Close to Home

by Nolon King

  Language Arts wasn’t too bad. Corban ignored all of the dickheads giving him eyes, pretended he couldn’t hear their mutters and hisses, focusing on Mrs. Bradshaw’s thoughts about The Scarlet Letter, while waiting for grace from the lunch bell.

  As soon as it rang, Corban flew from the room. To his surprise, Kari waited in the hall.

  “How’d you get here so fast?”

  “Mrs. Dubois feels sorry for me. She took me aside a few minutes before class ended and asked me how I was feeling, if there was anything she could do, you know, stuff like that. Then she just let me go early. Said I shouldn’t have to wait in the lunch line.”

  “I guess she doesn’t know you brought your lunch?”

  “I saw no reason to give it up. I really enjoyed those extra four minutes.”

  Corban smiled. Maybe he was worried for nothing. Sure, people were assholes, but Kari seemed to be doing just fine. He was stressing more than enough for the both of them, and maybe that was making things worse.

  They went to the quad and ate alone in a corner, trading entrees like always. Corban gave Kari his shiitake-and-scallion lo mein in banana leaves, served around silky noodles. It was from Five-Star China, a place with food that was much better than their name, but still too fussy for lunch, according to Corban. He was thrilled to swap the dish for Cynthia’s simple yet delicious BLT, in a wrap rather than bread.

  Corban tried not to remember what life had been like not too long ago, when lunches were spent with Levi and the guys who used to be his best friends. Corban had always felt at least a little on the outside of the group. More so since he started hanging with Kari, as the two of them stuck to the edge together. But looking around, Corban didn’t even see Levi or the gang.

  They ignored the stares while finishing their lunch, then Corban and Kari tossed their garbage and walked toward the football field, where they usually meandered until the bell announced that it was time to finish their day.

  They didn’t make it far.

  Olly-Olly-Oxen-Freak!

  Spawn, spawn, look at her on the lawn!

  Olly-Olly-Oxen-Freak! Olly-Olly-Oxen-Freak!

  Demon seed!

  Olly-Olly-Oxen-Freak!

  Corban didn’t even know where the chanting was coming from, other than everywhere. He didn’t want to look.

  Neither did Kari. She kept her eyes mostly ahead, cast only ever so slightly down, as they walked faster.

  He took her hand. She squeezed it tight. The chanting continued.

  It almost felt planned. Like a flash mob rehearsed by the lot of them.

  The half-eaten peach came out of nowhere, hitting Kari in the face. He had no idea who’d thrown it. She yelped and swallowed what sounded like a possible breakdown.

  Corban put his arm around Kari, pulling her toward the main office, where he knew the cowards wouldn’t dare to follow.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Corban said, making a promise he couldn’t possibly keep.

  “I know,” Kari lied. She was crying, and her left cheek was red and shiny.

  He wiped some of the sticky juice off her cheek while staring into her eyes, neither of them speaking, nor needing to. Corban didn’t need words to make his promise.

  He would stick with Kari, see this through no matter what. Not just because it was the right thing to do, but because he was — no doubt about it — deeply in love with his best friend, a truth he could no longer deny.

  Lunch ended and they each went their own way, planning to meet at the flagpole after school.

  But Corban never made it.

  He was halfway there when someone shoved him hard from behind.

  On the ground, reeling from the shock and the scrapes to his palms, he looked up at a sneering Decker.

  “Where’s your bitch? If she off helping Daddy?”

  That didn’t even make any sense. Decker was an idiot.

  But he was bigger and stronger than Corban, and the gathering crowd seemed to be on his side, hungry to see a fight.

  Corban tried to stand, but Decker shoved him back down.

  “Hey, Leftover Levi, I didn’t say you could stand.”

  “I don’t want to fight.”

  “Too bad I do.” Decker grabbed him by the collar. “Tell you what …” He looked around for the crowd, as if seeking their approval. “If you admit that her daddy did it, I’ll let you go. If not, I’ll punch you so hard, my mom will start making you wear the bag.”

  Decker tightened his grip, his lips curled into the cruelest smile.

  From the corner of his eyes he saw Levi, standing at the edge of the crowd, alone.

  Their gazes met, brother to brother.

  Levi saw Decker and Corban and the crowd. Levi saw all of it.

  But then he turned around and walked away, leaving his brother to die.

  I tried to warn you.

  Corban could hear Levi in his head.

  The crowd was waiting.

  He looked into Decker’s eyes and in his steadiest voice said, “Ollie Harris is innocent, but Matthew Decker is definitely an asshole, and I feel sorry for his ugly whore of a mother.”

  And then Corban’s face exploded in pain.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “You sure you don’t want more ice?”

  Cynthia looked at Corban in sympathy, like she wanted to reach out and touch his nose again.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Harris, but that’s okay. Really, it doesn’t even hurt that much anymore. I’m sure it looks worse than it is.”

  “That’s what you get for running too fast and not watching where you’re going.” It was the third time that Kari had found a way to naturally deliver the lie she needed her mom to believe.

  Because this couldn’t be about that. Not in her mother’s current condition.

