Blood on My Hands (11 page)

“Like what?”

“Like that she was a total slut and had even been treated for an STD and that if I went out with her, I might catch something.” He pauses to bend his knee and winces again.

“So what happened next?” I ask, trying to keep him on track.

“Then Katherine made this big play for me. And like I said, I’m not exactly used to that kind of attention.
And
she swore she’d never tell Dakota. And”—he shrugs—“I fell for it. And the next thing I knew, Dakota knew all about it, and she just went totally bonkers.”

“So you think Katherine told Dakota?”

“Or she told someone else, who told Dakota. Doesn’t really matter.” Is that a trace of remorse in his voice? He can’t enjoy admitting that he was duped. Still, it’s incredibly helpful news, because if Katherine stole him, it gives Dakota a motive for wanting revenge. And I’m wondering about something else. “I guess the thing I don’t understand is how Katherine could do that to Dakota and then two weeks later they were acting like best friends again.”

“That’s what happened?”

“You didn’t know?”

He shakes his head. “I haven’t talked to either of them. To tell you the truth, I’m totally fine with that. I mean, at first I felt pretty bad about Dakota. It was probably stupid of me to believe
all that stuff about her being a slut and having STDs and all. But …” His voice trails off.

“But?”

He seems reluctant to say more.

“Please, if there’s something I should know …,” I say, urging him. “Something that would help prove that I didn’t kill Katherine.”

“Well … I don’t know what this’ll prove, but when that whole thing happened, when Dakota found out about me and Katherine … I started getting some really freaky texts. The callback number was blocked, so I could never completely be sure who they were from, but I’m almost positive they were from Dakota.”

“What did they say?”

“Really bizarre threatening stuff. But the thing is, like I just said, I can’t
swear
they came from her. I mean, it makes sense that she’s the one who sent them, and it wasn’t like anyone else had a reason to send me things like that, but the police said—”

“The police? How did the police know?”

Griffen looks surprised. “We told them. I mean, the texts were totally threatening. As soon as I got them, I told my parents and they went to the police. But the cops said there was nothing they could do. They couldn’t track the texts and that was that.”

“That’s all they said?”

“Well, they said I shouldn’t tell anyone or spread any rumors, because there was no way to prove who really sent
them and, you know, like, Dakota’s mother is a congresswoman and people might get the wrong idea.”

“Would you tell
me
what they said?”

He grimaces, as if reluctant to disobey police orders. I give him a pleading look, trying to remind him of what’s at stake.

He nods. “Whoever sent the texts said they wanted to kill me. One even threatened to kill me
and
Katherine.”

The news goes through me like an electric current. Maybe there’s no way to prove that the texts came from Dakota. But like Griffen said, who else would have sent them?

“I don’t understand why the police didn’t do more to follow up on them,” I tell him.

Griffen raises his eyebrows and gives me a look as if the answer is obvious. Then it hits me: Dakota’s uncle, Samuel Jenkins, is the chief of police. She’s his niece. Of course he wouldn’t want rumors spread about her.

“Do you still have them?” I ask.

“The text messages?” Griffen shakes his head. “I mean, the police probably have the copies I printed out. But I erased them from my phone.”

That’s disappointing, but still, I’m pretty sure that if his parents went to the police, there’s a record of a complaint. And the copies Griffen gave them of the threats. It all has to be there somewhere.

Griffen turns his head toward his house and straightens his leg again. “I better get going.”

“Okay.” I get up.

Griffen rises stiffly. I help him get the straps over his shoulder.
For a moment we’re practically face-to-face. Again, I feel certain his is familiar.

“Have we ever seen each other before?” I ask.

He shakes his head and then walks off. But it’s still bothering me.

As much as Mr. Lamont wanted Slade to work in his drywall business after high school, some kind of military service came first. It was a family tradition, a duty, going back to the First World War.

After the initial two months of National Guard training, when we weren’t allowed to call each other, Slade and I would video chat a few times a week. He always tried to smile and be brave, but he wasn’t a good enough actor to get away with it. His sadness, homesickness, and fear of being sent overseas always came through.

