Someone Knows

by Lisa Scottoline

  Sasha turned to Julian, angry. “Julian, you took it too far. What if he did it?”

  “I knew he wouldn’t. Anyway, look.” Julian opened his hand, revealing a single bullet sitting in his palm, its brass casing glinting darkly in the twilight. “I palmed it. I didn’t really load the gun. Still, it shows you he’s a pussy.”

  “Oh my God!” David clapped his hands together. “Dude, you had me going! I was totally fooled!”

  “Me, too!” Allie burst into nervous laughter. “That was so scary! I believed you!”

  Sasha wasn’t laughing. “You did that to scare him off.”

  Julian wasn’t about to deny it. “And he got scared off, didn’t he?”

  “You don’t know that yet.” Sasha jumped to her feet, brushing off her dress. “He could still come tomorrow night.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I don’t.” Sasha picked up her tote bag and yanked the blanket away angrily, unsettling them. “Tomorrow night at nine, we’ll see what happens.”

  “Okay, we’ll see, Sasha.”

  Sasha turned, hurrying up the hill into the darkness.

  “Dude.” David looked over at Julian. “What if he comes back tomorrow night?”

  “He won’t.” Julian gave David the bullet. “Put this back in the box and bury it. I’ll bury the gun the way it was. If he comes back, we’ll tell him we buried it loaded with a bullet.”

  “Okay.” David took the bullet and dropped it in the box. “You going to be here tomorrow night?”

  “Yes, and so are you.” Julian wrapped the gun in the newspaper. “Let’s bury this thing. It’s getting dark.”

  David went over to the empty hole, dropped the bullet box inside, and covered it with dirt.

  Allie shook her head. “I don’t think we should come back tomorrow night.”

  Julian buried the gun. “Then don’t.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Allie Garvey

  Dad, where’s Mom?” Allie asked, entering the kitchen. She felt raw and achy from the vodka last night, having her first hangover. Her head hurt, and her stomach felt queasy. She didn’t understand where her mother was because her parents’ bedroom was empty.

  “Come, sit down. I was waiting for you to get up.” Her father sat hunched over at the kitchen table next to a cup of black coffee and the thick roll of the Sunday newspaper, still in its plastic cover. He would normally have read it from front to back by now. He was unusually dressed up on a Sunday morning, even for him, in his pressed white shirt and khaki pants.

  “But where is she?” Allie didn’t want to sit down. She didn’t like the look on his face. He looked very grave, like he used to with Jill when something was really wrong. His forehead wrinkled, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

  “Mom’s in the hospital. I was about to go visit her. I’ll be gone most of the day and evening.”

  “She stayed overnight? Why?” Allie had so many questions she didn’t know where to start. She tried not to get upset because that was the last thing her father needed. She’d learned that from the years with Jill. Allie was supposed to not ask questions, not talk back, not act out, and not be. Just not. Her parents would say, Allie, could you just not? But this was too much.

  “She’s in the psychiatric wing at Bryn Mawr Hospital.”

  “Dad, you mean, she’s in, like, a mental hospital?” Allie felt so shocked, she couldn’t even process it. She’d known her mother was depressed, but she hadn’t thought she was that depressed. It terrified her to think of her mother in a mental hospital. Allie didn’t know anything about mental hospitals. Except One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. They had to read the book for summer reading last year, and she’d seen the movie, too. It scared her out of her wits. They did electroshock on Jack Nicholson and he turned into a zombie. Allie felt terrified for her mother. Nurse Ratched was so mean to the mental patients. Now Allie’s mother was one.

  “It’s not a mental hospital, exactly. It’s the psychiatric department of a regular hospital—”

  “But, Dad, why does she need to be in a mental hospital overnight? What’s the matter with her? Is she crazy? Does that mean she’s crazy?”

  “No, she’s depressed.” Her father blinked, pursing his lips. “She’s clinically depressed.”

