No Bad Deed

by Heather Chavez

  “It’s okay, Leo,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  Relief flooded his face. Then I handed him his new phone and relief shifted to confusion.

  “What’s this?” he asked. “Where’s my phone?”

  “We need to use these until we find Dad.” I forced aside the doubt that it could end any other way.

  “But how will Dad call us?” The hope in his voice shattered my heart.

  “He’ll find a way,” I said. “You can’t call him, though, okay? Actually, don’t call anyone for a while.”

  He scowled. “Why not?”

  I hesitated, but I couldn’t keep this from him. Not if I wanted him to be safe, which was what I wanted above all else. So I told him that someone had stolen his dad’s phone. I didn’t mention the texts. I told him about the audio surveillance of our home, skipping over mention of the camera found in the master bedroom. Then I described the social media posts Perla had discovered.

  “JL?” He grabbed his new phone, then realized it wasn’t his old one. He set it down in frustration. “What did he look like?”

  I described him, Leo nodding more with each descriptor before finally saying, “I’m pretty sure that’s the guy who hit me.”

  “Do you know him?”

  He scrunched his nose in distaste. “I’ve seen him around, but I don’t really know him. He’s an idiot.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know. He just is.”

  “I’m going to need more than that.”

  Leo sighed. “After he hit me, he said something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. I was out.”

  It was my turn to sigh. “Then how do you know he said something?”

  “A couple of the guys said he was talking shit.” He winced. “Sorry.”

  Swearing was pretty far down the list of stuff I currently gave a shit about.

  “Trash talk?”

  “Nah. It was personal stuff, like about his girlfriend.”

  I guessed it was related to the posts, but still I asked, “What about his girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know. I was unconscious, remember?”

  I did remember. I would always remember.

  Though it turned my stomach, I had to ask, “You didn’t post those, right?”

  “Of course not.” Though he had to understand my need to ask, the question offended him. With his answer, I knew the fabricated posts had been meant to provoke. They were likely the reason my son was laid up with a concussion and injured knee.

  Leo’s eyes suddenly glittered, urgency sharpening his pitch. “Dad wasn’t at the game?”

  “I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

  “You’re sure, right? You would’ve seen him if he was there, right?”

  I remembered the crowd, not so large that I hadn’t scanned it thoroughly at least twice. It had been dusk when I had arrived, but it hadn’t been so dark that I couldn’t see clearly. Still, I considered the question carefully.

  “I probably would’ve seen him.” I was no longer certain enough of anything to speak in absolutes.

  When he answered, Leo’s voice held equal parts excitement and confusion. “If Dad wasn’t there, then why did I see his car?”

  Though it had been only a day since Sam had disappeared, the world today bore little resemblance to the one of twenty-four hours before. Now, even the mechanics of breathing required thought. So it took a moment to process my son’s statement.

  “You saw your dad’s car?”

  “It was definitely his car,” Leo said. “It had that stupid bumper sticker.”

  Teach children how to think, not what to think.

  “How many people have that bumper sticker?” My son spoke with a certainty that unnerved me, especially given that Sam wasn’t the last person seen driving his Camry.

  “Does he know we’re here?” Leo asked. “If he was at the game, then he might’ve seen what happened on the field. You should call him, tell him I’m okay.”

  His voice rang with so much hope that I had to turn away. I couldn’t make that call, and a second later, Leo realized this too.

  “Oh. Right.”

  Thinking of Sam made me glance down at my phone. I had missed a call, which didn’t make sense. No one had this number.

  Before I could check my voicemail, the doctor walked in. At the intrusion, Audrey stirred in the chair, her eyes blinking open beneath her bangs.

  “Can we go home now?” she asked, her words slurred with sleep. Then: “Where’s Daddy?”

  The doctor focused on the first question, saying that everything was fine and that we could go home, though I knew we couldn’t. She gave discharge instructions, which weren’t complicated but which I memorized with a zeal born from a desire to control one small part of our lives.

