The Break-In (6 page)

Lisa smiled. She pushed the ring onto her finger and held up her hand. Then she did just what he’d imagined fifty times that day. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. Kissed him all over his face. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, baby! I knew you’d do it. I just knew it.”

She admired the ring again, then paused. She looked down at her nightie. Blood from Marcus’s wounded hand had stained the cotton. She tried to wipe it away, frowning.

Alex caught Marcus’s eye. Marcus looked away.

Lisa waved toward her bedroom door. “I’d come with you, but I was right in the middle of. of something. But you could call me after, okay? Let
me know what happens, and I’ll come right over and see you.”

“What?” Marcus said to Alex when they were back in the car. “Lisa didn’t know I was going to show up half dead. She was in the middle of something.”

Alex nodded.

“Not everyone can just up and go to the Emergency Room, you know. Adults have things they have to do. Work and paying bills and other stuff.”

Alex started the engine. Marcus turned on the radio. The hum of the motor mixed with the beat of Guns N’ Roses. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” had the happy effect of taking away the need to talk. Alex focused on driving; Marcus lay back in his seat.

“She’s even prettier in real life, don’t you think?” Marcus asked.

The kid sucked in a tired breath.

“You should see her with her hair done. And when she’s dressed nice. Looks like a magazine cover model. The first time I saw her, I swear, I thought I’d seen her before on
Cosmo.”

Alex slowed, signalled, and turned right as smoothly as if he’d been driving all his life.

“One time we were getting burgers,” Marcus said. “She was wearing this pink dress. Or maybe light purple.” His eyes searched the car ceiling for a clue. “Doesn’t matter which. The guy behind the counter gives her a free meal. Just because she’s so pretty. You ever heard of that happening to anyone? Ever?”

Alex shrugged.

“Mom never liked her,” Marcus went on. “But mothers and girlfriends get jealous of each other, I think.” He stared out the window. “Craziest thing.”

Alex turned into the hospital parking lot. He parked the car sideways across three parking spaces.

“I’ll call Lisa after,” Marcus said. “Once I get my hand fixed up. She’s real sweet. You can’t judge a person in three seconds like that.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t feel so good.”

Alex cut the engine and went around to open Marcus’s door. He helped Marcus to his feet, and together they started toward the Emergency Room doors. Marcus, from fear or blood loss or pain, couldn’t walk very straight. He leaned on Alex for support.

“I’m going to marry that girl,” he said.

They were almost at the door when Alex stopped. His face hardened, and he pointed at an old red Ford Taurus. Picked up a rock. Before Marcus could stop him, Alex threw it at the windshield. The rock flew off to the side and skipped across the hood of a brand new SUV

Marcus grabbed Alex’s arm. “What are you doing?”

“It’s h-h-his—that’s M-m ... Morrison’s car!”

Marcus let the boy go and circled the car, looking closely at the passenger side. He bent over the bumpers and tires. He checked the head and tail lights. Finally, he checked out the chip Alex had just made in the windshield.

Alex, collapsed on a bench, started to cry, his shoulders shaking with each sob. His dad’s sunglasses fell to his feet, and Marcus picked them up. He wrapped his arm around the boy and held him close. A woman with a handful of flowers stopped to ask if they needed help. Marcus waved her on.

Five minutes later, maybe ten, Alex looked up. His face was puffy and wet, and tears stuck his eyelashes together in clumps. When he started to speak, his voice came out thin and high. “I-it’s
my fault. I’m the reason Morrison went after my d-dad. I wrecked the stupid bushes. My d-dad would be at work right now ...” He looked down and touched the shirt. “He’d be wearing this if I hadn’t cut across Old Man Morrison’s lawn.”

Marcus made Alex look him in the eye. “It’s not your fault, Alex.”

“Is so.”

“It was just an accident. A rotten, sucky, piece-of-shit accident. Just like the gun going off. Just like the spider.”

“You weren’t there. D-dad went over to Morrison’s and—”

“Alex. Morrison didn’t do it.”

“You don’t know anything. He did so!”

