Cold Calls (19 page)

“I got that, thanks.”

“He also told me of the troubles that are vexing you.”

The clicking got louder. “Like?”

The priest gestured with his hand, a little wave that implied nothing. Or everything.

“Funny. I thought what I said in confession was between me, the priest, and God.”

“Of course, miss. Always. Father Tony would never violate the sacrament of confession. On pain of death. Of this I am sure.”

“But he told you.”

“Only what the counselors at the school had told him. The facts of the case, as they say on TV.”

She swung her backpack onto her lap and yanked at the plastic snaps. “That's still more than he should have said.”

“Miss. Please. I understand your distress.”

Shelly glanced over at him and smirked. “Oh,
really?
”

“Yes, miss. I, too, have experience in this problem.”

“You have no idea what you're talking about,” she said as she dug through her backpack, rearranging the mess.

He nodded, but it was different this time. Then, slowly, he closed his eyes, drew in a long, noisy breath, and said, “I was nine when my twin brother died of malaria. His name was Samir.”

Shelly stopped. “I'm sorry, I didn't—”

“My oldest cousin burned to death in a kitchen fire the same year. The following spring, we received word that my father had been killed by the Sudanese army. They thought he was with the rebels, but he was only a livery driver. They shot him anyway. With his death, we had to pay the cost of the vehicle. The strain was very hard on my mother. She had the AIDS and soon was too weak to work. When she died, my young sister and I lived with our auntie, and when Auntie died, we went to the orphanage run by the good Sisters of Mercy, thanks be to God.”

Somewhere overhead, a ventilation fan switched on. Shelly listened as it ran through its cycle. When it switched off, the silence seemed louder than before. “It's not the same,” she said, her voice quiet but firm.

“Miss, we have both buried members of our families—”

“That's not it, and you know it.”

“Is it because I am from Africa and have seen many people die, so death is not as important?”

“No,” she said. Then, louder, “No. That's not what I meant.”

“What, then, did you mean, miss?”

“It's just not the same thing, okay?
God,
” she said, growing louder, shaking her head. “What happened to you is horrible.
Unbelievably
horrible. But for me? It's different. That's all. Different.”

“
My
brother died,
your
brother died . . . I don't see how it is so different—”

She spun around, grabbing a handful of his sleeve, twisting it, the priest pulled toward her. “It's different,” she said, forcing the words out through clenched teeth, “because you didn't kill your brother.”

The priest looked deep into her eyes.

She held his stare through her tears—

Held his sleeve in her fist—

Heard her own breathing, fast and uneven—

Felt his hand, warm and rough, press against hers—

And through the storm in her head, she heard him say, “Neither did you.”

She blinked.

“You did not kill your brother.”

“Don't . . .”

“His name was Luke, and he was four months old. And he died.”

“I killed him.”

“No, miss.”

“He's dead.”

“Babies die, miss. This is the world we live in.”

“No.”

“So very sad.”

“I was babysitting . . . he was crying . . . I put a blanket on him . . . and, and—”

“And you did nothing wrong.”

“I was supposed to take care of him—”

“You did, miss.”

“But the police took me away.”

“Not to arrest you. To help you.”

“They said they
knew
what happened.”

“And they did. Everyone knew, miss. They knew you did nothing wrong.”

“You're lying,” she shouted, pushing him away, holding her backpack tight against her chest as she stood. “I
know
what happened.
I
put the blanket on him, and it
killed
him.
That's
why he died.”

“No, miss, the doctors said—”

“
I killed him,
and that's why everyone hates me.”

“No, miss. You are wrong—”

Shelly looked away. “I can't go back to being Marceli. I won't. You understand? I won't. I'm too close now. I have to keep it secret. I can do it.”

“Miss, your family,” Father Joe said, his voice rising to match hers, “they want to help you—”

“They hate me. They
have
to.”

“No, miss. Your mother has tried so many times, but you—”

“Time,” Shelly said, her eyes darting around the church. “There's still time. Yeah. Plenty of time. I can still stop it.”

“Please, just relax, Miss Shelly.”

“I can do this,” she said, shouting now. “I can do it!”

She jumped up and ran down the long pew.

“Miss,
please,
” he said as he tried to follow, his shins bumping hard against the wooden bench, his long legs tangling in the narrow space. By the time he reached the carpeted aisle, she was gone.

F
OR A
T
HURSDAY MORNING, THE LIBRARY WAS CROWDED
.

Eric leaned the chair back on two legs and looked across the lobby to the main entrance. His view was blocked by the desks and monitors and wires of the Internet station, and by the old people who shuffled from one computer to the next, wiggling the mouse until something they recognized popped up on the screen.

“She's not coming,” Fatima said.

He angled to see the clock over the checkout desk. “It's only twenty after. Give her time.”

“She's always the first one here.”

“That just means she's late.”

“What if she didn't get anything from her?”

“From who?”

“Katie. The girl she was gonna talk to,” Fatima said. “The one I was supposed to punk.”

“Yeah, what happened with that?”

“Nothing happened.”

“If nothing happened, we wouldn't have met in Bullies Anonymous.”

Fatima smiled. “Remember Annalise? She was a riot. I wonder what she's doing now.”

“It was four days ago,” he said. “I'm sure she's married with a couple of kids.”

“
Four days?
That's
it?
God. Seems like forever.”

“Don't worry. This time tomorrow it'll be all over.”

“Our problems or our secrets?”

“We'll know in a minute,” he said, nodding to Shelly as she cut around a woman trying to back her wheelchair down an aisle.

“Judging by the look on her face, it isn't going to be good.”

Eric grunted something and dropped his chair forward, propping an elbow up on the table, resting his chin on his fist, trying to look relaxed.

