Say it Louder

by Heidi Joy Tretheway

  Kristina’s credit card—connected to my account—turns up a charge that night at a convenience store for a little over five bucks. She was out of cigarettes, I’d guess. I don’t even remember stopping there.

  And then there’s the most damning piece of evidence, a grainy still frame from a red-light camera a couple of blocks from where the man was hit. I can barely look at it. The Explorer is speeding through an intersection on a red, its bumper lumpy and mangled, and the glow of streetlights illuminates two hands on a steering wheel.

  My hands. My fault.

  This homeless man, whom I now know was a Vietnam Vet and longtime transient, died at my hands. Because I liked to party.

  It doesn’t matter that since that night I’ve pushed the band to party less and work out more. I’ve demanded we pump iron instead of toking up. I rarely drink more than a few beers—that ugly incident with gin excepted—and I’ve never driven with a drop of alcohol in my system.

  All that penance does nothing to make up for the life I took.

  “The arraignment’s tomorrow, and she’s going to point the finger at you while making herself look like a helpless victim, like you forced her to ride with you,” Greer says. “We need to talk about a deal. I think we can put something together with minimal jail time and a heck of a lot of community service.”

  The words jail time feel like the slamming of a door, blocking me from the release of Wilderness and Tattoo Thief’s stadium tour this fall. I feel a tight mass build in the back of my throat at the prospect of losing the only good thing I have left in life.

  But what brings me to my knees is the knowledge that yesterday there were two good things in my life—the band, and Willa. And I’ve lost her too.

  Greer talks me through a plea bargain. It’s worthless if the court finds out I drove to New York. Breaking bond would send me permanently back to jail until trial, or kill my chances of a favorable deal.

  As Greer prepares to leave, Tyler answers a knock at the front door.

  “I have a question.” Her voice penetrates the fog in my brain, sharp as pain, precise as a needle. Willa.

  I stagger from the kitchen to the living room, where Tyler’s already pulled her inside to shut out the media. I don’t know what to say, where to start.

  Even though go to hell was the last thing she said to me, my heart’s working overtime as I try to wrap my head around the fact that she’s here.

  She’s here. For me.

  That has to count for something.

  “I’ll just go … put on headphones,” Tyler says with an awkward smile as he hustles out of the living room, patting my shoulder as he passes.

  “You’re here,” I stammer. Apparently, being in the presence of this woman automatically drops my IQ by fifty points.

  “Took a bus. Nine hours is a lot of time to think.” Willa’s blue eyes are warm today, like a tropical bay. “I realized I hadn’t really given you the benefit of the doubt, any more than most people give me that.”

  I bow my head, fresh shame making it impossible for me to look at her. “But I don’t have a better answer for you. I did it. I can’t remember it, but I can’t deny it. A man died because I was reckless.”

  Willa takes a step closer to me and tilts her head. “That’s the thing I don’t get, though. You said Kristina reported this to the police.”

  “Yeah. That’s why I’m on house arrest.”

  “She was the only witness. She’s the only one who can point the finger at you. And you don’t even remember what happened.”

  I shake my head. “Not a thing. I don’t even remember stopping for her cigarettes.”

  Willa’s smile confuses me almost as much as it drenches me in that pure warmth of hers. She’s so close now I can smell her cinnamon toothpaste and eucalyptus soap. Her hands bracket my face, forcing me to meet her eyes.

  “I always thought you were a smart guy, Dave.” She leans in and kisses the corner of my mouth. “But right now, you’re being pretty dumb.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I’m all ready to lay out what I’ve been thinking about nonstop since Dave showed up at my apartment when a guy walks into the living room.

  Dave pulls away from me a little, maybe embarrassed to be caught in this position even though there’s really nothing happening. He fumbles for introductions. “This is my attorney, uh, Mr. Greer. He’s working on my plea deal.”

  Excuse me—what?

