Authors: Lisa Scottoline
“We’ve been over this—”
“But somehow, I’m the one who’s a murder suspect, and now, a
target
! That girl would be alive if not for you!”
Jake felt the truth in her words, and her contempt for him, like a knife to the chest. “I know that, believe me, I know that every minute. But as far as we go, you and me, please just let me live at home, at least for the foreseeable future.”
“Damn you! Damn you for doing this! You’re putting me in a corner!”
“No, I’m trying to make the best of it. We have to stay together. You want to kick me out later, fine, but for right now, let’s agree to disagree.”
“I’ll be
damned
if I’ll pretend that everything is fine!”
“You don’t have to.”
“You’re damn right I don’t! This is awful, Jake, all the way down—”
“I know that—”
“It’s awful and it’s all your fault. Now you’re telling me we’re in
danger
and all of it is
your fault
!”
“Honey, I’m sorry, I’ve said it a thousand times, and I mean it—”
“Wait, hold on.” Pam lowered her voice, as if someone had come into the room. “See you at home by six fifteen. Don’t be late.”
“Okay, bye,” Jake said, but Pam had already hung up.
Chapter Forty
The sky was beginning to darken, and an early chill came on. Jake had searched the parking lot at the corporate center over an hour, with no luck. He’d found three black BMWs, but one had a New Jersey license plate and none had a plate with HKE. It was still his theory that the killer worked at the corporate center, though he kept it open as a possibility that the killer worked elsewhere and used Dolomite Road to park, finding it on his own.
Jake parked in his driveway and walked to his front door, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t been followed by the detectives or anyone else. Nothing on their street was amiss, and there were no cars he didn’t recognize. The houses stood quiet because nobody was home from work yet.
Jake unlocked the door and let himself in, but Moose didn’t greet him. He stopped, feeling a glimmer of worry, but heard voices talking in the kitchen and one of them was Ryan’s. “Ryan?” Jake called out, puzzled. “You’re home?”
“Hey, Dad! We’re in the kitchen!”
We?
“Hi! Be right in.” Jake tossed his keys on the console table and slid out of his jacket, noting that his sleeve had tiny tears from the thornbushes. He set the jacket on the chair and walked to the kitchen, where Ryan was sitting at the table with a girl Jake didn’t know. Soda cans, an open bag of hard pretzels, and crumpled napkins covered the table, next to an open laptop and two stuffed backpacks. Moose sat next to Ryan’s chair, sniffing the pretzel bag, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
“Dad, this is Sabrina, from the track team.” Ryan flushed, gesturing at the girl, who looked tall and wiry, and her long, dark red hair was tied back in a floppy double ponytail. She had on a gray dress, whose short sleeves showed the ripped arms of a runner. Her eyes were grayish, and tiny freckles dotted her largish nose and cheekbones, which were pronounced, even a little gaunt, like someone with zero body fat.
“Hey, Mr. Buckman.” Sabrina half-smiled, showing a row of Invisalign braces. “Nice to meet you.”
“Hi, Sabrina.” Jake crossed to the refrigerator, opened the door, and slid out a can of Diet Coke. He wished he could talk to Ryan alone and see how he was doing, because he seemed subdued and disheveled, with his bangs in his eyes and his blue polo shirt wrinkled.
“Dad, did Mom tell you about the memorial assembly tonight for Kathleen Lindstrom?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m home early. How was school?” Jake avoided Ryan’s eye while the awkward moment passed. He had no idea how his son would get through such a difficult evening, knowing what they had done and having to put on a false face for all of his classmates.
“Fine, good.” Ryan met his eye briefly, then looked away.
“What happened to practice?” Jake leaned against the counter. He didn’t like the fact that Ryan was alone in the house, with God-knows-who watching.
“They canceled it because of the assembly tonight. The whole athletic department’s going.”
“I see. How did you get home?”
“Sabrina’s mom dropped us off. We can take her to school with us, after Mom gets home. That’s okay, right?” Ryan’s expression looked guarded, and Jake knew he was giving him the heads-up.
“Sure, great. So what are you guys doing? Homework?”
“No,” Ryan answered. “Sabrina has to give a speech tonight at the assembly, and I’m helping her. Rather, I’m supposed to be helping her, but we’re not doing so great.”
“I’m sure you’re helping.” Jake cringed inwardly, on Ryan’s behalf.
