by Z. Rider
He shot the bottle cap off the edge and stood, holding himself in check. Holding himself in that imaginary cage. “Yeah.”
Shawn’s eyes met his—brown, inquisitive, but not alarmed or wary.
Jesus, he should be.
Dean needed to take care of himself tonight. Needed it because his teeth were sliding down behind his lips, and his eyes were dragging his attention to the pulse at Shawn’s neck.
In the lobby, Mike handed him a key. He trudged up the stairs, behind Shawn and Wayne. Kept going past them, heading for room 208.
He took the time to hang the Do Not Disturb sign from the doorknob before dropping his shit on the room’s single bed.
A toilet on the other side of the wall flushed.
Another door in the hall fell shut.
He could breathe, though. He was alone, walls between him and everyone else.
(But the smell of Shawn lingered, dark and tempting.)
He stripped and showered, then padded with wet feet out of the bathroom to tug the room’s drapes shut. The sky was taking on a purple hue near the horizon, his nemesis readying its climb into the sky.
He peeked along the edges of the drapes. Still able to see the parking lot’s lights, he adjusted the curtains again.
Dropped his hand.
Could still see the fucking lights. This wasn’t going to work.
He stripped the bed and dragged the bedding into the bathroom. The tub was wet, so he threw the bath mat over its side and made himself a bed on the floor, his feet pushed between the toilet and the tub.
After a few minutes, he got up and locked the door, then settled back down.
He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning his forehead against the bathtub’s cool side. He tried to get some sleep, even as the roots of his teeth pulsed. His stomach felt like it was gnawing on itself, and the sun—he could tell even lying there in the cool bathroom—started to glimmer at the edge of the horizon.
2.
* * *
“Are you sure?” Bays said. It was eight in the morning, and Carl’s eyes stung. His nerves were raw from lack of sleep. He nodded, clutching the back of the chair parked in front of Bays’ desk.
Bays set down the envelope. That was going to have to go into evidence. Cops were on their way to the apartment right now to do another search. Lewis was on his way to the D.A., looking to get a warrant to search Tim’s parents’ house, because who knew how far back it went. Who knew what might be in boxes in their basement, or the back of the closet in Tim’s old room.
The girl in this envelope, Carl had no idea who she was, but she was very, very not alive anymore. It had been taken outside, and it didn’t look like it had been taken around here—too lush, fat drops of rain on green leaves, pale fingers resting against moist soil. The Polaroids were a little faded, overexposed at one edge. They predated Soph, probably.
The darkness at the girl’s throat, at first he’d thought she’d tied a thin scarf around her neck. He’d seen girls with that look. But the blood bled red in the fabric of her white blouse, and he’d had to take another look at her throat—and then look away, his guts clenching like a fist.
“Have a seat,” Bays said.
“Are you going to get him?”
“I’m going to go have a chat with the captain. Sit tight.” He left Carl staring at the envelope, his fingers gripping his knees. Nerves jangling. Heart thudding. The photos might be from Oregon. Tim had spent a summer with his cousins there when he was seventeen.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
His cheeks washed cold and hot all over again. He squeezed his eyes shut and dug his fingers into his knees.
When Bays finally got him, almost two hours later, and brought him back down the hall they’d been down the day before, Carl didn’t know what to do with his hands—pockets, hair, crossed and stuffed under his armpits. He let Bays sweep the door open, then he walked in.
Tim, his wrists cuffed in front of him, looked up. His lips twitched. His eyes went from Carl to Bays to Carl.
Carl wondered what he was thinking.
“Five minutes,” Bays said, but Carl had a feeling he’d let it go on as long as he needed to. Knew Bays would be standing on the other side of the two-way mirror, and he wouldn’t be alone.
Bays closed the door.
Carl approached the table.
“Crazy, huh?” Tim said. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on. They’re saying I killed some girl.”
Carl dragged the other chair out, unable to meet his eyes.
