Never Ask Me

by Jeff Abbott

  He kneels by the opening and sticks a hand in. He feels something soft and silvery under his fingertips. He pulls out a bracelet, grimy with dirt. It looks to be silver, and along the band is a series of green stones. Emeralds? Or fakes? He doesn’t know.

  He holds the bracelet up to the light.

  He kneels again and looks into the cleft of the tree. Nothing else is there.

  He stands and returns to the house, glancing back at his tree. Money. Jewelry.

  What is the Sender trying to tell him?

  19

  Julia

  From her bedroom window, Julia watches Peter Horvath leave. Something is up with Grant. Peter Horvath, the man of fewest words, helping a freshman with a comp sci project? She doesn’t believe it. Like she doesn’t believe Dad’s story of a tumble down the creekside beating up his face, either. Something awful, something poisonous, has seeped into the air of the Pollitt house since Julia found Danielle’s body. Like death itself, trying to find a new home.

  She shakes off the morbid feeling as she watches Peter walk away.

  Julia sits down at her computer with two objectives: find out who this Marland is that Ned is afraid of and take care of his business dealings while he’s coping with the death of his mother. It feels like a step forward that she can never take back. This is not who she is; she is the good girl who should go tell her parents everything she knows, including about this Marland guy in the greenbelt. But if she does that, Ned’s life is derailed and done, probably forever. Any mistake follows you forever. He was stupid, and he needs her to save him from his mistake.

  She can do this. You’ll be smarter about this than he was, she thinks.

  First she searches for Marland in the Travis County Appraisal District. She knows to do this because she’s heard her father mention doing it before, to see what homes in the neighborhood are worth, and it surprised her you could find out where someone lived so easily. There are several Marlands, but none own property in Winding Creek. Maybe his wife owns the property and doesn’t use his surname? Or he was lying about being a neighborhood dad. But he knew about the proposed patrols—how? The neighborhood Faceplace page was supposed to be strictly private. If he hadn’t heard there, then maybe Ned had told him, or he knew someone else in the neighborhood.

  Ned was afraid of him. She searches Ned’s friends list on social media; no Marland there.

  So she goes to the Critterscape website. She knows Ned’s log-in and password. From there she can see his game activity, and most important…his messages inside the game.

  Deep breath. You can do this. Last week, when he had confessed to her what he’d done, she had first thought, You’re a complete idiot, and then thought, Well, this is sort of genius. He has always had a swagger, a confidence, derived from thinking that the world of his video games could edge into the real world, where you got endless retries in your life.

  She goes to the message center, where Ned—as CritterMaster99, his log-in—can exchange messages with other Critterscape players.

  Ned has far more messages than one usually would.

  She reads through them:

  Looking for 5 Shockersquirrels?

  Hey I need some Dangersaurs for later.

  Need 10 Dangersaurs, 5 Sleeperdoodles, and 5 Boomdogs.

  And so on and so on. She checks his “Critter” inventory—he only has a few of the digital creatures, certainly not enough for these proposed trades. But that’s not what they are.

  She calls Ned. He answers on the first ring.

  “Where are you?” she asks.

  “Mike is driving us to the airport to get my dad,” Ned says. He sounds broken, miserable.

  “You’re going to send me a text,” she says. “And you’re going to tell me what the code names are for each of the prescriptions inside the game.”

  Silence. “I asked you not to mess with this.” He can’t say more because he’s in the car with Mike.

  “If you don’t fulfill these orders, you’re going to get into trouble. Is that why Marland is around? He’s the guy who’s supplying you.”

  “Please. My mom is dead and I can’t deal with this right now.”

  “OK. Then I can tell everyone who messages you you’re out of the business. That’s one solution, Ned. Please, take it. You have to stop this.”

  In the background she can hear Mike saying something reassuring, clearly having no idea what the discussion is.

  “Not now. Do nothing until we talk, OK? I don’t want you to mess up my project.”

