Period 8

.16



Hannah can’t believe what she’s hearing. “I’m washing my hands of that girl.” Victor Wells stands facing her on the porch of the Wells mansion.

“You can’t do that.” Hannah clutches the scrap of paper onto which she copied the message from Paulie’s phone.

“She put us through hell just a short time ago. She promised me this kind of situation was finished. I will not have her embarrassing this family again. Her mother is beside herself.”

“But the text message says—”

“I don’t care what it says. It’s all lies with her recently. Why in the world would she contact Paul Baum instead of her own father?”

“Do you text, Mr. Wells? Do you? Do you have that function on your phone?” Hannah yells, glaring.

“Don’t be silly. Of course I don’t text. She knows my number, for crying out loud.”

“Read the f*cking message!” Hannah screams, and thrusts it to his chest. “She’s in trouble! She can’t call!”

Wells glances at the paper.

“Out loud,” Hannah says. “Read it out loud. When this is over and they ask me if I told you what was going on, I want it known you understood.”

Flushed bright red, Wells reads the message aloud, focusing, and softening a bit with each word. “My God, what is this?”

Hannah steps back. “I don’t know. Mr. Logs and Paulie went to the police station. They tried to call you.”

“Kylie. Who is that?”

“A girl from school. The girl whose house caught on fire.”

“Why would my daughter be involved with a girl like that? I don’t think Mary even knew her.”

“She knew her! Believe the text! Believe she’s in trouble! You should go somewhere.”

“I have state-of-the-art security,” Wells says, “and a healthy respect for the Second Amendment. We’ll be fine. Thanks for your concern, though, and . . . thanks for forcing me to pay attention. I’ll call Officer Rankin right away.”

“Okay. I’m gonna tell Mr. Logs to call you if he finds out anything, so answer your damn phone.”

Wells nods. “Thank you again. I will.”

He turns into the house. Hannah hears three clicks and four digital beeps. Floodlights bathe the lawn.

She steps into her car and calls Paulie. Two rings, then a click. She waits for his voice. “Paulie?”

A grunt.

“It’s me, Hannah. Listen, I got to Mr. Wells. Jesus, what a hardass. Anyway, he’s staying there. He says he has a first-rate security system. Probably snipers on the roof or something. He’s going to call the police. Did you guys talk to the police? . . . Paulie?”

Call ended.

She tries again. Straight to voicemail.

She has only Logs’s home number in her contacts so she punches that. Three rings, then: “You have reached . . . the end of your rope. Leave your call for help” Beep.

“You might be right, Mr. Logsdon. It’s Hannah. Call me when you get this. I don’t have your cell and I can’t reach Paulie.”



Standing next to the lime-green Beetle, Officer John Rankin takes Paulie’s iPhone away from his ear and smiles. He moves quickly to his car radio, certain that Wells has called the station by now to see how the police are responding to Logs’s disclosures. When the desk sergeant tells him yes, Mr. Wells called but he referred him to Rankin as he had been instructed, Rankin says, “Don’t worry, I got it. I’ll bring him in later and we’ll get this all on paper.”

Rankin crosses to the Audi parked on the other side of Paulie’s Beetle, raps on the window. “Stack.”

The window slides down halfway. “What do you know about this Hannah?”

“Used to be Bomb’s girlfriend. I was using her to f*ck with him a little. Thought I might be able to turn her, too, but she’s too tough. She’s my ace in the hole with Baum, though.”

“Meaning?”

“When Woody kidnapped Mary instead of offing her, he f*cked me good. My name’s on that text. If we don’t get Bomb and Mr. Logs, and if Woody doesn’t grow some balls, I’ve gotta disappear. Hannah’s gonna be my ticket.”

“We’ll all have to do that,” Rankin says. “I’ve always known that day would come.”

“Nice of you to let me know that,” Arney says.

“Look, you psycho,” Rankin says, “if you hadn’t gone pyro on the Clinton place we might have some breathing room. I’m guessing she’s keeping quiet. I scared her pretty good—but we can’t get to her in the psych ward. So don’t lay that on me. You’ve known you were on your own from the start.”

Arney shrugs. “Whatever.”

