Set You Free

by Jeff Ross

  Does he have Benjamin? she texts.

  I laugh. Ben doesn’t matter, and I know it. She wants Tom to be guilty. She wants him to be the monster she thinks he is. And she wants to be the hero who stops him.

  She wants that more than anything.

  The mayor in police custody first, I type. I wait for a response, and when it comes, I’m not the slightest bit surprised.

  What is in this for you?

  I look at the screen and type Everything. There’s another long pause. I watch as police cars troll the streets. A group of officers enters the shops at the end of the block. This whole area has been abandoned for months. Every window little more than a dusty frame for For Rent signs. One shop after another closed as the big-box stores moved in on the edge of town and forced them out.

  On his way to station, comes a text at last.

  Promise?

  Promise. Now where is your brother?

  I’ll bring him to you.

  I get out of the car and wait as the officers across the street break down the door of what was once a knife shop. That was all it sold—knives. There was one along here that only sold hot sauce, and another that had a dozen or so shirts on a rack and maybe another dozen pairs of shoes.

  The night has cooled, and I wish I was wearing something more. I turn back to Marlene’s car and find a sweatshirt on the backseat. It’s big on me, but at least it’s black and warm. I grab Ben’s elephant from the passenger seat and stuff it inside the sweatshirt.

  The streetlights are bright, leaving me fully exposed as I run across the street, trying to stay in the shadows. If I get spotted out here, at the very least I’ll be turned away. At worst, someone will recognize me, and ten minutes from now I’ll be sitting in a little room in the police station, trying to explain myself and all I’ve done.

  The alley behind the buildings on Percy Street is filled with garbage bins. The walls are a riot of graffiti. The blurp of sirens breaks the silence, along with a muddle of words and sounds from walkie-talkies.

  I stop when I find the door. There’s still an old handmade sign there. Nothing special at all. Just Radicals Records written on cardboard and taped in a spot above the door where rain can’t get at it. I consider knocking, then open the door and step inside.

  “Hello,” I whisper. I can’t see anyone at first. The darkness is more complete inside than out. I say it again. “Hello, Tom? Ben?” I turn on the flashlight app on my phone. Its circle of light brings out all the edges and corners of the room.

  “What took you so long?” Tom says as he steps out from behind a cabinet. His hair seems to have grown in the few days since I last saw him. He’s also sporting a bit of stubble, which makes me laugh. He seems so grown-up.

  That is, until I notice his fingers are coated in orange Cheezies dust.

  “Things did not go entirely as planned,” I say.

  Benny steps out from behind him. He has Cheezies dust on his fingers too, as well as all over his face.

  “We have to go,” I say. Ben rushes across the room and takes my hand. “Benny. How are you?” I pick him up and feel his little body shivering. Something drops inside me. A rock that has been sitting in the middle of my throat for days.

  “I’m well,” he says. It makes me laugh how polite and proper he is. He throws his arms around my neck. He smells like old milk and dirty socks.

  “We have to get going,” I tell him. “That’s okay, right?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Is there a safe way out?” Tom asks.

  They’ve been staying in what was once the back room of the record shop. The owner left behind a fridge, a microwave and a single bed when he cleared out. There’s a SpongeBob SquarePants sleeping bag on the floor, surrounded by coloring books, a Nintendo DS and a paperback edition of His Dark Materials.

  I pull Benny’s stuffed elephant out from beneath Marlene’s sweatshirt and hand it to him.

  “You forgot this,” I say.

  He lets go of me for a moment and hugs it. “Ricky!” he says. He wraps his arms around my neck again, squishing the elephant between us. “Thank you.”

  “The alley was clear when I came in,” I say, looking up at my brother. “But the police are moving from building to building. It won’t be long.”

  “Someone spotted me,” Tom says. “Ben wanted chocolate milk, and I thought I could get out and back without a problem. It’s only three doors down.”

  I squeeze Ben.

  “I’m sorry, Lauren,” Tom says.

  I feel angry. Or not even angry—just annoyed that he didn’t stick to the plan. But this is Tom to the core. He thinks about others first. And he’s always trying to save people.

  “Where’s my mom?” Ben says. “Tom said you’d bring her.”

  “She’s waiting for you, Benny. You’ll see her in a minute.” I open the door and peer up and down the alley. I can hear banging and sirens in the distance. The rumble of walkie-talkies. It’s possible that we cut it too close.

  “Okay, come on,” I say, gathering Ben up in my arms and stepping out.

  We move from one garbage bin to another, staying low and trying to be as quiet as possible. It’s difficult carrying Ben, but he doesn’t seem to want to let go.

  And I don’t want to put him down.

  We make it to the end of the alley just as a heavy flashlight beam breaks the darkness. I pull my cell phone out and put it on vibrate. The last thing I need is for it to suddenly go off and attract attention. We lean against the wall and wait as the bark of voices from the walkie-talkies battles it out. The sound of officers hammering on doors echoes in the alley. I can feel my body reacting to every thump. All it would take is one officer looking around a corner. Maybe a team is moving up the alley as we stand here. I wish there were someone who could tell me what to do now. Tom is stumbling along behind me, numbed from days of sitting quietly with a five-year-old. I’m so exhausted I can’t see straight.

