Every Last Fear

by Alex Finlay

  By now Matt’s palms were sweating, his head pounding. The reality was sinking in.

  They’re really gone.

  And soon he’d have to take away almost everything that his older brother had left in this world.

  CHAPTER 3

  EVAN PINE

  BEFORE

  “Evan, I’m so glad you made it.” Dr. Silverstein gestured for him to take a seat across from her on the leather couch.

  Evan’s eyes drifted around the office. The framed diplomas, the neat desk, the grandfather clock that was out of place in the charmless no-frills office complex.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call last week,” Evan said. “You can charge me for missing our—”

  “Don’t be silly. I saw the news about your son on TV. I’m so sorry, Evan.”

  She kept saying his name. A trick of the trade, he presumed. He imagined a much younger Dr. Silverstein diligently taking notes in her psychology class. Repeat the patient’s name often to show you’re listening.

  He shouldn’t be so hard on her. She was a good therapist. And it must be difficult counseling someone who was attending sessions only because of a spouse’s ultimatum.

  “So what’s next?” she asked. “Legally, I mean. For Danny.”

  Evan didn’t want to talk about it, but there would be no escaping it here. “The lawyers say this is the end of the road. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, so that’s it.” He shrugged.

  Silverstein gave him a sympathetic look. “And how’s Danny? Did you get to talk to him?”

  Evan thought of the call when he broke the news. He pictured his son’s face pressed to the dirty telephone at Fishkill, knowing he’d probably spend the rest of his life there, or some other godforsaken hole.

  “He took it better than I’d anticipated. He actually spent most of our call talking about Linkin Park.”

  Dr. Silverstein’s expression was curious. Evan realized she had no idea what he was talking about.

  “They’re a band. The day I called Danny about the appeal, the radio said it would’ve been the singer’s birthday. He died a few years ago. Danny and I, we used to…” He trailed off. His mind ventured to the two of them driving home from football practice, Danny, smelly and sweaty, cranking up the car stereo, both of them belting out the lyrics to “Numb.”

  “Something the two of you used to bond over?” Silverstein said. “The music…”

  Evan smiled in spite of himself. “In high school Danny was obsessed with the band. I never understood why. Their songs are so rage-filled. Songs about teen angst, wrecked father-and-son relationships—the opposite of me and Danny.” More fitting for Evan and Matt.

  “How’s the rest of your family dealing with the news? Olivia?” Before Evan started his solo sessions last year, the Pine clan used to trek out to this very office every other Saturday for family therapy, so Silverstein knew them and their brand of dysfunction well.

  “Liv?” Evan said. “I think she’s come to terms that Danny isn’t getting out.”

  “And how does that make you feel?”

  It used to make him angry. Enraged. But now he was jealous—jealous that his wife didn’t spend every waking moment feeling like she’d been thrown into Lake Michigan with cinder blocks anchored to her limbs. Evan had once read about dry drowning, a person slowly dying hours or even days after leaving the water. That’s how he’d felt for the past seven years, oxygen slowly being stolen from his damaged insides. “I understand. We all had to find ways to deal with it.”

  Dr. Silverstein seemed to see right through his forced reasonableness. But she’d prodded enough for now.

  “And how about the rest of your kids?”

  “Maggie’s hanging in there.” He smiled, thinking of his daughter. “She’s busy wrapping up her senior year, so that helps. But she’s always been my trouper—she believes that her big brother will get out, regardless of what the Supreme Court says.”

  Dr. Silverstein offered a sad smile.

  Evan continued. “Tommy, well, he’s just too young to understand. And Liv shelters him from it all.” Shortly after Danny’s arrest, Liv learned she was pregnant—having a baby at “advanced maternal age,” as the doctor diplomatically put it. Unplanned and with the worst timing in the world, but somehow the pregnancy and that little boy saved them, especially Liv.

  Silverstein waited a long moment. Another psychologist trick. Let the patient fill the silence.

  When Evan didn’t bite, Silverstein finally asked: “And Matthew?”

  Evan looked at the floor. “We still haven’t talked.”

  “So it’s been what, four months?” Her tone was matter-of-fact, not judgmental.

  Evan nodded, folded his arms. He didn’t want to elaborate, and was surprised when Dr. Silverstein didn’t push it.

  She looked at Evan thoughtfully. “Sometimes,” she said, “after a traumatic event—and in its own way I think this court decision was its own trauma—it can be good for a family to reset. To spend time away from your usual surroundings. Have fun, even.”

  “You mean like a vacation?” Evan said, trying to hide the what the fuck tone in his voice.