“Well, we’ve got one chance. The only people who’ve seen that text are the teacher and the Bomb kid, Hannah what’s-her-name, and me. If we get them all, it’ll be a while before this shit gets unraveled and we can disappear. If not, our pictures are going to be everywhere. I don’t have to remind you what happens in prison to people like us.”

“No,” Arney says, “you do not.”



Logs and Paulie slip into the water, holding their breath to keep from gasping from the frigid shock of it. They breaststroke, slowly at first, silent as eels. Every muscle tightens, groins ache as they wait for the warmth that comes with numbness. Logs curses their earlier training swim: they worked hard and neither has eaten. This will be done on a diet of adrenaline. They stroke, take measured breaths, increasing the distance between themselves and the lights at the dock. Logs taps Paulie’s shoulder. “I can’t see that far, but it looks like more cars. Am I right?”

Paulie rolls onto his back and peers toward the dock. “You’re right,” he whispers.

“Five more minutes and we swim for real,” Logs says.

“Got it.”

After only two, Logs taps him again, feeling urgent. The stress on his body is taking its toll. “Let’s do it now. Stay together, we gotta listen for each other all the time. Keep the fire straight ahead of you. You’re faster on the front end of these swims, but don’t get too far ahead. We need two brains.”

Paulie nods and they start their run. Grateful for their hundreds of hours in the water together, Paulie visualizes Logs’s pace and falls into it. Every twenty strokes they breathe to the front, holding the growing firelight dead center. Bodies numb now, false warmth allows a quicker pace as muscles loosen and they pick up speed.

CRASH! Paulie involuntarily yells “Shit!” as his head strikes the corner of an anchored ski float. Logs whirls in time to see the powerful searchlight sweeping toward them. He shoves Paulie’s head down as he goes under himself, watching the surface from below as the light sweeps above them. He guides Paulie to the far side of the float.

“F*ck!” Paulie whispers. “Did they see us?”

“I don’t know. Are you all right? Don’t move.” The light sweeps harmlessly back and forth while they hide behind the float.

“Wait,” Logs says.

“Logs, man, we gotta keep movin’. We’ll f*ckin’ freeze to death out here.”

“Wait,” Logs says again.

The searchlight points back toward land and they start again, zoning in on the fire.

Paulie rolls over in time to see two cars pull out. He watches them speed down the dirt road leading around the lake. He catches Logs, taps his leg. “They’re going around,” he says.

“Damn! They heard us.”

“Man, I’m sorry.”

“It happened. Could just as easily have been me.” They tread, Logs’s mind spinning and his energy draining. “If they go to the fire, we’ll see them,” he says finally. “The trees are about as far from the shore over there as they are on our side. If they show up there, we’ll swim in to the north. How many cars, do you think?”

“Only saw two.”

“Better odds. Let’s move.”

Logs stays even with Paulie for a few hundred yards, then, without warning, it all comes crashing down, the cold and the earlier workout, his energy swirls out. With one last burst, he catches Paulie’s foot.

“What?”

“I’m not gonna make it.”

“Logs, there’s no choice.”

“I can’t, Paulie. I’m done. It’s shutting down.”

“Oh, God.”

“Don’t do that. Listen . . .” His voice quivers. “I can make it back to the ski float. Keep swimming. Remember, if you see car lights at the fire, stay north. Firth and his friends won’t know what they’re talking about. Wait them out, then get someone to call 911 and get somebody out to me. If I can get out of the water I’ll be okay.”

“Man, the air is forty degrees. You’ll f*cking freeze to death, if you can even find it.”

“This is our only choice. If you don’t get across this lake and get the word out about Rankin, a whole bunch of people are screwed. Now do it.”

“I’ll get somebody to you. You get on that float and hang on.”

“I promise,” Logs says, desperately hoping he can keep it. “Listen, remember how I always say we’re a trial-and-error species?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, not tonight.”

Paulie watches Logs disappear into the night, then, powered by fear he strokes toward the far shore. He forgets Logs and Mary and poor goddamn Kylie and Hannah. His parents don’t exist. Just get your ass to that fire.

Twenty strokes and look; twenty strokes and look; twenty strokes and look. The fire is directly in front of him each time. Thirty strokes and look, thirty-five.