  “Okay,” I say. Ben leans back to look around. His eyes are huge. I wonder what these moments will be like for him later in life. How will he remember this night and the days he spent in the record shop? Marlene’s car is across the well-lit street. We’re almost close enough to read the license plate.

  The sound of a walkie-talkie rises up right beside us. I press myself against the wall, pulling Tom with me. An officer steps out of a building on the other side of the alley. We’re in a dark area, but if he turns around and shines his light our way, this will all be over.

  The officer says, “Moving north on Percy.” We push farther back against the wall. The officer turns and seems to be looking directly at us. Tom’s face is partially lit by the nearby streetlight. I try to pull him back, but I can already read his mind. It’s all over his face. I shake my head no.

  He leans forward.

  I pull him back. Mouth no again. I feel as if I’m about to cry. Somehow, I thought this part would be the easiest. Walk in, get Ben and Tom, and then leave. That all the other things before would be the hard parts.

  Wrong again.

  Tom looks down at Ben.

  Pushes my hand from his arm.

  He’s about to step out when the officer’s walkie-talkie reports. “Negative. Proceed south on Percy and meet up with C team.”

  The officer turns and grumbles something before raising the radio to his mouth and saying, “Affirmative.”

  “Ready?” I say to Tom.

  “You two go first,” he says. “The fewer of us out at once, the better, right?”

  “You’ll be right behind us?” I say.


  “Yes.”

  I take another look around the corner, see nothing, grasp Benny a little tighter and run. My legs feel like tree trunks. I stumble a couple of times and begin to wonder if I wasn’t more damaged in the car accident than I thought.

  When I trip, Benny grabs me tighter.

  “It’s okay, buddy, we’ll get you to your mom,” I say.

  “I know you will,” he whispers in my ear. I lean back from him so I can look at his face. His eyes are all over the place, full of the wonder of being out at night. Every moment for a five-year-old is like the first ever. He’ll forget all about what has happened here.

  I hope.

  We get to the car as a cruiser turns the corner. There’s a spotlight on the side, pointed toward the falls. The circle of light is quickly moving toward us, and I can’t get the keys out of my pocket fast enough. As I pull them past the lip of my pocket, they catch on something and slip from my hand, crashing to the asphalt.

  “Under,” I say, setting Ben on the ground. He slides under the car without question. I follow him. We freeze there, huddled together as the cruiser pulls into the parking lot. The spotlight cuts across the car. I pull Ben closer to me. We cannot get caught here, is all I can think. Not now. Not this way.

  I see Tom coming out into the light across the street. No, Tom, I say to myself. Go back. Please just go back. It’s going to be okay.

  He keeps walking. Not running, just steadily walking toward the cruiser. But then, as quickly as it pulled up, the cruiser tears off, the spotlight jumping around the falls as it goes.

  I pull Ben out from beneath the car and unlock the door.

  “Get in, buddy,” I say, and Ben scrambles inside.

  As I’m putting Ben’s seat belt on, Tom comes up behind me and says, “Close.”

  I slam the door. “We have to go.”

  Tom swings around the front of the car and gets in the passenger seat. As we back out, I think of things to say to him. But everything that comes to mind sounds stupid. What he’s done is too kind for words. And he was still willing to do more.

  So we drive in silence. I check the rearview mirror over and over again. Ben is looking out the window, then at the ceiling, then playing with his fingers in front of his face.

  This isn’t exactly how I envisioned the trip. I thought it would be more heroic. More end-of-a-long-journey elation. Instead, I’m just tired, and I feel like crying. It’s too late, it’s been too long a day, and I’m an emotional wreck.

  “Thank you,” I say to Tom.

  “No problem,” he replies.

  “Sure,” I say. “No problem. No big deal. Just another day in the life of Tom Saunders, international man of awesome.”

  Tom laughs as we turn onto the Hamford Bridge, which takes us south, out of the city. “I sat there, Laur,” he says. “You did all the work.”

  “Your name has been dragged through the mud again,” I say.

  “I’ll change it,” he says. “Like, to Tom Jones.”

  “Or Engelbert Humperdinck.”

  “Maybe less elaborate,” Tom says. “Richard Taylor.”

  “Where’d that come from?”

  “A surf poster on the wall. He’s a tall dude with a million-mile smile,” Tom says. “It could give me something to work toward.”

  “Rich, Rick, Dick,” I say. This is ridiculous, I think. But also so very calming. Which is when I realize that Tom is working his magic again. Trying to calm me down. To make everything seem normal somehow.

  I reach over and take my brother’s hand. It’s not far, but as we drive off the bridge it seems like I’ve been driving for days, traveled hundreds of miles. I don’t let go of Tom’s hand until I have to downshift to turn in to a closed-down gas station.

