Accomplice (13 page)

I really hadn’t seen it like that. I wondered what it must feel like to be studied by someone like Dean West. For him to consider you fascinating.

“Where would you go?” I asked. “If you were going—

where would you want to end up?”

“You’re going to laugh.”

“I won’t laugh.”

“Swear.”

“Sure.”

“The C.I.A.”

I tried really hard not to laugh. In a way, it disappointed me, because I thought,
Jesus, Dean West is just like every other guy who wants to be a secret agent. Now he’s going to tell me that if he doesn’t make it into the CIA, he wants to be a fireman.
“Good for you,” I said in my best I-believe-in-you voice.

“Yeah, well, I have to sell my dad on it.”

“Because he’d worry about you getting hurt?”

“What?” Dean looked puzzled. “No, not the CIA, the C.I.A.” The only difference was that he said the letters more slowly the second time. I just looked at him.

“The C-C-C-Culinary Institute of America.” That one took him a little bit because he was so excited.

“Oh.” I thought of the muffins and cookies Dean had left for us. “Oh! You want to be a cook?”

He smiled to himself. “I want to be a chef.”

“Because that doesn’t start with a k sound?”

He laughed. “No, because I don’t want to work in a diner.” Dean nodded toward the back, where the kitchen was. “I want to own my own p-p-place someday.” He sat
back a little, straighter. “I want to serve innovative cui-sine. And you know, I’d use regional foods. Jersey corn, heirloom tomatoes—we’ve got the best produce right here and yet you don’t really see serious chefs coming out of New Jersey. The way I figure it, my dad’s going to want to sell off most of West Farms eventually, but if we keep the house and a couple of the surrounding acres, then my mom and dad could retire there and just keep a few small sustenance crops going. Then I’d always have access to fresh organics. You know, I’d use my contacts around town.” He grinned. “Like for lamb. I’d essentially put Colt River on a plate.”

It was the longest stretch Dean had gone without stuttering. “It sounds like you have it all figured out,” I said.

“Well, it’s a plan.” Dean splayed his hands on the table like
Who knows?

“No,” I told him. “It’s a really good plan.”

“What about you, Finn?”

“Oh—I don’t know.” What was I supposed to tell him? That I hoped to get in whatever school Chloe did or, barring that, a respectable state school nearby? That I hadn’t thought past college? That I hadn’t really thought past my triumphant return to
The L. A. Price Show
?

“There has to be something—what’s your dream job? What would you do if you could do absolutely anything?”

It might be sick, but right then, I pretty much had my dream job. I got to take care of Chloe. We could hang out for a couple of hours every day if I planned it right, and around town most people knew who I was. Maybe I’d just graduated from being Bart and Amy’s Girl to being Chloe Caffrey’s Friend. People stopped to talk to me. I made occasional appearances on nationally syndicated talk shows.

Instead of all that, I put on my best tragic-friend voice and said, “It’s just hard to think of the future right now when who knows if Chloe—”

“Yeah. Of course.” Dean sagged in the leather diner seat. “You must think I’m a real bastard.”

“No, not at all.” There was going to be a time when Chloe came home and maybe the three of us would be sitting in this booth or the next one down. We’d all be talking, but I’d feel like the outsider. However privileged I felt to hear Dean’s secrets or whatever covert operations Chloe and I kept between us, that wouldn’t matter so much. That would just be something I used to make myself feel better. “Chloe would be happy that we were hanging out, that we had each other in the middle of all this mess.”

Lie. And when Dean looked up at me, I could tell that I’d overplayed it, that he knew it was a lie.

“Well, that’s what I’d hope, anyway,” I added, aiming for wry, but landing on bitter.

“Chloe’s kind of funny that way, huh? I w-w-w-worried that she was embarrassed or something.” Dean looked out the window.

“No, she just holds on to some things for herself. She’d have told me, if it was just about being embarrassed.”

“You didn’t know anything?”

I tried to remember what I knew before I knew. Chloe flipping her phone open and closed, over and over. Her random grins.

“I knew she was really happy,” I said. “You know, at first I helped with the notes. So I knew she thought you were cute and all. And it’s Chloe. Who could resist Chloe?”