  “Maybe. Or just some time away together. As a family.”

  “I’d love to, but we really can’t do it—financially, I mean.” He blew out a breath, deciding he might as well get his money’s worth for the session. “They let me go.”

  “Who?” Silverstein said, her voice concerned. “You mean your job?”

  “Yep. Twenty-five years, and poof.” He made an explosion gesture with his hands.

  “What happened?” Dr. Silverstein’s eyes flicked to the grandfather clock, like she was worried she’d need more time now.

  “The inevitable.”

  “What do you mean by that, Evan?” She was leaning forward in her chair, fingers laced, full eye contact.

  “I mean, I don’t blame them. It’s a big accounting firm, and my billable hours have been terrible, particularly since I transferred to the Chicago office. I lost my main client six months ago. And let’s face it: the show.”

  “You mean the documentary?”

  Evan tried not to lose his patience, but what other show could it possibly be? The reason anyone knew or cared about Danny Pine. The reason the Supreme Court’s refusal to review Danny’s life sentence made national news. The reason Evan had tricked himself into thinking his son would come home after seven long years. The pop-culture phenom “A Violent Nature.”

  “Yeah,” Evan said, “you’ve seen it, right?”

  “I’ve seen it, yes.”

  “Well, you know then.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I came off like a lunatic.”

  “No.”

  Evan gave her a disappointed look.

  “I think you came off like a father devastated about his son being wrongfully imprisoned for murder.”

  “And a lunatic.”

  She didn’t answer. But she agreed. He could see it in her eyes.

  She mercifully stayed away from the questions that had haunted him for the past week. What are you going to do for money? How will you pay the mortgage? Maggie’s tuition?

  “Are you okay?”

  Evan sat back, exhaled loudly. “It’s funny, when I got the call that the court denied Danny’s appeal, I was listening to a Linkin Park song—one released shortly before the singer died. Over the years, his songs had become less angry, more melancholy.” Evan swallowed over the lump in his throat. He could feel Dr. Silverstein scrutinizing him. “The song said something about no one caring if a single star burned out in a sky of a million stars.”

  Silverstein narrowed her eyes. “The singer of this band,” she said, “how did he die?”

  “Suicide,” Evan said. The word hung in the air.

  “Evan,” Silverstein finally said, her voice serious, “are you—”

  “Of course not.”

  Dr. Silverstein leaned in closer. “The medications you�
�re on,” she said, her tone softer, “in some people they can cause intrusive thoughts.”

  “Don’t forget the fatigue, sexual problems, and insomnia—all really helpful for someone who’s already depressed.”

  Dr. Silverstein bunched up her face. “I appreciate the humor, but I’m being serious. The medications can cause suicidal thoughts. The meds can trick a patient into thinking there’s only one solution.”

  Or maybe they cause the patient to finally see the truth.

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about, Dr. Silverstein,” Evan said. “I’m fine.”

  By her expression, Evan could tell she didn’t believe him.

  Like he said, she was a good therapist.

  Excerpt from

  A Violent Nature

  Season 1/Episode 1

  “A Body at the Creek”

  OVER BLACK - 9-1-1 RECORDING

  OPERATOR

  9-1-1 operator, what’s your emergency?

  CALLER

  (breathing heavily)

  I’m at Stone Creek, walking my dog. And there’s a body—I, I, I think it’s a girl.

  A dog barks in the background. It sounds terrified.

  CALLER

  You need to get someone here right away.

  OPERATOR

  Slow down, sir. You say there’s a body of a girl? Is she breathing?

  CALLER

  No, her head, there’s so much blood … dear god …

  INSERT – LOCAL NEWS FOOTAGE

  ANCHOR

  There’s been a big break tonight in the murder of Charlotte Rose. The Adair teenager was last seen at a house party and found bludgeoned to death at Stone Creek. Our sources say there’s been an arrest tonight, the victim’s boyfriend, Daniel Pine.…

  INT. STUDIO

  SUPERIMPOSED:

  “Louise Lester, Institute for Wrongful Convictions”

  LESTER

  At first, I was skeptical, I mean, the Institute gets thousands of requests for help from prisoners claiming to be innocent. And this one came from the inmate’s twelve-year-old sister. But then we examined the trial record.

  Lester shakes her head in disgust.

