Red Heart Tattoo (19 page)

The FBI had the best forensic science people in the world and they found traces of explosives in Jackson’s garage five months after the bomb had been assembled there. They traced the backpack to Tommy from a fifth-grade photo, and they broke the encrypted code of both boys’ computers to find a trail of incriminating emails and blog entries to throw suspicion on a Stuart Rothman, a senior at Edison. For his part, Roth refused all interviews, wanting only to put it all behind him. He hated that the two creeps were being immortalized, even as monsters, by the media.

Carla read the newspaper stories aloud daily at the breakfast table. “Makes my blood boil,” she said. “These kids are monsters. A psychiatrist is calling Jackson a sociopath. That’s a person without a conscience.” Fuming, she looked across the table at Roth and Max. “Are you two listening?”

Max shoveled a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth. “Let it go,
ma chérie
.”

She squinted at him. “These two almost wrecked Roth’s life. How can I let it go?” She returned to reading aloud. “ ‘The suspects referred to one another as Apocalypse and Executioner in their emails.’ What jerks!”

“Please, Carla, I’m sick of the whole mess,” Roth said. He concentrated on the back of a cereal box, hoping to discourage Carla’s rant. Roth had precious few months to go before June graduation and he was working
double-time to make sure it happened for him. Although as a fringe benefit, his “not guilty” status had cut him some slack in his classes. None of his teachers wanted to flunk a hero.

Carla shook out the paper, ignored Max’s and Roth’s wishes. “ ‘Police and FBI acted on an anonymous tip before issuing warrants for Mr. Sinclaire and Mr. Watkins.’ ”

This part piqued Roth’s interest. “What kind of tip?”

“Says it came via an email to headquarters. They traced it back to a computer at the public library—no way to know who sent it. The note said: ‘In the case of the Edison bombing, you should look at Jackson Sinclaire and Tommy Watkins.’ ” She folded the paper and hit the table with it. “So why is this tip coming out now? If someone knew something, why didn’t they report it sooner?”

“No idea,” Roth said, returning to his cereal bowl. If he could get his hands on the tipster, he’d shake the answer out of the creep.

“They’ll probably get off on an insanity plea,” Carla grumbled.

“They won’t get off,” Max said. “The feds frown on bomb makers.” He winked at Roth, who grinned and hunched over his cereal bowl, transfixed not by the conversation but by the Cheerios floating in milk, bobbing up and down with every dip of the spoon, but unsinkable—a metaphor for his life.

Liza stood in the crowded convenience store, hiding behind a row of metal shelves that held snack foods, and
watching Morgan stand in front of the refrigerated cases of soft drinks. Liza had ducked when Morgan and Roth entered the store, not wanting to be seen by Roth. Bad timing that they were in the same place at the same time. She’d steered a wide berth around Roth since their argument weeks before. It pained Liza to see the two of them together at school, so seeing them after school twisted inside her like a knife.

Morgan reached for the handle of the glass case, but her blindness was keeping her from opening the case. Liza understood the dilemma at once.

Liza glanced to the front of the store, at the line of people waiting to pay for gasoline. Roth was a good ways back and Morgan was hidden from his line of sight. The sole cashier was swamped, so it was going to take Roth a while to get to the man with his cash.

Liza fidgeted. She knew what she
should
do. She should help Morgan.

Morgan grasped the handle of the cold case, but was stumped over how to choose a soda. She’d insisted that Roth pay for gas while she grabbed a soda, and so he’d left her to her own devices, which, at the moment, were failing her. How had she thought she could pick out a diet soda from refrigerator shelves she couldn’t see? This blind thing was getting old.

She’d thought for sure that the capture of the kids who’d planted the bomb would bring her sight back. It hadn’t, despite Dr. Peg’s continued assurance that her conversion disorder would vanish when her mind was
ready to deal with it. She gritted her teeth, determined to drink whatever she pulled out of the case even if she hated it.

“Need some help?”

The female voice sounded somewhat familiar, but Morgan couldn’t place it with a face. She’d heard so many voices in the past months that were faceless. “Note to marketers,” Morgan said half-jokingly, “here’s an idea. Let’s put talking shelves into stores to help the sightless choose a product.”

“Not a bad idea,” Liza said. “Do you know what you want?”

“Diet cola,” Morgan answered, hating that a stranger had to wait on her. She should be used to dependency on others by now, but she wasn’t. A rush of cold air hit her face when the girl opened the door. “I’m Morgan,” she said. “Who can I thank for helping me?”

“A fellow student,” Liza said, unwilling to say her name, and hoping Morgan wouldn’t recognize her voice. They hadn’t spoken since that day in their junior year when Morgan had been campaigning for the class presidency. In truth, she didn’t hate Morgan Frierson. The girl had paid too big a price in the explosion, and over the several months that Morgan had championed the school and its students, Liza had formed a grudging respect for her.

The thing between them was Roth. Liza was pretty sure that Morgan didn’t even know this, plus it wasn’t as if Morgan had snatched Roth away from Liza. It really wasn’t Morgan’s fault that Roth wanted her instead of Liza, she
tried telling herself. She glanced at the line at the front of the store, saw that Roth was getting close to the register. He was flipping through a magazine and not watching Morgan like a hawk. “Can you make it to the front of the store?”

“Sure,” Morgan said, shaking out her red-tipped rod. “I’m a trained professional.”

Liza steeled herself against a wave of sympathy. Instead a twinge of jealousy flared inside her. She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t shove it down.

Morgan held out her hand. “The soda?”

“Oh, sure.” Liza held the can for a lingering moment, then perversely shook it before handing it over. She regretted it as soon as Morgan took the can and started up the aisle, moving her stick from side to side.