  Greer extends a hand, but I’m still stuck on two words: plea deal. It sounds like everyone’s already made up their minds that Dave’s guilty. And it doesn’t help that Dave agrees with them.

  But I don’t. “Why?” I ask the attorney, ignoring his hand.

  Greer clears his throat. “Why what? I’m sorry, but who is this?” he asks Dave.

  That attorney gives me a dismissive little nod, but I’m ready for it. I don’t give Dave time to answer. “The more important question is, why are you entertaining a plea bargain? Are you seriously giving up on him?”

  “I’m offering him the best defense possible. It’s not a question of guilt, so the issue is managing the sentence.”

  I snort. “Maybe if you’re more concerned about your tee times than your track record. But have you noticed that even though Dave admits he did it, he can’t offer a single detail to back it up, other than what Kristina stuffed in his head?”

  Dave’s blackout sparked a niggling doubt almost as soon as I threw him out of my apartment early this morning. It felt off, like I wasn’t seeing the whole picture.

  I tried to go back to my canvases, but it was like my brain couldn’t help picking at a loose thread. I’d tug on it and more thread would come away. They say the devil is in the details, but in the case of committing a crime, the truth is in the details too.

  Once, I got picked up by the cops when I was out with a group tagging. I was sixteen, my boyfriend was nineteen, and he already had a rap sheet, which meant he could do some serious time for the paint he’d laid down.

  So I told the cops I’d done it. Claimed his work was mine. But a cop picked apart my story, detail by detail, until I finally confessed that I was trying to cover for him.

  I got off. He got time. And when he got out, he came back with a vengeance, blaming me for his conviction. That’s when he marked me by tattooing his tag on my arm. Like I was his property.

  I’ve spent the last nine years determined never to be anyone’s property again. I’m wouldn’t fall in that trap, clean up their shit, or get close enough that their trouble rubs off on me.

  Doing street art suits me.

  Living alone suits me.

  But because of Dave, I’m breaking my own rules, jumping headlong into asking questions about details that are none of my fucking business.

  And it’s both the need to protect him, and the questions that built in my mind this morning, that propelled me to Port Authority for a bus ticket and a nine-hour ride here.

  I can’t be too late.

  “He was blackout drunk,” Greer explains. Patiently, as if I were a child. “People often do and say things they can’t recall later when they’re so intoxicated.”

  It sounds perfect—if you want a perfect pitch for the prosecution. “Have you actually met Kristina?” I ask him.

  Greer’s brow furrows. “Does it matter?”

  “It matters a lot when nothing that’s come out of that woman’s mouth the entire time I’ve known Dave has been trustworthy.”

  I tick off the reasons we shouldn’t believe Kristina: she cheated on Dave, she’s angry he dumped her, and even though he’s giving her a massive amount of money to go away, she’s still trying to hurt him.

  Kristina’s little stunt at the bar with the paparazzi is the perfect example of how she’ll concoct whatever she can to get revenge.

  Greer shakes his head. “Kristina’s going to give her testimony tomorrow, and it’ll confirm what the police already have in evidence. She says she can’t live with the guilt of covering up
for her boyfriend.”

  “Ex,” Dave grits out. He’s watching us go back and forth like a basketball game.

  “Why do you think it’s taken Kristina this long to come clean?” Sarcasm laces my last two words. “She didn’t cover it up for Dave for love. Kristina uses secrets as leverage. And this is the only leverage she has left.”

  Greer shrugs. “I hate to say it, but being a calculating bitch isn’t a crime. Nothing you’ve said helps Dave’s case.”

  Dave looks at me sadly, resignation reflected in his dark eyes. Over his shoulder, I see a bulky shadow appear in the hall, but I ignore it.

  “Look, if Kristina didn’t have a way to control Dave, what would have stopped her from creating a way? She’s the ultimate opportunist. Why wouldn’t she create a secret that’s so awful, he’d be bound to her for life?”

  “You think she made this up?” Dave’s voice is hoarse and raw. “I saw my bumper the morning after. I saw … streaks of blood.”

