“What could happen in a development?”
Barb didn’t have an immediate reply. She crossed to the refrigerator and opened the door, staring at the contents without really seeing anything. It was what Kyle would have done if he was home. That boy was either eating or deciding what to eat. “You hungry?”
“We just had Chips Ahoy.”
Barb closed the refrigerator door.
“Maybe he’s with that girl, the one with the cat. Sasha . . . Barrow?”
“After the news about his father today?” Barb didn’t think so. “And he said he was going for a walk.”
“So he lied.”
“He doesn’t really lie.”
“Doesn’t really lie?”
“Well, he never has. I really don’t think he has.” Barb met her best friend’s eye, uneasy. Sharon knew Kyle almost as well as Barb did. She was his godmother. “And Buddy doesn’t like cats.”
“We teased him about her. Maybe it embarrassed him, so he didn’t want to tell us.” Sharon frowned, looking out the window. “I bet he’s waiting it out. Typical summer shower, comes and goes fast.”
Barb opened the base cabinet, tugged out the thick phone book, and thumbed to the B’s. She ran her fingernail down the names until she found Roger Barrow on Pinto Road. “I think I’ll call.”
“If he’s there, he’ll kill you.”
“Only after I kill him.” Barb picked up the receiver, pressed in the number, and waited for an answer.
“Barrow residence,” a woman said stiffly.
“Hi, my name is Barb Gallagher, and my son, Kyle, is a friend of Sasha’s. He brought your cat home Friday?”
“Oh yes, hello.”
“Are you Sasha’s mom?” Barb couldn’t tell from the woman’s voice if she’d read the news story, but she was keeping a civil tone.
“No, I’m Bonnie, the housekeeper.”
“I’m calling because Kyle’s not home, and I wonder if he’s with Sasha.”
“No, he’s not here.”
“Is Sasha there?”
Bonnie paused. “Yes.”
“Do you think I could speak to her? I’d like to know if she has some idea where Kyle might be.”
“Sorry, I believe she’s gone to bed.”
“Can you check?” Barb didn’t know any teenager in bed at eleven o’clock. “It would put my mind at ease.”
“I’m sure she’s gone to bed.” Bonnie’s tone sounded final, but Barb wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“Well, if I can’t find my son, I’ll call back or maybe stop in. I see you live on Pinto.”
Bonnie paused. “I’d rather you didn’t. It’s late.”
“Then can you ask her? Please, I’m just a worried mother.” Barbara hoped the housekeeper could relate. “Do you have children, Bonnie?”
“Hang on, and I’ll see if Sasha is awake.” Bonnie set the phone down with a clunk.
Barb covered the receiver with her hand. “Sharon, am I being too annoying?”
“No, you’re the perfect amount of annoying. Who’s Bonnie?”
“The housekeeper.”
“She must live in.” Sharon put her index finger to her nose and turned it up. Barb uncovered the receiver when she heard Bonnie get back on the line.
“Ms. Gallagher, Sasha has no idea where Kyle is. She hasn’t seen him since he brought the cat home.”
“Okay, thank you. I appreciate it, good night.” Barb hung up, her heart sinking. “So much for that. He could be at the basketball courts. Maybe he went back down there. He could be waiting for the rain to pass.” Barb opened the refrigerator door. “I should go look for him.”
“Okay, I’ll go with.” Sharon rose. “It’ll do us good to get out.”
Barb couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone wrong. “You know, it just sucks.”
“What does?”
“Everything.” Barb hung on the refrigerator handle. “I never could’ve guessed that my husband was doing—”
“Of course you couldn’t, he hid it from you, and we’ve been over that.”
“But it proves that anything can happen. Really, the strangest things really do happen. Do you know what I mean? I’m speaking from experience because it did happen to me, and to Kyle. It ruined our lives.”
“Only if you let it.”
“I’m trying not to, but my ex is the gift that keeps on giving. We were doing great until this happened. Well, maybe not great.” Barb hesitated. “You know, I think Kyle might be drinking.”