Marcus stood the boy up, led him to the front of the car, and walked him around it. “There’s no damage. Not even a dent. It isn’t possible for this car to have taken the door off another vehicle with no damage.”

“That proves nothing. Morrison got it fixed. Repainted.” Alex wiped away his tears, leaving a faint smear of Marcus’s blood on his cheek.

“The paint on his car isn’t fresh. The only damage on that car was caused by a rock to the windshield. Just
now. The rock you threw.” He stared at Alex. “What happened to your dad was a terrible accident. A rotten, sucky, piece-of-shit accident that never should have happened. But it did. Life blows sometimes, and there’s not much you can do about it. You can’t possibly control all the good and bad that happens. I mean this in the nicest way possible: not everything is about you.”

“Why don’t you shut up!” Alex dug his fingernails into his jeans. “What do you know, anyway? You’re just some goof-off with a crappy girlfriend. A girlfriend so crappy she can’t even stand that you bled on her nightgown. Why would I listen to you?”

Marcus didn’t speak right away. He held his bad hand to his chest, and pain tore through the hand and into his wrist. “Okay. I’m going inside before I pass out here in the parking lot.”

“Go. I never want to see you again. You killed my spider.”

Marcus turned away, leaving Alex to study the rust and dead bugs on Morrison’s car. But first, he handed the kid a twenty. “Hide the gun and holster in my car. Go over there to the exit and wave at a cab. Get home before your mother starts to worry.”

Marcus lay on his side in the hospital recovery room. On the pale green wall was a framed picture of a sailboat floating in water that sparkled in the sunlight. A happy image, but it didn’t take his mind off the machines beeping behind his bed. When the phone rang, he picked it up with his good hand. “Hello,” he said.

“They told me they had to operate,” said Lisa. “Are you okay?”

Marcus looked at his hand, bandaged properly now. No more tea towel. No more blood-soaked dancing mice. He felt drunk and swimmy, as if underwater. For a moment, he thought he could be dying. But no. He was all drugged up.

Everything after he left Alex in the parking lot was a blur. He must have fainted after walking into the Emergency Room. All he could remember was telling the nurse he’d been cleaning a gun and it went off. Being happy no one questioned his story. Then the world went black. Now, here he was with wires snaked under his hospital gown. And here was Lisa on the phone. “Feeling okay now, all in all,” he told her.

“I’m so sorry, Marcus. They said you’d be in the hospital all night. I’m packing a bag so I can come take care of you. The nurse said I can sleep in the comfy chair in your room. I called your mom. She’s going to pick me up. I really miss you, baby.”

Marcus heard a squeak behind him and rolled onto his back. There, on the comfy chair, still in his father’s shirt, sat Alex. He waved shyly.

“Lisa?” said Marcus. “I have to go. But don’t worry about coming. I’m fine.”

“What do you mean? I’m all packed. I’m ready to leave.”

“I’ll call when I get home.”
Or maybe I won’t,
he didn’t say.

When Marcus hung up, Alex came to the bedside. Set the Kleenex box on the blanket. Ugh. He’d forgotten about killing Alex’s spider. But before he could tell Alex to take the coffin away, he noticed a fuzzy blond leg. It pawed at the inside of the box. “He made it.” Marcus sat up so fast the room spun. “Like a hairy little soldier.”

“Like a hairy little soldier.”

“I thought I killed him.”

“You didn’t kill anyone.” Alex shoved his hands in his pockets. The gun and holster were gone. “It was a rotten, sucky, piece-of-shit accident. Not everything’s about you, you know.”

Laughing softly, Marcus let himself fall back onto the pillows. “Is that so, Sergeant?”

“As soon as you’re done lying around here, I’ve got a new plan.”

Marcus groaned. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“Ever been on a cricket hunt?”

Good Reads authors have a special talent— the ability to tell a great story, using clear language.

Good Reads can be purchased as eBooks, downloadable direct to your mobile phone, eReader or computer. Some titles are also available as audio books.

To find out more, please visit

www.GoodReadsBooks.com

The Good Reads project is sponsored by ABC Life Literacy Canada.

Coyote’s Song
by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

The Stalker
by Gail Anderson-Dargatz