  As soon as she was gone, I checked my voicemail. It was Perla. Of course.

  Her message was brief: “Some woman has been calling your old phone. She seems pretty desperate to talk to you, but she didn’t give her name. Just a number.”

  She recited it quickly before hanging up.

  Reluctant to call back from my new phone, I figured I would get the kids to the car and then look for a pay phone. I figured it would take only a few minutes before I could return the mystery woman’s call.

  I was wrong.

  On the way to the car, I texted Zoe my new number and told her we were on our way to the house. Then I scooped up a sleepy Audrey. We walked in silence away from the hospital and toward our car. What else we were walking toward, I couldn’t guess. I needed a plan, one that kept my children safe. One that brought Sam home.

  Audrey’s arms were slack around my neck, her body drooping with fatigue. As she started to slip, I hoisted her higher, and her head thudded onto my shoulder.

  I found comfort in the weight of her and her warm breath in my ear. The task felt familiar. Normal.

  I suddenly tightened my grip to keep Audrey from slipping again, my heart seizing. There, in the hospital lot, two rows removed from where our own car was parked, sat a blue Toyota Camry. Just like Sam’s.

  Leo saw the car the second I did. Though its appearance left me frozen, it had the opposite effect on Leo. Too late, I realized I had neglected to tell Leo about Carver Sweet taking Sam’s Camry from our driveway.

  Leo ran toward the car, his recent injuries making his gait awkward but not slowing him.

  No, Leo. My mind screamed, but I remained silent. The words would have been wasted. There was no stopping my son.

  My own legs began pumping an instant after Leo’s, Audrey bouncing against my chest as I ran.

  Even with his injured knee, Leo covered the distance quickly. He checked the back of the Camry first. I knew what he was looking for: the bumper sticker.

  Next, he peered into the back driver’s-side window. But his urgency had faded. I had already scanned the license plate. I knew.

  He turned when I caught up with him, fresh heartbreak straining his face. “It’s not Dad’s.”

  “I’m sorry, Leo,” I said. And then, reluctantly: “But it’s probably a good thing it isn’t his.”

  I started to explain to my son why I was relieved the car wasn’t Sam’s, but my words stuck in my throat.

  Because I noticed three things, almost simultaneously.

  First, a dark stain on the back seat where someone had installed a car seat. Stolen, I guessed, to cover the blood.

  I knew the car seat was stolen because the second thing I noticed was that the car was definitely Sam’s. Someone had disguised it by swapping the plates, scratching off the sticker, and installing the car seat over the bloodstain. But there was no disguising the small dent where Leo’s bike had fallen against the driver’s-side door, or the smudge of white paint on the bumper from when we had repainted the fence.

  Unfortunately, I noticed the car seat and the dent and the smudge before I noticed the most important detail: the reflection. In the glass, I cau
ght sight of the shadow of the man who had been driving my husband’s car.

  The man responsible for putting a bloodstain on Sam’s back seat.

  25

  Carver Sweet stood on the balcony less than twenty feet away, cast in the yellow glow of the parking lot lights. From Audrey’s hospitalization as an infant, I knew the balcony opened off a lobby that offered vending machines, a TV, and tables of magazines meant to distract the families of surgical patients. Six years ago, I had been more inclined toward restless pacing than thumbing through copies of Entertainment Weekly.

  Scanning a cluster of cars to the right, at first, Carver didn’t see us.

  I handed Leo my purse and set Audrey on her feet. Then I nudged them both toward our rental car. “Lock the doors. Call the police. Now.”

  Leo hesitated, the concussion and late hour adding to his confusion. “Who is that guy, Mom?” Then he saw my face, and his own went pale. “You can’t—”

  I cut him off, my words a determined rush. “I’m not letting that bastard out of my sight this time until the police come.” I pointed to where Carver stood. “Besides, he can’t hurt me from there. Go.”

