If I Die Tonight

by Alison Gaylin

  “If it’s between Amy and that Wade kid, I’d put my money on her.”

  “It isn’t.”

  Joy started to walk away again. Pearl took another swallow but realized she no longer felt like drinking alone. “Wait,” she said. “Why?”

  “Because I know boys. And that kid didn’t fix his driver’s license like that because he wanted to get drunk and steal a car.”

  “Why did he do it then?”

  “He was in love. He was all excited about meeting some girl in this place, and it wasn’t Aimee En.” She plucked her phone out of her pocket, glanced at the screen. “He was in love,” she said again. “It was obvious.”

  “Well, nothing’s really obvious,” Pearl said. “We all think we can read other people’s thoughts and they can’t read ours. Because we’re all so much more complicated than the rest of the world. Please. The truth is, nobody knows anybody.”

  “Beg to differ. I knew you were a cop the minute you walked in.”

  Pearl rolled her eyes. “That was just a good guess.”

  “And what about Aimee En?” Joy said it to her screen. “What did I say about her?”

  “You said she’s thirsty.”

  Joy held her phone out. “This is the latest picture on her Twitter feed.”

  Pearl looked at it: a selfie, taken with an exhausted-looking blonde in an expensive sweater. Amy had used a filter so thick, the photo looked as though it had been taken underwater, but after a few seconds, Pearl recognized the blond woman from pool-hopping night. She read the accompanying tweet: With my beautiful soul sister, Sheila Miller. Tragedy has brought us together. #darkestbeforedawn #heroine #blessed.

  “So?” Joy said. “What do you think?”

  Pearl shook her head, her suspicions of Amy coming back to life, blooming. “I think that you’re a good judge of character,” she said.

  CELIA RILEY, WHOSE youngest daughter, Maddie, was in Connor’s class, was a relatively new client of Jackie’s, a seller. They’d met in early September, at one of the monthly Women’s Networking Breakfasts held at Brighton’s Café on Orchard, and they’d hit it off instantly, with Celia telling Jackie she couldn’t think of a better agent to put her house on the market. Jackie had given Celia’s house the once-over and liked what she saw: a modern ranch with hardwood floors and a sparkling new kitchen that included an enormous marble-topped island, a Sub-Zero fridge, and a gourmet gas range. Together, they’d decided not much work was needed at all. Celia and her husband, Greg, took out a loan to spruce up their two and a half bathrooms anyway, and once that was complete, Jackie had scheduled an open house, set to take place Saturday. So when she saw Celia’s number on the caller ID screen of her private line at work, it wasn’t unexpected. “Looking forward?”

  “Hi, Jackie,” Celia said.

  Jackie didn’t like the tone in her voice.

  “Listen. I’m really sorry, but Greg and I have decided to switch agents.”

  Jackie’s heart sank. “What?” She’d already had signs made, taken out an ad in the local paper. The open house was on the home page of the Potter Bloom Web site. “If there’s any problem you guys have with the way I’m handling your listing, I’d be happy to talk things over.”

  “It’s nothing against you. You’ve been wonderful. We just don’t think it’s going to work out, you know, what with everything going on.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Maddie showed us a few things online.”

  Jackie’s heart sank. “What do you mean?” she asked. But she knew. Maybe not specifics, but she didn’t need specifics after this morning. “You’re doing this because of Wade.”

  “I wish you and your sons the very best.” Celia said it in a way that made Jackie feel as though she were sinking into quicksand with the whole world standing around her, watching and pointing and doing nothing to help. “You are in my thoughts and prayers.”

  “Wade didn’t do anything wrong. He would never hurt anyone. He’s being attacked unfairly. He’s just a boy.”

  Jackie paused to catch her breath and realized the line was dead. Celia had hung up, taking her thoughts and prayers along with her. “Great.” Jackie hung up the phone. She put her head in her hands and rubbed her eyes, wishing she were alone, just so she could scream. When she lifted her head, Jackie noticed a strange silence in the room, the feel of people watching her.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Helen said.