  “What’s the difference between depressed and clinically depressed?” Allie didn’t understand. Maybe clinically depressed meant you went to a clinic, like a mental hospital. “Does that mean she’s crazy? Are they going to give her electroshock? They’re not going to do that to her, are they? Please don’t let them do that to her. You know that movie—”

  “Allie, it’s not like in the movies, and don’t get ahead of yourself. They’re going to do what they need to do, and—”

  “When’s she coming home?”

  “She’s going to be there for a while—”

  “What? Why? How long?”

  “Honey, please stop interrupting me. The doctors don’t know. Maybe a month or two. It’s open-ended.”

  “Dad, no! The whole summer?” Allie felt her gut twist for herself, and for her mother. She flashed on the fight yesterday between her father and Aunt Fran. “Does that mean Aunt Fran was right about Mom? Was she right, Dad?”

  “We don’t need to get into that.”

  “But I don’t get it. I don’t understand. How did Mom go from depressed to crazy? Why does she need to be in a mental hospital for the whole summer? Was Aunt Fran right?”

  “I thought we could take care of her at home.” Her father frowned deeply. “I thought we could handle it ourselves.”

  “But she was sick enough that the doctors are keeping her! They committed her to a mental hospital, is that what you’re saying?”

  “They didn’t commit her, per se, and we gave it a try at home, but I guess it didn’t work. I thought the 5K would help her. She was looking forward to it.”

  “Dad, that’s not true. She hated the 5K.” Allie didn’t know if he was lying to her or to himself, but either way, she couldn’t believe it had come to this, that her mother was in a mental hospital.

  “She wanted to go when it was in the planning stages—”

  “Maybe before, but when she was there, she hated every minute. I told you she wanted to go home, but you didn’t take her.” Allie felt tears coming to her eyes, afraid that her mother might never come out of the mental hospital, that she might lose her mind completely. “She only went to the 5K to make you happy. Because you made a big thing over it, and you made it about Jill. She had to go or it would’ve looked weird. It would’ve embarrassed you and our family.”

  “I thought it would do her good. I thought she would get better with time. I thought she was getting better.” Her father looked up at her directly, his eyebrows sloping down behind his glasses, and Allie could see he was upset, but she was starting to lose control.

  “Dad, she wasn’t getting better, and even I knew that, even I could see that! I told you that, that she was depressed, and now look what happened! She was worse than I thought, and Fran was right, Dad! She was right!” Allie felt tears spilling from her eyes, beginning to cry. “And now Mom is so sick that they made her stay.”

  “I thought I was doing right by her, and I did get her to a therapist, and I got her the medication she needed.”

  “But she was sicker than that, Dad!” Allie blurted out between sobs. “How did Aunt Fran know and you didn’t?”

  “Fran comes in from the outside.” Her father rose, still frowning but oddly shaky, resting his fingers on the table. “Fran didn’t see her day to day, like I did, and I didn’t notice how bad she was—”

  “You didn’t notice, and now Mom’s crazy?” Allie blamed her father, but she realized she was at fault, too. “I should have done something! I should’ve made you take her to the therapist or something. Whatever needed to be done! I should’ve made you do it or done it myself, like Aunt Fran did!”

  “You can’t do that, honey, that’s not your job. You�
��re a kid.”

  “I’m not a kid . . . I’m a teenager!”

  “You’re not an adult.”

  “So what?” Allie shouted back, crying full bore. Her nose filled with mucus, congested. “What difference does that make . . . whose job it is? You’re the adult, but you didn’t do . . . the adult job! Sometimes the kid has to do the adult job!”

  “No, no, no, that’s not right!”

  “I should’ve found a way . . . to take her home myself! The 5K put her over the top, Dad!”

  “Enough!” her father shouted, throwing up his hands. His face turned red, and the veins in his neck bulged. “What do you want me to say, honey? I’m sorry? Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’m out of sorrys, okay? I can’t always make it better. I can’t always make everything better!”

  “Could you not make it worse?” Allie shouted at him through her tears, then rushed out of the kitchen and ran upstairs to her bedroom.