  “But what if—”

  “If he moves, I’ll get in the car and run his ass over.” I repeated more firmly this time: “Go.”

  Carver turned his head in our direction, and Leo ran, pulling Audrey with him. Behind me, I heard the car door open, then slam shut, but I kept my eyes on the man on the balcony.

  Upon noticing me, Carver cocked his head and went still, observing me in the way I had often seen in cats with birds. Since he lacked the power of flight, he couldn’t reach me quickly, but even from that distance I could see his mind puzzling over his options.

  “You again.” He sounded almost amused, though irritation flared there too.

  My own voice held no amusement and something much stronger than irritation. “What did you do to my husband?”

  He laughed so softly I barely heard it. “You must’ve seen the blood in the back seat.” He stepped to the edge of the balcony and peered down. Gauging how far of a drop it would be to the sidewalk below? “Remember what I told you two nights ago. I warned you that your life was already fucked up, but you didn’t know it then. I guess now you do.”

  “Where’s Sam?” I asked. “Why’re you doing this?”

  He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Heard that boy of yours took a nasty hit tonight.”

  At the mention of Leo, my breath quickened. There was a tremor in my voice when I spoke. “You won’t get close enough to hurt my son again.”

  He continued to survey the ground. “I’m pretty close right now.”

  “Are you? Why don’t you jump down here so you don’t have to shout?”

  And so you can break your leg, or, better, your head?

  Just as Carver considered his odds, I considered mine. How long before the police arrived? How many security officers were on duty? And were they even equipped to handle a man like Carver?

  He weighed my request to jump as if it had been a serious one. “I think I’d make it, but while I won’t need my mobility for very much longer, I do need it now,” he said. “You know who can take a fall—that friend of yours, Brooklyn. I came here looking for her, but she’s already been released.”

  “She isn’t a friend, but I’m glad I was there that night.”

  He chuckled, but his eyes closed to slits. “I was less pleased,” he said. “When I was in prison, inmates had an almost sacred belief in coincidence. You know, ‘Sure, it was my backpack, but that wasn’t my heroin.’ Or, ‘Yeah, I was with my girlfriend that night, but it was some other guy who slit her throat.’ But, you see, Cassie Larkin, I don’t believe in coincidence. So how do you know Brooklyn?”

  I remained silent, listening for sirens, passersby, or the calls of my children.

  “Your friend isn’t here, and she isn’t at her apartment. Do you know where she might be?”

  I said nothing, but my face betrayed me. “You do know.” His expression darkened. “I’m going to need the address.”

  “And I’m going to need you to screw yourself.”

  Carver’s stare was nearly a physical force. The weight of it pressed against me. “Why are you helping her?” he asked. “You’ve risked quite a lot for someone you say isn’t your friend.”

  “I don’t need a relationship with someone to help them.”

  “That’s a curious thing to say. If you did just stumble on the scene that night, poor you, but there’s little to be done about it now.” He leaned against the railing. “Like I said, I’ll need that address.”

  “I think I was clear in my answer to that. Remember—it involved screwing yourself?”

  A car passed but it wasn’t the patrol car I waited for. Carver shifted, his face cast in full light now. Somehow, the half-shadow had made it less monstrous, partially obscuring the intensity of his purpose. Obscuring that ropy scar along his jaw. He seemed to grow aware of how long we had been standing there and the risk that stillness brought him.

  “You seem to have forgotten your first question,” he said.

  Though he hadn’t answered it, I hadn’t forgotten. I had asked what he had done to Sam.

  Staring up at him, my vision constricted, and I felt as if my entire body were being squeezed, the pressure threatening my ability to remain standing. If Carver had pursued at that moment, I wasn’t certain I would’ve been able to flee. Like in my van two days before, the threat of Carver immobilized me, and with the same suddenness it had that night.

  Then it subsided, though the shakiness and erratic heartbeat remained.