  But when she looked around the office, Jackie saw that it wasn’t okay at all. The two other agents on floor time today were a usually genial retired couple named Marty and Beth. Both sat at their desks, watching her with narrowed eyes. Jackie recalled how they hadn’t greeted her when they’d come in to work the way they usually did, how they’d directed their hellos to Helen, rather than herself. She said, “What are you both looking at?”

  Beth spotted something fascinating through the window. Marty busied himself with his cell phone.

  “Amazing,” she said. And then Jackie heard her own name—her boss, Zane Bloom, standing outside of his office, asking her to come in.

  Jackie got up and walked across the room, her face burning, each click of her heels on the wood floor echoing. Zane gave her a pained smile as he ushered her in and closed the door behind her. Not a good sign. Zane never closed his door.

  Jackie started to sit down, but Zane held up a hand. “Listen, sweetheart,” he said. “This doesn’t have to be a long conversation. I just think it would be best for you to take a couple of days off.”

  She stared at him—the slight tremor in his upper lip, the dabs of sweat just above his tortoiseshell glasses. Zane was not a confrontational guy. He never had been in her ten years of knowing him, and so this wasn’t easy for him, she could tell. And if anything, that only made her more furious, the idea that he’d had to push himself to be so blatantly unfair. “Can I ask why?”

  “You know how people get in this town.”

  She said, “I do now.”

  “I’ve been getting phone calls, Jackie. Concerned citizens. Someone said Wade’s been questioned by the police.”

  “Who said that?”

  “People. Lots of them.”

  “You can’t give me names,” she said. “You’re giving them anonymity, even though I’ve worked here for more than ten years.”

  “It doesn’t matter who they are. What matters is, we’re a business and we cater to the community. I can’t have this type of disruption. I’ve started hearing from reporters.”

  “Reporters?” Her eyes widened. “Reporters have been calling you about me?”

  “About your son, yes. And about you.”

  “My God.” Jackie shook her head. She wanted to say more, but she couldn’t find the words.

  “You understand, don’t you, Jackie?” He moved back toward the door and opened it. “You’ve got to understand.”

  It sounded like an order: You’ve got to understand. There’s no other choice. And Jackie supposed there wasn’t, not really. She moved back through the office and to her desk, the back of her neck sweat-slicked, determined not to look at Marty or Beth as she passed.

  How things had changed since Liam Miller’s death. Since this morning even, when Jackie had gotten dressed and driven to Wade’s school, hoping she would see Sheila and Chris Miller at the assembly so that she might pay her respects.

  “Everything okay?” Helen whispered.

  Jackie still couldn’t speak. There was only one personal item on her desk: a framed photograph of Connor and Wade, taken five years ago at the Potter Bloom picnic, both of them sun-dappled and laughing, their arms around Zane Bloom’s golden retriever. The picture had been sitting there since it was taken—a fixture. For years, Jackie hadn’t paid it much attention, but now it seemed to mock her. Those two happy faces, unaware of what they would grow up to be.

  When did Wade lose those dimples?

  Jackie picked up the photograph and dropped it in her purse.

  “No,” Helen said.
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  “You want to walk me to my car?”

  “You’re not leaving here.”

  “Just for a few days.” Jackie kept her voice smooth and forced a cheery smile, well aware of Marty and Beth. “Just a little break. Walk with me.”

  Helen waited until they were outside to speak. “It’s like the entire world has gone insane.” She started to say more, but Jackie stopped her.

  “I need Garrett now.”

  “You don’t. This will blow over. It has to. This is ridiculous.”

  Jackie looked at Helen, at the pink sky behind her—another perfect autumn sunset easing in. She thought of Wade this afternoon, how unresponsive he’d been with the police, the way he’d yelled at her, that anger.

  “Wade didn’t do it,” Helen said. “That’s just a fact. The facts will win.”

  Jackie looked at her, that calm certainty in those pretty, even features, that stubborn kindness. Wade had always liked Helen. He’d always been able to talk to her. When he was younger, Jackie had even suspected he had a bit of a crush on her, and it was easy to see why. Helen looked at you like this and you saw the world the way she did and it was lovely. Unless, that is, you knew better. “He was out that night,” Jackie said.

  “What?”

