“Yes?” I was busy applying pressure to my shoulder, which felt hot and sore, and really itched now that it had mostly stopped bleeding.
“I’m only going to ask this one time,” he said, his voice chapped, whether from recent trauma or fear, I didn’t know. “Did you kill Charlie Moshen? Michael Rhones? Your mom’s husband?”
The shadowy boulders started to look like giant, angry faces in the dark.
“What difference does it make?” I said.
“Did you?”
I didn’t answer. We were silent for a long while, driving up and up into the mountains.
“I’m wondering,” I said, “if you’re thinking hard about that hundred thousand dollars.”
More silence.
“I remember that day,” Dekker said.
At first I thought he meant the day my dad died. But then he went on.
“I remember the day it happened. It was around Halloween, I remember, because the sky was dark and there were construction--paper pumpkins and Kleenex ghosts in the school halls. I remember Justin’s face when he came back to school.”
“Let me explain,” I said. I couldn’t bear to think of that horrible day, to remember my terror, what it had felt like to be attacked and forced to maim another human being.
It was as if he hadn’t heard me. “I remember every Halloween from then on we all talked about you, about how you were cursed and lived in a haunted house. Everyone had a Petty Moshen story. You were an urban legend. You were the boogeyman. We all talked about how you tried to break into our houses at night to kill us.”
I’d never had any sense of myself outside of my house and the dump. I’d never realized the town knew what I was—-a mentally ill freak.
“I was feeling like we’d kind of gotten to know each other over past -couple of days, but I’ve been sitting here thinking back over our conversations, and I realize it was always me talking. I don’t know what you think about anything, I don’t know who you are at all, so I don’t know what to believe about what Randy said.”
“I guess I’m not sure either.”
Dekker groaned, clearly frustrated. He didn’t say anything for a moment. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to answer my question.”
I turned back to the window. “It doesn’t matter.”
We drove in silence, endless headlights cutting bright streamers into the dark. I grieved for the trust that had been shattered on both sides. My heart felt like it was shredding itself because something had been lost. Randy King had taken it. I wanted to talk to my friend about how scared I was about meeting my real dad, but I didn’t think he could hear me anymore.
Between two mountains, we came over a rise into a flat valley cut in half by a glittering river.
I had cotton mouth, and I wished I’d thought to bring some of our bottled water. I wished Randy had showed up earlier in the day so we wouldn’t be sneaking up on Mitchell Bellandini after dark like this. I rubbed my sweating palms on my jeans. What if he wasn’t interested in meeting me? What if he was like my other dad?
Dekker missed the turnoff and we had to double back. Then we took a steep dirt road to the top of a hill that overlooked the valley. We almost didn’t see the little cabin all by its lonesome back there in the midst of the pine forest. There was a light on inside though.
I was afraid I was going to be sick. Plus we were now at a higher elevation, which had me gasping for air again.
Dekker pulled the car over to the side of the dirt road, which was twenty feet below the cabin. “Are you ready?”
“I guess,” I said.
We found a place to climb up, and as soon as our heads cleared the embankment, brilliant light flooded the yard and a big black dog came tearing out of the darkness, followed quickly by the black silhouette of a man with a rifle.
“Who the hell’s in my yard at nine o’clock at night? Show yourself or I’ll blow your head off.”
Chapter 24
OH, YEAH, I thought. That’s definitely her dad.
Petty and I held our hands in the air, trying to simultaneously shield our eyes from the blinding lights. I froze so the dog wouldn’t attack us, but Petty kept making some sort of signal with her right hand.
“Stop it,” I hissed. “What are you doing?”
“It’s the hand signal for sit,” Petty said. “But this dog hasn’t been trained at all.”
It was all over the place, snapping at us with a menacing bark.
“Dekker,” Petty said. “Don’t make eye contact with the dog, and don’t smile. Okay?”
“No problem,” I said.
“Who’s out there?” the man on the porch yelled.
I wasn’t sure what to say. This girl is the product of your affair with her mother twenty--two years ago?
“Could you put the gun down?” I said.
“Not until you tell me who you are and what you’re doing here in the middle of the night.”
“Mr. Bellandini?” I said.
“Who the hell wants to know?”
“Did you know Marianne Rhones?”
Silence.
“You get the hell out of here, you damn kids! Out! I’m giving you until the count of three!”