Tim leaned across the table. “You’ve gotta believe me. I couldn’t kill anyone.”
Carl couldn’t stop his gaze from flicking toward the mirror. His chest was tight. He had no idea where to start.
This was his only friend.
“When’d you get back?” Tim asked.
“Night before last.”
“Anything exciting to tell?”
Carl shook his head.
“But you found him, right?”
His shoulders tightened. He very pointedly did not look toward the mirror. He couldn’t let Tim talk him into trouble. “I met one of the guys in the band,” he said. “Briefly.” The crack of the stake snapping. The palpable memory came at him: the guy’s shoulder bumping him out of the way, the rich scent of blood, like being in a butcher’s cooler.
“What happened?” he asked Tim, shifting in the hard chair. Gripping its seat.
“I don’t fucking know. They gave me a lawyer, and he’s not worth shit. I think he graduated from law school like two days ago. Contract law, I bet. He just keeps telling me this bullshit—”
“Did you do it?”
“Jesus! How can you even ask me that? You fucking know me!” He spread his fingers against the table. “You fucking know me!”
Carl stared at one of Tim’s fingernails, grime wedged underneath it. “They said they found blood on your shirt.”
“I told them—one of the kids at the alley had a bloody nose. I told them to ask around, but they’re telling me not one fucking person remembers the kid with the bloody nose.”
“They found Polaroids of the girl under your mattress.”
“From a couple months ago! I met her at the bowling alley. We went on a date, one date.”
“I don’t remember you going on any dates.” Not in all the time he’d known him. And he hadn’t bothered to think about how that was strange, because it wasn’t like he’d been seeing any girls himself. It had been a relief, actually—no pressure to join him on double dates, no laughing and making out in the other room while Carl pored over his folder.
“You don’t remember shit about shit. All you care about is that guy that killed your sister. Your head’s so far up your ass on that—”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
He felt like he was on a steamroller with no brakes. He gripped the seat harder, fingernails digging against metal. “Did you kill my sister?”
White showed around Tim’s eyes. He drew back, his cuffs clinking as he dropped his hands in his lap. His mouth gaped open. “I can’t even believe you just said that to me.”
The chair under Carl shot backward. He was halfway across the table, holding on to its far edge for his life, right up in Tim’s face. “Did you fucking kill my sister?”
He expected the door to fly open, the cops to spill in.
Instead there was silence. The in-and-out heaving of his chest. His spittle on Tim’s lip.
A vein in his temple throbbed.
His knuckles ached from gripping the table.
The two of them were frozen in that tableau until Tim pushed his chair farther back and rose, hands dangling in front of him. “I don’t think I want to talk to you right now.”
Carl lowered his head, his eyes squeezing shut.
His arms trembled.
A hot tear pushed against his lashes.
“I’m ready to go!” Tim called, turning his face to the door. And while they waited for
someone to open it, Tim, antsy, said, “I think you need to think about our friendship. You’ll see I didn’t do it if you think about it. Why the hell would I hang out with you if I’d done that to your sister? To little Soph? Really? I mean, Jesus Christ, who the fuck do you think I am?”
Without lifting his head, Carl said, “What about the other girl?”
Now the door flew open. Uniformed cops pushed in, Bays standing at the door, a folder clutched in his hand. Watching Carl as they hauled Tim out by the elbow.
Tim turned his head and said, “Whatever happened with that guy you were chasing across the country? Huh? What’d you do to him?”
3.
* * *
Knocking woke Dean. It had to be hours later—he could feel the sun out there, its fingers digging into every crack.
The light was out in the bathroom, the dark close and comforting. He tugged the blanket higher and curled up again.
Eventually the knocking stopped.
Time ticked.
He woke again, stiff, and rolled to sitting, patting the floor for his cigarettes.
The sun was still out there. Handy to know—it’d suck to accidentally walk into something like that.
