“Yeah, yeah,” Joel agreed, but he wasn’t trying to be glib. Pieces of the story didn’t fit; something sinister was taking aim at some of the schools best kids and it had gone from suspect and isolated to insidious and violent.
And he was hell-bent on finding out why.
Chapter Three
“You knew that guy?” Brian asked with a twinge of jealousy on his voice as he drove her to the detention center. She’d pulled up the GPS on her phone and led him there; her hands were shaking slightly and she tried not to let her teeth chatter. Brian was readying for the potential length of Alex’s stay. Illegal possession of a firearm was going to be a minimum of a one-day hold. They didn’t have nearly the money nor the influence to make anything move faster or shorter.
Holly rolled her eyes at Brian, frustrated that she could see right through his casual questioning, and she let out a single laugh of annoyance. “Some guy I went to high school with.”
“Were you friends?”
“Come on, Brian,” she admonished.
“I’m asking because he seemed to be gentlemanly.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she chastised again. “I’m serious. I literally haven’t seen him since high school. I barely remember him and hardly recognized him.” But it must have shown on her face—her telltale red—that she’d been caught somehow.
“You hardly recognized him? And you didn’t notice the way he was looking at you?” Brian asked as his phone began to ring inside the car. “Answer,” he said to his speaker and the call burst forth the car’s speakers. Holly put her head back. “Yeah, I’m here,” he said to the person on the other end of the line. “I’ve got a client in the car. Look, I’m headed to Donald Cooper and then I’ve got to stop by a client’s house then I’ll be back in the office. Have him wait.” He leaned forward and ended the call right as the GPS instructed him to turn across the bridge and head downtown.
“Another client?” she asked.
“September is a good month for divorces. Lots of people split in August.”
“Maybe it’s too hot to think straight.”
“I think it’s being around their kids,” he replied.
After her day, Holly was inclined to agree.
In the detention center, after he’d been checked in and processed, they let him have time alone with Holly and Brian. It wasn’t long and it was timed; and Alex, already in his standard issue clothing, sat defiant. She expected defeated and embarrassed; she expected weepy and asking to go home.
She did not expect to find her child sitting in the plastic chair with a look on his face of sheer rage. Holly knew him and she knew that he would tell her the truth; he would never keep something so big from her. Not Alex.
“Talk to me,” Holly said, her hands supplicant before her. Her own anger and guilt took a backseat as she hoped Alex would see her support and let go of some of his anger long enough to let her help him.
“Not with him,” Alex said and he nodded his head toward Brian. Holly nodded and Brian got up and stood right outside the door, his hand still on the knob, out of earshot.
“I don’t think he can leave the room,” she said, but it was dismissive, hopeful. “He can’t hear.”
“It’s not what you think,” Alex breathed, his lips tight. “You have no idea what I was doing.”
“You can tell me, you know,” Holly said. She didn’t know much syrupy sadness she had for him before she’d beg and sob for him to tell her the truth. She was his mother; she deserved it.
“I can’t, Mom. Not yet. It’s not my story to tell.”
“It’s not your story to tell?” Holly shook her head, dumbfounded. “Child…”
“Look, the only reason I needed to talk alone was to tell you that I stole the second gun from Dad. But I didn’t take it to school at the last minute…it’s under my bed. And I need you to hide it. Just until I can sort this out…”
Holly’s mouth dropped open and she stared at her child, mouth agape.
“Oh little baby Jesus in a manger, Alex. What on earth?” she hissed to him when she’d composed herself. She spun one way and then the other, paranoid that the small neutral room, with its beige tile floors and metal table, folding chairs, somehow hid tiny cameras and microphones. Were they storming her house now? Were they going to arrest him?
“I’m serious. And I can’t tell you more.”
Holly saw the fear in her son’s eyes—the petrified look of someone without any other options. She had no idea what the gun was for or where he stole the first one from or who he was covering for or how much of his life he’d messed up by involving himself in someone else’s problem.
