by Hannah Jayne
“I need to find my little brother.”
I immediately wondered if there were other buildings on this property. A barn or a shed or—God forbid—some sort of underground bunker where they could be keeping Josh.
“I’m sure he’ll turn up.”
Dave and Rita seemed so nonchalant eating their doughnuts that I had to dig my nails into my palms to keep from jumping over the table and screaming at them.
“This is really nice out here. Really quiet. Are we still in San Jose?”
“Unincorporated,” Rita said.
“Do you own this land?”
“Belongs to the family.”
“I—um, I really like to hike.”
Rita smiled. “That’s one thing you didn’t get from me. I don’t like hiking. Too many snakes and things. Don’t like anything that has too few legs or too many.”
“Oh. You seem to have a lot of land here. Could I hike around here maybe?” I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks. I could take the gun and find where they were holding Josh, then use the gun to hold Rita and Dave off while I stole Rita’s car.
It sounded doable and kind of cool, something simple but perfect that I must have seen in some terrible movie, because I was eighteen and turned into a puddle of goo with a gun in my hand, and other than having a pretty good idea which end the bullet came out, that was the extent of my gun expertise. I didn’t even know if it was loaded, but Dave would, and if it wasn’t, my whole plan would flop down like a broken tent, and then Dave would surely kill me and Josh if I found him.
But Josh had a device. He had something that reached out to the outside world, and maybe Nate—my heart ached for Nate, for his stupid flat orange Crush, for the feel of his forehead against mine, his hand in mine—had the iPad and was reaching back.
Forty-Six
Rita and Dave exchanged a look, and Rita put down her doughnut, put her hand on my arm. I was struck at the way our skin tones were a perfect match, at the mole on her elbow that mirrored the one I had on mine. I had never seen someone who reflected me so much, and I had never thought it really mattered—until this moment. There was something exhilarating and something that fed my soul about seeing this match with Rita.
She’s a cold-blooded criminal, I reminded myself. But I had such a hard time wrapping my head around that. Maybe…maybe it was all Dave, and Rita would help me turn him in, and then the three of us—Rita, me, and Josh—could live together with my mom when she got better and try to make a life with the pieces that remained?
“You can probably hike around a little bit if you’d like,” Rita said.
Dave’s eyebrows were thick caterpillars, but I could see his eyes flash and pin Rita with a glare. “That’s probably not the best idea right now.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“You know the cops are after you, right?”
I blinked. “Well, yeah, of course, but—”
“It’s only a matter of time before they come here looking for you. You’re probably going to want to lie low until you—we—can come up with something.”
I swallowed hard, narrowing my eyes. “But I didn’t do anything.”
Dave cocked his head and looked at me like I was a child. “You tried to kill your parents, Andrea.”
I was incredulous. “No, I didn’t.”
Dave’s eyes were downcast, like he was actually feeling something that could have been pain. Rita wouldn’t meet my eye.
“No!” I sputtered again. “No, I didn’t! You know I didn’t! You were—” I stood up, my chair flying backward and smacking hard on the linoleum floor. Rita stood up and pulled me to her. I was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering, the rage and fear taking over.
“You were there!” I pointed at Dave. “You were there. I remember! You—you—you wanted more money, but my father said no!”
I don’t know where the realization came from, but I could hear Dave’s voice—a low rumble from downstairs—and my dad’s words: slow, deliberate.
“Not another dime. You need to leave before I call the cops.”
Dave nodded solemnly. “We were there.”
I looked to Rita for confirmation. Would there be fear in her eyes, despair? But her eyes were looking over my head as if Dave had admitted they had been at a McDonald’s instead of church.
“And then what happened, girl?”
I prayed for the memory to come crashing down. For all the pieces to suddenly fit.
“Go on,” Dave said.
I shook my head, broke away from Rita.
“I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything after that right now.”
“So you don’t remember coming down the stairs?”
“What? A little, I guess.”
Rita righted my chair, and for some reason, I sat down again.
“You don’t remember yelling at your dad?” Rita said, her voice soft.
I looked at her, blinking hard, trying to remember. “Why would I do that?”
“Because your dad wasn’t going to give you any money. He said ‘not another dime’ because he was talking about you. Just like they said on the news.”
I looked away from Dave, staring at the wood grain of the table.
It didn’t sound right, but the only proof I had was a big slice of darkness in my memory. I did fight with my parents about money here and there but—
“You got mad. We just wanted to help.”
“No. I don’t—” I did remember coming back downstairs. I did remember seeing my parents and Dave and Rita again, but it was as if in a dream. The edges were fuzzy, the picture blurred. I couldn’t make myself walk; I couldn’t make my eyes focus.
I heard screaming.
“Someone was shouting,” I said.
There was a quirk at the edge of Dave’s mouth, and he nodded.
“Mom,” I whispered. “Get back. Get away from her.” I could hear my mom’s voice so clearly, but now it buzzed in my head, over and over again in an endless loop. “Andi, no,” I mouthed. “Stop.”
