Jake shuddered inwardly. He went over and put his hand on his son’s shoulder, to steady him. “Pam, whatever it is, yelling at him won’t help. Why don’t you talk to him and we’ll sort it out in a civilized fashion, instead of screaming questions at him?”
Pam folded her arms, pursing her lips tightly. Suddenly she became very still, searching Ryan with her eyes and not saying anything. The room fell abruptly silent, except for the dog’s excited panting. Jake told himself to stay calm while Ryan glanced up at his mother, then looked down, hanging his head. Somehow the ferocity of Pam’s angry, loving gaze seemed to break Ryan down, and his strong shoulders slumped. His hands fell to his sides, and Moose nudged his nose under Ryan’s palm, which was the dog’s favorite bid for attention.
“Pam,” Jake said, trying to get control of the situation. “Why don’t you tell us what’s on your mind, and Ryan can respond?”
“No,” Pam answered, almost sadly. She kept her eyes on Ryan’s bowed head and folded her arms in the bunchy trenchcoat. “I don’t want to tell Ryan what I know. I want Ryan to tell me what he and Caleb were doing, because I want to find out if I raised a liar.”
“Pam.” Jake was still trying to defuse the situation. “He’s already told you the truth. He admitted he cut class and hung out with Caleb.”
“Ryan?” Pam looked down at Ryan, still ignoring Moose on the bed. “Did I raise a liar?”
Jake swallowed hard. “Pam, don’t call him a name. You know we’re not supposed to do that.”
“Oh, Jake, shut up. You hate that crap as much as I do.” Pam returned her attention to Ryan, who had hunched over, resting his elbows on his knees, in collapse. “Ryan, did I raise a liar?”
“Yes,” Ryan whispered, almost inaudibly, without looking up. “It’s not your fault, but I am a liar.”
Jake felt his heart break, rubbing his son’s back. He didn’t want Ryan to think of himself as a liar. “Buddy, that’s not true.”
“Yes, it is, Dad.”
“No, no that’s not true.” Jake squeezed Ryan hard, avoiding Pam’s gaze. He could feel his son shaking just the slightest, as if the truth had a pressure of its own and was trying to force its way out of his very body. Jake couldn’t let that happen, because if Ryan spilled his guts now, Pam would make them go to the cops for sure. It would ruin them all. Suddenly, he got another idea. “Ryan, why don’t you tell your mother what you told me, that you and Caleb were smoking during class.” Jake looked up at Pam, whose lovely features were fixed so grimly that they could have been etched in marble. “Pam, Ryan told me the truth. So if that’s what you’re talking about, you didn’t raise a liar.”
“Really.” Pam heaved a quiet sigh, and her blue-eyed gaze shifted from Jake to Ryan and back again. “So he told you the truth.”
Jake nodded, relieved. “He told me everything. He told me that he’s never going to smoke again, and he knows it’s bad for him and illegal.”
Pam sucked in her cheeks, unplacated. “Was he going to tell me?”
“We both decided it might put you in an awkward position, being a judge. It’s enough that he told me, isn’t it?” Jake didn’t press his luck. “How did you find out?”
“Dr. Dave told me that he suspected it today at practice.” Pam kept her eyes on Ryan, even though all she could see was his crown. “So I called Caleb’s mother. She found marijuana in his drawer, a fair amount of it. It turns out he’s been selling it, too.”
“That’s terrible,” Jake said, keeping his arm on Ryan, who was still trembling.
“Ryan?” Pam asked, her tone gentler. “I was so disappointed to think that you would do something unlawful, not to mention stupid. I don’t care if everybody else does it, I disapprove completely of smoking marijuana. I told you already, everybody I know who smoked dope in college just got dumber and dumber. And that’s only the ones that didn’t go on to worse drugs.”
Jake didn’t interrupt her, because he could see that they had dodged a bullet. He kept his arm around Ryan, praying that the trembling would subside.
“Ryan, I know you feel stressed and bad about what happened at the game, but your reaction to negative emotion can’t be to reach for a drug. Or alcohol. Or anything else. Do you understand?”
Ryan didn’t answer or even move, except to tremble.
“Ryan?” Pam paused. “I hope you don’t need me to tell you what could happen if any of the coaches from these college programs found out that you were smoking, especially during school hours. Division I is too competitive, and they want players who not only make an impact, but who are assets to the program.”
Jake kept his mouth shut, but all this talk of impact players made him sick to his stomach.
“If you get a bad reputation with these recruiters, you can jeopardize not only any scholarship possibility, but your entire future. I don’t mean to sound like that D.A.R.E. program in elementary school, but it’s true, and they never should have discontinued it. The choices you make now have huge implications for the rest of your life—”
“Mom, I know,” Ryan said hoarsely, staring at the ground, and Moose beat his tail on the bed at the sound.
“He knows,” Jake added, hugging Ryan closer and jostling him just the slightest, to signal that they were about to end the conversation. “Pam, I gave him that lecture, times ten. You don’t have to worry about that. I worked him over, and he gets it. Really.”
“Good.” Pam cocked her head, trying to see Ryan’s face. “Ryan? Tell me that your dad’s right and I don’t have to worry about it. Tell me that you’ll always tell me the truth and that you’ll do the right thing, no matter what anybody else says is right. Only you know what’s right, and you have to answer for that, always.”
Ryan kept his head down. Moose thumped his tail on the bed.
Jake jostled Ryan again, feeling the tension build in his son. “He knows.”
“Jake, don’t answer for him. I’d like to hear him tell me himself.” Pam frowned, her head still cocked as she tried to see Ryan’s face. “Ryan?”
“Ryan, answer your mom.” Jake looked over, then held his breath.
Ryan looked up at Pam, his eyes filmed and his expression agonized. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “Mom, I killed Kathleen Lindstrom on Pike Road.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
The next few hours were pure agony, and if Jake expected the truth to be cathartic, it didn’t turn out that way. Ryan became too upset to tell the story, and Jake took over and told her every detail, including their meeting with the lawyer Morris Hubbard, the blackmailer texts, opening of the line of credit to pay the blackmail, the transfer to be delivered by eleven o’clock, his phone conversation with Andrew Voloshin, and his suspicion that Voloshin had been stalking Kathleen Lindstrom. Pam had listened in horrified silence, easing herself into Ryan’s wooden desk chair, still wrapped in the cocoon of her trenchcoat. She kept her pumps on her feet, like a soldier who wanted to die with his boots on. She had said nothing except to ask questions, and Jake felt more and more tense, waiting for the proverbial sword to fall.
“So that’s it,” Jake said, when he had finished. “I’m sorry, honey. I feel horrible about this, and so does Ryan. You know that, you can see that. And I’m so sorry for what this does to you, that it puts you in an awful, awful position—”
“Hold on a second.” Pam raised a hand, weakly, and her voice was pained. “I’m trying to understand how the man I married would leave a young girl dead on the road.”
Jake took it on the chin. “It’s like I explained, honey. I made the best decision I could at the time. I only had a second, I had to react. I’ve replayed it over and over, I know it was wrong. I didn’t know what to do, I just reacted, to protect Ryan.”
“Mom.” Ryan sniffled, sitting next to Jake on the bed. “He thought he was helping me, and he was. He was about to call 911 when I told him about the weed. He woulda called if I hadn’t smoked up. It’s not his fault, it’s mine.”