“Sorry I'm late,” Shelly said, pushing the glass door open with her hip. “Missed the bus.”

“Don't worry about it,” Fatima said. “You okay?”

“I'm fine,” she said, and swung her backpack onto the table, randomly yanking open zippers as she sat.

Eric looked up at her. “Your eyes are all red.”

Fatima kicked his leg under the table. “Want me to get you some water?”

“I
said
I'm fine. What did you find out from Connor?”

Fatima sighed. “Nothing important. He admitted to bullying a girl at camp, but he wouldn't say who she was or what he did.”

“And I got less outta Heather,” Eric said. “She says she heard something about some girl getting picked on, but says that's all she knows.”

“Her name,” Shelly said without looking at them, holding up a screen-capture print of a tagged Facebook photo, “is Morgan Rouleau. And she was an assistant stage manager for
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
”

She looked over at Eric, then at Fatima—both of them eyes wide and mouths open. And five minutes later, when she was done telling them everything Katie had said, they still looked that way.

Eric shook it off first. “You knew this last night and you didn't think it was important enough to tell us?”

Shelly ignored his tone. “What would you have done if you knew?”

“Maybe I would have been able to fall asleep instead of lying awake all night,” Eric said.

“Not me,” Fatima said. “Knowing would have made it worse.”

“So anyway,” Shelly started, “Morgan Rouleau—”

“Ratted out her friends,” Eric said. “She's nothing but a snitch.”

“
What?
She did the right thing,” Fatima said.

“It really wasn't any of her business,” Shelly said, then shrugged, not sure if she agreed with herself.

“No way,” Fatima said, her hijab flowing as she shook her head. “What they were doing was wrong. Period.”

“Just because Islam says you can't do something—”

“Islam has nothing to do with this. It has to do with right and wrong.”

“Exactly,” Eric said. “And she was obviously wrong.”

Shelly held up a hand. “It doesn't matter—”

“Yes it does,”
Fatima said. “This girl—what's her name? Morgan? She was
innocent.
”

“We all were,” Shelly said, her voice changing. “But nobody stays that way forever.”

It got quiet. Then Eric said, “We've got less than nine hours.”

“Eight hours, twenty-four minutes, six seconds,” Fatima said, glancing at her phone.

“We'd have more time,” Eric said, nodding at Shelly. “If someone had shared what she knew—”

Shelly focused on shuffling her papers.

“—and right now all we know is this girl's name.”

Shelly tapped the printout on the table. “And what she looks like.”

Fatima studied the image. “Paste this under the definition of ‘plain.'”

Eric slid the paper across the table. “What grade's she in?”

“She's homeschooled, but from what she says she's reading, she'd be a freshman.”

“Okay, but that's still not enough to go on.”

“The Internet is our friend, remember?” Shelly reached into her backpack and pulled out a small assignment notebook. “She lives at 1595 Town Line Road.”

“Town Line? That's on the other side of the county.”

“A minor detail.”

“Says the girl who takes the bus everywhere.”

“Her mother's name is Liz, and she works as an office coordinator for DJB Printing. I couldn't find anything about her father, but there's a Frank Rouleau who's about the right age living in Fairport, so maybe that's him.”

“Or maybe not,” Eric said.

“And check
this
out,” Shelly said, tapping the page as she spoke. “Today is Morgan's birthday.”

“Oh my god,” Fatima said, “That explains
everything.
”

“Not quite,” Shelly said. “But at least it explains why it had to be today.”

“Because every girl wants videos of people getting macaroni and cheese dumped on their heads for her birthday.”

Shelly smiled at that. “The whole thing got started when she wasn't invited to get high with the others on Connor's birthday.”

“I don't think she wanted to get high,” Fatima said.

“Sure,” Eric said, drawing the word out. “It was this Connor kid's birthday, though. And now it's her birthday. I guess it makes sense in some stupid, drama-geek, drama-world way.”

Shelly scribbled a line, then flipped the page to a bulleted list. “I haven't got everything worked out yet, but basically here's what we've gotta do. First we go to her house—”

“That's, like, thirty miles from here,” Eric said.

“Good thing you have a car. Once there, we get her to invite us in—”

“No way,” Fatima said, laughing as she said it. “I'm not going into that psycho's house. She could kill us or something.”

“She's not going to hurt us,” Shelly said.

“You don't know that for sure. Maybe she planned it this way all along. Right now she could be oiling up her chainsaw, just waiting for the bell to ring.”

Eric raised his hand. “Question, Sherlock. She knows who we are and probably knows what we look like, right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So we show up at her door, why would she let us in?”

“I'm working on that,” Shelly said, writing another note, this one spilling over to the next page.

“It's all farmland out there,” Eric said, remembering his ride in Garrett's car and his two-mile run. “What are we supposed to say, we were just in the neighborhood?”

“I said I was working on it. Geez.”

“I don't see why we have to go in at all,” Fatima said.

“Because that's where she has the evidence against us. And if we're going to get it back, we have to get inside.”

“Oh,
I
get it,” Eric said. “We're driving way out to Hicksville to force our way into the house of a girl we don't know—”

“We're not forcing our—”

“—and then stealing a few things. But it's not
really
stealing since it's our stuff to begin with.”

“You make it sound so—”

“Criminal? I wonder why.”

Fatima sighed. “I'm gonna be in
so
much trouble. Even if she doesn't chainsaw me.”

Shelly started to say something, then folded her hands and set them on the table in front of her, closing her eyes and breathing slowly like Father Caudillo had taught her.

“Besides,” Eric continued, “the thing she has on me? The picture? It's digital. It's on her computer.”