He had a feeling the next time he tried facing the sun, it was going to more than hurt.
He smoked and paced and sat. Stood and splashed his face. Looked at himself in the mirror, with that eerie visual clarity despite the dark. The man in the mirror wasn’t the person he’d been looking at for twenty-five years. He peeled his lips back. Touched the tip of his tongue to a tooth.
He snarled at the reflection, impressed for a second with how that looked. Smiled a little even.
The pantomime stirred up a need in him to do something with these teeth. He turned and paced the tiny space. Sat on the toilet, tapping the rhythm to “Boiler Room” on the edge of the tub. Fucking waiting.
He felt like a lion, shut up in a cage, but in a few hours, the cage door would swing open.
4.
* * *
When Carl got to his apartment, the cops were just leaving. He closed the front door as their cars pulled out of the parking lot. The neighbors had to be enjoying the excitement. The guy a few doors down had been standing on the catwalk with his can of beer when Carl had come up. His lip had curled as Carl passed by him.
He pressed his forehead against the door. The weight of the apartment leaned on him. The place was a mess, just a different mess than when he’d trawled through it.
Bile soured his throat. He clenched his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead.
He strode to the bathroom, landing on his knees in front the toilet just as everything came up—the morning’s coffee, the half of a dry Pop Tart he’d forced down with it, the bite of sandwich Bays had prodded him into eating.
He dropped back and collapsed against the wall, an arm on his knee. A hand over his face. Contents from the vanity drawer lay scattered across the floor. The towels had been ripped out from under the sink. He’d probably done that. The cops might have been neater about it if it had been them.
He felt like things were about to fall apart. Bays hadn’t asked him about the guy Tim had mentioned in the interview room, but Tim had enough information to get their curiosity up if they wanted to be curious.
He should be worried about that. He should be down at his car right now, cleaning out the evidence that connected him with the biker, but all he could think about was pizza. All the fucking pizzas he’d shared with the guy who’d killed his sister, talking the whole time about a guy who’d had nothing to do with it.
He’d gone after the wrong fucking guy, for two fucking years.
He’d been a party to killing the wrong guy.
You saved a guy’s life, showing up when you did on that bus.
Small consolation.
Things happen for a reason.
Soph hadn’t happened for a reason. There had been no fucking reason for that to happen to Soph. She hadn’t fucking died just so he could show up at the right time to save some musician from a vampire.
Why would he do it? Why?
Bays had had a piss-poor answer: Son, some people are just wrong in the head.
Not good enough. Not good enough by a long shot.
His hands shook as he stuffed clothes into a bag. Clean clothes, dirty clothes—he paid no attention. Tim had come right up to him that day he’d sat on the gym steps, blaming himself for not hanging around after dropping off Jonesy. She would have had two sets of eyes on her, man.
Fuck you and your fucking eyes.
He wished he’d seen that falling apart piece of shit car after Jonesy’d gone in. Wished he’d seen Tim with his fucking eyes on her.
And he got mad at himself all over again: if he’d glanced up and seen Tim Randall chatting with Soph, he’d have just gone back to reading his fucking book.
But at least then—at least then he could have said, “I saw her talking to a biker, and Tim Randolph.”
The bag was overstuffed. The zipper wouldn’t close. He yelled at it with everything he had, until his head felt hollow and light, his blood pulsing hard in his temples.
He parked in front of a convenience store, its front windows lit against the evening. A woman came out clutching a brown bag, cheap white bread poking out the top. A couple of teenagers went in, arguing with each other. He had nowhere to go. He had two dollars in his pocket, and the banks were closed. No parents’ house to run to. His aunt and uncle—he hadn’t been able to face them since Soph. Every exchange with them afterward had been awkward, impossible. They didn’t blame him; they told him they didn’t blame him. But he blamed himself, and he couldn’t deal with their not admitting they blamed him too.