  “Good luck with your dad,” she said, and she meant it. He hung up.

  She waited and the text came: Shockersquirrels: Xanax. Boomdogs: Percocet. And so on, every Critter tied to a prescription drug. She made a list on a piece of paper and then went back through his messages. He had around seventy looking to buy in “Critter trades.” No mention of drugs or money. Everything was coded to terms used in the game.

  She felt sick. How could she get him out of this ring or scheme or whatever it was without destroying his future by going to the police? He’d told her last week because he’d needed a way out, he’d said. His words rang in her ears: I can’t tell my mom. This would kill her. And I can’t let my friends deal with this guy. He’s dangerous. How do I shut this down?

  Why would you even do this?

  He said I could make a lot of money.

  He who?

  This guy I met. He had the supply; he needed the customers. The game would keep us from getting caught the way dumb kids dealing usually get caught via texting. He got me all the drugs once it took off. All I had to do was play the game and take the orders.

  This guy was Marland, she suspected.

  And they were supposed to talk about how to extricate him from this mess while playing Critterscape, in the early morning when no one was going to be around.

  But you told me, Julia thinks, and now you’re my responsibility. She couldn’t let Ned twist in the wind this way. How did you shut down a drug ring without involving the police?

  There had to be a way.

  Do you think what I was doing had anything to do with…?

  What if Danielle had found out? And confronted this Marland guy? And then…?

  The strength goes out of her legs; Julia feels dizzy. No. That wasn’t the reason. It couldn’t be. And if it was, then Ned was in terrible danger.

  But he had said nothing to the police. Nothing. He had a way out of this mess; his father would just take him away, to the safety of London or Ghana. Safety in distance. If she went to the police, she risked implicating Ned in a crime that would ruin his future, and maybe hers, and she had no proof of anything else. She could put her own family in danger. Marland didn’t know her, except that she was Ned’s friend.

  But how had he known that?

  She hasn’t reported him to the police. She knows about this and she is silent. She could be named an accessory. She had gone on the internet. Keeping her mouth shut was called aiding and abetting, a misdemeanor, and if you were convicted of it you couldn’t get federal financial aid for college. Assuming a college didn’t immediately rescind your admittance. She was waiting to hear from Rice, Vanderbilt, Cornell, and Brown. She couldn’t risk not getting in. She couldn’t risk going to the police; it could ruin both their futures. No college. No career. Everything she’d done to prepare to apply for top schools wasted because of one mistake a friend made and because she decided to help him.

  She has to somehow stop this. Extricate Ned, send him on his way overseas with his father, and forget this ever happened.

  She acts before she loses her courage. She sends out a message under Ned’s account: due to unexpected tragedy I am unable to continue play or trading. Thank you all. Good luck in the Critterscape. This is my final communication. She sends the message and then logs out.

  Done. There. How hard was that? Her friend saved. Now she just has to wait. This Marland guy will step into the breach, if he was some kind of dealer trading in prescri
ptions, and find some other kid, and he was welcome to it.

  She imagines her mother’s voice rattling in her head: Make good choices. Be a good girl. Was that possible to do all the time? Make every choice right in the heat of the moment or when you didn’t have complete information? She was helping a friend out of the worst mess of his life at the worst time of his life. Wasn’t that a good choice?

  She feels uneasy. But now she’s done what she’s done and all with good intentions, and she believes that will be enough.

  Ned could go collect his father, and then he would thank her. She’ll catch him some rare, cool Critter in the game, in case he’s mad, and he’ll get over it. Mom would say quit worrying so much about what a boy thinks, but Ned isn’t just a boy; he’s special. He’s worth fighting for.