“How do you know?”
“I smell it on him from time to time, after his walks. I asked him once. He said no.”
Sharon frowned. “Where does he get it?”
“I don’t know. I only keep wine in the house now. I never leave an open bottle anymore.”
“Don’t sweat it. I told you I caught Susie last month with a flask. Can you believe that, a flask, of all things?”
Barb closed the fridge door. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 39
Allie Garvey
Allie lay in bed, a soggy mess. Her head thundered, her mouth tasted terrible. Her nose was clogged, and used Kleenexes lay crumpled around her. She looked at the clock beside the bed and realized it wasn’t her Westclox. It was Jill’s clock. She was in Jill’s bedroom. She must’ve stumbled in by mistake. She hadn’t been in here since Jill died.
Allie looked around the darkness. She tried to think through the fog in her brain. Tears spilled from her eyes, and she reached for Kleenex. She couldn’t believe that Kyle was dead. The gun wasn’t supposed to be loaded. It was supposed to be a prank. Somebody must have loaded it. She guessed it was Julian. She told herself that it was a nightmare, because that was how it felt, but it wasn’t. Kyle was dead. She had seen him shoot himself.
Suddenly she heard the sounds of her father coming home. The front door opening and closing, the jingle of his car keys in the bowl. She hadn’t heard his car because Jill’s room was in the back of the house. And there was no talking so it sounded like he was alone. Which meant her mom was still at the hospital.
Allie didn’t know whether to stay here or to run back to her own room. She started to get up, but felt like she might throw up. She turned her back to the door, pretending to be asleep. She heard her father’s steps on the stairwell. She fought the impulse to go to him, bury herself in his arms, and tell him everything. Maybe they could still help Kyle, her father would know what to do, he was sort of a doctor. Maybe there was a chance to go back to when the worst thing that happened was they hadn’t cured cystic fibrosis.
Allie curled into a ball and covered her mouth so as not to cry. Her thoughts flew through her brain, charged with panic. She couldn’t tell her father about Kyle. David had told her not to. They had all agreed not to. They would get in trouble. They’d handed Kyle the gun. They’d told her it wasn’t loaded. Her fingerprints were on the gun. All of their fingerprints were. They would get caught. They would go to jail. They were murderers.
Allie tried to calm herself. Her father was coming down the hall. She couldn’t tell him. He couldn’t take another bad thing happening. He might have a nervous breakdown, too. She had to keep it inside. She had to act normal. She lay still.
“Honey, are you in here?” Her father opened the door. “Are you awake?”
“Yes,” Allie answered, after a moment.
“Are you okay?” Her father was walking over, his footsteps creaking on the floor.
“Uh, yes.” Allie pressed her lips together not to say anything more, not to tell.
“This was a tough day. I know you miss Jill. We all do.” Her father patted her shoulder.
Allie’s eyes filled with tears. She squeezed them shut.
“Your sister wouldn’t want you to be sad, you know. She’d want you to think of the happy times we had together. She always looked on the bright side, didn’t she? And next year, the 5K will be better. We’ll grow it as a tribute to her.”
Allie couldn�
��t speak or she would tell him everything. She had to keep it inside.
“So, anyway, Mom’s going to stay at the hospital a while longer. But don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right. We’ll be fine. We Garveys are made of sterner stuff.” Her father leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.” Allie tried not to cry. She wasn’t made of sterner stuff. If she was, she would have stood up to the others. She would have told them not to play the prank. She would have stopped them. She would have told Kyle. Kyle would still be alive.
Allie was struck by a wave of guilt so deep she almost burst into tears. Julian must have been the murderer. Or maybe Sasha was, since she’d been so mad at Kyle. David would never do such a thing, but even so they were all guilty. She wanted to tell her father, but she had to keep it inside. She pressed her lips together, tight as a seal. Jill’s mouth had looked like that at the viewing. Her lips had been stuck together, with wax. Allie had looked close, in horror.