Sabrina frowned at the laptop, tucking a strand of long red hair behind her ear. “I suck at writing. I freeze up. Ryan’s one of the best writers in the class, that’s why I asked him to help me. I don’t know how to do this, especially this, like, a eulogy. It’s too hard.”
Jake felt a stab of guilt. “I’m sorry about your loss. Was Kathleen a good friend of yours?”
“Not really, because she just came this year, so it wasn’t like I had that much time to get to know her. I’m team captain, and Coach wants me to do it…” Sabrina faltered. “I just can’t believe Kathleen’s really gone. It’s so … weird.”
Ryan looked away.
Jake nodded, pained. “I’m sure it’s difficult. I know.”
Sabrina kept shaking her head. “I’m supposed to give this speech, but I don’t know what to say and I don’t want to say the wrong thing. I can’t speak in front of all of those people. Kathleen’s mom is going to be there and her father, and my parents and everybody in the school will be there, waiting for me to say something, and I mean,
everything
I write sounds lame.” Sabrina deflated, and her gaze returned to the laptop. “But I still have to write this speech, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t have that much time left and what I wrote so far really sucks.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Ryan motioned at the laptop. “You have a good start.”
“Argh.” Sabrina moaned. “No I don’t, and Coach said it has to be, like, three hundred words. I only have forty words so far, and I worked on it the entire study hall. I can’t do it. Mr. Buckman, can you help?”
“Sure.” Jake faked an encouraging smile.
“I’ll read you what I have so far.” Sabrina hunched over the laptop. “First, and this doesn’t count for the words, I have to introduce myself and say thank you to everyone for coming, like to the faculty and families. Right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. Then, I say,” Sabrina read from the laptop, “‘The Lady Chasers and Concord Chase High School in general suffered an extremely tragic loss when Kathleen Lindstrom was killed last Friday night in a horrible hit-and-run accident. Everybody loved Kathleen, who was friendly, outgoing, an asset to our team, a great hurdler, and fun to be with.’” She looked up. “Mr. Buckman, what do you think?”
“That’s a great start.” Jake was trying to say something helpful, but the words practically lodged in his throat. “Keep going.”
“But I don’t know what to write next. I’m sucking. I can’t do this.” Sabrina buckled her lower lip. “It’s so horrible that she died and it’s even worse that the guy didn’t even stop and see if she was okay. People like that should be
shot
. I should say that, I should give a speech about
that
.”
“No, just keep going. You can do it. Write what you feel.”
“I
can’t
write what I feel. I feel sad and weirded out, that’s all. We all are, so
sad
. I don’t know how we’ll run without her. We’ll lose to Methacton for sure. Nobody wants to run. I think we should cancel the meet. We just cry, like, all the time. Her wake is tomorrow, and we’re going in uniform, like a tribute to her.”
Jake felt terrible and he knew Ryan did, too. “Then write about Kathleen. Write about what she was like, as a person.”
“That’s what I tried to do, but I can’t.” Sabrina sighed again. “That’s why I said she was friendly and nice and everything, but I didn’t know her that well, and we weren’t that friendly, then she got tight with Courtney and Sarah and Janine Mae. I’m not good at giving speeches, anyway. I can’t do this. I should’ve told Coach that I can’t do it and it’s really too important and I’m failing at it, epically.”
Ryan shook his head. “No, you’re not. You’re doing fine.”
“I’m not, I
suck out loud
! I’m going to let everyone
down
!”
Ryan shrugged. “Why don’t you tell a story about her? Sometimes if you tell a story about somebody, that tells the audience something about them. Like we studied about in
The Great Gatsby
. People tell stories about Gatsby before you even meet him.”
“Great idea,” Jake said, grateful. “It will cheer them up, too.”
“Och.” Sabrina dropped her chin into her palm. “There’s a lot of stories about her, but I don’t know if they’re good enough to tell.”
“Like what?” Ryan asked, swallowing visibly.
“Like she really liked to sing on the bus, and she had a good voice, but that’s not good enough.” Sabrina cocked her head. “Well, also, she was superhot and all the guys on the boys’ team really liked her, but that’s not a good story to tell at something like this, either. Right, Ryan?” Sabrina turned to him, knitting her forehead. “Like remember when Sam and Caleb, they both asked her to the Halloween dance? That’s not a good story, is it?”
“No.” Ryan flushed.
