The Crashers

by Cubed, Magen

  He blinked a third time. “I’m fine. And no matter what, don’t tell your mother what happened. I’m a competent babysitter.”

  “Oh.” Hannah nodded. “Okay.”

  They would never speak of it again. Bridger was glad. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel Adam’s mouth beneath his thumb and his steady pulse in the palm of his hand. Bridger sighed and resigned himself to the cool tile floor.

  IV.

  Wherever Rebecca moved down the winding streets of Camden, Clara followed. The child didn’t walk as she had the morning of the bank bombing; this time, she floated from corner to corner where Clara could track. Rebecca’s white dress bid Clara to come closer and closer. It was a beacon in the maze of intersections and side streets. It finally drew her to the mouth of Wallace Station. There, Clara came to a grinding halt, her shoes digging into the pavement as she stopped short of the waiting Rebecca. The block surrounding Wallace Station was emptying. Cars were abandoned in the street as the last screaming pedestrians ran for cover.

  Looking up and down the avenue, Clara spotted Adam’s car at the curb. He and Norah got out and jogged to meet her. Rebecca stood at the station entrance and waited.

  “Did you get to the bridge?” asked Adam.

  Clara nodded. “Yeah. The bomb had already gone off, but it was a dud or a fake.”

  “Amanda said the same thing at the other bridge,” Norah said. “I think Kyle lied to us.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t want us to be there when he went after White.” Adam looked to Rebecca. “But I think she does.”

  The child pointed to the station sign. She didn’t smile this time as she descended the stairs. Looking to each other, the rest of them did as they were instructed.

  V.

  Kyle drew his gun on Damon White. The air was hot between them, sticking to their skin under their clothes. He took a breath and held it. His finger wrapped around the trigger. White’s thumb rested on the detonator in warning. He was ready for the fight—the finality of it all—whether by bullet or fire.

  “You know I had to do this,” White said. “If you’ve gotten this far then you have to know that.”

  “You killed hundreds of innocent people, Damon. That’s all I need to know about you.”

  “Nobody in this city is innocent. These people are animals that murder children and riot in the streets. You still think what I’m doing is all that bad?” White shook his head. “So, what’s the plan? You just try to keep me talking ‘til the cavalry shows up?”

  “You still think I’m a cop?”

  “Why else did you track me down?”

  “Because I decided I wanted to be the one who put you down myself.”

  “So, why not shoot me now?”

  “Because I’m not stupid enough to shoot a man wearing a bomb when I don’t know all the variables.”

  “Assuming I don’t detonate myself before you get the first shot off.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “And why is that?”

  “It’s not part of your grand design. You can’t waste your life on me when you have a bigger target in your crosshairs.”

  “So, are you going to let me go?”

  “No.”

  “Then shoot me.”

  “Not yet.”

  White swallowed. “Do you know what they did to her?”

  Kyle nodded. “I do.”

  “Then you know why I have to do this. You can understand why I’m here.”

  “I can, but I don’t care.”

  “They crushed her.”

  “I know.”

  White’s hand began to waver on the trigger. “She didn’t even have time to scream. Did you know that? They crushed her bones and broke her fingers, and she couldn’t even scream. And nobody even stopped. They didn’t even look down as they walked over her body like she was a piece of trash.”

  “And I’m sorry for that. I am,” Kyle said. “But I can’t let you do this again.”

  “Who’s going to stop me?”

  “Daddy?” asked a child’s voice.

  Tears ran down White’s face, mingling with the sweat on his skin. He and Kyle turned as Rebecca walked across the platform on silent, patent leather shoes. Adam, Norah, and Clara came down the stairs, following the whisper of her dress. Adam brought his arms across Norah and Clara instinctively to shield them from the bomb under White’s jacket. Rebecca stepped up to her father. She looked at him with clear, dark eyes as she put her tiny hand on the hand he’d fisted around the trigger. White sobbed, sinking to his knees as he grabbed Rebecca to crush her to his chest. He dropped the trigger.

