“So when did you figure it out?”
“I heard you on the phone,” said Paul. “You thought I was sleeping. I heard you talking, and it all clicked in. Stupid. I was blinded by friendship. I never dreamed you’d hurt them.”
“How’d you get here?” Mike asked. “From the hospital.”
“Car service,” he said. “I came to get my girl.”
Mike bowed his head. When he looked up, I expected to see regret. “Where is the rest of the money?” he asked instead, his face blank.
“You got your pay,” said Paul. “That was always the deal. A hundred grand for an hour’s work. Why did you want more?”
“We always want more.” He laughed a little.
“Not all of us,” Paul said. “I told you that money was for Zoey and Heather.”
“The woman you loved and her daughter.”
“That’s right.”
Mike nodded in my direction. There was a coldness to him I’d never seen. I’d seen him angry, worried, sad. But I’d never seen what I saw in him tonight. You need it to win, to really win. You have to be willing to kill—or die.
“Does she know?”
“Don’t do this, Mike,” said Paul.
“Does Zoey know you had an affair with her mother? Does she know that it was you Heather was going to run off with that night? But that, in the end, guilt got the best of her and she went home.”
“I loved your mother,” Paul said. “It’s true. But I loved your father, too, and so did she. We made mistakes, but we did what we thought was right in the end.”
I knew, didn’t I? On some deep level, I knew that they loved each other, that there was a lightness and an ease to her when Paul was around that wasn’t there any other time. He made her feel safe; he looked at her with a smile in his eyes. My dad—I don’t think he was much of a husband. I couldn’t be angry with Paul and my mother for loving each other, for any of it. I couldn’t be mad at my father for the mistakes he made.
In fact, the rage I’d been carrying, that bloody passion for revenge, it had left me cored out. I was drained. All that sizzling energy of righteousness, the zeal for justice, it was armor, a veneer I wore to protect the sucking emptiness in me.
“Put the gun down, Mike,” said Paul.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“That was my cut,” Paul said. “Four hundred. You’ve got more than your share now. Just take it and go.”
I heard it, but I wasn’t sure they did. It was high and far, like a mosquito you couldn’t shoo, sirens in the distance.
“Where’s Seth?” asked Mike.
“He’s indisposed,” said Paul.
I watched Mike’s face, his shoulders, just like he’d trained me to do. The eyes narrow to a tight focus, the nostrils flare to pull in more oxygen. The world slowed down.
First, he lifted his eyes. The sirens had grown louder and he knew time was up.
“You called the police,” said Mike, looking at Paul. “You screwed us all.”
“No,” said Paul with a tight shake of his head.
Mike’s shoulders tensed and he drew in a breath, looked between us. His chest rose as he lifted his arm, muscles flexing. It was just one step for me to put myself in front of Paul and I did that, just as Mike squeezed the trigger and the world exploded in a red flood of pain.
? ? ?
I WAS AT THE EDGE of the wood again, Catcher at my side. The night was cold and the moon a silver face in the sky looking down at me. I looked at the house, sitting still and peaceful at the edge of the field. My heart thudded with disappointment. Seth stood me up. And I waited like a fool, for an hour. Now the light in the kitchen was on, and I was going to be in so much trouble. So much trouble.
Catcher released a little growl, a little half bark, more like a huff and then I heard what he heard, footsteps behind me. My name in a whisper on the wind.
Zoey. Zoey wait up!
I turned and there was Seth, breathless, flushed moving through the trees. My heart did a little rhumba. He was bigger than the other boys, with dark, heavily lashed eyes and full lips.
“My dad,” he said, panting. “He wouldn’t go to sleep. It’s like he knew I was waiting to sneak out. I’m sorry.”
He dropped to his knees and rubbed Catcher behind the ears and was rewarded with a big slobbery lab kiss.
“Hey, Catcher,” he said. “Hey, boy.”
“I waited,” I said, not ready to let go of being mad at him.
“I know,” he said, looking up. His smile was sweet. “I’m glad you waited.”
He stood. Catcher whined a little, looking back at the house.
“I have to go,” I said. I nodded toward the house. “They’re up. And I’m dead.”
He laced his fingers through mine. “So if you’re already in trouble, what’s a few more minutes?”
“They’re probably worried,” I said, moving away. He tugged me back and then his arms were around me.
? ? ?
“DON’T GO,” HE SAID. “DON’T leave me, Zoey. Stay with me, baby.”
I’m not in the woods with Seth. I am not fourteen. I am looking into Paul’s face, which is wet with tears. He’s holding me on his lap, rocking me back and forth. His gun lays on the ground. My shirt is black with blood, but I don’t feel anything. Mike is lying beside me, eyes sightless, staring into nowhere. Beside him is the sack of money, useless to him now.
? ? ?
THEN I’M WITH SETH AGAIN, unlacing my fingers from his.
“It’s too late,” I tell him. “I have to go.”
“No,” he says. “It’s not. Come walk with me. Just for a little while.”
I look back at the house. I’m dead anyway. Might as well have a little fun first.
SIX MONTHS LATER
forty-four
It’s a brutal ninety-three-degree summer afternoon in Manhattan. The kung fu temple doesn’t have air-conditioning and the girls are drenched, red-faced, and breathing heavy. I stand in the corner, watching—encouraging, admonishing, cajoling. It’s good for them to suffer and to push through anyway. And there are no worried moms sitting in the sidelines for this class, so I push even harder.
“You’re almost there,” I tell them. “Cool down in five.”
Really it’s more like fifteen, but who’s counting? Hope is a good thing.
The new girl is in the corner sipping on ice chips.
You’re not really studying kung fu if you haven’t thrown up at least once, I told her in the bathroom.
Great, she said.
When she comes back of her own accord and joins the girls for the final striking drill, I smile. She’ll make it.
Then we’re done, and the girls collapse, laughing. They take turns at the water fountain, senior students letting the less experienced drink first.
“Don’t gulp,” I warn. “You’ll be sick.”
I’m still limping badly, tire easily, should really be using a crutch. But here I try to walk without it. When the elevator pings, I look up to see the guardian from the group home where the girls live. Melba is a tall black woman, fit and elegant in white linen pants and tank top.