  Under normal circumstances she would never have fallen for such a sham, but Kari’s mom was an absolute mess.

  She warned him before he came over, but Corban hadn’t expected this. It was heartbreaking, and such a contrast with his own mother, who seemed so delighted by all of the disasters raining upon Almond Park. He thought of that farce of a dinner party a couple days before — Cynthia’s drinking and his father’s nauseating onslaught of garbage — and wanted to shudder.

  According to Kari, her mom had barely left the house, and she was clearly hanging by a thread. Kari made a pot of oolong, but Cynthia ignored it entirely for the bottle that she seemed determined to drink as fast as possible.

  Kari glanced at Corban, worried. Her mother was too lost to notice.

  “I don’t have any friends anymore,” Cynthia said, a second after a giant swallow.

  “That’s not true, Mom.”

  But it was. Kari told him the same thing herself on the bike ride here.

  “This will all blow over,” Kari added. “They’ll find the killer and everyone in town will feel really bad about how they’ve treated Dad.”

  Another swallow, much closer to a gulp. “But how could I ever be friends with them again after this? After what they thought of your father? I just couldn’t.” She shook her head, haunted and furious. Another sip, this one small and nervous. “Everything’s ruined forever.”

  “It’s not ruined forever, you just have to—”

  “It is, Kari.” Cynthia stood. She gulped — no, guzzled — the rest of her wine, then headed for the kitchen, probably to open another bottle. “I can’t just anything. Not today or tomorrow or ever again.”

  Cynthia cracked the bottle with a couple of twists of the corkscrew followed by a pop, without ever once looking down at the bottle. Same for the way she filled her glass. Extra impressive, considering she was already drunk.

  “I’m ostracized.”

  Her words were starting to slur. Ostracized definitely had an added H. Kari squeezed his hand under the table, hard.

  “What can we do, Mom?”

  “You can’t do anything! No one can do anything. Either your father did it and our lives are ruined, or he didn
’t do it and our lives are still ruined.”

  “Things will be okay if—”

  “What do you know, Kari?”

  Kari flinched.

  “I’m sorry. I just—”

  “My Bunco group canceled on me. I made a beef enchilada dip.” Her voice cracked, like the real tragedy was that her dip might go to waste.

  “It will pass.”

  “You’re not getting it,” Cynthia said, sounding more upset by the word, “it won’t. Once people decide, they don’t change their minds.”

  “But Dad didn’t do it!”

  “That doesn’t matter!” A long, horrible moment, where something died on Cynthia’s face. Then, in a brittle voice that broke at the end, she added, “And what if he did?”

  “Mom!” Kari gasped.

  Corban held his breath. Poor Kari, having to see her mother fall apart like this. To have to be the strong one while her parents fell apart. It wasn’t fair.

  Cynthia drank more wine and laughed. “Of course he didn’t do it.”

  Kari looked at Corban, helpless. He squeezed her hand.

  We’ll figure this out.

  Cynthia’s phone was sitting like a brick on the table. She picked it up and her thumb started dancing on the glass. Less than a minute later she paused. Her eyes turned dark. The line of her mouth receded.

  “And there they are. My Bunco girls. Jeanine was hosting. Do you see this shit?” She showed Kari and Corban her screen. A group of nine women sitting around a kitchen counter, all of them smiling for their collective selfie. “Do you fucking see it?”

  Corban had no idea what Kari’s mom was talking about. He wondered if Kari did.

  “They’re all smiling?” Kari attempted.

  “It’s the goddamned hardwood floors.” She took a huge swig of her wine, her throat working frantically as she tried to swallow the whole glass at once. “Installed by your father! The entire first floor. And that fucking cunt Jeanine still hasn’t paid the bill! What? Is she waiting for Ollie to get hauled off so she can get them for free? While those other eight bitches all stand around gawking?”

  But then she started laughing.

  “It’s fine!” She waved a hand like this was all nothing, then she looked at her daughter and Corban as though she were only seeing them now. “Of course this will all work itself out. I don’t mean to worry either of you. Really, I’m fine.”

  The second I’m fine came out sounding tired, and barely intelligible.

  “What can we do, Mom?”

  Cynthia looked at Kari with eyes that had suddenly, and surprisingly, rediscovered their kindness. “Thank you, honey. You too, Corban. Thank you for being here for me, and for Kari.’

  Corban blinked. “Of course, Mrs. Harris.”

  “Cynthia.” She gave him a smile that looked a splinter from cracking.

  She was mumbling something as they left the dining room and headed off to Kari’s room.

  “Is your mom going to be okay?”

  “She’ll be fine,” Kari said, her uncertainty chilling. She was so pale, Corban wondered if the woman was in shock.

  “I thought she didn’t swear.”

  “That was literally the first time I’ve ever heard her.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  Kari closed her bedroom door and turned to Corban. “Will you stay with me?”

  “You mean … in here?”

  “Yes. I don’t want to be alone. Especially if …”

  She left the thought unfinished, like it was too horrible to voice.

  “I’ll stay.” Corban wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass. And he wasn’t going to ask his parents and risk his father saying no, just to be a dick. “They won’t even notice I’m gone.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Let’s watch a movie,” Adam suggested again.