  My stomach flips and twists as my mind reels with harsh images of a homeless man lying crumpled on the street. I imagine how he must have hurt, how he might have been conscious while bleeding to death. I struggle to keep my composure. “You saw the aftermath. There’s no doubt it happened. But—”

  Dave throws up his hands, angry now. “But nothing! Don’t you get it? Don’t you see why I’m not fighting this? I didn’t keep the secret to protect my own ass.”

  “You did it for her?” I can’t keep the hurt out of my voice.

  “No! We were probably days or weeks from breaking up at that point. That’s why I was drinking so hard … I just didn’t want to be there.” Dave stands straighter, his shoulders back, his eyes on fire, and my heart lifts when I see that he’s still got fight in him. “I wasn’t protecting Kristina. Or myself. I could have handled the jail time. I did it to protect the band.”

  Greer gapes at Dave.

  “This was back when I was manager. We were still in Pitt, but we were playing all over, bunch of states, and we’d booked a tour opener gig. We were so close to making it—everything we’d worked for was right there, we had contract offers from three labels.”

  Dave looks desperately from me to Greer, begging us to understand. “I couldn’t ruin all of that for my band. But now … they don’t even really need me anymore.”

  A deep voice rumbles from the darkened hallway off the living room and Jayce steps out. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I knew Jayce was babysitting, but I didn’t realize he was listening. He wears an expression I can’t decipher. “You let Kristina cover it up to protect us?”

  “That was the general idea. Fucked it up good, didn’t I?” I run my hands through my hair, exhaustion dragging me down. “Sorry to keep pulling you guys into my shit.”

  “First time for everything. More than anyone, you’ve always had our backs. Like when Gavin disappeared. And throwing Violet to the wolves? That’s all on Kristina,” Jayce says.

  I’m staggered.

  Forgiven. That’s how this feels.

  It doesn’t take long for Jayce to call the other guys back to the house. Greer’s doing this flappy little owl thing, fussing over what’s going to happen tomorrow at the arraignment.

  Willa’s not helping his mood—she keeps shooting sharp questions at him, asking about evidence and timelines. I shut it out because the whole time I was in jail, and the whole time I was driving to New York and back, I had layers of evidence like a reel of horrors on repeat in my head.

  “Show me,” Willa demands, and this time her tone is forceful enough that I go to the kitchen table where Greer’s been laying out the collected evidence. Credit card receipt. Bill of sale on the Explorer. And then he gives her the picture from the red light camera.

  She stares at it, squints, and picks it up so she can see it more closely.

  Tyler and Gavin rattle through the back door.

  “Hi, Willa.” Tyler gives her a nod and a smile, but Willa’s still engrossed in that damning photograph.

  “Didn’t you just drive to New York to see her?” Gavin asks me. “How’d she get here?”

  “Bus,” she answers without looking up.

  He rolls his eyes. “You two ever heard of carpooling?”

  Willa’s eyes snap up to me. “Tell me again about when you got your tattoos.” She points to love and fear etched on my knuckles. “Were you still living here?”

  “It was my senior year in college.”

  “Dave and I shared an apartment on Robinson,” Gavin adds.

  “Did anybody go with you to get the work done?” Willa asks, and it’s such a random question in the middle of her cross-examination with Greer.

  “I did,” Tyler volunteers. “It was right around finals, before Christmas break. We were studying and got kicked out of the library for, um, shenanigans.”

  “You were trying to hit people on the ground-floor study carrels with paperclips from the third floor.” I pause when Tyler gives me a look. “OK, we were practicing our aim.”

  “So we had a couple of hours to kill before band practice and went to the tattoo shop by Tong’s restaurant.” Tyler lifts a sleeve and displays a bird on his shoulder. “Why does that matter?”

  Willa taps the date printed on the photo. “Because this was taken two months later.”

  I give it another look, then zero in on the hands gripping the steering wheel in the grainy black and white photo. White hands. Nothing on the knuckles.

