Blood on My Hands

CHAPTER 38

Wednesday 2:55 P.M.

HIDING IN THE cabinet under the sink was uncomfortable, but being crammed into the pool table is way worse. I’m afraid any movement I make will result in a noise, and there’s no place to move anyway. It’s hard staying in one endless position with various parts of my body pressing against the wood until they throb painfully, then seem to go numb, then awaken and throb again. Quietly, I make whatever tiny adjustments I can, trying to take the pressure off the points that hurt the most.
Meanwhile, it feels like hours have passed, but I know that’s just what I imagine, and it probably hasn’t been nearly that long. What keeps me going and helps me endure this confinement is a sort of astonished hope. So far, my plan has worked! I’m not sure I really believed that it would. But I got to Congresswoman Jenkins and didn’t get caught. And I have to believe that no matter how much she loves her daughter, no matter how much she doesn’t want to believe a thing I’ve said, I’ve sowed a seed of doubt. Somewhere in her mind, she’s got to be wondering. At the very least, when she goes into her kitchen tonight, won’t she have to check her knives?
But now that feels like the easy part, compared to what I have to do next. The plan I’ve set for myself requires me to stay in the pool table until after everyone’s gone, when I’ll emerge and sneak out of the town center. But it’s hard to wait in this painful position, especially when I’m not tired and can’t count on a nap to help me pass the hours. But it’s like everything else I’ve done. I’ll just have to force myself to make it to the end.
And the time does pass. I can tell by the subtle, barely noticeable changes in the light coming through the pockets of the table. Especially when it begins to fade and then, finally, go dark.
Yet I still don’t move. Instead, I listen—for the sounds of doors closing, of voices bidding each other good night, of car engines starting.
And then, after another eon, I feel like it’s time. I’ve been in here so long that my body is beyond stiff. My joints are frozen. But it worked! A whole police force couldn’t find me!
I’m so eager to get out that I push a little too hard on the end of the pool table and it swings open. Thunk! It bumps against the wall. Instantly, I freeze and listen for someone somewhere in the building to ask, “What was that?” But there’s no sound. It’s been a long day and the ceremony is over and I’m sure they’ve all gone.
Carefully, I inch my way out of the pool table until the tips of my fingers touch the floor, and I ease myself the rest of the way out like a butterfly crawling out of its chrysalis. The next thing I know, I’m crouching low, finding it hard to believe how good it feels to be out of that tiny cramped hiding place. The first thing I notice is that the room is not quite dark. I’ve misjudged. But at least the light is gray and I can see that it’s twilight outside. That’s not bad. All I have to do now is wait quietly here in the lounge until it’s dark, and then go.
For a long moment I stay crouched, my feet and fingertips on the cool concrete floor, and take deep breaths to steady myself before moving again.
Finally I feel like I’m ready to stand. I lean back on my haunches and slowly rise.
And find myself staring at a man sitting on one of the plastic-covered couches.
“I couldn’t do it,” Mia said that night when I called to ask why she’d taken her name off the article in the Bugle. “I just didn’t want it to look like it was some kind of personal vendetta.”
“So now it looks like it was my personal vendetta,” I said bitterly. “Thanks a lot.”
“No, everyone knows what happened in the cafeteria. Even if my name wasn’t on that article, they know how I feel about her.”
There was some truth to that. “What is with her, anyway? I mean, why is she so nice most of the time and then she gets so evil?”
“Know what my mother says?” Mia asked. “I mean, she’s really smart about things like this, and she thinks Katherine has a massive inferiority complex. Not because she was adopted, but because she thinks she’s supposed to be a Remington.”
“But the Remingtons don’t do things like that, do they?”
“That’s exactly what I said. But it’s not about what the Remingtons do or don’t do. It’s what Katherine thinks she has to do in order to feel like one. It’s not about what’s real, Callie. It’s about what’s in her head.”
“It’s so weird.”
“Yeah, but you know what?” Mia said. “It doesn’t excuse the way she’s treated me. I’ve totally had it with her. And if it’s any consolation, I’m not finished with her. Not by a long shot.”