If I Die Tonight

by Alison Gaylin

  Here it is:

  “Always Be Kind”

  By Liam Miller, Age 8

  If you meet up with a grizzly

  With really big claws

  Or a shark in the ocean

  Who looks just like Jaws

  If a scary bank robber

  Points a gun in your face

  Or a bully says “you loser”

  And makes you feel out of place

  Don’t be hurtful or mean

  That will make you bad as them.

  Be kind! Join the nice team!

  Kindness wins in the end

  Thirty

  Bill knew his way around the county judicial system, Jackie had to give him that. Before they even took off for the jail, he’d arranged to have Wade brought to the courthouse, where, after a speedy hearing, he got him released on his own recognizance. Jackie had expected Wade to be angry at the sight of his father, but as he was brought into the courtroom, wrists cuffed, Wade looked more shell-shocked than anything else. And watching him, Jackie felt the same. As Bill spoke to the judge, she recalled a dream she’d had the previous night: Wade and herself, standing at Liam’s shrine. They’d come to pay their respects, but before long, they discovered the shrine was dangerous—not only inhospitable to them, but a living, breathing, growing thing. In the dream, Jackie had watched helplessly as the shrine swelled around Wade and drowned him, bouquets of flowers squirming over him like snakes, trophies bashing at him, stuffed animals suffocating him with Mylar balloons, the whole awful colorful mass gathering into a wave and pulling him under . . . She closed her eyes, forced the memory from her mind. Made herself look at Wade again. The handcuffs couldn’t come off soon enough.

  Once Wade was released, they got into their two separate cars. “You need directions to our place?” Jackie said.

  Bill shook his head. “I remember.”

  Wade didn’t speak at all in the car. When they were about halfway home, Jackie said, “Your father wanted to represent you. I know it’s strange, but I think he’ll do a good job.”

  Wade shrugged. He didn’t reply, didn’t open his mouth. They drove the rest of the way home in the dark of early evening, neither one of them speaking. Jackie tried to remember what little she knew about the booking process for prisoners; then, after remembering, tried to forget it. When they pulled into their driveway, Bill’s car was outside. He’d actually beaten them there, always a fast driver. Jackie thought of him inside the house, with Connor, how awkward that must be. She got out of the car quickly, then opened Wade’s door. “I believe in you,” she told him. “We’re going to beat this.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Wade said.

  “What?”

  “You shouldn’t believe in me.”

  He got out of the car, and she followed him up the driveway. Walking along the short path that led to the front door, Jackie had the strangest feeling of being watched. She looked up and down the street, and ushered Wade inside fast, knowing that it wasn’t just a feeling. They would be watched for a while.

  CONNOR DIDN’T WANT to open the door. He was scared in his own house. More scared than he’d ever been, anywhere. He’d toughed it out through school, ignoring the stares from the other kids, sticking close to good old oblivious Noah for the rest of the day and trying not to think about that text he’d received, who had sent it. Your whole family should die . . .

  And then, as he and Noah were heading to the parking lot, one of Mason Marx’s loser friends had shoved him in the hallway—the dorky elf with the spiky hair. “Your perv Satanist brother got arrested today,” he’d said, smirking. “They found drugs and kiddie porn in his locker.”

  Connor had shoved him right back, and Noah had called him an asshole and a liar. But he still had a sinking feeling, the avalanche barreling closer. And then, about an hour after Noah’s mom had dropped him home, just as he was starting to lose himself in Minecraft, Mom had texted him telling him Wade really had been arrested. Connor had thought again of that avalanche. Brace yourself. It’s here.

  Connor had purposely stayed off social media, but that didn’t do much to alleviate this creeping sense of panic. He had to get his brain off whatever was going on with Wade’s arrest. The more he thought about it, the more worried he got—not so much for him or even for Wade, but for Mom. She had anxiety issues. Connor knew that for a fact—he’d seen the pills in her nightstand. Xanax. What if the stress of Wade’s arrest got to be too much for her and she had a heart attack? He hadn’t been able to get that thought out of his mind—Mom on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. He knew he had to catch up on To Kill a Mockingbird for English, and so he’d tried to do that, but the words just danced and blurred on the page, none of it making any sense to him, the panic bearing down.