That didn’t make Dean West smile. If anything, he tensed up. “I keep thinking that she wouldn’t just have taken off without saying anything, you know? She’d never want to just disappear from me, no matter how much everything else was pressing down. But then the alternative…” His voice faded and caught. “You’re kind of caught between hoping she cared about you and then hoping she didn’t, you know what I mean?” We sat in silence for a second, imagining. Then Dean said, “I figured you’d know what I mean.”

I couldn’t say anything. The script dictated I should insist that Chloe would never willingly vanish, but that was tantamount to saying,
Yeah, dude, they’ll probably
find your girlfriend dismembered in some parolee’s crawl space.
And I couldn’t be too reassuring, either, knowing that Chloe planned to literally come crawling back in two days, after I smacked her in the head. Dean wasn’t simple, the way people liked to think. He’d put it together. He might never say anything—to anyone—but he’d know.

So I just nodded. I bit my lip and looked up, and Dean looked at me and said, “You guys are a lot alike. You have the same man-man-mannerisms.”

And I said, “Not really,” and left it at that. Dean paid up at the register after a supremely awkward conversation about whether or not we should split the bill. I didn’t say, “But this isn’t a date.” But I almost did, and I said enough that Dean got it and stammered out something about his dad and then he just stopped walking and turned and said, “Hey, Finn, I really appreciate you coming out here and meeting me to talk.” He said it loudly enough for the several diners who recognized us and were craning their necks to hear. “You didn’t have to, but it really helped.”

For all the trouble Dean had talking to people, he usually knew exactly what to say. I thought about Chloe’s ease moving back and forth between crowds of people at school, how she never seemed out of place. And how at home, alone on the farm, even there she didn’t flit around like a moth looking for light. She kind of was the light.

The two of them, Dean and Chloe, would be so easy together. So I wondered what had gotten into her, that she had to go ahead and make this year so hard. My dad had gotten through a good chunk of a Tom Clancy book, waiting for us to finish. He left bills on the counter and sidled up to us by the door.

“Dean,” he said.

“Mr. Jacobs.”

“You kids had a lot to talk about. How are you, Dean?”

“Been better, thanks, but you get by.” Dean rocked back on his heels.

And my dad nodded at him. “I hear you there.”

We walked through the first set of doors together, but Dean stopped in the foyer and stood by the pay phone. It was the first time I’d seen anyone actually move to use the phone—it was in one of those old-fashioned wooden booths, right next to a machine that sold peanuts and one that sold stickers. “I’m just going to c-c-call my mom and let her know I’m on the way.” I wanted to ask Dean when he’d get his cell phone back, but that was another thing you didn’t talk about. I stopped myself just in time. “Thank you, Finn, for speaking with me.” Dean turned to my dad. “Thanks, sir, for taking the time.”

“Anytime.” Dad declared it, like he was handing over Dean our land and not just giving him permission to communicate with us.

Dad and I were in the car all of four seconds before he said, “Good kid.”

“Yeah.”

“Manners.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s had a hard time of it, huh?”

“Lately, yeah. He didn’t really talk too much about it.”

“No? You were there for a while. Jack Ryan got through three missions while you were yakking.”

I asked “What?” and my dad tapped the cover of his book. “Oh—sorry,” I said. “No, he mostly just wanted to talk about Chloe.”

“Poor kid.”

“Yeah.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

I looked up, but my dad was navigating through the parking lot; he wasn’t watching me.

“Not really. It’s just sad.” And it
was
sad. I wondered if Chloe would ever understand what we were putting Dean through.

Dad turned out of the lot. “We’re just going to make a stop at Nana’s place real quick. I promised your mother.”

If I’d followed my instincts, I would have opened the door and dropped out of the moving truck. Instead, I
closed my eyes to concentrate and filled my voice with weariness.

“Dad,” I said, “I really just want to go home. Lie down, be by myself for a while.”

“Yeah, I know, and you can do that in half an hour. But your grandmother’s coming back next week, and we’ve hardly been by the place. What’s going to happen if another raccoon got in through the chimney?”

I didn’t laugh. “I’ve been checking in.”

“Your mother and I appreciate that, Finn. It’s going to take fifteen minutes.”

There wasn’t anything to do. Every time he turned on his blinker, the pain in my stomach ratcheted up a notch.
Chloe will see the truck
, I tried to convince myself. She’d never believe that my dad let me drive his truck. She’d know it was him.

By the time we pulled into the drive, I felt like I was dissolving in the seat.

My legs shook as I got out and headed to the house.