And, God, now look at him. His chest caved. He’d not only let her get killed, he’d moved in with her fucking killer. How he wasn’t in jail himself right now—he could only credit some keen sense on Bays’ part. Because if Carl were a cop, he’d have put his ass in jail right alongside Tim’s.
Who moves in with the guy who killed his sister and doesn’t know it?
Anyone would think he’d been in on it. His aunt and uncle—the minute they heard, they’d have to think he’d been in on it.
He yanked his key from the ignition and went into the store. Bought two packs of Camels and asked for matches. Lit up as he walked out the door, and man that felt good. That was the first thing that had felt good in days.
He climbed into the back seat, right in the convenience store parking lot, shoving the beach ball of a duffle bag he’d packed against the back of the passenger seat. He curled up, knees pulled up, jacket draped over his shoulder. He had no idea where else to go. The thought of the apartment made his stomach buck, his throat clench. The wreck of the place—all their things strewn on the floor, ripped apart, gone through.
A shadow appeared in the car’s windows, peering in.
Carl tugged the jacket higher, covering his eyes. He listened to the soles of shoes walk away, crunching grit in the parking lot.
Twenty minutes later, a car pulled alongside his. A flashlight shined in the window. The cop knocked, and Carl folded himself out of the backseat, rumpled and unsteady. The cop listened to his brief, halting story, no expression on his face. Checked in with the station on the radio in his car. Came back telling him he needed to find someplace to go; he couldn’t sleep in the convenience store parking lot.
He dragged himself behind the wheel and moved to a diner a few blocks away, someplace lit up inside with people coming and going. He parked closer to the street this time, less obvious, and climbed into the back seat again to wait for morning with the school photo of Soph in his hand. He was going back to talk to Bays. Tim Randolph was going away for killing his sister, he was going to make sure of it. He didn’t know what he could offer, but there had to be something.
5.
* * *
Shoes on his feet, room and bus keys in his pocket. Dean took the stairs down to the ground floor, turning toward t
he hotel’s side exit instead of the lobby. He didn’t need the desk clerk remembering him leaving.
He’d lost track of what town they were in. He remembered the early tours, the first ones they’d done by bus. The excitement of going to the next town and the next. Chicago! St. Louis! Hell, I even can’t wait to see what Boise’s like! Teddy’d pipe up, saying he’d been to Boise, and he’d have some story about it—a van broken down, a club manager that shorted the payout, a crowd so wild three people came out of the show with stitches.
He had no fucking idea where he was.
Bland hotel, McDonald’s on the corner, a gas station across the road, interstate beyond that, headlights flickering through the overpass guardrails.
He hiked to the convenience store, his shoulders bristling at the heavy, greasy smell of burgers and fries at the McDonalds. The store was bright, making him squint—he had to stop himself from shielding his eyes with his hand as he moved past the candy bars and motor oil, antacids and cases of cold drinks. The clerk, a skinny guy in his fifties with a faded anchor tattoo on his forearm, sported nicotine stains on his fingers. An unfiltered cigarette burned in a beansack ashtray by the register.
“Coupla Winston softpacks.” Dean pulled folded-up bills from his pocket. “Matches too.”
The clerk rang him up, gave him change back from his two dollars.
Out in the parking lot, he peeled a pack open and stuck a cigarette between his teeth. He turned his head to follow a woman hurrying from the pumps to the store, her coat held closed, her hair flapping in the wind.
Apparently it was chilly out. He didn’t feel it, in his thin shirt and jeans. As he stuffed the two packs of smokes in his jeans pockets, though, he still missed his jacket. He had to move the buck knife to a front pocket to make room for the smokes in the back.
It took some walking to get to a place where it didn’t look too strange, some guy out on foot. Places these days had too many roads set up for cars, too few accommodations for pedestrians. But he’d made it to a neighborhood off the main road, one with houses that didn’t all look the same, a place with sidewalks and gnarled trees, their branches casting dark shadows over the concrete.