There was one exception, one night in the summer when he really did seem excited. It began with his waking me up with a phone call around one in the morning. “Get on the computer,” he said when I answered.

“Why? Is something wrong? Are you okay?”

“Just do it! I have to talk to you.”

Still half asleep, I staggered to my computer and slumped into the chair. A few moments later Slade came on.

“You look wide awake,” he said with a smirk.

“You woke me up!” I tried to sound annoyed, but I was happy to see and speak to him, even if it was on the jumpy Internet connection.

“I know what I want to do!” he announced excitedly. “I’m going to be a commercial fisherman.”

“Are you high?”

“No! I’m serious! I mean, I know I have to work with my dad when I get back, but someday that’s what I’m going to be.”

Since Slade and his dad loved to fish, it wasn’t a totally off-the-wall idea. But it came pretty close. “Where did you come up with this?” I asked.

He told me about a guy named Rick he’d met that night in a bar near Fort Benning. Rick was in another National Guard unit and his family ran a fishing trawler out of Montauk Point on Long Island. “It was amazing, Cal. He talked about what he and his family have been doing for generations, and showed me some pictures and it was like, ‘Hey! This is it! This is what I’ve been waiting for! It’s what I’ve always wanted to do!’ You know what I’m saying? Like after all this time of feeling like there was something else out there, but I didn’t know what it was. Well, now I know!”

I thought of asking exactly how he intended to be a commercial fisherman in Soundview, or what would become of the drywall business, but it was such a joy to hear him sound excited that I couldn’t rain on his parade. So I said, “That’s great, Slade. And it sounds like you’ve found a friend, too.”

I had no way of knowing that was the wrong thing to say. On the computer screen the smile left Slade’s face and his voice immediately became subdued. “Well, yeah, except Rick’s unit’s been called up. They’re being sent overseas to do support work for the troops. He leaves next month.” He was quiet for a moment
and I wanted to kick myself, until I thought of something that really scared me.

“Slade, do … you think they may call up your unit, too?”

“Right now I’d say the chances are about sixty-forty,” he answered glumly.

I felt my body clench. “If you go, how long?”

“At least a year. But a lot of guys are being stop-lossed and wind up doing two tours.”

That would be two years. I couldn’t imagine him being away for so long. I’d be almost twenty by the time he came home. It felt like an impossibly long time. And what if he was injured or killed?

We talked a little longer, then said good-bye. I went back to bed but couldn’t fall asleep. I was convinced that commercial fishing was just a whim. But what if he was sent overseas? Then what?

Chapter
22

Monday 5:30
P.M.

IT’S DINNERTIME AND I’m in a convenience store with a craving for Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. The place is nearly empty, but the bright lights are unnerving. There’s no place to hide in here. Cameras are mounted on the walls, and up in the corner is one of those big convex mirrors so the man behind the counter can watch. I feel like some kind of nocturnal creature that’s been thrust suddenly into the sunlight.

I glance at the counter, where the clerk is watching a small TV. I’m starving and can’t wait to eat, but also afraid to go up to the checkout, where yet another stranger will have an opportunity to look at my face. But I can’t dawdle, as that will also attract his attention. I pick out a frosty container and head for the front.

As I get close to the cash register, I become aware of the sound of the television. A female voice reporting: “In a news conference today, Soundview Police Chief Samuel Jenkins said the police still want to speak to Callie Carson in connection with the murder two nights ago of seventeen-year-old Katherine
Remington-Day. While declining to say whether Ms. Carson is a suspect in the case, the police chief warned local citizens not to help her hide.”

The scene shifts to a podium with several microphones, where Chief Jenkins stands. He’s a heavyset man, almost bald on top except for some long thick strands of black hair combed straight back and held in place with gel. “We believe that Ms. Carson is still in the area. She needs food and a place to stay, so it stands to reason that someone may be sheltering her. If that’s true, people need to be aware that they may be charged with rendering criminal assistance if Ms. Carson is implicated in this crime.”