“There’s a gun under your bed?”
Alex didn’t answer.
“Were you going to kill a girl with a gun you stole from your father?” her voice shook as she asked it. Could it be possible that all her attempts to raise a conscientious young man, unafraid of strong women and pro-equality, had instead transformed her amazing young teenager into a secret douche?
Alex still didn’t answer. Then he softly shook his head without commitment.
Holly hit the table in front of her with her right hand and Alex jumped. He adjusted his posture and looked at her, his eyes narrowed in shock and fear, and his lip quivering. She noticed how his defiant façade was starting to slip, and she regretted the anger, regretted the outburst, regretted so much.
“What, baby?” she asked in a pleading voice. “Tell me.”
“Mom,” Alex started, his voice tight. The moment slipped by. He glimpsed down, wringing his hands. He looked so young; like a child, not a teen, not someone she could leave overnight there, not someone who was capable of keeping secrets of such magnitude from her. “It’s nothing. A misunderstanding. Just a dangerous misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding. What am I going to find?” she whispered.
Alex’s shoulder’s slumped and he remained silent. When she made a movement to reach out and touch his arm, he crumbled. He put his head against the metal and sobbed. As he sobbed, he pulled away from her and retreated into himself, slipping further out of reach.
“Your adjudication hearing is in the morning,” Holly said with a sniff. She knew the private room wouldn’t be available for too much longer. “I’ll be back. The meeting is at 10 and Brian can meet with you at 8, okay?”
“Okay, Mom,” Alex sniffed.
“I was reading the detention center rules and—”
“I won’t be here long,” he said and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his state-issued grey sweatshirt. “I won’t need you to bring me things, or…I’ll be fine. I can handle myself.”
She heard his words, but she didn’t believe them. Alex was a child who was charming, intelligent, and fun, but he was a baby. Her baby. She’d taken a first day of school picture of him nearly four weeks ago. The same picture she’d snapped every day for ten years. Alex and his age and his desired occupation and interesting facts about him on a sheet of paper. She’d never missed a year: Kindergarten through 9th grade—he’d grown taller and gone through puberty and still the poster remained the same: he wanted to be a detective.
He wanted to get a degree. College was in his sight.
The expulsion and this, this jail, seemed so personal and Holly didn’t understand why.
“It’s not what you think,” Alex kept saying. “Please believe me, okay?”
“Where’d you get the gun you took to school, Alex?” Holly whispered. Tears welled up in her own eyes, and she could hear Brian mumbling to a safety officer and giving them a few more minutes alone before he was introduced to the facility.
“I can’t tell you,” Alex said and his flicked to the door and to Brian and back to his mom. “I promised.”
“You can’t keep secrets if keeping it hurts people, Alex,” she scolded him like he was five again. She felt Brian’s hand on her shoulder.
“It’s time. Wait outside,” he instructed and Holly rose mechanically, her brai
n unable to comprehend what she was seeing—Alex in a grey sweatsuit, his face streaked with his tears, his chin wobbling.
“I’m sorry,” her child cried. “I’m sorry. It’s not easy, Mom. It wasn’t easy. But I did what I had to do. It wasn’t easy,” he kept repeating as though wrestling with the moral dilemma alone could exonerate him.
“Of course, kiddo,” she said and tried to smile, offering him nothing but warmth and the assurance she’d still be there for him no matter what. “Nothing ever is.”
The gun was in a shoebox. Ammunition beside it. Her heart beat wildly in her chest as she saw it there—the whole thing triggering on an emotional and physical level. Holly handed it to Brian who handed it back with a low whistle. They sat on the floor in the middle of Alex’s bedroom and found it right where he said it was, and Holly was stunned.
“Why are you handing this back to me? I don’t want anything to do with this. Should you do some lawyerly thing with it?”
“I am,” he said with a nod and got to his feet. “I’m telling you to buy a gun safe,” he advised.
