getting back together? He may be in denial but I sure am not. All the meetings in the world aren’t going to fix what’s wrong with me.
I can’t stomach the radio so I hit Play on the CD player out of sheer habit. My old car, may it rest in peace, only had a CD and cassette deck. This one is equipped with an iPhone jack but Cynthia never mastered it. Or maybe it’s just another facet of her obstinate clinging to the past. But there turns out to be a CD in the player. Only instead of music, words pour out of the speaker. It’s an audiobook on CD. I always wondered who still bought those, when you can get them right on your phone.
“…so you might ask yourself, is this normal behavior? Should I be worried? And that’s normal and a perfectly natural thing to wonder about. And of course, we know how children and teenagers can seem like alien creatures sometimes. But some things are a part of normal development, learning to empathize with other human beings, learning to form bonds, learning to fit into the world.”
I frown, eyeing the CD player. Children? Teenagers? Did I miss something?
“Some children, however, never manage this process. The sociopathic child sees no problem with lying and deceiving. He feels no guilt or remorse. In this chapter, I will present to you the proof, provided by the people who knew the subject, that Eli Warren is a sociopathic individual and has been that way from a young age.”
I reach for the Eject button so fast that the car does a little zigzag on the road. Gripping the steering wheel, I straighten the SUV, ignoring the angry honks behind me. A Honda passes me, the driver flipping me off through the window.
The CD pops out of the player without a sound. I hold it up with my fingertips. INTO ASHES BY JONATHAN LAMB, it reads in red font, like an old Stephen King novel. The moment I lay eyes on it, nausea sweeps through me, and I set it down on the passenger seat.
I’ve never read that thing—it’s more than I could stomach. But I did look at it once, at a big-box store when I was a teenager. Cynthia was hunting down bargains a few aisles over, and there it was, sitting next to the Harlequin romances and mass-market John Grishams. I thumbed through it, stopping only when I hit the glossy photo insert.
Photos of the house, photos of Cassie, of Sergio. Photos of our school. Lots and lots of photos of my brother. But really, I had to admit to myself, as I scanned each shiny page, I was looking to see if I was in there somewhere too. I wasn’t. All that was left of me was my arm, in one of the cropped family pictures. Eli Warren’s sister reduced to a dimpled elbow and plump, freckled shoulder poking out of a tank top. In the shuffle, everyone seems to have forgotten I existed at all.
I still wonder if it was intentional—if it’s exactly what he wanted.
And then, like any lazy teenager skimming her reading assignments, I peeked at the ending. Wished I hadn’t. I still remember that paragraph of the epilogue, pretty much word for word.
But the question the justice system found itself facing—the question that haunts us all, without a doubt—was, What do you do with a manipulative sociopath and cold-blooded murderer who’s only twelve years old? Do you gamble on the chance this is just a macabre phase, a flaw that can be fixed with time and the right treatment? Or do you think, instead, of the people he has hurt and of the people he may still hurt if he’s allowed to walk free?
I grip the steering wheel and focus on the road unfolding in front of me in an endless stream of taillights. I’m entering evening traffic, denser than usual tonight. Stuck in a car, alone with my thoughts and with Jonathan Lamb’s magnum opus. Great.
This is the man I saw on TV earlier, I think suddenly, the realization going off in the complete vacuum of my mind. Jonathan Lamb—that’s why the name seemed so familiar.
It’s as if floodgates open in my mind, and irrational, burning, violent hatred for the man rushes in. My fingernails sink into the cushioned steering wheel cover. And since he’s not here, the natural impulse is to take my rage out on the next closest thing. I glower at the CD, wondering if I should snap it into little pieces or throw it out the window.
But I don’t do that. Slowly, as if it might bite, I slide the CD back into the player.
RESUME flashes in pale-blue letters on the CD player. Okay, then. Resume.
“…was the principal of George Washington School from 1997 to 2003. She agreed to speak with me at her home in Wellshire.”
I thumb Fast-Forward.
“…seemed like a normal thing—a typical adjustment period when a new student tries to make friends and forge deeper connections. You see, at our school, most of the students have been together since elementary school. We’re a very tight-knit community, the students and the parents. Everyone knows each other. It can be hard for a newcomer to carve out a place for himself. But this is what I, and his teachers, noticed. He seemed to become friends with everyone, everywhere he went. Immediately, he had this large group of…I wouldn’t say friends. It wasn’t so much friendship as a kind of…awe. They were followers. That’s the word I’m looking for.”
“Was he particularly close to anyone?”
“That’s just it. In spite of that whole herd of followers, he didn’t have any real friends. He seemed to cast them off with remarkable ease, as soon as they stopped being convenient.”
“Did Eli Warren have problems with oth
er students?”
“If you’re talking about bullying, the school has a zero-tolerance policy.”
I only snap out of my weird trancelike state when I pull into a parking spot. I turn off the engine. The CD player dies with it, and I sink into the quiet, the hum of the city locked outside the SUV.
In retrospect, listening to that wasn’t the ideal way to put myself in the AA mind-set. But what’s done is done. I flip the visor down, inspect myself in the mirror, and practice my facial expression. I used to do that before school, when I went back six months after the fire. Arranging my features into the look everyone was expecting to see. Grieving, but not totally crushed. Human, but never vulnerable. Sad eyes and a knowing half smirk, half smile.
But I’d worried in vain. No one bullied me, or picked on me, or tried to victimize me. In fact, people avoided me like I was poison or like I had a contagious disease they didn’t want to catch. Leeanne and her friends were the first to act like I didn’t even exist. Everyone else just took their cue.
Now I make myself smile. Not too wide, no teeth. I tug my cheeks up with my fingertips, seeing if it makes the hollows under my eyes disappear. It doesn’t. The smile props up my cheekbones just enough so they don’t look sunken. It’ll have to do.
There’s still five minutes until the meeting starts. Everyone must still be hanging out in front of the coffee machine, swilling horrible filter decaf because it’s nine and some of them have to go to bed right after, to get up early in the morning for their jobs. This is the scene I desperately want to avoid so I trudge across the lot as slowly as I can.
The meetings take place in a church basement, even though, technically, this particular chapter is the secular AA, which was part of the reason I chose it. Having to pretend to be remorseful is bad enough without dragging Jesus into it. When I first started, they were in a gymnasium of a community center. But then the gymnasium started evening Zumba classes or something like that, and the meetings had to be moved.