We are both back there now, on that night, and I almost hesitate at the spot where those red signs used to be. We cross the invisible barrier, heading straight toward the rusted fence. She points to the top of the corner pole.
“There was a camera up there. I remember thinking that they might see me. But I was flying high, not a care in the world. I just kept running and then . . .”
She slows, stops. Her hand comes up to her throat.
“Maura?”
“I was right about here when the lights came on.”
“Lights?”
“Spotlights. Huge ones with big beams. They were so bright I had to put my hand up to shade my eyes.” She does that now, shading her eyes from an imaginary light. “I couldn’t make out a thing. I was sort of frozen there, in the beam, not sure what to do. And then I heard the gunfire.”
Maura lowers her hand.
“They were shooting at you?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“What do you mean, you guess?”
“I mean, that’s what started it, right?” Maura’s voice goes up an octave now. I can hear the fear, the regret. “Me. I ran toward the fence like a stupid kid. I ignored the warning signs. I tripped a wire or they spotted me or something, so they did what they promised on the signs. They started shooting. So, yeah, I guess they were shooting at me.”
“What did you do?”
“I turned and ran. I remember hearing a bullet hit a tree right by my head. But, see, eventually I made it out alive. The bullets—they never hit me.”
She raises her head and looks me straight in the eyes.
“Leo,” I say.
“I kept running, and they kept shooting. And then . . .”
“Then what?”
“I heard a woman scream. I’m sprinting as fast as I can, dodging trees, trying to keep low so I make a smaller target. But I turn when I hear the scream. A woman’s scream. I see someone, maybe a man, in silhouette through those bright lights . . . more gunfire blasts . . . then I hear the woman scream again, except this time . . . this time I think I recognize the voice. She screams, ‘Leo!’ She screams, ‘Leo, help,’ except the ‘help’ is cut off by another shot being fired.”
I realize I’m holding my breath.
“And now . . . now I hear a man yell for everyone to hold their fire . . . silence . . . dead silence . . . and then maybe, I don’t know anymore, but maybe someone yells, ‘What have you done . . .’ And then someone else yells, ‘There was another girl, we have to find her . . .’ but I don’t hear that for sure, I don’t know if it’s in my head or for real, because I’m running. I’m running and I’m not stopping . . .”
She looks at me like she needs my help and like I better not offer any.
I don’t move. I don’t think I can.
“They . . . they just shot them?”
Maura doesn’t reply.
Then I say something dumb. “And you just ran away?”
“What?”
“I mean, I get why you ran then—to get away from the danger. But when you were safe, why didn’t you call the police?”
“And say what?”
“How about ‘Hello, I saw two people shot’?”
Her eyes flick away from me. “Maybe I should have,” she says.
“That’s not really a good enough answer.”
“I was stoned and scared and I freaked out, okay? It’s not like I knew they’d been shot dead or something. I didn’t see or hear Leo, just Diana. I panicked. You get that, right? So I hid for a while.”
“Where?”
“You remember that stone hut behind the town pool?”
I nod.
“I just sat there in the dark. I don’t know how long. You can see Hobart Avenue from there. I saw big black cars driving by slowly. Maybe I was just paranoid, but I thought they were looking for me. At some point I decided to go to your house.”
This is news to me, but then again, what about tonight isn’t? “You went to my house?”
“That was my destination, yeah, but when I reached your street, I saw another big black car parked on the corner. It’s past midnight. Two men are sitting in suits watching your house. So I knew. They were covering their bases.” She came closer to me. “Pretend now that I call this in to the police. I call and I say I think the guys at the base maybe shot someone. I don’t really have any details or anything. But I have to give my name. They’d ask what I was doing near the base. I could lie or I could say I was up there smoking a joint and drinking some Jack. By the time they’d listen to me, those guys at the base—they’d clean it up. Do you really not see this?”
“So you just ran again,” I say.
“Yes.”
“To Ellie’s.”
She nods. “At one point, I said to myself, ‘Let’s give it a day or two, see what happens.’ Maybe they’ll forget about me. But of course they don’t. I’m watching from behind a rock when they interrogate my mother. And then when I see on the news that they found Leo’s and Diana’s bodies . . . I mean, I knew. The news didn’t say anything about them being shot. They said they were hit by a train on the other side of town. So now what? What could I do? The evidence was gone. Who would ever believe me?”
“I would have,” I say. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Oh, Nap, are you serious?”
“You could have told me, Maura.”
“And what would you have done? You, a hotheaded eighteen-year-old boy?” She glares at me for a moment. “If I’d told you, you’d be dead too.”
We stand there and let that truth hang in the air.
“Come on,” Maura says with a shiver. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
When we get back to the car, I say, “I left my car at that club.”
“I called it in,” Maura says.
“What does that mean?”
“I called the club and gave them the make and license plate and said that I was too drunk to drive. I told them I’d pick it up tomorrow.”
She had thought of everything.
“You can’t go home, Nap.”
I hadn’t planned on that anyway. She starts up the car.
“So where are we going?” I ask.
“I have a safe place,” she says.
“So since that night”—I don’t even know how to put it—“you’ve been on the run?”
“Yes.”
“So why now, Maura? Why after fifteen years is someone killing the rest of the Conspiracy Club?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you were with Rex when he was shot?”
She nods. “I started relaxing the last three, four years. I figured, I mean, why go after me anymore? There was zero evidence. The base was long closed. No one would believe a word I said. I was low on funds and trying to find a safe way . . . a safe way to see what was happening. Anyway, I took a risk, but it was like Rex wanted to keep the past closed as much as I did. He needed help in his side business.”
“Setting up men for drunk driving.”
“He had nicer labels for it, but, yes.”
We turn off Eisenhower Parkway right near Jim Johnston’s Steak House.
“I saw some CCTV footage from the night Rex was murdered,” I say.
“The guy was a stone-cold pro.”
“And yet,” I say, “you escaped.”
“Maybe.”
“Meaning?”
“When I saw Rex go down, I figured, they found us, I’m dead. You know. I was there that night—I was the real target, I thought—but maybe they knew about the whole Conspiracy Club. It made sense. So as soon as Rex was shot, I moved fast. But the guy was already turning the gun on me. I jumped into the driver’s seat, started the car, drove like a bat out of hell . . .”
“But?”
“But like I said. He was a pro.” Maura shrugs. “So how come he didn’t kill me too?”
“You think he let you go?”
She doesn’t know. We park in the back of a dumpy no-tell in East Orange. She isn’t staying there. It’s an old trick, she explains. She parks at the no-tell, so if the police or whoever spot the car or start a search based on the car, she’s not there. She’s renting a room about a quarter mile down the road. The car is stolen, she explains. If she senses any danger, she’ll just abandon it and steal another.
“Right now I’m changing locations every two days.”
We get to her rented room and sit on the bed.
“I want to tell you the rest,” Maura says.