  About twenty minutes ago, Mom had texted him again. And while he was relieved she was still okay, the text itself had disturbed him even more: On our way back from the courthouse. Wade released. We will have a trial date soon. DON’T WORRY. Dad is on the case. He will prove Wade’s innocence.

  Connor had stared at the text thinking, Dad? Seriously? And then someone had driven by their house, horn blaring, tires shrieking, a group of people yelling out of a car window: “Murderer!” Connor could hear them, all the way from the kitchen.

  What is happening?

  And now the doorbell. Connor didn’t want to answer it. He wanted to run to his room and hide under the covers, stay there until he could wake up from this nightmare.

  The doorbell rang again. He put his book down and turned around so he could see the window next to the front door. A man was standing there. He could see his outline in the porch light—tall, wearing a suit and an opened trench coat. Could be a cop, or maybe a vigilante out to get Wade. Could be a contract killer, or Slenderman. Anybody. Connor’s heart pounded. The suit rang the bell again, pounded on the door. “Connor?” he said. “Are you in there?”

  Okay. I’m pretty sure Slenderman wouldn’t know my name. Connor moved toward the door. “Yeah?” His voice cracked.

  “Open up. It’s your dad.”

  Wow. Mom wasn’t kidding. Connor opened the door slowly. He looked up at the man’s face. Connor hadn’t seen his dad since he was three years old probably. And outside of a few super-old photos in the scrapbook under her bed, Mom didn’t keep any pictures of him around the house either.

  “Hi,” said the man. His eyes were the same color as Connor’s, and he kind of had Wade’s bone structure.

  “You’re my dad?”

  He winced. “Use the term as loosely as you want,” he said. “I know I haven’t been very good at it.”

  Connor’s shoulders relaxed. He backed up and let the guy in, made sure the door was locked behind him. “You want some frozen pizza?”

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  “Not really,” Connor said. “I don’t even know you.”

  Connor heard footsteps coming up the walk, the front door opening, then Wade and Mom coming in together.

  “Hey,” Connor said.

  Mom’s cheeks looked gaunt, sunken in, her dark eyes tired and bloodshot, just like Wade’s did so much of the time. But she went to Connor fast, and when she hugged him, there was strength in it. “Don’t worry,” Mom said. “We’re gonna get through this.”

  “Your mother’s right,” Dad said. “From what I’ve seen so far, I think we can win this case.”

  Connor didn’t say anything. Over Mom’s shoulder, he could see Wade watching him with his eyes like metal spikes. What’s wrong with you? he wanted to say. But he had a feeling he might know . . .

  Mom pulled away. “You really think we can win, Bill?”

  He nodded. “Look, I’m not exactly F. Lee Bailey, but I can see the holes. Yes, Nathanson ID’d him, but that was days after, in a situation where she was obviously trying to give those cops the answer that they wanted. And the stuff they found in the locker . . . Locker combinations aren’t exactly private information. The principal has a copy of a
ll of them, not to mention Wade’s friends—”

  Wade interrupted him. “I want to plead guilty.”

  Mom stared at him. “Honey, what are you talking about?”

  Wade’s eyes were on Dad. “I did it,” he said. “I stole that woman’s car and I killed Liam with it. I saw him coming toward me, and rather than stop, I ran him down. Then I drove the car into the Kill.”

  Dad said, “I don’t think you’re thinking this through.”

  “Why?” Wade said. “You don’t think a son of yours would do something like that?”

  Connor’s gaze went to Mom, her mouth opening and closing.

  “You don’t want people finding out we’re . . . uh . . . related?”

  “Wade.”

  “I got news for you, asshole. If there’s anybody on this planet whose son would grow up to be a murderer, it’s you.”

  “Wade, please,” Mom said.

  Connor said, “Stop it. You’re hurting Mom.”