“You want me to sit on this and not take it immediately to the police?”
“I’ve been your friend a long time, Holly,” Brian said. “For now…yeah. That’s my advice.”
“Your full advice?”
“Keep it secure and out of anyone else’s reach until we figure out a few more details. That’s my advice as your lawyer and your friend.” He kissed her on the cheek in a friendly way, quick and efficient, and then left. It was only three in the afternoon, but she felt as though she’d been awake for over 48-hours. She resisted the urge to let her body succumb to sleep.
She was a depression sleeper. The worse her symptoms grew, the longer she craved endless sleep. If she allowed her instinct to take over, she would crawl into a deep and restless slumber, sleeping away the pain.
Holly locked the shoebox in her bathroom, the only room in the whole house lockable from the outside, and tucked the key into her bra. And for a long time, she stared at the door, unable to move or think or know what to do next.
Shaking herself free of brain fog, Holly walked downstairs and into her kitchen. She grabbed her cellphone and took a breath.
Against her better judgment, she called Francisco, unable to hide the tremor in her voice when he answered.
“Alex was expelled today,” she said. “Expelled.”
She heard him inhale sharply.
“Yeah? What did he do?” her ex asked in a tone that implied he might already know.
“Threatened to kill a girl. Shoot her.” She paused, left the word weighted. “With the gun you bought. The one you threatened me with all those years ago.
Holly listened to the silence for as long as she could bear. He’d only wanted to scare her, he said, but her son watched the whole episode—the punch, the gun.
She heard her ex swear and hang up the phone. Two minutes later, he called back, panting, out-of-breath and options.
“It’s gone from my hiding place,” he said. She detected regret and sadness in his voice, although she assumed it was more for his lost firearm than for his son mimicking his own history of violence. “He took it to school?” Francisco asked, defeated now.
“Hearing is tomorrow. I’m sure you could list it as stolen property…but I have questions, Fran. How’d he get it? When?”
Like father like son, she thought, as he offered up nothing—only silence and steady breathing.
“Okay,” she continued and cleared her throat. “So, now I need to start monitoring his trips with MiMi?” she asked with a bite she knew would dig deep. Alex’s paternal grandma didn’t give two shits about Holly, but she was Alex’s biggest fan and enabler.
“Leave my mother out of this, Holly,” Francisco said and, as predicted, it was the most engaged he’d been all discussion. She heard him swear under his breath. “I’ll come to the hearing tomorrow …”
“How gracious of you,” Holly yawned. “See you tomorrow.”
But she knew there was a good chance he wouldn’t show—something, anything, would come up.
Next, she called Gloria.
Gloria wasn’t her mother, but she was the next best thing: A best friend roughly twenty years older who helped Holly survive her divorce with laughter and wine and shared interests. It was Gloria who started the Love is Murder Social Club, a nod to their bitter divorces and salacious love of true crime stories.
Their friendship started during routine mornings at work—Gloria was a stay-at-home mom who volunteered her hours at the elementary school and Holly implemented a Friday social hour with parents after drop-off. Free coffee, donuts, and—often—a rep from some business: massage, books, makeup. The socializing was free and many women and men formed bonds that grew beyond their children. It was exactly what Holly had needed when Alex was small and she viewed the social hour as a testament of how people were desperate for community.
Gloria, her pseudo-mom and big sister, her mentor.
“Hey,” Holly said when Gloria answered.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Where are you?” Gloria said in a burst. She sounded as though she was rummaging around her apartment.
“It’s Alex. He’s in jail.” Close enough.
“Aye dios mio. I’m coming over,” Gloria instructed.
And Holly couldn’t tell her no.
“I think we need to get the whole social club in on this,” Gloria said as she took in the bulk of information presented by Holly. They sat on her couch, feet tucked up under them, drinking the only thing Holly had in the house: fresh sangria she forgot she’d made. The extra time abandoned in the fridge made the fruit extra boozy.