  “Well, Richard Taylor,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “I think I’ll go with Rick,” he says. “It sounds cool.”

  Erin’s Honda Civic is parked in the shadows of the building, and she is standing beside it, waiting. I slow down and pull in beside her, and she has the back door open and is gathering Ben into her arms before I have fully stopped.

  “You’re okay, Ben,” she says. Ben starts to speak, but Erin hugs him closer. “I missed you so much, big guy.”

  “Are we going on the adventure now?” Ben says.

  I don’t know exactly what Erin has told Ben about all of this—how she explained everything that was going to happen. She’d told me she was going to tell him it would be an adventure. She and Tom bought throwaway phones so she could call Ben while he was hiding, but I don’t know if that happened.

  “Yes,” Erin says.

  “To the city?”

  “To the city,” Erin says.

  Tom and I get out of the car.

  “Do the police have the files?” Erin asks.

  “They do,” I reply. “They also have Jack. Detective Evans actually brought him in. I sent the files to every newspaper I could think of.”

  “Will he be charged with anything? Will he go to jail?” Her eyes go round in the dim light.

  “I couldn’t tell from the files. I didn’t have enough time. But it looks pretty bad.”

  She kisses Ben again. “Jack can talk his way out of anything,” she says.

  “There’s a lot of proof there,” I say, trying to reassure her. “There will be an investigation.”

  Erin nods, but she doesn’t seem convinced. After everything she has been through, the years of living with Jack Carter and his lies, it must be difficult to believe she might actually be free.

  “People don’t like corruption in politics,” she says. “These men in power try to help one another out of things like this, but people will hate him.” She inhales. “That’s almost enough. Thank you. A million times, thank you.” She gathers me into a hug, and I hold her tightly. She releases me and walks up to Tom, holding a car key out in front of her. “For you,” she says to Tom. Tom takes the key. “It’s around the corner. A blue Subaru.”

  “I can’t…”

  “You can take this. I have no use for it. I can’t drive it, and I don’t have time to sell it. If you don’t take it, it’ll sit right here in this parking lot until someone steals it.” She closes Tom’s hand around the keys. “Consider it a gift from the mayor for all your hard work and community involvement. You won’t be touched by any of this. You’ve saved us, and I can’t think of any way I can ever actually repay you.”

  “My pleasure,” Tom says. She pulls him into an embrace, and they stay that way for a moment.

  “Good luck,” she says.

  “Same to you.” She darts around the front of the car to the driver’s side. “We have to go,” she says. “There’s no telling how long it will be before Jack convinces the police to let him go.”

  “Take care, Ben,” I say.

  He looks out the window. “You too, Lauren,” he says, in his little big-man voice. He holds a pack of Beyblades up. “So cool,” he says.

  Erin opens the driver’s door and gets in.

  I lean in the open passenger window. “Will you be back?”

  “I don’t know,” Erin says. “Right now, I plan to. I’m going to send a report to the police, with a picture of Ben and me with a newspaper to show when it was taken and all that. It’ll explain that I’ve fled due to fear for my life. I’ll send pictures of my broken arm from last year.”

  My face must have dropped. “You said—”

  “A slip, I know. It wasn’t a slip. That was Jack. So were those bruises you saw. I’ll se
nd all those photos to the media. But if that doesn’t work, I’m ready to disappear.”

  “I hope I see you again,” I say.

  “Thank you again, Lauren. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.” I step away from the car. As she backs out, I wave to Ben. His face is glowing. He’s tearing into the package of Beyblades. A moment later, they are nothing but taillights on the highway.

  “What happened with Grady?” Tom asks. “Did he find you?”

  “He did,” I say. “Just like you said he would.”

  “So where is he?”

  “Likely at the police station,” I say. “Or the hospital.”

  “What happened?” Tom says. His face is twisted in concern.

  “JJ tried to ram us. Don’t worry—he’ll be okay.”

  “You can explain why this all happened the way it did?”

  “I can try,” I say. And then I do something I haven’t done since we were kids. I wrap my arms around my brother and hold on tightly. He feels so different, so much like a man.

  “When did you get so big?” he says to me.

  “Me! What about you? You need a shave,” I say, holding him away from me. “You’d better go.”

  “Wish me luck,” he says. I want to hold on to him and try to make up for all the times I pushed him away. I wish there were a crevice we could walk through and find ourselves ten years in the past. Farther, maybe. I would just need one little shift. One day when I stood up for him.

  For myself.

  The day my mom sent him away. The day everyone thought he was one thing, and I took the easy route. I went along with them. I let everything I knew about Tom disappear in this fog of speculation and figured I could never know for certain.

  Of course I knew.

  I knew because Tom told me. He told me what he was doing with that kid. Asking him about a sand castle. That was it.

  The relief I felt when he moved across town will stay with me forever. The ease with which a problem disappeared. But he was never a problem. He’s my brother.