  “It’s time to go home now, Daddy,” Rebecca whispered. “Okay?”

  Closing his eyes, he nodded. “Okay.”

  Kyle squeezed the trigger. The bullet entered the back of White’s skull and killed him in a soft explosion of brain matter and bone. He slumped forward to bleed out across the subway platform. Gathering her skirt, Rebecca sat beside him with an affectionate pat of his bloodied hair. She looked at Kyle, then at Adam, Clara, and Norah. She smiled.

  “Thank you,” said Rebecca.

  The air was thick with the smell of fresh blood. Kyle put his gun away and felt no satisfaction—no release in the act of retribution. Clara sank to her knees with her hand clasped over her mouth as the realization of their actions settled coldly in her gut. Norah looked away. Rebecca’s eerie silhouette dissipated into the open air in whispers and static like television snow. Adam closed his eyes as his hands drew to himself again.

  “So, that’s it,” Clara said. “It’s over.”

  “I didn’t want you here,” Kyle told her. There was no anger in his words, just the sharpened edges of disappointment. “That’s why I sent you away.”

  “We wanted to be here.” Clara took the hand Adam offered and pulled herself back up. “We told you that.”

  “I’m trying to spare you this. You’re not killers. This isn’t on you.”

  “It wasn’t your choice,” said Norah faintly, her gaze still drawn to the ground as White’s blood reached out to touch the tips of her shoes. “Rebecca White led us here. This is what she wanted—to come back for her dad.”

  Adam spoke up meekly. “It’s on all of us. We stopped him. No matter what happens now, we stopped him from hurting anyone else. That’s what counts.”

  “Let’s go home now,” Norah said. “Okay?”

  Kyle nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  Behind them, he left copies of Luther Kind’s paper trail, carefully sealed in a plastic bag to keep clean of fingerprints. The credit card statements, the fake names, and the blueprints stolen from the apartment all waited for Amanda on the subway platform in Damon White’s cooling blood. Her entire case was gift-wrapped for her. It just a breath away from being discovered as Kyle thumbed a message to her.

  “Be at Wallace Station in ten minutes,” his text read. She opened it in her car parked outside Percy Bridge. “It’s done.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I.

  When the police officially closed the case on the East Brighton Bomber, the headlines of the papers changed overnight. No longer were news networks recycling images of faked jihadist tapes; Damon White’s face filled every television in the city. An anonymous tip put Amanda Sidhari at Wallace Station where White was waiting for her with a bomb strapped to his chest. She reported that she encountered him on the platform where he threatened to detonate the device, and the bullet pulled from the back of his head matched that of her recently fired service pistol. A search of White’s apartment provided more evidence of his involvement in the rash of bombings across the city as well as clips from Al Qaeda propaganda tapes and video editing software. While the security footage from the station went missing before it could be viewed in corroboration with her story, the brass accepted her version of events without hesitation and closed the case.

  The announcement rolled over East Brighton City in an uncanny wave as p
ress conference after press conference confirmed White’s identity as the sole perpetrator of the bombings. Amanda was the focus of every broadcast. She instantly became a search term and hashtag as she proudly stood beside suits and press liaisons from the FBI and the mayor’s office. The media ran with her story, calling her the scrappy detective that followed her gut all the way to the end. As the security checkpoints were dismantled across the city and suspects were released from FBI custody, it made it easier for Mayor Sheldon to spin it as the success of the EBCPD and one of its best and brightest, who just happened to be a public relations goldmine.

  That following Monday morning, Amanda drove out to find a small family graveyard in the middle of nowhere. Brundlewood Cemetery was hidden behind country roads and dense thicket. It made sense to bury Damon White there. In a sweater and jeans, her eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, Amanda walked the dirt path to the graveyard and found Sonya White waiting for her. Two men with shovels and a backhoe dug a grave for her husband’s plain wooden box. There were no witnesses, no preacher, and no family to mark the loss. There was only Sonya and the trees.