“You’ll feel better in the morning, honey. Good night.”
Allie nodded because she couldn’t speak. She knew she wouldn’t feel better in the morning. She knew she wouldn’t feel better, ever.
CHAPTER 40
David Hybrinski
David sagged against the tile wall, crying in the shower. Hot water lashed onto his back, but he didn’t make it cooler. He’d been shaking since he hit the house, his knees weak. He’d hurried straight up the stairs, calling to his mother that he’d gotten caught in the rain, and she’d called back okay, with the twins in the family room. He’d raced to his room and jumped in the shower.
He folded over, his face in his hands, almost squatting, trying to erase every single image from his head at the same moment that he tried to remember, tried to understand, tried to process what happened. Kyle was dead. David had seen it. It happened right in front of him. Kyle had put the gun to his temple. There was an explosion. Smoke. Blood.
David had seen Kyle’s face go completely slack, his features edged in the shadow from the flashlight. David thought he had seen that much but maybe he hadn’t. It was dark. Maybe he imagined it, he didn’t know, but whatever he had seen was gruesome and he could swear he had smelled brains.
David covered his face, pressing his finger pads into his eyes, trying not to see. He thought of gouging his own eyes out, but the scene was in his mind’s eye, so even that wouldn’t help. Kyle falling over, dead. It was impossible. It hadn’t happened. But David could smell the smoke clinging to his hair. He reached for the knob with trembling hands and made it hotter, feeling the temperature rise, the water whipping his back. He deserved it. All of it.
David felt terrified to think of what would happen next. The police would come knocking at the door, and they would all be arrested. They would go to jail for murder, they would get caught. He remembered Julian asking him to throw away the bottles, and he had seen the Guptas’ green recycling bin and tossed the bottles in. He realized they would have his fingerprints on them, and he didn’t know if the police would check the fingerprints, and his fingerprints would be on the gun, and they were all going to jail now that Kyle was dead, and they deserved whatever punishment they got. David thought of what his parents would say, how heartbroken his mother would be, and Jason, and the twins, and his father would beat him to death.
Faggot.
He cried harder, knowing now it was true, because he remembered Kyle coming down the hill to see them, the sound of his voice, the way he walked, and he had a white shirt on, or maybe it was yellow, David couldn’t remember anything before the gunshot. The vodka had made him goofy, but he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. He remembered liking the sound of Kyle’s voice, cool, offhand, a little drunk.
And David hadn’t felt anything when he’d kissed Allie, not really. He knew that she had a crush on him, but he was using her, experimenting on her, trying to see if he felt anything after what his father had called him. David realized that he really was gay and he’d lied to Allie and every girl he’d ever kissed and every girl whose boobs he’d touched or anything he had done before. It was all lies, all of it. And he’d lied to himself because what had gotten him excited was Kyle. And now Kyle was dead.
David wondered if he had wanted Kyle dead, if he wanted to kill that part of him that didn’t want to be gay, because being gay meant the rage of his father, the disappointment of his mother, and the end of his friendship with Julian, which could mean that his family could lose their house, since Julian’s father had given them money.
All you have to do is be nice to your best friend.
David felt distraught that he had made that bargain, that he had gone along with Julian’s prank tonight, that he hadn’t stood up to him.
He pressed his hands against his face, trying to stop his crying, his nose thick with mucus. He almost couldn’t breathe, and he wondered if you could suffocate this way. He deserved to, he felt so guilty, guilty as sin, guilty as hell, and he didn’t deserve to live, not another minute, not another second.
David sank to the tile floor, hugging his legs, then pressing his face into his knees, letting the water scorch his back, enduring the pain and the guilt and the shame, crawling into a fetal position.
David sensed he was being reborn, becoming a new person, the horrible person he would be for the rest of his life.
CHAPTER 41
Barb Gallagher
Kyle, Buddy!” Barb called out the window as she drove. Sharon did the same on the passenger side. Rain spattered on her face and shirt. They cruised around the block, then headed toward Thoroughbred Road. Raindrops pelted the windshield and pinged off the hood of the car.