  It feels like the air is sucked out of the room.

  “You weren’t driving.”

  I don’t know who says it, because my head is pounding so loud, so hard, it’s like I’m trapped inside a bass drum. All of the guilt, the self-hatred, the bullshit Kristina’s been feeding me for four years is wrapped up in a lie about who was behind the wheel that February night.

  Pandemonium breaks out in the kitchen as everyone starts talking at once, a flood of anger and hope and holy shit does this mean…?

  But I keep coming back to three words. I wasn’t driving. They’re stuck on repeat like a song, like a whole fucking chorus that breaks chains and looses angels.

  Willa skewers Greer with a glare. “You wanted a deal.”

  “Dave wanted a deal. There was a preponderance of evidence,” he backpedals.

  “The only thing this evidence proves is that Kristina is lying. She lied to the cops.” Willa turns to me. “Can you prove when you got your Tattoo? A receipt or something?”

  Greer kicks into gear, quizzing Tyler and me about whether we paid with a credit card (no), got a receipt (maybe), or documented it any other way (does a tweet count)?

  He decides the best way to prove that these aren’t my hands is to track down the tattoo shop’s records and comb through any social media or press clippings between mid-December and early February that might have my hands in the picture.

  “What kind of trouble can Kristina get into for lying about all of this?” Gavin asks Greer.

  “Some.” He sees this answer doesn’t satisfy any of us. “Not enough, considering what the consequences would be if you couldn’t prove you weren’t driving.”

  “Not enough is right.” Gavin turns to me. “Remember how we said we’d take her down too? Let’s figure this out.”

  ***

  Greer leaves, clearly uncomfortable with some of Jayce’s more creative and totally illegal suggestions involving bodily harm.

  I think he’s kidding, but his murderous expression tells me I might be wrong.

  Gavin finally quiets us down. “I have an idea. When she moved out, do you have any idea where Kristina went?”

  I nod and pull out my phone, scrolling through emails to find a shipping notification from an online store where we had a joint account. Of course she couldn’t be content with just moving out and taking virtually every scrap of my furniture with her. She had to decorate, and on my dime.

  I show Gavin the address. “What are you thinking?”


  “I think we need to find out what makes her tick. Beryl’s pretty good at knowing where people keep the stuff they want to hide.”

  “Search her place?” Tyler asks, mulling over the idea. “Stella would do it. She fucking hates Kristina.”

  “It’s a pretty long list,” Willa adds, chuckling. “But it’s not like we can just go to the super and ask for a key.”

  I hold up a finger and then dash down the hallway to the guest room, where my suitcase is a scattered mess of dirty laundry. I dig in and find the jeans I wore Thursday. Deep in one front pocket is a tiny key ring with three keys, two stamped do not copy, and a gold plate key fob.

  Back in the kitchen, I hold the keys out to Willa. “Ask and you shall receive. The silver one’s for my place. The other two are for Kristina’s. When she showed up at my house Thursday night, I grabbed her keys to get mine back. Then I threw her out.”

  Willa wraps her fingers around them, the warmth of her hands touching mine. “Get through the hearing tomorrow. Let Kristina tell her lies under oath, and then let Greer cut them open.”

  “You’re going back to New York? Now?” She just got here, and on a nine-hour bus.

  “Today’s a new day,” Willa starts, standing.

  “I know, I know. Don’t waste it.” I finish her sentence with a smile and lean in for a kiss.

  She returns my kiss with an intensity that draws groans from the rest of the band and Jayce’s good-natured “get a room.”

  But relief pours through me and I hold her tight, kiss her back harder, trying to make my body say everything she needs to hear from my lips.

  Willa traps my lower lip between her teeth and bites down just hard enough to sting. “Don’t you dare come back to New York until an actual judge tells you that you can, OK?”

  I promise.

  I want to promise her more, but it feels like more is impossible right now. Too much hangs over my head, too much is still unresolved.