I’m already feeling guilty, and the second I hear her voice it feels like there’s a spotlight on me, bright white and very hot. I drop Dad’s phone and watch as it spins across the floor and up against her foot. My mouth goes dry. I’m scared to death that she’s going to immediately frown and say, This isn’t your phone—where did you get it, and it’ll all be over, and everybody will be mad that I didn’t turn it over first thing, and they’ll all give me those looks again. The ones that wonder if I’m really like him.
But all Lanny does is snort, say “Way to go, Butterfingers,” and kick it back to me. I pick it up and jam it into my pocket. My hands are shaking. I shove Mom’s phone, still on the charger, into the shadows under the bed with my foot. She hasn’t seen it, I can tell. “Did you go in my room or what?”
“No,” I tell her. “Why?”
“My door was open.”
“Well, I didn’t do it.”
Lanny crosses her arms and looks at me with that frown that means she’s not buying it. “Then why do you look guilty?”
“I don’t!” I tell her, and I know that makes me sound guilty. I’m not a very good liar.
“Did you take something? Because you know I’m going to look!”
I don’t think. I just get up, shove her back, and close the door. It locks, which is good, because she immediately starts jiggling the knob.
“I’m not talking to you!” I yell at her, and I lie down on my bed.
I take my dad’s phone out of my pocket and turn it over and over again in my fingers. The screen’s dark.
I stare for a long time before I reach in my pocket and get the battery out. I open the back and slide it in, then put my finger on the “Power” button. Lanny’s gone away, probably to complain to whoever cares that I’m being a brat. Normally that would be Mom. Normally.
I press gently on the button, but not enough to actually make it start up. What happens if I turn it on? Will Dad know? Will he call me? Why did he want me to have this at all?
But I know why. Because he can track the phone if it’s on. He could find us, and Mom, and I can’t do that.
But it takes time, part of me says, the part that memorizes all the risks and tells me what’s safe, and what isn’t. He won’t be able to track you if you just turn it on, check it, and take the battery out again. It’s not magic.
That might be right. It’s probably right. I could turn it on and see if he called me, or texted. That would be okay, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t have to read anything. Or listen to a voice mail. I’d just check.
I brush my finger over the button, again. Hold it a little longer this time. Not long enough, I think, because when I let go, the screen is still dark.
And then it buzzes in my hand, like something about to sting me, and the screen lights up and spells out HELLO in bouncing letters, then SEARCHING FOR SIGNAL.
I can’t breathe. My heart hurts, and I lean forward like someone’s already punched me in the stomach, but I can’t look away from the screen as it fades, and comes back, and it’s a clunky little collection of icons almost too small to see, but I can tell that there aren’t any phone calls. No voice mails.
No texts.
I select the CONTACTS icon. There’s one number programmed in.
Dad’s number.
I should stop right now. I should stop and give this phone to someone else. An adult, not Lanny, because Lanny would just bash it with a rock. If Mr. Esparza and Ms. Claremont have Dad’s phone number, maybe they can find him before he hurts someone. Before he finds Mom, or Mom finds him.
You’re killing him if you do that. I don’t like the voice in my head. It’s quiet, but it’s firm. And it sounds like me, but grown up. If they don’t shoot him the second they see him, they’ll take him back to prison. Back to death row. That means killing him. You’d be the one doing it.
I don’t like it, but the voice is right, too. I don’t want to have to think about how I was the reason my dad got killed, put down like a sick dog. Because this time, I would be the reason if I turned over this phone.
He trusted me not to do that. He trusted me.
I’ve had the phone on too long. I quickly press and hold the “Power” button until the screen says, in cheesy waving letters, Goodbye, and little pixeled fireworks go up, and the whole screen goes black. I pull out the battery. My hands are shaking.
I didn’t send him a message. I didn’t call him. I didn’t do anything wrong, but I feel sick and light-headed and I’m shaking all over like I’ve caught the flu.
I almost fall off the bed when Lanny knocks on the door. It sounds super loud, but it isn’t, I realize in the next second. She’s being nice. She says, “Hey, Connor? I’m going to make Rice Krispies treats. The kind with peanut butter and chocolate, your favorite. You want to come help me?” There’s a beat of silence. “I’m sorry, Squirtle.”
I desperately want my sister right now. I want to not feel so alone and out of control. So I shove Dad’s now-inactive phone back in my pocket, open the door, and give her what I’m sure is a totally dumb smile. It feels fake on my face. “Okay,” I say, then shut my door behind me. “As long as I get the first three squares.”
“First two.”
“I thought you were sorry.”
“Two says I’m sorry. Three says I’m stupid.”
It feels all right. Everything should feel all right here; Mr. Esparza is outside on the porch, reading a book, and Ms. Claremont is getting ready to go to work for a few hours. The house is warm and friendly and full of smiles.
I feel like I’m the one who’s wrong, like the phone in my pocket is a bomb just waiting to go off and destroy everything.
I look at Ms. Claremont as she picks up her bag. She gives me a quick, wide smile that fades when she looks at me closely. Lanny’s moving to get stuff out of the kitchen cabinets, so her back is turned, and I’m not trying to look happy anymore.
“Connor?” Ms. Claremont keeps her voice low. “You okay?”
I could do it. I could take the phone out of my pocket and hand it to her and confess everything, right now. This is my chance.
But I think about the documentary I saw on YouTube about a man strapped down on a table in prison, and poison put in his arm so he died, and I think about my dad.
And I say, “I’m fine, Ms. Claremont.”
“Kez,” she tells me, again. She’s said that the last four times. Maybe she really means it.
“Kez,” I say, then force another smile out. “I’m okay. Thanks.”
“Okay, but if you’re not, you know I’m a call away, right?”
My fingertips tap the phone in my pocket. “I know.”
7
GWEN
Sam’s tourist pamphlet is worth its weight in gold. There’s a perfect candidate for our stop for the night, and when I check the folded paper map, I find that it’s about twenty miles away—far enough to be off the radar, and couples oriented enough to be the last place Melvin—or Absalom, for that matter—would look. Desperately charming, I think.