  “Don’t even talk to me, Connor. You told the police about the bag. You promised you wouldn’t tell, and you did. You’re a liar. You betrayed me.”

  Connor felt as though he’d been kicked in the gut. “I didn’t . . .” His voice cracked. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

  “Wade,” Mom said. “What phone did you ask Connor to throw out? We can help you if you just tell us the truth.”

  “It was Aimee En’s phone.”

  Dad moved toward Wade. “I know that isn’t true.”

  “You don’t know a damn thing. You don’t even know me.”

  “I know I messed up your life. Take it out on me. Hate me. You have every right. But please don’t take it out on yourself.”

  Wade looked at him, his face softening slightly. “You should go back to your family.”

  Mom started to say something, but an explosion cut into her words, the breathtaking crash of glass breaking.

  Wade then burst out the front door, and Dad took off after him, yelling at him to wait.

  “Oh my God,” Mom said. “Oh my God.” On her knees, next to a pile of shattered glass—the big window by the front door. Connor went to her and knelt beside her. “Look at this,” she whispered. There was a big rock on the floor. Someone had thrown it through the window. Letters painted in red on the top: DIE SCUM.

  “Look at this.”

  He put his arm around her. Mom. Poor Mom. She doesn’t deserve this. She didn’t do anything wrong. He heard shouting outside—Wade’s voice and their father’s, then tires screeching away from the curb. He looked at the rock again, the red letters, anger sparking inside him, heating up in his veins. He picked it up and went running outside, yelling louder than he’d ever yelled before, his own voice scraping the back of his throat, “Leave my family alone!”

  “Get back inside, Connor,” Connor’s father said. His father, a complete stranger, telling him what to do.

  In the bushes along the side of his house, Connor heard a rustling. He whirled toward it, raised the rock over his head with both hands, and hurled it at the sound. It didn’t go very far, landing on the grass, just a few feet away.

  “I mean it, Connor,” his stranger-father said, but the last part was drowned out by a deafening crack. It shook Connor’s body, like a train smashing into it. A live wire, he thought. I stepped on a live wire. Which made no sense at all.

  And then he couldn’t move. What is happening to me . . .

  Connor heard his mother scream and only then did he feel the stiff grass against the side of his face, the copper taste in his mouth and the chill, the awful blast of it, as though he’d never be warm again.

  “I KNOW PEOPLE,” Udel was saying over a mouthful of pork lo mein. “I mean, I don’t have a psychology degree or anything, but I knew Wade Reed was a bad dude the first time we questioned him.” They were parked on Orchard and Flower after stopping at the one Chinese place in town, grabbing dinner in the middle of a patrol. After Wade had been booked, the sergeant had given Pearl, Udel, and Tally the option of taking the rest of the day off, and while Pearl had said she’d be glad to work another shift, she hadn’t thought Udel would be part of the deal.

  Pearl bit into an egg roll. “I didn’t see it,” she said. “He seemed kind of lost to me. But not bad.”

  He slurped up more noodles, shaking his head. “No. He’s a bad, bad dude.”

  “And you know because . . .”

  “I know people. I study them until I can figure out how they tick.”

  Pearl rolled her eyes. She took a swallow of Diet Coke, wishing it was beer. “Gotcha, inspector.”

  “You laugh, Maze, but I probably know you better than you know yourself.”

  Pearl took another swallow, thinking, Forget beer. Bleach.

  Udel started to say something else but was cut off by the radio: Tally on dispatch telling them of a 10–72 on 291 Maple Street.

  “At that address?” Udel replied as he started up the car and pulled away from the curb.

  “Outside. On the lawn. Suspect running from the scene.”

  Pearl looked at him. They both knew that address. They’d learned it this afternoon. “Wade Reed’s house,” she said.

  They arrived at the house in minutes. She saw a woman crouched over, a man with a phone in his hand, a pool of blood. Wade, she thought. But then she caught sight of the shooting victim and her heart dropped.

  “Over there!” the man with the phone shouted. He pointed at a house across the street. “The shots came from over there! I saw someone running.”