Somehow that form of self-medication seemed necessary. She didn’t think anyone would blame her.
“What are we getting them in on, exactly?” Holly asked. “This isn’t a case. It isn’t even a mystery. It’s a teenager experiencing someone hating him for the first time in his life and he can’t handle it.”
“Okay, darling, first of all…I’m thinking that they are your friends and you could use their support. But if you lay all of your objections out in that fashion, am I allowed to disagree?” Gloria asked with a soft smile in her voice.
Holly dipped her head. “Of course,” the younger woman said.
Gloria plopped a smooth, alcohol-infused peach into her mouth and shook her head over and over, breathing in and out of her nose. “I know teenagers. I have two right now and I’ve grown three more…I know kids. And I know Alex. And I would trust him and wait until you hear his side. Know kids lie when they are worried about getting themselves or friends in trouble—it’s human nature, it’s not evil.”
“You’re right,” Holly said, reminding herself.
“And right now, you need to keep busy and do some errands and try to wear yourself out so you’ll sleep nice and sound tonight, but just in case, I’ll have Maeve run over a sleeping pill from Derek or something, okay?” she said and put a hand on Holly’s knee, taking away her drink and setting it on the coffee table.
Gloria, the Mother Hen; she didn’t know what she’d do without her.
“I guess there were a few errands I needed to run,” she said and ran her hands over her face, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes, creating little purple and blue dotting her vision.
“Perfect. You go do those errands. Take your time and in a few hours, come home, and we’ll have a dinner ready for you. And we’ll figure it out, Holly, because that is what we do. Don’t hurry back, just wander, get lost. We’d do it for any child, but definitely for yours.”
Holly’s face crumpled again and she let out a tender sob. “What if…” she mumbled, unable to say it fully. “What if he wanted to hurt that girl.”
“I’m taking care of that boy’s mama all the same,” Gloria said and gave Holly a hug, wrapping her arms around her shoulders, reminding Holly of all the acceptance and love Gloria had always shown. She took a deep breath and for the first time that
day felt safe.
“Holly? Oof, that looks heavy. You need a hand?”
She recognized his voice immediately and Holly wanted to throw herself over the incriminating cardboard box she had attempted to shove into her trunk. It wouldn’t fit. The edges caught against the back of the seats and the glass of the trunk door, and no matter how hard Holly tried to push, the newly purchased gun safe wasn’t fitting.
Holly scanned the names of the strip-mall stores. Where did he come from?
What were the odds that she’d run into Joel, while covered in sweat, buzzed from her day, shoving a gun safe into her car?
“I’m not sure it will fit,” she said. She watched as he set down his own purchases—shoes, she noticed—and moved to help her. Within a few minutes, he’d flipped the back seat down and lifted the safe into position. She shook his hand and thanked him. “I didn’t expect to see you again today.”
“Should I ask?” he nodded toward her purchase.
“Have a good night, Mr. Rusk,” Holly said and she turned to walk to the driver’s side. When he didn’t reply, she turned, her keys in hand and tilted her head. “What?” she asked, empathetically, her shoulders slumped. “I don’t want to explain or—”
“Look,” he started and he ran his hand through his sandy-blond hair, his face pained. “Today was shit.” He seemed to weigh the next part. “For both of us.”
Holly’s jaw clenched and she took a breath. Somehow, she could feel what was coming next.
“We didn’t get to really connect about Alex and—”
“I really should get home,” Holly said again, thinking of Gloria and Maeve rummaging around Alex’s room in her absence, scouring it for clues she might have missed as a mom. Maybe they’d hacked his computer or found a diary—anything that could shine light on how and why things took such a dreadful turn.
“I’d like to buy you a drink,” he said, rushed. He picked up his shoes and waited. “Not as Alex’s counselor…as an old friend…”
Dispatched Confessions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 2) Page 4