  CHAPTER 32

  Julian Browne

  Julian pushed his banana pancake around in the syrup. Sasha wasn’t answering his IM and he’d called her twice, but the housekeeper had told him she was out, which she wasn’t. She was in her bedroom but she must be mad at him, after last night. All he’d done was show her the truth, which was that Kyle was totally lame.

  “You’re not hungry?” His mother sipped her coffee, peering over the rim of the cup. She had on her bathrobe and wacky reading glasses, so she looked like a hippie professor.

  “I’m full.” Julian forced a smile, since she had made his favorite pancakes.

  “I hate that I have to be gone all afternoon. What are you going to do?”

  “Swim, play tennis.” Call Sasha.

  “Tonight is bridge night. I tried to get them to move it, but you know how that is. A foursome.”

  “It’s okay, I might be doing something with Sasha or David.”

  “Good, just be home by eleven.” His mother returned her attention to the Sunday paper, spread out on the table between them. “Well, this is interesting.”

  “What?” Julian asked, but he didn’t really care. She was always pointing out Dear Abby columns about divorce and children and ex-husbands, like mom propaganda.

  “Hmm, I think this person lives in the development.”

  “What person?”

  “It’s a woman who’s living under an assumed name, or her maiden name. Her ex-husband was a doctor who went to jail for fondling little girls, his own patients. Can you imagine?”

  “No,” Julian answered idly, wondering if he’d overplayed his hand last night.

  “What’s the matter with people? His name is Hammond, but they call him ‘Dr. Dirtbag.’ His wife turned him in to the police, then moved here from Columbus, Ohio. Here, on Paso Fino. Yikes. I doubt your father will like that very much.”

  “Right.” Julian half-listened, wondering if he’d ever get Sasha on the boat now.

  “She has a son your age, too. He’s going to the high school in the fall. What a shame.” His mother clucked. “His name is Kyle.”

  “What, a new kid named Kyle? From Columbus?” Julian got up to see the newspaper.

  CHAPTER 33

  Sasha Barrow

  Sasha checked her Buddy List, but Kyle still wasn’t online. His screen name, Buckeyezzz716, was grayed-out at the bottom of the list.

  “Sasha, telephone!” Bonnie called her, from the base of the stairwell. “It’s Julian!”

  “Tell him I’m still out!”

  “He’s been calling! He says it’s an emergency!”

  “Okay,” Sasha called back, rolling her eyes. She had punished him long enough. She picked up the phone. “I’m so mad at you for what you did to Kyle.”

  “You’re about to thank me.”

  “What do you mean? I would never thank you.”

  “Sash, he’s not who he says he is. Did you see the newspaper today?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Whatever Kyle told you about himself, it’s a lie. He’s not who he said he is. His father was a doctor, and he’s in jail for molesting little girls. His patients.”

  “What?” Sasha didn’t believe him. “Julian, you’re making this up.”

  “No, I’m not. Look online. You can read it for yourself. He’s not only a loser, he’s a lowlife. Whatever he told you was a lie.”

  “Come on.”

  “I’m not kidding, it’s real. My mom checked at the office. He uses a fake last name. His real last name is Hammond.”

  “Hold on.” Sasha logged on to the Internet, searched Dr. Dirtbag, and skimmed for details that Kyle had told her about the night she’d met him. New Albany was his old high school, and he’d played basketball there. One article had a photo of Kyle Hammond, and it was a picture of him, Kyle Gallagher. “Oh my God! You’re right.”

  “I told you. He’s a jerk, a loser, a liar. His father’s in jail. He played you.”

  “He didn’t play me,” Sasha shot back, embarrassed. She’d never been played by a boy. She played boys. “I want to get him back. How can I get him back?”

  “Go tonight. Hope he comes. We’ll prank him.”

  “Totally. We’ll prank the shit out of him.”

  CHAPTER 34

  David Hybrinski

  Hey, Mom,” David said, coming into the kitchen where his mother was cleaning up after breakfast. He’d missed it on purpose. He couldn’t stop thinking about what his father had called him. He had taken Allie’s hand as an experiment, but he wasn’t attracted to her. It had kept him up all night, but he had to admit, the only person he had been attracted to last night was the new kid. Kyle Gallagher.