  “The same night Liam was hit, Wade was out. He admitted it to me, but he refused to say where he was.”

  Helen started shaking her head. “That doesn’t mean anything. There were lots of people out that night. Heck, I was out that night at some point. We ran out of milk and—”

  “He was out, Helen, at that exact hour. He threw his wet clothes in the dryer and dried them, and he never does that. I looked at his phone and found a photograph, taken from the inside of a car, around the same time Liam was hit.”

  Helen blinked. “You looked at his phone?” she said, which of course was beside the point, but Jackie understood. She said nothing for a while, watching Helen sort it out in her mind.

  “Helen,” she said finally. “We need a lawyer.”

  “You go home. I’ll call Garrett,” she said. “I’ll call him right away.”

  CONNOR STAYED OFF his phone. He ignored his Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat—easy to do, considering any messages he was getting today were probably ones he didn’t want to see. After the cop left and he went into his house, Connor did his math homework, drew Magic Marker charts on big pieces of white poster board for his and Noah’s science project; then he went into the den and played Minecraft for more than an hour, even though Minecraft had been boring him lately—anything he could do to forget what he’d seen today, what he now knew.

  It was hard to concentrate on the game, though. He couldn’t forget. In fact, Connor couldn’t stop thinking of that stream of direct messages Jordan had shown him and of his brother down the hallway, behind his closed bedroom door, thinking his weird angry thoughts without ever coming out or even making a sound. Wade, who had made Connor promise to forget Friday night had ever happened, who expected loyalty from him without giving so much as an explanation in return. Think about it, Connor told himself. Wade might very well have killed Liam Miller. And he was ruining Connor’s life. He didn’t deserve that type of loyalty.

  When he couldn’t take it any longer, Connor got up from the couch. He headed down the hallway to his brother’s room, that anger rushing through him, lava in his veins. He pounded on Wade’s door.

  “Just a second,” Wade said.

  He answered at least ten seconds later, rubbing his eyes. “I didn’t know you were home.”

  “It’s like five PM,” Connor said. “Why wouldn’t I be home?”

  “I fell asleep.”

  “Oh.”

  “You hear about my car?”

  “Yeah,” Connor said, anger rising again. “I heard about your car.”

  “Sucks.”

  “Why did you go psycho, Wade?”

  Wade frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Tamara Hayes.”

  “You mean that one comment on her Instagram? I deleted it like five seconds later.”

  “Not one comment,” Connor said. “A rant. A messed-up, insane, psycho-killer direct message rant that may as well have come from Michael Myers. You’re lucky she didn’t call the cops on you.”

  “What?”

  “Why did you do it, Wade? Why do you do any of the shit you do? Do you have any idea how hard my life is because of you? Jordan was one of my best friends, but you went and you fucked that up just like you fuck up everything.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t have any friends because of you!”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  Connor stared at him.

  “I didn’t send any direct messages to Tamara,” he said. “I’ve been asleep since I got home.” Wade’s eyes were clear, unblinking and so obviously confused . . . Connor’s stomach dropped.

  “Someone sent Tamara a bunch of weird-assed messages from your Instagram.”

  “Why would somebody do that?” Wade said. “Everybody likes Tamara.”

  “To make you look bad,” Connor said slowly. “To make everybody hate you.”

  “Whatever,” he said.

  “You don’t care?”

  “My tires got slashed today. I got called into Penny’s office and questioned by cops. There was so much fucking hate speech on my Facebook page, I wound up shutting the whole page down. This shit with Tamara is just more of the same.”

  Connor took a step closer. He watched his face. “Why does everybody think you killed Liam?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where were you that night?”

  Wade gave Connor a long look—half evasive, half pissed at him for asking. Then he cocked his head to one side, as though he wasn’t sure how to play it. “I don’t need to tell anybody where I was,” he said, finally. “If other people want to believe shit about me, that isn’t my problem. It’s theirs.”

  He headed for the kitchen, and Connor followed him, guilt tugging at him so hard his chest felt constricted. He could barely breathe. Before coming into the house, he’d gotten into the front seat of the cop car. He’d told Officer Udel about Wade in his room in the middle of the night. He’d told him about the bag Wade had left in Connor’s closet, how he’d thrown it out at the Lukoil station, how he was 99 percent sure that it had contained a phone.