  “I told you, I don’t want to watch a movie,” Selena said.

  “Then can you talk to me? Maybe we can have a conversation instead of just glaring at each other?”

  But Selena wasn’t glaring. She wasn’t even looking at him. Barely had all night.

  “Let’s go to your office.”

  “I don’t feel like working either, Adam.”

  “It doesn’t have to be work.” He smiled suggestively, one eyebrow raised.

  Her response was flat, clearly annoyed. “It’s always work.”

  And then, silence.

  It’s always work. He hated the implication that he was work.

  But he couldn’t deny that what he wanted from her was inseparable from her work. He wanted — no, needed — her to keep him on the straight and narrow like she always swore that she would. She acted like he was barely worth her attention, when he was on the verge of his first kill. She was breaking the unspoken agreement that their marriage was built on. Without her, there was no release from his unspeakable urges.

  It would be her fault if he killed.

  “Wanna play a game?”

  “Are you kidding? What, now you want to play Scrabble? Is that your response to my not wanting to work?”

  “It’s my response to you not wanting to give me a session, or watch a movie, or have a conversation, or do anything with me.”

  “Okay.” Selena stood from where she’d been reading in the nook, set her tablet on the table, and paced the room. “Let’s talk. Detective Sharpe can’t find anything linking Ollie to the murders, other than his access. He says that it’s circumstantial, and not enough to charge someone. He’s right. Even if they could bring Ollie in, it would never stick. As is, there is zero chance of a conviction.”

  “This isn’t what I wanted to talk about.”

  “So,” Selena continued. “What do you think is the best way to play this?”

  “What?” He looked at her, exhausted. Was she really going to do this? Hold their marriage hostage to her career? “Play what?”

  “If Ollie is the killer, and the police are able to prove it, then don’t you think that people will wonder why I didn’t see it? I mean, he was an acquaintance and I’m the supposed authority, and there he was right under my nose. If the killer is someone else, then that might be even worse.”

  Right. Because this wasn’t about finding a serial killer. This was all about her, and whether or not she looked good to her target demographic.

  But he played dumb. “Why is that?”

  There was a long beat before Selena answered, and there was something strange on her face when she did. “Because I’m the one saying that he’s guilty, so obviously my judgement is flawed.”

  “No one knows that you’re saying he’s guilty. Unless you go around telling people.”

  “I think there’s more to the story.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I think this is personal.”

  “With Ollie?” Adam asked.

  “With the killer. Whoever it is.”

  “Personal with his victims?”

  “Personal with me.”

  Because everything is about you. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying it.

  “I think the killer wants to rub this in my face,” she continued. “Did you notice anything about the crime scenes?”

  Unbelievable. “Like what?”

  “Like something obvious.”

  “You’re not being very clear.”

  “It’s that obvious. I was hoping I didn’t have to be. What do you know about the crime scene that the police might have missed?”

  What in the hell was she going on about? She was clearly digging for something, acting like Adam played cards with the killer on Tuesdays. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  Selena peered at him. “I guess I don’t know either.”

  He’d never been more disgusted with her. She’d been guessing when she’d accused Ollie, and ruined his family’s life in exactly the same way that she’d been trying to stop Adam from ruining theirs. She was clueless.

  Worse, she didn�
�t have a clue about him. She didn’t understand what was happening because she had stopped paying attention entirely.

  Selena assumed that she understood him. But she was wrong, and there would be consequences.

  He could feel them coming, whether he wanted them or not.

  She was at her closet. The door was open and she was digging inside.

  “Sam thinks that The Heartbeat of Murder might be the biggest thing on TV when it debuts. He could see us getting the cover of Entertainment Weekly.” She straightened and chirped, “Have you seen my Doctor Who scarf anywhere? I can’t seem to find it.”

  “No. I haven’t seen your Doctor Who scarf.”

  “You sure you didn’t take it?”

  Adam looked up. Selena gave him the look she usually gave one of the boys when she was catching them in a lie.

  “Why the fuck would I take your scarf?”

  She finally blinked and turned back to the closet.

  Adam stood to leave.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But right now this bedroom isn’t big enough for both of us.”

  He closed the door behind him, wondering when he would finally go all the way.

  Maybe tonight.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Was there anything more pathetic than watching someone else play a video game thousands of miles away? Levi thought probably not, despite the 337,841 people watching Shanghai alongside him.

  That thing in his gut was a cousin to loneliness, but it was born of something much worse.

  He felt wretchedly guilty. It was tearing at his insides like a frothing, rabid beast, scratching and clawing and tormenting him so he wouldn’t forget what he’d done.

  Today Levi had taken it too far.

  Except that was a massive understatement. He had done the one thing a twin should never do, and left Corban to the wolves. Levi wasn’t sure if the sickness inside his stomach was because sometimes one twin could kinda sorta feel the other, or if he was alone in this miserable stew.

  He couldn’t know for sure, but Levi felt reasonably certain that they were both dying inside.

  Levi left the game room and wandered the hall, passing Corban’s room on his way to the kitchen.