Tears were rolling down my cheeks. Big, thick tears that came from my soul, from the flick of memory that was breaking my heart.
“My mother told me to stop. She said no…”
Rita looked away like she couldn’t bear to face me.
“You had a gun,” Dave said.
The memory cracked. “No,” I said sharply. “No, I didn’t. I’ve never held a gun. Where would I even get a gun?”
“It was in my purse,” Rita said softly. “I carry it while I’m working. You never know, some of those guests at the motel…”
I wagged my head. “No.” I couldn’t hear any more. I pressed my palms against my ears. “I can’t hear this. I can’t hear any more of this. It’s not true. None of this is true.”
“We want to protect you, Andi.” Rita’s voice again. “We know you didn’t mean it.”
“Things just got out of hand, and then it happened so fast.”
Something was simmering inside me. Something hot and ugly when I walked in the door that day. I remembered seeing Rita’s purse. Hearing Dave’s voice. My mother pleading. Then, the crack of the gun. Screaming. My father falling. My mother… “Oh, Andi…”
I twitched now, remembering the feel of hands on my shoulders, on my arms. The words whispered in my ear: It’s over now. It’s over now.
My eyelids were so heavy, my limbs like leaded steel.
I remembered the gun falling, hitting the tile that was slowly being swallowed up by velvet red.
I was on my feet and down the hall, landing on my knees in front of the toilet before I vomited.
Was that why I couldn’t remember?
Because I didn’t want to?
Because I tried to kill my parents?
Forty-Seven
Rita was standing
in the doorway, but she waited until I finished. I threw up until there was nothing left in my body, and then I tried to throw up more. I was a horrible person with a rage problem. I was a murderer.
All those talking heads on TV had been right.
“You going to be okay?” Rita pulled a hand towel from the rack and tossed it at me. My real mother would have wet the cloth and dabbed at my forehead until I stopped crying.
But I didn’t have a real mother anymore.
I tried to get the memory back. I needed to see that moment where my soul died. I needed to feel the heft of the gun in my hand, to smell the smoke in the air.
You didn’t do this, something deep in my gut whispered. You know you didn’t do this.
I didn’t do it.
I had no reason to kill my parents. I glanced at Rita, at this woman with my features who was nothing at all like me. Who carried a gun and believed my parents owed her something.
I sat on my butt and pushed my back up against the wall. “Tell me what happened next, Rita.”
Rita’s eyes widened. “Oh, I don’t—it was all so fast. A blur. We left and we heard the gunshots.”
I tried to see the door opening and Rita and Dave walking out. I tried to focus on the slice of night that would have come through the front door, but it wasn’t there. Grayness was. That fuzzy-edged lack of solid that made my stomach roil.
“And then what happened?”
Rita looked over her shoulder and then offered me a small smile. “Why don’t you get up and lie down in your bed? You should take a rest. You don’t look so good.”
“I just found out I tried to kill my parents,” I said slowly, hoping I was convincing.
Rita just gave me a strange, super quick nod and tucked her arm under mine as she walked me down the hall. She pulled back the covers on the single bed, and I slipped in, my eyes never leaving hers.
“Tell me what happened…Mom.”
Rita kind of patted the air in a “not right now” gesture and awkwardly tucked me into the bed. There was no flood of motherly emotion, no flush needing her to love me. I was cold and numb, half hoping I could close my eyes and never wake up, half planning how I was going to hop out the window and figure my way out of this place.
I licked my lips. “If you left—”
“What’s that, hon?”
I looked into Rita’s eyes. They were flat and exhausted. There was nothing there that suggested pity or care, so I just shook my head.
“Nothing.” I rolled over to face the wall.
If I shot my parents, how did the gun end up at your house?
* * *
The following morning, Dave and Rita were sitting at the breakfast table when I woke up. There was a newspaper spread out before Dave, and Rita was eating scrambled eggs, already dressed in her Midnight Inn smock. I sat down in what had become my spot, and Rita said, “You want coffee or something? Eggs?”
I felt like I’d swallowed cement, but I nodded anyway, determined to make myself look normal in this criminal Norman Rockwell painting. Rita set a chipped plate piled with runny eggs and a steaming hot cup of black coffee in front of me. I took a sip from the mug, letting the burn of the liquid sizzle on my tongue, steam its way down my throat. The pain felt good.
“You know, I was really mad at my parents,” I said slowly.
Dave finally looked up at me, his eyebrows raised. “Yeah.”
“They were going to kick me out. Age eighteen and all,” I lied.
Rita stared down at her plate while Dave nodded. “Sucks.”
I picked up my fork and poked at the eggs. “They did get money for me every month, you know? I didn’t see any of it.”
“Damn greedy bastards is what they were.”
Dave’s words stung me, but I kept my face unchanged. I couldn’t agree with him, but I could do that. “So I guess I thought they owed me. Especially if you and”—I sucked in a deep breath—“Mom were there to take me back.”
