Twisted Fate (19 page)

When we got back to my driveway, we expected to see Graham on the other side tinkering around in the garage with the Austin. But he wasn’t there so we rang the doorbell.

A tall very handsome old guy—Graham’s dad, David—answered the door. And smiled.

“Is Graham home?” I asked.

“Oh, hey, Tate, sure, just a minute.” He took out his phone and texted something, then asked us to come into the house. Apparently yelling up the stairs wasn’t done around here—or maybe Graham just wouldn’t be able to hear him. We stood in the front hall and looked around. As usual the massive weird paintings by Graham’s stepmom, Kim, seemed to take up all the space around us.

“Would you guys like something to drink? Or a snack?” David asked. He had sweet kind worried-looking eyes.

I said, “No thanks,” thinking about all the junk food we’d eaten earlier.

But Becky said, “Yes please,” at the same time. Then his phone buzzed and he looked at it. “Graham will be right down. I’ll go get some refreshments.”

When David headed down the hall to the kitchen, Kim came around the corner holding a glass of wine. She was wearing khaki pants with paint all over them and a man’s button-down shirt. Her hair was up in a loose bun. She smiled when she saw us standing there. I remember thinking how smart she looked. Like she had a look on her face where she seemed to understand everything that was going on and to be deep in thought. Studying us as we stood there.

“Hi, Tate,” she said. And then she reached out to shake Becky’s hand. “I’m Kim,” she said. She nodded at Declan.

These people were very different from other people’s parents that I knew. They seemed somehow more there. They really looked at you and asked you questions. And they seemed to be very concerned, but they also treated you like an adult, didn’t ask a bunch of silly questions about school but just talked about regular stuff.

Graham’s dad came out of the kitchen with a plate that had fancy crackers and cheese on it and a bowl full of tiny black olives. He set it on the coffee table in the living room and then pulled three little bottles of San Pellegrino from
the pocket of his sports jacket and handed them to us. We sat in a row on the couch under Kim’s massive painting of a jellyfish. The house was so immaculately clean and bright and smelled good. I remember thinking how weird it was that this place was right next door to my own house, which felt more cavernous and dark and dusty, like the hold of an antique ship. And except for the rooms where Mom entertained historical society people, it was always filled with one construction project or another. Pretty much the only thing that made my house feel like a home was the smell of the muffins Ally baked all the time.

We were not used to this kind of snack or this kind of hospitality from adults and it was like I could hear Becky’s voice in my head saying, “See? They are so cool,” but that’s probably because she said it about Graham once an hour.

David sat down across from us and Kim stood in front of the bookcase near their grand piano, still holding her wine. And then Graham came downstairs looking like he’d escaped from some completely other world. His hair messy, his expression slightly dazed, his clothes rumpled. He looked high.

“Looks like someone’s been making art,” Kim said. “He’s got the unmistakable halo of creation about him.”

Graham laughed and looked a little embarrassed. He took a couple olives out of the bowl and popped them into his mouth.

“You guys want to come upstairs?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

David said, “We’re ordering Thai food later—is there anything special you’d like us to get?”

Declan and Becky and I looked at each other. We didn’t even know you could order Thai food in Rockland. Or really what it even was.

“Maybe just four pad thais?” Graham said.

“Gotcha,” his dad said, and nodded.

“Could we eat it in the screening room?” Declan asked.

“Of course,” Kim said. “Wherever you’re going to be working, we’ll bring it up.”

I remember thinking how funny it was Kim thought we would be working on something instead of just hanging out. She thought of everything as some kind of art project or the planning for some kind of art project. But actually I guess we would be working. Strategizing, and even I had to admit it was very cool of them to see it that way.

Graham grabbed the bowl of olives and we followed him upstairs. Through the maze of rooms and hallways into his back bedroom.

“What’s up, you guys?”

“Not much,” I said. “You’ve heard about Brian, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s so messed up. I was just talking to him last week.”

Becky said, “That’s why we’re here. We thought maybe you had something on your film that would be a clue. You filmed a lot at that park, right?”

“Yeah, and at the school and all around there. You’re right. I didn’t even think there might be something on the films.”

“Can we watch them?” Declan asked.

“Hell yeah!” he said.

We sat on the floor in his room and he opened his Mac Air and looked at it for several minutes. “Yeah, okay, all the files are here. And the raw stuff before I edited it into the main movie. Let’s take this to the screening room.”

We followed him down another long hallway to the back stairs and then went up to the third floor, to the tiny dark theater where Declan and I had first seen his work and where Declan had first got the idea to christen him “Art Dullard.”

But now we were all nervous and anxious to see the movies. I really felt like we were going to find Brian’s kidnapper. That Graham might have even captured him on film. Graham attached his laptop to the projector and then Brian’s soft round face filled the screen. Becky took a sharp breath and then started crying.

“What are you up to?” Graham’s voice asked on the audio.

“I’m headed to Professor Xavier’s house,” Brian said.

“Oh yeah? What are you going to do there?”

“Meet up with my friends, because we all have the X-Gene.”

“You’re an X-Man?”

Brian nodded and held out his arm for the camera to inspect. He had drawn the word
X-Man
on himself in magic marker.

Graham’s voice said, “That’s awesome, dude.”

In the background when the camera pans back you can see there are several people sitting in the park. A guy reading the newspaper, a couple walking past, Brian’s mother and baby sister perched on a bench across the way.

“Wait,” Declan said. “Go back and pause it.”

Graham did and we looked at a guy wearing a blue sweat suit, who seemed to be looking right at Brian as he walked past.