Distance over water is hard to judge. Distance over water in the dark, nearly impossible. Paulie believes he’s about a football field away from shore; maybe another twenty yards to the fire. But the fire dims.

A puff of white smoke.

F*ck. They’re putting it out! They’re leaving.

He strokes faster, stops. He treads, listens to the voices of kids as they head toward their cars.

He starts to yell, just as he sees two sets of headlights emerging from the trees, lighting up the dirt parking lot. He cuts immediately right—north—almost sprinting, amazed at what strength comes from terror. They won’t hear him as long as their engines are running and they’re talking. He can make it.

Paulie barely feels the grass against his skin as he crawls onto the shore like a gator. He lies still, listening. Friendly voices; some laughter. He thinks he hears his name.

F*cking hurry! he thinks. I’ve got five minutes, maybe ten before my body goes into f*cking seizure.

He lies still, willing the numbness to remain, brings himself to his knees as a car engine revs. The two cars that just arrived turn slowly, sweeping the shore with their headlights. Paulie hugs the ground, then watches them move slowly back up the road.

He stands and runs, stumbling, falling, and scrambling back up.

“Firth!” It’s a whispered yell.

Nothing.

He stumbles toward the lot. The numbness is subsiding.

“Firth!” Louder.

A car door slams, a flashlight sweeps the area, finds him.

“Bomb?”

“I need your help, man.”

“Sweet Jesus, what are you doing? You here to get baptized? We do it with our clothes on. You know Arney was just here looking for you? Lemme see if I can catch him.”

One of those cars was Arney. “No!”

“He was with some—”

“No,” Paulie says. “Get me in your car and turn up the heat. I’m about to have a freeze-out. Some really bad shit has gone down that you’re not gonna believe. You got your cell?”

“Yeah, but there’s no service over here.”

“Then haul ass. Mr. Logs is out in the lake and if we don’t get someone to him in a hurry, he’s gonna die. You drive and I’ll explain. What did that f*cking Arney say?”

The makeshift lot is empty now except for Ron’s car. Paulie tiptoes across the gravel in his bare feet and opens the shotgun door, only to see the seat occupied by Carrie Morales. She says, “I’ll get in back.”

“Stay where you are,” Paulie says. “You guys got a blanket in here?”

“On the floor on the right side,” Carrie says, pointing to the backseat. “But it’s covered with dirt and needles.”

“I don’t care if it’s covered in dog shit,” Paulie says. He begins shaking uncontrollably, can barely work his fingers enough to get the blanket around him. Teeth chattering, he says, “Tell me what Arney said.”

“Just that it was real important to find you,” Firth says. “He’s been looking all over.”

“Who was with him?”

“I don’t know. There were two cars, a passenger in his and I don’t know how many in the other. None of them got out.”

“You’re lucky,” Paulie chatters.

“I thought it was a bunch of your buddies. Anyway, he said he needed to hurry back to town, but to give him a call if you showed.” Firth hesitates. “Why in the world would he think you’d show? I’ve been trying to get you to YFC for four years.”

“Arney speaks with a forked tongue,” Paulie says. “He’s into some sinister shit. Listen, Ron, I’m asking you to do a very un-Christian thing.”

“Which is?”

“Lie your ass off.”

“I remember how to do that. Who do I lie to?”

“If we run into Stack on the road, you haven’t seen me and I’m not on the floor of your car under this blanket, okay? No matter what story he gives you. And man, we gotta hurry ’cause Logs is in serious trouble. Hand me your cell; the minute we’re in range, I gotta get 911.”

“It kicks in at the far end of the lake,” Ron says, and, feeling Paulie’s urgency, floorboards the accelerator.



Hannah turns toward home. She’s been driving aimlessly, trying Paulie’s cell and Logs’s home phone again and again. She doesn’t know what else to do. She just wants to see Paulie and wishes she had never spent a minute with Arney Stack. It was stupid revenge; the kind that would never work with Paulie anyway. God, she really wants to talk to him.

Running it over and over in her head, she doesn’t notice the black Audi parked across the street from her house as she punches the remote that raises the garage door.