He unties Tina’s hands. She gives a little whimper of relief and starts rubbing her wrists, which are crisscrossed with deep red grooves.
“We’re going to walk along the edge of the trees,” he tells her. “The only time those boys will be able to get a good look at us is when we get near the building and come out of the shade. If they say hello, or if there’s someone you know, just wave and smile and keep walking. Do you understand?”
“Y-Yes.”
“If you scream or yell for help, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Do you understand that?”
“Yes. Did you shoot my mother? You did, didn’t you?”
“Of course not, just fired one into the ceiling to settle her down. She’s fine and you will be, too, if you do as you’re told. Get moving.”
They walk in the shade, the uncut grass of right field whickering against Morris’s trousers and Tina’s jeans. The boys are totally absorbed in their game and don’t even look around, although if they had, Tina’s bright yellow blouse would have stood out against the green trees like a warning flag.
When they reach the back of the Rec, Morris guides her past his old pal’s Subaru, keeping a close eye on the boys as he does so. Once the brick flank of the building hides the two of them from the basketball court, he ties Tina’s hands behind her again. No sense taking chances with Birch Street so close. Lots of houses on Birch Street.
He sees Tina draw in a deep breath and grabs her shoulder. “Don’t yell, girlfriend. Open your mouth and I’ll beat it off you.”
“Please don’t hurt me,” Tina whispers. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
Morris nods, satisfied. It’s a wise-con response if he ever heard one.
“See that basement window? The one that’s open? Lie down, turn over on your belly, and drop through.”
Tina squats and peers into the shadows. Then she turns her bloody swollen face up to him. “It’s too far! I’ll fall!”
Exasperated, Morris kicks her in the shoulder. She cries out. He bends over and places the muzzle of the automatic against her temple.
“You said you’d do whatever I wanted, and that’s what I want. Get through that window right now, or I’ll put a bullet in your tiny brat brain.”
Morris wonders if he means it. He decides he does. Little girls also don’t mean shit.
Weeping, Tina squirms through the window. She hesitates, half in and half out, looking at Morris with pleading eyes. He draws his foot back to kick her in the face and help her along. She drops, then yells in spite of Morris’s explicit instructions not to.
“My ankle! I think I broke my ankle!”
Morris doesn’t give a fuck about her ankle. He takes a quick look around to make sure he’s still unobserved, then slides through the window and into the basement of the Birch Street Rec, landing on the closed carton he used for a step last time. The thief’s sister must have landed on it wrong and tumbled to the floor. Her foot is twisted sideways and already beginning to swell. To Morris Bellamy, that doesn’t mean shit, either.
47
Mr. Hodges has a thousand questions, but Pete has no time to answer any of them. He ends the call and sprints down Sycamore Street to his house. He has decided getting Tina’s old wagon will take too long; he’ll figure out some other way to transport the notebooks when he gets to the Rec. All he really needs is the key to the building.
He runs into his father’s office to grab it and stops cold. His mother is on the floor beside the desk, her blue eyes shining from a mask of blood. There’s more blood on his dad’s open laptop, on the front of her dress, spattered on the desk chair and the window behind her. Music is tinkling from the computer, and even in his distress, he recognizes the tune. She was playing solitaire. Just playing solitaire and waiting for her kid to come home and bothering no one.
“Mom!” He runs to her, crying.
“My head,” she says. “Look at my head.”
He bends over her, parts bloody clumps of hair, trying to be gentle, and sees a trench running from her temple to the back of her head. At one point, halfway along the trench, he can see bleary gray-white. It’s her skull, he thinks. That’s bad, but at least it’s not her brains, please God no, brains are soft, brains would be leaking. It’s just her skull.
“A man came,” she says, speaking with great effort. “He . . . took . . . Tina. I heard her cry out. You have to . . . oh Jesus Christ, how my head rings.”
Pete hesitates for one endless second, wavering between his need to help his mother and his need to protect his sister, to get her back. If only this was a nightmare, he thinks. If only I could wake up.
Mom first. Mom right now.
He grabs the phone off his father’s desk. “Be quiet, Mom. Don’t say anything else, and don’t move.”
She closes her eyes wearily. “Did he come for the money? Did that man come for the money you found?”
“No, for what was with it,” Pete says, and punches in three numbers he learned in grade school.
“Nine-one-one,” a woman says. “What is your emergency?”
“My mom’s been shot,” Pete says. “Twenty-three Sycamore Street. Send an ambulance, right now. She’s bleeding like crazy.”
“What is your name, si—”
Pete hangs up. “Mom, I have to go. I have to get Tina back.”
“Don’t . . . be hurt.” She’s slurring now. Her eyes are still shut and he sees with horror that there’s even blood in her eyelashes. This is his fault, all his fault. “Don’t let . . . Tina be . . . hur . . .”
She falls silent, but she’s breathing. Oh God, please let her keep breathing.
Pete takes the key to the Birch Street Rec’s front door from his father’s real estate properties board.
“You’ll be okay, Mom. The ambulance will come. Some friends will come, too.”
He starts for the door, then an idea strikes him and he turns back. “Mom?”
“Whaa . . .”
“Does Dad still smoke?”
Without opening her eyes, she says, “He thinks . . . I don’t . . . know.”
Quickly—he has to be gone before Hodges gets here and tries to stop him from doing what he has to do—Pete begins to search the drawers of his father’s desk.
Just in case, he thinks.
Just in case.
48
The back gate is ajar. Pete doesn’t notice. He pelts down the path. As he nears the stream, he passes a scrap of filmy yellow cloth hanging from a branch jutting out into the path. He reaches the stream and turns to look, almost without realizing it, at the spot where the trunk is buried. The trunk that caused all this horror.
When he reaches the stepping-stones at the bottom of the bank, Pete suddenly stops. His eyes widen. His legs go rubbery and loose. He sits down hard, staring at the foaming, shallow water that he has crossed so many times, often with his little sister babbling away about whatever interested her at the time. Mrs. Beasley. SpongeBob. Her friend Ellen. Her favorite lunchbox.
Her favorite clothes.
The filmy yellow blouse with the billowing sleeves, for instance. Mom tells her she shouldn’t wear it so often, because it has to be dry-cleaned. Was Teens wearing it this morning when she left for school? That seems like a century ago, but he thinks . . .