  “I found your husband’s photo in your wallet, so imagine how surprised I was to find him with her,” Carver said. “She left him behind, of course, and so I took him. He was breathing then. I don’t know about now. I placed him on a pile of feed sacks and watched as he rolled, facedown, on the burlap.”

  I didn’t know if what Carver said was true, but I recoiled at the thought of it—that Sam might be miles away from the life we had shared for nearly two decades, cold and alone and injured. Or worse.

  Please, God, don’t let it be worse.

  As much as I had ever loved Sam, I now hated Carver with the same intensity.

  “I can tell you where your husband is, if you tell me where Brooklyn is.”

  I had no allegiance to Sam’s lover. I had already saved her once, and that was more than anyone could expect of me. Besides, I could call to warn her before Carver made it out of the parking lot.

  But what if she was asleep, or she was out and her friend was home instead? I had no doubt Carver would torture anyone to get the information he wanted.

  Knowing this, I almost gave Carver the information anyway.

  Instead, I invented an address. But my hesitation gave me away. He studied me for a moment, then shook his head, the gesture mimicking regret. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “You were supposed to let her die. Eventually, you’ll realize how much that decision cost you.”

  Carver tensed, and I recognized the coiled energy. Recognized it, and readied for it. As if connected by a wire, we acted at the same moment. He sprang, landing not on the concrete but on the grass, while I took off in a sprint.

  Had he cracked his skull? Shattered a tibia?

  Then I heard him. Footsteps behind me keeping pace, even if one footfall landed with less certainty. A sprain, I guessed. Not nearly as good as a shattered tibia.

  Even wounded, each of Carver’s longer strides matched two of mine. I might make it to my car ahead of him, but would I get inside before Carver wrapped his enormous hands around my throat?

  As I ran, I told myself it was the wind I heard and not Carver’s breathing. He couldn’t be close enough for me to hear his breathing.

  I cut sharply to the right, toward my car. Leo, bless him, had already started it.

  Though adrenaline propelled me, Carver’s rage provided a superior fuel.

  My legs pul
sed as I focused all my energy, all my breath, all my everything on reaching my car. With Carver only feet behind me, it seemed too great a distance to cover.

  Then, suddenly, the car inched closer. Closer. It took me a few seconds to realize the car was moving. Slowly. Twenty feet from us, then ten. Then my son stepped on the gas—he hadn’t yet gotten the hang of acceleration—and Carver bounced off the hood. He landed on the asphalt, and I got a glimpse of Leo’s face, and I realized I was wrong: Leo understood acceleration just fine.

  I jumped in the car as Leo scooted to the passenger seat. I intended to hit my pursuer a second time. But Carver got to his feet quickly, injured but still fueled by his rage. Then he ran, disappearing just as the police cruiser arrived.

  The darkness absorbed Carver as if it recognized he belonged to it.

  26

  I had spent so much time with the police lately, I wondered if I should whip up some friendship bracelets. The officers didn’t find Carver, or if they did, they didn’t share the news with me. Sam’s Camry had also disappeared from the lot. I wasn’t surprised. Carver seemed unusually adept at evading the authorities.

  When talking to the police, I didn’t mention how Leo had plowed down my would-be assailant, and the officer didn’t notice the small dent Carver had left on the hood.

  Detective Rico wasn’t there, and for that, I was grateful. I wouldn’t have been able to lie to him so easily.

  After the kids and I were in the car, I turned to face them.

  “We should probably talk about what just happened,” I said.

  Audrey wriggled out of her booster, leaning over the console that separated the front seats. “You mean about how Leo hit that man with the car?”

  “That’s part of it, sure.”

  While I had been talking to Carver, and then the police, Audrey and Leo had waited in the car. Still, I wondered, How much had they heard?

  “You didn’t tell the police I hit that guy,” Leo said. It was rare that I had my son’s full attention, but I had it now.