Dad unlocked the back door, off the kitchen. Following him in, I yelled, “All right, Dad—what do we have to do?” and hoped Chloe would hear me through the vents.

“All you have to do is calm down.” He opened the fridge door. “We should have brought over milk and eggs so that your grandmother had them fresh when she got home.”

“Yeah, if you want to kill her with cholesterol.”

“Finn, sometimes you do things for your mother-in-law because it’s like taking vitamins. It’s preventive medicine.”

I made myself smile. Dad’s making mother-in-law jokes—hilarity ensues. “I can stop by Donahue’s Grocery after school,” I volunteered. “That way, they’ll be super fresh. You can even take credit.”

My dad clapped me on the back. “That’s what I’m talking about.” I tried to trail him without clinging to him. “The plants look great, kiddo.” He checked the
thermostat and headed for the first-floor bath. “Aw, jeez—I hope this faucet hasn’t been dripping for ten days.” My belly clenched. “Huhh.”

“What’s up?” I attempted to sound bored.

“These towels are damp,” Dad said. I wanted to yell down the cellar steps:
Jesus Christ, Chloe. You were supposed to stop showering a couple of days ago.

“Oh—I spilled the watering can,” I explained. “I just grabbed what I could find. It’s okay. It didn’t seep into the carpet.” My grandfather shipped home the carpets when he was in the navy. Nothing could seep into that carpet. Not even feet.

“Finley.” It amazed me that when they were mad, my mom and dad could pronounce my name in the exact same annoying way.

“It was an accident.”

“Well, you don’t sop messes up with your grandmother’s good hand towels.” Dad stopped in front of the basement door. My ribs started aching from my heart throwing itself against them.

Impatient:
“Now what are you doing?”

“I’m just going to check the basement; we had a heavy rain the other day.”

Whiny:
“Daaa—aaad—”

“Finn, give it a rest.” He was irritated now. He flicked on the light at the top of the steps.

Brat:
“Fine.” I stomped down the steps past him. “I’ll do it.” Then I kept stomping, praying he wouldn’t follow me.

“I didn’t mean for you—”

“You can check the attic. There’s spiders up there.”

“Whooooooaaa—spiders. Good heavens.” But I heard his steps cross the floor, then the stairs to the second floor creak.

Chloe was crouched in the corner of the room by the water heater. She had a blanket wrapped around her, so I could only see her pale hair and paler face. The TV was on mute and the litter strewn in front of it glittered in the light. I crossed over to her with my hand clamped over my own mouth, shaking my head, trying to stop her from saying anything. Her mouth kept opening and closing, though, like she wanted to yell.

“SHUT. UP.” I hissed it, but hugged her so she knew I wasn’t mad.

She started babbling. “I would just say you didn’t know, that I broke in and you didn’t know a thing about it.”

“Like they’d believe that. Shut up.” But I couldn’t help asking, “Why are you showering, anyway? We said you had to be all grimy. What if he’d opened the shower curtain and seen wet tiles?”

“I didn’t,” Chloe whispered. She still looked terrified. “I just washed my hands after I peed.”

“You’re crazy,” I said. I put my hands on the sides of her head. Pressed my forehead against hers. “Listen, I gotta go. I’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t move for at least twenty minutes, okay?”

When she nodded, I felt her face move against mine, her scalp move against my hands. I heard the slam of the attic ladder swinging up, my dad’s footsteps clomping overhead. “No kittens down here!” I called out and started up the steps, waving to the light face in the dark corner.

“Kittens?” Dad called back.

“Yeah, I was hoping. Bella Livingston said she’s got a bunch of barn cats so I was hoping maybe a few snuck in here.”

“That’s all we need: a few more animals.” Back in the kitchen, Dad checked the light switches. He steered me out and then locked the door behind him.

Keep it light. Keep it light
, I kept telling myself. Out loud, I said, “We could always use more animals.”

“Yeah? And who’s going to care for all these creatures while you’re away at your fancypants college?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s only if I get into a fancypants college.” I stopped and squirmed in my seat. It was funny—I knew Chloe was alive. I knew she sat a short distance away from us, probably debating whether it was safe to unmute the TV. And still I felt weird talking about
the future. I didn’t know how people really managed to lose people and then go on with their lives. At least, I didn’t know then.

When I went to latch my seat belt, I smelled Chloe’s shampoo on my hands.