  “What’s up?” His mother rinsed a dish and loaded it in the dishwasher.

  “What’s the matter with Dad?”

  “Nothing.”

  David didn’t know if she knew about the money trouble. “He seems like he’s in a bad mood.”

  “Not really.” His mother rinsed another dish, quickly. She had to get the twins ready to go. They had an away softball game today, and she already had her brown uniform on. The insulated cooler sat open on the island, the top unzipped.

  “Mom, something’s going on with him, I can tell.”

  “He’s fine.” His mother closed the dishwasher door and headed to the refrigerator, opening it. She never stopped moving, and David wondered if all moms were blurs.

  “He wants to take me and Julian to a ball game. He’s never done that before.”

  “That’s nice.” His mother got water bottles from the fridge, and they reminded David of last night. The vodka. Kyle. Maybe David only thought he was attracted to him because of the alcohol. Maybe David wasn’t a faggot. Kyle had made eye contact with him, more than once. Maybe Kyle was a faggot. David felt confused and angry.

  “Mom, Julian told me that Dad asked his father for a loan. Do you know if that’s true? Did he tell you that?”

  “What?” His mother’s face fell. “I don’t think this should be your concern.”

  “But it is, because Julian’s my best friend. He told me. What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you not to worry about it. It’s our concern.”

  “Mom, I’m fifteen.”

  “That’s my point. You’re only fifteen.”

  “Just tell me.”

  His mother glanced toward the door, as if somebody were listening, but nobody else was home and the twins hadn’t come downstairs yet. “Julian’s father has agreed not to charge your father rent for three months, then we’re going to take it from there.”

  “How much is the rent?”

  “That’s not your concern.” His mother met his eye, giving him one of her teacher looks.

  “Mom, don’t you think I have a right to know? Julian is my best friend—”

  “I know that, and we’re friends of the family.”

  “You’re only friends of the family because of me. You know the Brownes through me.”

  “What a
re you talking about?” His mother waved him off. “That’s how we know everybody. Our friends are all from you kids. That’s how it works.”

  “But it makes it weird between him and me. It’s like I owe him something. Like he’s my boss now or something.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “How am I supposed to act with Julian?”

  “Be nice to your best friend, like you would anyway.”

  “But what if I wouldn’t be?” David was thinking about last night, when Julian had pulled that prank with the gun. It wasn’t funny, and now Julian wanted to keep it going tonight. Plus it was at Kyle’s expense. And David didn’t know how he felt about Kyle.

  “David, you’ll understand when you get older.” His mother zipped the cooler closed. “You don’t know the pressure Dad is under, and the money doesn’t mean anything to Julian’s father. He didn’t mind it at all. Three months’ rent is nothing to Scott Browne. He has developments all over Pennsylvania. You think he cares about the rent on Hybrinski Optical? And it means so much to us.”

  “What does it mean? Why do we need it?”

  “That’s not your business.” His mother snatched napkins out of the holder, and it fell over. “We wouldn’t have asked if it weren’t necessary.”

  “How necessary?”

  “You think you’re old enough to know, then act old enough to know. We could lose the house. This house. Our home.”

  David’s mouth went dry. He hadn’t realized it was that bad.

  “That’s right. It’s not your father’s fault, it’s the economy. It’s the chain stores and the mall, and people lose their houses every day. We couldn’t get another mortgage, not with the way the business is, so we couldn’t even stay in the school district. You like your house? You like your school? You like your friends? You want things to stay the way they are?”

  “Yes,” David answered, since she was glaring at him, waiting for an answer.

  “To get what you want, you do what you have to do. Did your father want to ask Scott Browne to forgive the rent? No, he did not. He’s a proud man. We’re doing what’s right for this family.” His mother stopped when she heard the twins bumping down the stairs, then she stepped closer to David. “All you have to do is be nice to your best friend. Will you do that, for your family?”