“What time is that on the footage?”

“Four forty-three,” Graham said.

Declan pulled a little notebook out of his pocket and wrote something down. We did that for every part of the film where some stranger appeared or someone seemed to be looking at Brian.

The film was just Graham talking to Brian. Asking him questions that were the little-kid version of what he had asked Becky when he filmed her.

“Where do you live? How old are you? What’s your favorite food? What’s your favorite show? Where do you go to school? Where do you like to play? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

All his answers were kinda cute and funny because he had a squeaky voice and he talked a lot—for every answer
he would practically give his whole life story.

“My mom used to pick me up because she was working, but now she’s home with the baby and I walk home by myself and have to be really quiet because she’s taking a nap but usually my mom takes a nap too before our gramma gets there and then she has to go to work again. I can even go home by myself when no one’s there. I’m Wolverine.”

“How do you get home from school?” Graham asked.

“I take Sunnyside Drive and then my friends keep going to Demerest Parkway and I turn down Hendy Creek by myself.”

“Do you ever walk along the creek?”

“Sometimes.”

Declan and I exchanged looks. I knew he was thinking what I was thinking. I felt my heart pounding and like I was going to throw up.

“Wait,” I said. “Wait a minute. Who besides us has seen this movie?”

Graham shrugged. “Anybody can buy it from my site.”

“
What?
” Becky asked, suddenly shocked.

“I have a site and you can buy any of my stuff about Rockland or my experimental stuff; once the payment processes, the file downloads. I told you, people have spent hundreds of dollars, sometimes more, for my films. I wasn’t lying. I need to make money so I can do my major feature-length film.”

Declan looked like he was going to be sick. “Graham,”
he said. “Do you know who downloads the films—is there a record?”

“I guess. It’s all through PayPal and my Amazon wish list. People buy me things from my wish list and then they get the movie. The ones of kids talking are pretty popular because I guess everyone loves kids. I actually thought I’d film Brian for a long time—like over his life, so you can see how he changes. Like in the documentary
35 Up
. Have you seen it?”

“Graham,” Becky said, her voice shaking. “This movie has all of Brian’s personal information in it.”

“I know. It’s amazing how much he talks.”

“No,” she said. “I mean, you sold this thing and it has the kid’s address and everything on it.”

“Yours does too,” he said. Still seeming not to get it.

Becky glanced at me with incredulous fury and was about to say something to Graham but Declan cut her off.

“We have to take this to the police and find out who downloaded the movie,” Declan said.

Then Graham started to look freaked-out. “Oh my God, no way! We cannot take any of this to the police.”

“We
have
to!” I shouted. “Are you crazy? This kid could be out there and maybe they could find him right away because of this.”

Graham stood up and started pacing around.

“No,” he said. “No way. I didn’t do this so someone would hurt Brian. This is just a movie.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder why so many people were buying your movies?” Declan asked.

“Because they’re good!” Graham said. Then he looked sheepish and shrugged like maybe he did know. “Whatever,” he said defensively. “This is my job and my art; I’m not going to go to the police and have them take everything away from me. This is just what happened with the stuff me and Eric made. Why can’t people understand art when they see it?”

Declan and I exchanged shocked looks.

“What kind of movies did you and Eric make?” Declan asked.

“Beautiful movies,” he said. “Beautiful, beautiful movies.”

H
e called me in the middle of the night and his voice was rough with sleep or sleeplessness.

“You can’t let them do this to me,” he said. “You understand how I feel and what I’m doing. I don’t know why everyone tries to blame me for the things that go wrong.”

“Shhh,” I whispered into the phone, and then slipped out of bed and into the bathroom so I could have more privacy. “What’s going on?”

“You can’t let them take this stuff to the police. I had nothing to do with what happened to Brian.”

“Shh. Shh. Shh. It’s okay.”

“Meet me outside,” he said. “Down in my backyard by the fountain.”

I would have said no but he sounded so upset and frightened I agreed. “Okay,” I said. “Ten minutes.”

I had never done anything like this in my life but I had
never heard someone sound so afraid before. I put on my sweatshirt and wool socks, then grabbed my shoes and carried them down the stairs so I wouldn’t make noise. Then I crept quietly over the creaky floors to the back door and slipped out.

The sky was a deep black-blue and stars shone brightly down. The moon was a little silver crescent. I could see him already beneath the fountain staring into the woods. He was wearing a black hoodie with a flannel shirt under it and his same Diesel jeans. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The water in the fountain was burbling. It shone liquid and lovely in the starlight. Even though he was upset and I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing I had an incredible sense of freedom being outside in secret with no one around.

When he saw me, he ran forward and held me in his arms. Rested his head on my shoulder. I could feel how much he needed to be hugged and we stood that way for a long time.

“What’s going on?” I said finally.

He looked at me annoyed and confused for a moment and then shook his head. “Please, you have to know I had nothing to do with anything bad that may have happened to Brian. I thought he was a nice kid and a really interesting subject.”

I laughed a little at the way he said it. “Yeah,” I said. “I know you did.”

“Don’t let Declan and Becky go to the police.”

“I can’t make Syd and her friends do anything,” I said.

He held both my hands and squeezed them and looked intently into my face.

“You can, though. You can influence her. You can talk to her. Listen, you and me understand each other. I know we do. We know what it’s like to be shy and outside and different and see things that other people don’t.”

He was staring at me so intensely and his face was beautiful and pale in the starlight. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes looked dark and frightened like an animal’s.