  “You’ve been super-helpful, Connor,” Officer Udel had said. “You’ve done us a great service.”

  “I was so mad earlier when I found my car,” Wade said. “I felt like I wanted to break things. But then I realized something. If I freak out, if I break things, then they win.”

  On the kitchen counter was an uneaten grilled cheese sandwich, chips, a wedge of pickle. Wade took the plate to the kitchen table, sat down, and took a bite. “Lunch note,” he said, pointing to a folded-up piece of notebook paper. “Remember how Mom used to put those in our lunch boxes all the time?”

  Connor nodded, a lump in his throat. He watched Wade open the note, watched him place it on the table, smiling a little but not saying anything.

  The note read: “I believe in you.”

  Twenty-One

  Pearl’s morning didn’t start out well. Yanked out of a death-like sleep, she realized she wasn’t at home and panicked at first, taking several seconds to figure out where she was. Then she saw the neon Labatt’s sign on the wall and Paul’s Celtic-tattooed arm across her chest and knew where she was, which was worse.

  The Labatt’s sign had come from a bar and grill in Paul’s college town. He’d worked there busing tables while studying for his premed degree, but then the bar had closed down and his scholarship money had dried up, and he’d been forced to drop out. Paul had taken the sign the day the bar closed, to remind him of everything that might have been, and the fact that Pearl knew all this about him was absolutely pathetic. Responding to his late-night text was one thing. Driving to his apartment and having sex with him was another. But tal
king to him afterward, sleeping with him in his bed and staying past dawn . . . Pearl cringed. What is wrong with me?

  Carefully, she lifted Paul’s arm off and slid out from under the covers, determined not to rouse him. But as alertness settled in, she realized what had woken her up in the first place—her phone vibrating beneath her pillow. By the time she managed to grab hold of it, Paul was awake asking, “What’s going on?” And whoever had called had gone to voice mail.

  “Sssh. Go back to sleep.” She glanced at the clock on Paul’s nightstand. It was 6:00 AM. She slipped the phone from under the pillow, wide awake now, heart beating faster. Calls that came at 6:00 AM were rarely calls you looked forward to taking.

  “Was it your brother calling?” Paul said. “Oh man. I hope your dad is okay . . .”

  Pearl closed her eyes. Great. I told him about all that too. She sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the phone to vibrate in her hand with the new voice message. The room still smelled of the incense Paul had burned last night, and the floor was littered with about a dozen spent sticks, discarded clothes, and empty beer bottles and . . . was that Paul’s high school yearbook? Jesus.

  Pearl looked at the screen. It wasn’t her father’s number and she was relieved, though she wasn’t sure why she cared so much. “It’s the station,” she said.

  “I thought you didn’t have work today.”

  “So did I.”

  Paul moved next to her and kissed her cheek. “You think you’ll have time for breakfast?”

  “Don’t know till I listen to the message.”

  Paul told her he was going to make some eggs and toast anyway, and she could have some “to stay or to go. Your call.”

  His place was just one room—convertible futon at one end, kitchen at the other. Pearl watched his naked body as he moved toward the kitchen. She couldn’t help but admire the view. How she wished he’d say or do something to annoy her. She didn’t mind anything about him right now—not even the Celtic tattoo. It had been a mistake, coming here.

  Pearl had had one serious relationship in her life, back when she was in the police academy, and that hadn’t ended well—a guy her year named Lawrence who had claimed he wasn’t upset at all by her “backstory” as he so charmingly called it. But he had been. “I can’t help it,” Lawrence had admitted one night. “When I’m with you, I feel like I have to sleep with one eye open.” He’d cheated on her, of course. From her experience, guys were always looking for an excuse to cheat, and she apparently came equipped with one. She was a bad seed, damaged goods. And if she tried to keep that “backstory” of hers hidden, it would rise up and bite her, the way it had in Poughkeepsie, so she couldn’t win. It was best to stay single, to meet her needs and move on quickly, keeping her head down.