  Brundlewood sat on Sonya’s family land as the only place left in the world that would accept her husband’s body. His family wouldn’t allow him to be buried next to Rebecca in Primrose Pines; she couldn’t bear to fight them, or to postpone his burial any further. So, Sonya bought the cheapest casket she could find and asked her brother and cousin to bury her husband. Amanda alone volunteered to witness his burial. It was only fair to stand there for Sonya when no one else would. Dressed in a white, linen dress, Sonya’s thin fingers plucked and played with the pendant at her neck. Amanda came to stand beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. They watched the men lower the casket into the earth.

  Sonya cleared her throat and tried to smile despite the tears running down her face. “Thank you for coming. You didn’t have to drive all the way out. I know this must be difficult for you.”

  “It’s nothing,” Amanda said softly. “I’m glad to come.”

  “It’s better this way,” said Sonya. “He’s with Rebecca now. It’s the only way he could ever get any peace.”

  “You did everything you could to save him. We both know that.”

  “I know. And I know he couldn’t be saved, no matter what anyone did. He was dead the minute we buried our daughter.”

  Amanda tried to think of something else to say but came up short. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know yet. There are reporters camped outside my house trying to get me to make some kind of statement. I can’t face them right now. I don’t even know what to say. Nothing I can do will ever make this okay.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. You don’t owe anyone an answer. You’re just as much a victim of this as anyone else.”

  “I know.” There was that smile again. Her lips trembled under wet, red eyes. “And thank you. For this, for everything. You’re so kind to me, and I don’t think I deserve it.”

  “You deserve a friend, Sonya. Everyone deserves that much.”

  The two men shoveled earth onto the casket. Rocks and dirt pounded on the flimsy lid. Sonya reached back to hold the hand on her shoulder, gripping Amanda’s fingers in a vice. Amanda let her, and let her weep for her family when no one else would. The gravestone had no name; it just had a date of birth and a date of death. The stone simply said, “For a Husband and Father.”

  II.

  Chris drove to Culver Park at 3:00 just like Norah had told him to. He walked the thirty feet to the swing set where she waited for him. Her fingers were loose on the chains as she kicked at the well-worn gravel beneath her feet and swayed with the breeze blowing at her back. A thick manila envelope rested in her lap; it was taped shut with his name scribbled carefully across its face. A queasy weight resting just beneath her lungs made it hard to breathe. She looked up at him and said nothing for several long seconds. She held the envelope to him.

  “Sit,” she finally said. “Please.”

  Taking the envelope, he didn’t sit. “What is this?”

  “I wrote down everything I ever wanted to say to you in a letter,” she said. “In case I chickened out.”

  He did as he was told, seating himself as comfortably as possible in the confines of the undersized swing. “Well, I’m glad that you didn’t.”

  They sat silent as she dragged her feet across the gravel and felt the rocks under the soles of her shoes. It was a charming distraction, and an easy one.

  He was the one who spoke first. “I’m also really glad that you called. I hadn’t heard from you in a while, so I figured you still hated me.”

  “I don’t hate you, Chris,” Norah said. “I loved you. I married you and I had a child with you. I don’t think I can ever forgive you for leaving us, but I can accept it for what it is.”

  “I know. And I appreciate that. Really, I do. It’s more than I probably deserve.” He licked his lips and shrugged. “I was a really shitty guy back then, and I see that now. And I also see that somehow we made an incredible little person, and now I’m ready to try to do right by her.”

  “That’s my point, Chris. Hannah’s a person. She’s strong, and she’s funny, and she’s so smart it’s really annoying. She’s an artist. Did you know what? She loves superheroes and My Little Pony, and when she grows up she wants to make comic books. You need to really understand that, okay? Because she’s not a temporary kid for you to play with until you and Beth have a baby of your own.”

  “I know.”

