“What if we don’t—”
“Shhh.” Emily held a finger to her lips. “Did you hear that?” she whispered. She wore her black workout pants and jacket. Sean likewise wore all black—Adidas running pants and matching shirt. If anyone came upon them, they were two joggers looking for their lost dog.
Sean stood motionless, listening. At three in the morning all was still but for the whoosh of the wind. But then, the crack of a branch.
“A deer?” he whispered.
“There,” Emily said, pointing. Sean caught a shadow darting between the trees. Maybe a neighbor investigating? A cop? Or, God forbid, had a reporter followed them? But they had been careful to make a show of turning out all the lights at bedtime and had waited for the news van to leave before slipping out of the house and jogging to the school.
Another snap. Someone was running toward them. Sean gripped Emily’s hand and they ran. Drooping branches lashed their faces and arms as they darted through the brush. They could hear someone trampling behind, pushing through, stems snapping. They ran until they reached the street. They raced through a small business complex and crouched behind a white work van parked in the lot. They were breathing raggedly, but both managed to keep quiet. Emily cupped a hand over her mouth as a dark mass emerged. They watched as the figure, face shrouded by shadows from a distant streetlight, walked deliberatively toward them. A man. He had something in his right hand. He held it close, almost touching his thigh as he walked.
The ring of a phone slashed through the quiet. Em made the slightest gasp and clutched Sean’s arm. The man put his phone to his ear and said something Sean couldn’t hear. The guy turned back toward the school and disappeared into the darkness.
CHAPTER 44
On January 20, 2009, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. swore in Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States. As Obama placed his hand on the Lincoln Bible and echoed the oath of office recited by the chief, something unusual happened: the chief justice accidently left out a word, a mistake repeated by Obama. To avoid the crazies saying that Obama wasn’t really the president, everyone decided that the chief should administer the oath a second time. So, the next day, the chief ventured over to the White House and they did it all again. A do-over.
Why Sean awoke that morning thinking of the Roberts-Obama oath debacle was beyond him, but he assumed it was because events had inspired a do-over of his own oath—to protect his son. As a teen, he had sworn to uphold the law, to be a better person, to not be like his own father. But here he was covering up a homicide all in the name of protecting Ryan. He was momentarily back in his living room thirty years ago, his father pacing nervously, chain smoking. You will tell no one. Ever. This is about more than just you, Sean. History was repeating itself.
He and Emily had stayed awake talking until sunrise. It was as much a strategy session as a debate over how they should proceed. After the scare of being chased, they’d discussed sending the boys to stay with her parents, but Emily insisted that they would not flee their home. To protect Ryan they needed to show the world that things were returning to schedule. If someone was determined to hurt the kids, she said, there was nothing they could do about it anyway. Sean was troubled by the fatalism, Emily’s sense that the safety of their children was outside of their control, but he decided not to fight it. School was probably the safest place for the boys anyway. And nothing suggested they were in any danger. For all they knew, the guy who chased them last night was a police officer patrolling the area or an overzealous member of the neighborhood watch, spooked by a recent murder in their community.
Most of their deliberations that night focused on whether Sean should turn himself in and plead self-defense in the murder of Billy Brice. He said he should do it; she’d have none of it. She wouldn’t put the boys through worrying about whether their father would be taken away from them too. This was about more than just Sean, she said. In the twilight before he’d fallen asleep, he’d realized that right and wrong were not so clear anymore. Equally unclear, his indictment of his father for keeping quiet about the storekeeper.
He reached across the bed for Emily, but she was gone, her pillow bunched, her side of the bed no longer warm. He went downstairs—his joints cracking, muscles still aching from his encounters with Brice and his goons—and found Emily standing at their opened front door waiting for Jack to finish tying his shoes. Jack already had abandoned any proper bow and was stuffing the white laces into the sides of his Chuck Taylors.
“Daddy!” Jack called out when he noticed Sean watching them.
“Morning, big guy. Mommy taking you to the bus stop?”