“We just wanted to be a family,” Dave said.
Rita nodded, but she still wouldn’t look at me.
“It was your choice, you know. Whether you wanted to go with us or not. They didn’t have any say one way or another,” Dave said.
“How are your eggs?” Rita asked.
“Uh, fine, thanks. Anyway, I was just thinking about the money,” I said, focusing my eyes on Dave.
He pressed his lips together in a kind of smug smile. “They definitely owe you.”
“They took me away from you guys.” The knots in my stomach were tightening, everything inside me screaming betrayal, but I smashed it down, willing myself to stay totally stable, cool even. “We were supposed to be a family.”
Dave bobbed his head. “And if we even had one tenth of what they had, we woulda been.”
“But the lawyers and all…”
“That’s right.” Dave smiled. “Your mama never gave up on you. And me neither. I knew you’d always come through for me.”
It was a weird turn of phrase, but I let it go, laying my fork next to my plate. “The thing is, I don’t know if there is any money for me. I mean, I’ve got about five hundred dollars.”
Rita’s head snapped up.
“Back at the motel. Maybe I could go over there with you…”
Rita nodded, and I could almost sense the electricity in the air between her and Dave. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t even like. It was more like the stench of a drug that piqued their salivary glands.
“But the real money, life insurance policy and stuff. Those probably go to Josh.” I had no idea if my parents had life insurance policies and, if they did, who they would have made the beneficiary. But it seemed to interest Dave and Rita enough for Rita to stop chewing and Dave to fold his hands on top of the newspaper. “I just don’t know where he is or if he’s even okay.”
I waited for my birth parents to say something, holding my breath until I couldn’t anymore. But they stayed quiet.
“I mean, if I were to go to the police and tell them what I believe happened, they would only listen if I produced Josh, right?”
“What exactly would you tell them?” Dave wanted to know.
Here I licked my lips and prayed with everything I had that I could be convincing. I blinked back tears. “I could tell the…truth…that, like you told me, I flew into a rage, that it was an accident, and maybe if I had a really good attorney, I could get off or just take my punishment.” I let my eyes go downcast and batted my lashes. “But that would mean we wouldn’t get to be a family anymore.” I pushed my arm out to Dave, squeezing his meat hook hand. “But we just found each other. That would be so hard to be separated again.”
Dave and Rita were listening, studying me, and I hoped they couldn’t hear the thud of my heart.
“But if there were someone else we could pin it on…then we could even get the reward money.” They were hanging on my words, and I licked my lips. “There’s this neighbor who broke into our house. He owed my parents a lot of money.”
Dave seemed to be considering but not convinced.
I dug my nail into the fake wood grain of the table. “Or Nate…”
“The boy from the motel?”
My heart broke as I betrayed him. “He hated people like my parents. He just wanted to save me. And it would explain why I ended up at the Midnight Inn.”
Rita shifted in her chair, and I wondered if she was trying to hide the Midnight Inn emblem on her smock.
“He’s got an iPad that belonged to my dad,” I said slowly. “My foster dad. And he’s been in my house. I can prove it.”
Forty-Eight
“What are you suggesting?”
“First of all, I need to find Josh.” Dave went to shake his head, but I kept talking. “If I don’t have Josh, I’m going to still look guilty, and there is no way we ca
n get any money.”
“So you’re saying that you’ll deliver this Nate guy and Josh to the police station.”
I nodded. “Or you can deliver them. Get that fifty-thousand-dollar reward.”
Rita seemed to perk up. “It’s seventy-five thousand now.”
Her joy was another kick to the gut. No one spoke for a beat. The stillness in the room was total, and I counted the beats of my heart.
“We only took the boy because—”
“Because we were afraid you were going to hurt him,” Dave said.
My blood boiled.
“Do you remember? He came downstairs right behind you. We didn’t want anything to happen to the little boy…”
“And you didn’t go to the police because—”
Rita spoke up. “Because you’re our daughter. We knew that when you did what you did, there had to be a good reason, you know? Maybe they were hurting you, or your dad was maybe doing things to you.”
In my mind’s eye, I flew across the table and had Rita by the neck. How dare she…
“Where is Josh?”
“I can take you there.”
I didn’t want to go anywhere with Dave, but I would do anything to save Josh.
“Okay,” I said.
Thankfully, Rita followed us out to the car even as Dave slid into the driver’s seat. I sat in the back, biting my lips until they bled. I wanted to ask a thousand questions. I wanted to know if Josh was safe and if he was scared, if Dave had a license, if he was going to drive us to another state.
“I’m pretty sure my parents were worth a lot,” I said finally. “We had a safe, in my dad’s office.” I could see the edges of Dave’s lips quirk up into a smile. I had to make sure the prize was big enough for them to stick with me. “The police didn’t touch it because it was under the rug. He kept everything in there. Cash. A lot of cash. Enough for us to start over as a family. Maybe move somewhere else.”