The scene shifts back to the TV studio and the blonde anchorwoman. In one corner of the screen is a big grainy gray blowup of my face from the yearbook. “Ms. Carson is about five feet tall and weighs around a hundred pounds. If you think you’ve seen her, the police have provided a phone number—”

Seeing that photo, and hearing again that I’m wanted, gives me a physical jolt. Even though hardly a second passes when I don’t worry about who might be looking at me, that photo on TV kicks it all up a notch.

I’m so fixated on the TV that I don’t realize that the man at the cash register has stopped watching. He’s looking at me curiously, as if it’s just struck him that I’m roughly the same height and weight as this person the police are looking for. I freeze, caught between opposing impulses to drop the ice cream and run and to pay as fast as I can and
then
run. Both are bad ideas. Instead, I place the container on the counter, begin searching in
my pockets for money, and say, “Isn’t that weird? I mean, five feet tall and a hundred pounds? That’s the same as me. Well, I hope they find her, you know?”

The man blinks, then nods, takes my money, and makes change. “You want a bag for that?”

“Yeah, sure, and maybe a couple of napkins and a plastic spoon?”

“You got it.”

A moment later I’m out on the sidewalk, walking away quickly but hopefully not so fast that it’s noticeable. Down the block is a small park, where I settle onto a bench set close to some trees and start spooning delicious ice cream into my mouth and wondering which is more unbelievable—that I said what I said to the man behind the counter or that it seemed to work.

I have to admit that I’m pretty pleased with myself, although it does make me wonder where this talent for subterfuge comes from. When did I learn to be so devious?

Just then a police car shoots past.

When he wasn’t fighting with Sebastian, Dad tended to be quiet. He worked long hours and when he came home at night, he always had a couple of drinks and watched TV. On the weekends he worked around the house or watched sports. Mom and I got to be pretty good at tiptoeing around him.

When I first started running on the cross-country team, I asked him to come to one of my meets, but he always had excuses to explain why he couldn’t. Mom would come to watch if she could.

Once, in the car, going home, I asked her if Dad had played any sports in high school.

“Tennis,” she said.

“Seriously?” I said. I’d never heard him mention that, and I’d never seen a tennis racket or a tennis ball anywhere in our house. “So he stopped?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How come?”

“You’ll have to ask him,”

Mom said. But I never did.

The police car stops in front of the store where I bought the ice cream. As the officer gets out, the counterman I thought I so cleverly fooled comes out to the sidewalk and points in my direction.

By the time the officer gets back into the police car and makes a U-turn, I’ve scooted out of the park and am crouching down behind a Big Brothers clothing bin in the parking lot next door. But I know I can’t stay here, or anywhere around town. I’ve been spotted and I have to believe that other officers are coming. There’s a rusty chain-link fence at the back of the parking lot with a hole just large enough for me to squeeze through, onto the property that’s part of the middle school.

Moments later I’m cutting through the school parking lot, keeping low and weaving between the parked cars, feeling as if the Earth’s gravity has just doubled and is pressing heavily on me and making it more difficult to go forward. I’m weighed down by self-doubt. Where do I go? Where can I hide this time?

The sudden descent from overconfidence to no confidence leaves me scared, anxious, all alone in the parking lot, and all alone in the world. I’m dirty, smelly, and tired, and I don’t want to hide again. I don’t want to be by myself anymore. I feel so insignificant and worthless that I might just curl up in a fetal position right here between the parked cars and wait to be discovered and arrested and sent to jail forever. Maybe they’ll put me in the Fishkill Correctional Facility, the same place as Sebastian. The notorious Carsons—brother-and-sister murder-and-mayhem team.

No, I forgot. Prisons aren’t coed.

I hear shouting from the field behind the school. It sounds like an after-school soccer game. I know it’s crazy, but right now I need those voices, ordinary people around me—otherwise I’m going to implode.

Sure enough, there’s a soccer game in progress. The sidelines are filled with parents and families. The soccer field borders on a marshy area thick with tall reeds. I join the cheering crowd on the side nearest the reeds, in case I have to make a dash for freedom, and stand where I’m both part of the crowd and slightly apart from it. I just have to cling to the hope that no one is going to think that a girl on the run would be standing around watching a soccer game.