Barb cruised past the lovely homes behind the squared-off hedges, manicured lawns, and mulched beds of peonies, their frilly heads drooping in the pounding rain. She spotted the husbands and wives through the picture windows, going upstairs or into the family room, carrying a tray, drinking a beer. Before she would’ve looked on them with envy, but now she knew better. Any one of those wives could be surprised by something her husband was doing, and any one of those husbands could be surprised by his wife. God knew what the kids were up to.
Sharon called out, “Kyle! Buddy!”
“Kyle, Buddy!” Barb left their neighborhood. “This is the way to the basketball courts.”
“Good, let’s go.”
Barb cruised ahead, taking a right turn and then a left to the complex at the center of the development. She could see it at a distance, the clubhouse, tennis courts, basketball courts, and a skate park, each set off in its own area by evergreen trees. Lights illuminated the tennis and basketball courts, which were empty.
Sharon was looking, too. “Kyle, Buddy!”
“Kyle, Buddy!” Barb headed toward the basketball courts, where she steered into the lot. “Let’s walk around.”
Sharon and Barb got out of the car, opening their umbrellas, and they walked around the courts, calling and looking. No luck. The rain poured down, and drops ricocheted off the basketball courts.
“Where could he be?” Barb asked, raising her voice over the rain. They hurried back to the car, their sneakers and ankles getting wet. They jumped in, stowing the dripping umbrellas at their feet.
Sharon looked over. “Is there a security office we can call?”
“I don’t know.” Barb started the ignition. “Let’s try the high-rent district.”
“The promised land,” Sharon said, but she wasn’t smiling.
Barb cruised past the houses, too nervous to enjoy the curb appeal, though it was obvious. They were massive, three stories with extra wings, au pair suites, and rooms over garages that held three and four cars. The roofs were real slate, the gutters were real copper, and the fieldstone covered all four sides of the house, not just the façade. Everybody had a pool in the back or beside the house, surrounded by privacy fences that began at the edge of the garage.
Sharon called out, “Kyle, Buddy!”
“Kyle, Bud
dy!” Barb took a hard right around the corner, and her attention was drawn by red-and-white flashing lights deep in the woods.
“Do you see that?” Sharon asked, her tone darkening.
“It’s the police.” Barb felt an instinctive tingle of fear. She hit the gas, speeding to the end of the street, momentarily confused. “I don’t know how to get there from here.”
“Take a left on Connemara.” Sharon pointed, and Barbara veered around the corner, accelerating to the end of the street, keeping her eyes riveted on the lights deep in the woods, which sloped down.
“There must be a road down there, on the other side.”
“Or something’s going on in the woods, and the cops are parked on the other side.”
Barb shouted out the window, “Kyle, Buddy!”
“Stop the car!” Sharon yelled suddenly, and Barb slammed on the brakes just as a familiar yellow blur leapt into her high beams.
“It’s Buddy! Buddy!” Barb put the car in park, flung open the door, and jumped out. The dog leapt into her arms, jumping up on her, panting frantically. His harness was on, trailing the leash. Dark blotches covered his muzzle and streaked his ruff.
“Buddy, what did you get into, you nut?” Barb guessed what had happened. Buddy must’ve run off. He always did when he got a scent. He must’ve gotten into something. Deer poop, mud, whatever. Kyle must be trying to find him. He must have called the police. He would be worried sick about the dog.
Sharon gasped, pointing. “Barb, your hands! Look at your hands! Is Buddy hurt?”
“No, he’s fine!” Barb looked down, and her hands were illuminated by the high beams. Rain washed her palms. The water off her hands ran pink. It was blood, not mud. She felt around in Buddy’s fur, frantic to see if he was injured. He wasn’t. It had to be Kyle’s blood.
“No!” Sharon shouted. “No, no, no!”
“Kyle!” Barb screamed at the top of her lungs, whirling around toward the police lights.
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