Jake stepped in to rescue him. “Sabrina, I think Ryan means you should tell a story about her, about something she did.”
“Oh, right. Totally.” Sabrina thought a moment. “She was really good with computer graphics, and she made an awesome website for the travel track team. It had animated gifs and everything.” Sabrina brightened, straightening in her chair. “In fact, oh, I have a good story, a better one. There was the time she raised the money to buy shirts for the travel team, that’s a good story. We all had the same singlets, but our gym bags and T-shirts didn’t match. We never looked as good as the other travel teams, like Great Valley always looked awesome. They even had matching scrunchies, blue-and-white.”
Ryan nodded, with a shaky smile. “Good. Then tell that.”
“But that’s not the story. Your dad said tell a story about her, like something she did. That doesn’t tell what she did. I didn’t get to that part yet.”
“Okay.” Ryan pursed his lips, and Jake could see that was the last thing he wanted to know. He prayed Ryan could get through tonight and the next few weeks. Jake would never forgive himself if Ryan tried to hurt himself. He’d quit Gardenia and go on twenty-four-hour suicide watch, if that’s what it took.
“Anyway, Kathleen got everybody together and she got this idea where we would stuff envelopes for free to get the money for the T-shirts, and we all worked together and we had the money in, like, four weekends, all because of her.” Sabrina brightened. “And the coolest thing was that we all had fun, like we weren’t doing another stupid bake sale or standing out in front of the Acme, begging for money in front of an oaktag sign, like we were Brownies or something. It was like we worked for our T-shirts, all of us together, the way a team should be. It was a really different idea and she thought it up herself.” Sabrina stopped abruptly, her smile fading. “Except she won’t even get to see the gym bags. They didn’t come in yet. We got the T-shirts and the scrunchies, but the gym bags take longer. She’ll never get to see them … now.”
Ryan paled. He didn’t say anything, and neither did Jake. The only sound in the kitchen was the
huh-huh-huh
of Moose’s panting.
Sabrina looked over at Ryan, her eyes shining. “Ryan, what do you think? Is that a good enough story?”
Ryan sighed heavily, but couldn’t even muster up a smile. “It’s great, Sabrina. Just great.”
Chapter Forty-one
Night fell hard and cold, and White Springs Road was congested with stop-and-go traffic, heading to the high school for the memorial service. Jake sat in the passenger seat, tense, while Pam drove them in silence. They’d exchanged pleasantries for show at home, putting up a false front for the kids, and she’d freshened up, drained a cup of coffee, and changed her shoes. She drove without looking at him, sitting ramrod-straight, her eyes fixed on the road.
We can’t go back, we just can’t. I can’t. I’m done. I can’t forgive you, ever.
It hurt Jake to be so close to her, in the familiar intimacy of her car, while she walled him off. He knew that she had to be dreading going to the service tonight, and she felt all the guilt and shame he did, but with an overlay of anger and resentment. He wished he could comfort her, but he was the cause of her pain. Their coats touched, but they couldn’t. He could smell her perfume, but he couldn’t kiss her. He was married to her, but she wanted a divorce. She had slept with someone else, maybe even last night. He felt heartbroken and furious, both at once.
The kids rode in the backseat, their heads bent over their iPhones and their ears plugged with earbuds. Ryan didn’t text at all, but listened to music, and Sabrina rehearsed her speech, whispering to herself like a nightmare voiceover, “… a tragic loss for the track team and the Concord Chase High School community as a whole…”
They stopped behind a long line of cars, plumes of exhaust floating into the air like ghosts. Jake tried to tune Sabrina out, but wasn’t succeeding. She was whispering, “… and she had so many talents and hobbies, for example, she was excellent with computer graphics and made a super-professional website for…”
They were almost at the high school, which was just around the corner. A dark van inched beside them in the right lane, and Jake looked over. Inside the van was a couple just like them, except the man was driving. A younger kid played a handheld video game in the backseat, his face wreathed in eerie green-blue light. Jake had checked every passing car to make sure it wasn’t the dark BMW, the detectives, or otherwise suspicious.
The traffic eased, and Pam steered right around the corner onto Racton Hill Road. Flashing police lights sliced through the black night, from cruisers out in force, parked on the curb. Cops grouped on the sidewalk, and Jake realized that they were just directing traffic to the high school. One motioned the cars to keep moving, waving a flashlight with an orange cone.