  Pearl took off. She raced across the street and around the back of the house with Udel somewhere behind her, she didn’t know, didn’t care. The backyard was small, with a neatly trimmed lawn, an aboveground pool. She saw a shadow inside the house, a light going on. “Turn on your lights please!” she shouted. “Ma’am! Sir! This is the police. Please turn on your outdoor lights!”

  Someone must have heard her because in an instant the backyard was flooded with light, and Pearl caught sight of a husky figure, tearing across the back of the lawn into the woods.

  “Stop!” she called out. “Police!”

  She headed after him, weaving around trees until she was just a few feet away from him—a short, burly man dressed all in black. He slowed down. He was in bad shape. Pearl was so close she could hear his labored breathing as he stumbled into a clearing, still moving. She could see the gun in his hand. A big, sleek semiautomatic. She had hers out of her holster, the first time she’d ever drawn on the job, and she didn’t want to use it. “Stop! Drop your gun!” she yelled out. “I can see you.”

  He stopped. Breathing hard. Pearl kept her weapon trained on him. “Drop the gun,” she said again.

  He dropped it.

  Pearl exhaled. She could sense Udel next to her now, reaching for his gun. “Don’t,” Pearl whispered. She kept her eyes on the man. His thick, short legs. His Nike sneakers. “Put your hands in the air, and turn around slowly.”

  He did as he was told. When the man turned around, it took Pearl a few seconds to register that he wasn’t a man at all. He was just a boy, apple-cheeked and sweating, tears streaming down his face. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he said, once he finally caught his breath. “It’s my dad’s gun. I just wanted to scare them.”

  “Scare who?” Pearl said.

  “Connor and Wade.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He was crying now. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “What’s your name?” said Pearl. “How old are you?”

  “I’m thirteen years old,” he said. “My name is Mason Marx.”

  Thirty-One

  I’m so cold, Mom,” Connor said through trembling lips. Jackie kept her gaze on his face, not the blood. She knelt over him in the grass and pulled off her coat and threw it over his body, and then his own coat, which she’d somehow grabbed out of the closet before running outside. Keep him warm. He’s just cold, that’s all. Just cold outside.

  “I’m here,�
� she whispered. “Dad and I are here.”

  “Dad,” he said.

  “I know, right? Weird.”

  Bill was on the phone now, talking to 911. “Yes, still awake,” he was saying. “He’s my son.”

  Jackie found herself thinking back to Helen—the privileged, rosy way she looked at things. “Life only gives us as much as we can take,” she had said. How ridiculous she’d found those words at the time, how maddening. But now she found herself hanging on to them with everything she had. She pressed the coats to Connor’s chest, trying to stanch the bleeding. Stroked his matted hair and looked into his scared blue eyes. This is all that I can take. No more. Please.

  “Someone shot me,” Connor said.

  Jackie nodded. “But you’re going to be okay.”

  His eyelids fluttered. “You sure?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “I’m tired, Mom.”

  Keep him awake, Jackie told herself. Keep talking. She arranged the coats around Connor and talked to him in a low voice, saying anything that came to her mind, just to keep those blue eyes focused, opened. “You know, honey, I heard it might rain again. I heard it on the radio, earlier today, but you know, I wasn’t sure whether it was the Catskills forecast or ours. NPR can be so confusing, all those detailed weather reports for such a large area. The way they do them at once.”

  “Mom,” said Connor. “You’re, like, babbling about the weather. Which is . . . sorta weird.”

  A tear spilled down Jackie’s cheek. She smiled at him. “You’re a funny kid, you know that?” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Running outside. Tell Dad I’m sorry I ran outside.” Jackie touched his forehead with the back of her hand. He was so cold.

  “Oh thank God,” Bill said. Jackie heard sirens. She looked up and saw a police car screeching to the curb, Bill shouting at them, pointing across the street. She didn’t look. Instead, she kept her hand on Connor’s forehead, her gaze on his face, that milk-pale skin, so very like he used to look in his crib, when he was a baby. “You stay awake now,” she said, thinking of opposites, reverse lullabies. “You stay awake now, kiddo.”