  “And you can’t expect her to love you off the bat, and to call you Dad, and to go to your house on the weekends. She’s never had a father before, and if she decides she’s not comfortable with this, you have to respect that. She already has a family, and trying to force her into a new one is only going to confuse her right now.”

  Chris nodded. “And is Adam part of that family?”

  Norah sighed again. “Look, Adam’s not actually my boyfriend. He’s my friend and he just did that as a favor to me.”

  “Wow.”

  “I didn’t say it was my proudest moment, okay?”

  “Definitely not. So, what made you change your mind?”

  “I don’t know.” She couldn’t tell him about Damon White, the subway, or how she held Hannah in her arms tighter than she ever had before when she got home afterward. “I have to do what I can to protect Hannah, but that doesn’t mean I have the right to keep her from her father. Because you’re right, we did make an incredible little person. No matter what happened between us, we both have Hannah to show for it.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “For giving me a chance again.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. A part of me will always love you, Chris, and another part will always think you’re a bastard. Maybe it’s just time I find a way to reconcile that for myself.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “And read the letter, okay? I was up all night drunk trying to write it, so it’s probably not that coherent, but it’s everything I wanted to tell you. It’s probably everything you need to know if you really want to stick through with this, too.”

  “I’ll read it. I promise. And I do want to do this. I want to stick with it.”

  She smiled. “Then prove it.”

  Standing up, they hugged for the first time in eight years. They separated again with smiles and tears they quickly wiped away, and Norah wasn’t angry anymore. She wasn’t angry at Chris, or Damon White, or anybody else. As Chris watched her walk away with her hands in her jacket pockets—to home and Hannah and the boarding house where her makeshift family lived—her steps were lighter than they had ever been.

  III.

  It was just after noon when Kyle found Luther Kind waiting for him at the Go Nightly Diner with two slices of pie: one cherry, one apple, with vanilla ice cream on the side. The black coffee he’d ordered was cooling. The sight of all six feet and two inches of Luther tucked politely into the booth put a rock in Kyle’s gut as he
walked to the offered seat. Kyle hadn’t been to the Go Nightly Diner in weeks. It was just one of a series of restaurants and cafes he haunted on this side of town. He came to Camden that morning to see Ben, but instead Luther was in the diner and the booth Kyle specifically requested for Ben. Kyle straightened up, kept his hands at his sides, and betrayed nothing of his reservations as he sat down across from the other man.

  Folding his hands on the table, Luther smiled graciously. “You know, Mr. Jeong, I had a feeling you were a black coffee and pie man. You don’t seem to have much of a sweet tooth, so I knew cake was out, and you’re too straightforward for something like a cupcake or some cannoli. But then I realized, for all my digging, I had no idea what to order. So, I figured I’d cover my bases.”

  Kyle looked at the slices of pie. He reached for the cherry pie and the bowl of vanilla ice cream. “Do I have to ask what happened to Ben?”

  “Oh, come on, you make me sound like some kind of thug. Your friend is fine. In fact, I went to his supervisor personally and told him to give Ben the afternoon off. No leg breaking required. I just wanted to make this meeting as personable as possible.”

  “You could have called.”

  Luther shrugged. “Research indicates you’re not keen on answering your phone.”

  “Research?” Kyle took a bite of his pie and a sip of his coffee. “You mean wiretapping and malware?”

  “What, and you’re the only one with a psychic in your pocket, Mr. Jeong? There’s a vast ocean out there for people like us, and your friend Bridger Levi is just one little fish in it.”

  “People like us?”

  “Yes.” Luther smiled again. “People like us.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Have you thought about my offer at all?”

  Kyle shook his head. “Been busy, in case you haven’t been watching the news.”

  “Yeah, you’re welcome, by the way.”

  “I wasn’t thanking you.”

  “My statement stands. That was a very classy move, too, to wrap the whole thing up and deliver it to Detective Sidhari like that. You found a way to make White’s death meaningful. That’s impressive.”