“Let me buy it for you,” Liza called, trying to turn the tide of her action.

“Thanks, but I’ve got the money. I appreciate your help.”

Liza almost ran after her and grabbed the can out of her hand, but a quick glance forward showed her that Roth was next in line and he’d turned to watch Morgan coming toward him.

Liza stepped behind the safety of the shelves, hiding her body and her shame from Roth’s blue eyes.

O
utside in the car Roth asked, “You have any trouble finding the soda you wanted?”

“I didn’t find it. Some girl from school was back there and she dug it out for me.”

“I would have helped you,” Roth said.

“I’m sick of people having to help me,” Morgan snapped. “I’m sick of everything!” She tossed her purse onto the floor beside her feet.

He stuck the key into the ignition, letting her vent because he knew she hadn’t deserved what had happened to her. “Want me to open the can?” he asked patiently.

“I think I can handle a pop-top,” she groused, and slid her forefinger under the ring of the top, jerking it backward in one angry motion.

Soda exploded from the can, spewing foam upward, into Morgan’s face, and across the front of her sweater. In
an instant two things happened. Violent missing images fell into place inside her head. And blinding light pierced her darkness.

Morgan screamed.

She asks, “What’s that?”

Trent turns his head to look over his shoulder
.

A flash of white light erupts, followed by the sound of a boom
.

Trent pushes her away from him so quickly she crashes backward onto the tile floor of the atrium, hitting her head so hard she sees stars
.

Breathless, she watches Trent’s down-filled jacket burst open and white fluff balloon into the air. Trent’s blood sprays down on her in a mist of fine red rain, and the world goes black
.

The images took only microseconds, but Morgan saw them all as clearly as she was now seeing the sunlight gleaming through the windshield of Roth’s car. She covered her eyes with her hands and began to rock and cry.

Her eyesight had returned in a cloudburst of memories that her brain had sought to repress for months. Her eyesight had returned with the terrible vision of watching her beloved Trent die.

Morgan looked up at the tree in her front yard, at a web of branches beginning to burst with new green leaves. Soon the leaves would canopy the branches and shelter the trunk and the ground beneath, where she stood. She
hadn’t ventured to the tree in months, not since the winter day she’d learned Trent was dead.

The spring air was chilly, but the snow was mostly gone. Daffodils and a few brave tulips pushed up from flower beds in front of her house. Waves of sadness rolled over her heart as she remembered all the times she and Trent had stood beneath the tree and clung to each other. The image of Trent’s blood spraying down on her may have returned her sight, but it had not quelled her sense of horror and loss. His body had taken the impact of the explosion, and his quick action had saved her life.

“You okay?” Roth asked. He’d walked out to the tree with her, his hands jammed into the pocket of his familiar black hoodie. For some reason this tree had special meaning in her life. He felt like an intruder.

Morgan couldn’t tell him the truth about her and Trent and the tree. It wouldn’t be fair. “Just wishing spring would hurry up and get here,” she said.

She’d returned from a checkup to find Roth waiting for her on the porch.

“Your checkup go all right?”

“Eyes are fine. But I’ll stay with Dr. Peg through the summer. She says my PTSD needs some TLC before I head off to college. She wants me to go away strong.”

“You’re still going?” He knew the answer, but needed to hear her say it.

“Absolutely I’m going. I was going to go when I was blind. Of course, now that I can see, it will be better.”

Roth scuffed the toe of his boot against a lump of hard
earth. “Can I ask you something?” He didn’t wait for her answer; he just forged ahead. “If Trent was alive, would you still go?”

Roth rarely weighed his words, but she understood why he wanted to know. “It was always the plan between us. Trent would go off to college and so would I.” She shrugged. “That’s the truth.”

“But you took his promise ring. What was that all about?”

She had locked the ring in her jewelry box when her eyesight returned. “I’m not sure. It was going to be hard for both of us to let go, but I think we both knew college would change us. The ring was a way to hold on to the past. Not always the right thing.”

Roth got her unspoken message—he also would soon be in her past. He released a lungful of trapped air, rocked by what he knew was happening between them, the inevitability of their goodbye.

“What about you?” she asked. “What will you do in the fall?”

“Work with Max. He wants to bring me into his business in a big way.”

“College?”

“Not now. Maybe someday.” He couldn’t face the idea of more studying just yet. He would graduate by the skin of his teeth.

“Speaking of Max,” Morgan said, “can I ask a favor from you?”

He peeled a chip of bark from the tree’s trunk, searching inside himself for a way to let go of her. “What is it?”

She told him.

He raised his hands, backed away. “Whoa! You sure about that?”

“Way sure.”

“Your mother will kill me.”

“I’ll handle my parents. I know what I want. It’s really just a matter of timing with them. Last minute’s usually best.”

“I’ll talk to Max.” Roth knew he should go. Dragging out their breakup wasn’t going to help either of them. “Guess I should roll. I told Carla I’d help clean out the garage.” He turned and walked toward his pickup.

She watched him go, her heart hammering. It couldn’t end like this between them. She loved him, would always love him. He had saved her too, and not just because he’d pulled her out of the ruins before the stairs fell. Throughout the months of her blindness, he’d been with her, beside her. “Wait.” From under the shadow of the tree, Morgan ran after him, threw her arms around him.

His arms flew around her and he buried his face in her long red hair.

“I won’t be leaving until August. Can’t we be with each other until then?” Staying together for the next few months was only postponing their parting, but it was what she wanted. She was unsure of what he’d do. Roth could very well walk off, and she wouldn’t blame him. He owed her nothing.

“That what you want?”

“More than anything.”

He felt like a prisoner given a reprieve. He wanted any
part of her he could have, for any length of time he could have it. “Convince me.”

She turned her mouth to his. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

He did.