  Julia opens Critterscape on her phone, logged in under her own account…wondering if the game is going to feel ruined for her now, since they were playing it when they found Danielle on the park bench. The digital world appears: a delightful little glade, with a road that mirrors the street were her house is, and instead of murdered neighbors and troubled handsome boys and annoying parents, it’s all sparkles and whimsy. Little creatures appear—a dancing pink dinosaur, a purple cat, a wood elf—and she uses her Critter nets to capture them, to rack up points, to add to her Critter zoo. For a few moments she forgets the nightmare. Then a little hand appears in the corner of the screen—she has a message from another player.

  She clicks on the hand.

  The first message is the one she sent out from Ned’s account, to all his friends, including her. The second message is one she hasn’t seen.

  She doesn’t have a ton of friends in the game, but she doesn’t recognize this player name: MagickMan. She pages through her friends list: no, he’s there. They’ve never exchanged game gifts or Critters, and she doesn’t remember adding him. He shouldn’t be on her friends list. But he is. Ned must have added him. He has her password.

  She opens the message.

  I think you wrote that message from our friend, Julia.

  Her breath catches in her chest. Her game name is Pollittesse; you’d have to know her personally to know Pollittesse is Julia Pollitt.

  She messages back: Who is this?

  The blinking palm tells her this player is active and writing her back. Then the message:

  You two don’t just quit on me.

  She stares at the phone, cold. You two. Like she was part of this. She’s not. She writes in the message screen: Leave him alone. He can’t do this anymore.

  You’re going to fix what you just did. I heard you’re applying to some really demanding schools. What if they got an email about what you and Ned have been up to?

  She shudders. She nearly drops the phone. I had nothing to do with this, she writes.

  Anyone who can shut down the business is part of the business. You’re an accomplice, Julia. Now what are we going to do about that?

  20

  Iris

  Iris wonders.

  Kyle’s lying to her. She can tell. Kyle is not a good liar. He’s a big-hearted guy, not a man who easily deceives. And she doesn’t believe that he fell down in the rough of the greenbelt. No alternate explanation makes sense. But she doesn’t quite believe him.

  Either someone attacked him or he got into a fight, a physical fight, with someone. All in the wake of Danielle’s death.

  Something is wrong. Obviously. Something is wrong all over the place.

  Maybe he’s just shaken. They’re all shaken. None of them are right.

  Kyle goes out to the backyard and Iris watches, where he can’t see her. Then into the greenbelt.

  She follows him outside. At a distance.

  She watches him go off the trail, down toward the creek. She hangs back. He goes to a tree and kneels by it. Sticks his hand in. It’s Grant’s tree, the one he used to hide things in. It had made her so nervous because he’d be down there alone and there were sometimes water moccasins and she had a horror of him getting bitten. Now Kyle is using it. And peering into the tree now, as if he is expecting to find something there and he isn’t.

  She ducks back to their house so he won’t spot her. What is he hiding? Why?

  Her phone chirps with a text: Girls, we need to meet and mourn. Iris, we want to know if you’re ok. In an hour at Trivet, don’t dress up, let’s just be there for each other.

  Iris considers, then texts back: I’m OK and I’ll be there. Love you all.

  She could confront Kyle. And knowing him, he’ll just seal up tighter. But whatever is wearing at him, he’ll get tired of carrying it alone and he’ll tell her.

  Unless it’s really, really bad. Like he knows something about Danielle. Like he did something about Danielle.

  And that she doesn’t want to know.

  She showers, puts on a dressy, dark sweater and navy slacks. Back in the den, Kyle is sitting, watching television, a blank look on his face. Their gazes meet. She could say, What were you hiding in Grant’s old tree?

  But she doesn’t. He looks away from her to the TV. His face has clearly taken more than one punch and they just aren’t going to talk about it, and what does that say about them right now? She makes a noise in her throat, and he glances back at her.

  “Wherever you fell in the greenbelt,” she says, “maybe it ought to be marked. Like a sign that it’s slippery or dangerous. I don’t want it happening again to you. Or anyone else.”

  He nods. “I’ll send an email to the greenbelt committee. I don’t think we have to worry about it happening again.”

  She nods back, and for a moment she thinks, Well, he really did slip. He really did fall. I can just tell myself that. He stares at the television.

  She goes upstairs to check on the kids. Julia’s lying on her bed, holding a pillow. “I have to run an errand. Are you going to be OK for a bit?”

  Her daughter looks at her with a mix of grief and terror, and something twists in Iris’s heart. “Baby. What’s wrong?”

  “What’s not wrong?” Julia says, putting her face in the pillow. Iris sits by her on the bed, puts a reassuring hand on her back.

  “I know this is all so horrible. It will get better in time.”

  “You were her friend,” Julia said. “Right?”

  “Yes,” Iris says, without adding once.

  “You’d do anything for a friend, wouldn’t you?”

  “Nearly anything,” she says. She pats Julia’s back. “What friend is needing your help?”

  “I don’t know how to help Ned.”

  “You’re there for him. You listen to him. You help him with his grief. You help him see that he can get past this. That’s what a friend does.”

  Julia takes a deep breath. She seems like she’s going to say more, but she doesn’t. She only says: “We can get past this.”

  “I have to see my friends I had with Danielle. Are you going to be all right?”

  “Yes,” Julia says. “I need to finish reading a book for English. I’ll do that, but it’s hard to concentrate.”

  “Try, though,” Iris says, then immediately regrets it. Julia says nothing more, and Iris eases the door shut. They need to ask a professional about how to help Julia. Down the hall she knocks on Grant’s door. He’s sitting on the bed, studying something on his iPad.

  “I have to go out for a bit. Do you need anything?”

  He stares at her like he’s not sure how to answer, but finally he says, “No.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  His face is neutral. “You wouldn’t ever lie to me, Mom, would you?”

  “Lie to you.” Iris says the phrase as though hearing it for the first time and it possibly being in a foreign language. “Why do you think I’ve lied to you?”

  “I’m just asking. You wouldn’t. I mean, lie about more than something like Santa Claus.”

  “Santa is real. I can’t help what the rest of the world thinks.” This is an old joke between them, but Grant doesn’t smile. �
��No, baby, I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “All right,” he says. His look is still neutral, but he keeps his gaze locked on her as she closes the door.

  Her family, she thinks, will get through this. They’ll figure it out. She goes down the stairs, a bit shaken, telling herself: his asking that, it didn’t mean anything.

  * * *

  Iris backs out of the driveway, “Mom Channel” playing softly; the news crews are gone from in front of Danielle’s house. She has a hunch and turns onto Mike’s street, and yes, there they are. They found out where Ned was staying and that Mike was her boyfriend. She could strangle whoever told them. But they probably found it through social media, like Kyle suggested. She drives past; they don’t look at her, not that they would know who she is.

  She realizes if they’re still there, this is a gauntlet she might have to run when she brings their dinner tonight.

  She drives into Lakehaven, down Old Travis, turning into one of the larger shopping centers in the town. Trivet is a small coffee shop in Lakehaven, but it has held on in the face of chain-store saturation. Book clubs meet there, church groups, writer groups. It’s owned by a pair of Lakehaven grads and is an institution in the town.

  And it’s where the moms who Danielle helped often meet. They call themselves the Mommy Club.

  It surprised Iris how much international adoption occurred in Lakehaven. But she can count twelve families who have adopted from overseas. The reasons vary. Some feel a religious calling to bring a child home. Others can’t conceive. Others already have children and decide to add one more. But once every couple of months (it has gotten more difficult as the children have gotten older), Danielle and her flock of moms she helped get together at Trivet to share stories, support one another, laugh. Iris knows many parents through her volunteering, but she thinks of this group as her real friends.

  Susan, Georgina, and Francie are already there. Susan, a University of Texas professor of biochemistry, two children adopted from China. Georgina owns a jewelry store in Lakehaven, mother of six, one child adopted from Ghana. Francie, co-owner with her husband of an investment firm, three children adopted from Russia, older than Grant.