  The prosecution’s theory was that Danny and Charlotte were at a house party and Charlotte told him she was pregnant and they had a fight. Danny then got really drunk and sometime after the party the two of them got into it again, and he pushed her and she fell, suffering a fatal head trauma. Danny then panicked and moved her body to the creek in a wheelbarrow, and smashed her skull in with a large rock, a big bloody mess. But there was no blood on his clothes, no DNA, no physical evidence of any kind. Not one trace. Does that sound like the work of a staggering drunk teenager? And then we found out that the prosecutor had withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.…

  CHAPTER 4

  MATT PINE

  The cinder-block room in the prison smelled of bleach. Matt studied Agent Keller, who sat quietly across from him. She was a woman of few words. But she exuded a confidence that was comforting. Even in a maximum-security prison amid murderers, rapists, and the worst society had to offer—with the faint howls of those damned souls just outside the door—she was calm and composed.

  “Taking a while,” Matt said, just to break the silence. They’d been in the room a good half hour.

  Keller nodded.

  “I haven’t seen him since we were kids,” Matt continued, nervous talking. He’d never visited Danny in prison. Dad always said that Danny wanted it that way. His brother refused to let his siblings see him locked up like an animal.

  So Danny was frozen in time in Matt’s mind. The archetype of a small-town football star. Danny was no Tom Brady, but in Adair, Nebraska—where Friday-night lights were second only to the enclaves of Texas—his brother had been a big deal.

  “How old were you when he went away?” Keller asked, as if fighting a disdain for small talk.

  “Fourteen.”

  Another nod. “Were you close? I mean, before…”

  “Yeah,” Matt lied. When they were small, they used to play together for hours, building forts, climbing trees, playing LEGOs, but when Danny made it to high school and became a local celebrity, Matt was no longer part of his universe. Plus, the relationship between his father and Danny sucked out all the air from the room. His father just didn’t see Matt.

  Then beautiful Charlotte was murdered. Last seen at a high school house party, she’d been bludgeoned to death somewhere unknown, her body dumped by the creek near their house. Police found blood in a wheelbarrow hidden in the overgrown shrubs along the path that crossed the Pines’ property. No one ever understood why Charlotte’s body had been moved. Or why her skull had been crushed with a huge rock postmortem. They’d been sure of only one thing: the perpetrator was her boyfriend, Danny Pine.

  From that point on, nothing was the same. It was Year Zero for the Pines. There was before Charlotte, and after. Now Matt had a new Year Zero.

  “So you haven’t seen him since…” Keller didn’t finish the sentence.

  “My parents kept us away from the trial. We’ve talked on the phone, but yeah.”

  The last time Matt had seen Danny free was the night Charlotte was killed. That night had otherwise been momentous for Matt. Jessica Wheeler had asked him to sneak out to meet her. It was before he’d had a phone, and she’d slipped him a note in ninth-grade science class, the culmination of weeks of flirting. Jessica had folded the note in a square and tied it with a red string, like a miniature package. Matt remembered pulling at the bow, his heart fluttering as he read the note.

  MEET ME AT THE KNOLL AT 3 A.M. TONIGHT?

  YES OR NO

  CIRCLE ONE

  The Knoll was a famous make-out spot at the top of a secluded hill near the creek. A place for stargazing and bad decisions. He of course circled yes. And he’d been shocked that she was actually there: holding a flashlight, wearing her pj’s and slippers. On their backs in the cold grass, they stared at the stars dotting the ink-black sky, the clouds blowing past the moon.

  “This reminds me of the stargazing scene from A Walk to Remember,” Matt said. “You ever see that movie?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s old and not very good. Not many Nicholas Sparks adaptations are. But the scene was solid.”

  “Have you always loved movies so much? I mean, like, you always compare things to stuff in movies.”

  Matt smiled. “Sorry. It drives my family crazy.”

  “I think it’s cute.”

  “I want to make movies one day. NYU has this amazing film school. My grandpa, before he got sick, he said that movies are the poetry of our time.”

  She turned and faced him.

  “Nicholas Sparks … You ever see The Notebook?”

  “Of course. The critics hated it, but it’s a cult classic. The kissing in the rain scene is considered—”

  Jessica put a finger over his lips. She removed it, and her mouth softly touched his. It put Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams to shame.

  Matt touched his lips involuntarily, remembering the electricity slicing through every part of him, when the door jutted open.

  “Matty?”

  Matt stood, taken aback at the prisoner before him. The teenage football star was a grown man. He still had the good looks, the blond hair, the square jaw. But Matt saw a hardness in his brother’s once clear blue eyes. And by Danny’s steely gaze, he obviously wasn’t happy to see Matt.

  “What are you doing here?” Danny said. “I told Dad that I didn’t want—” Danny stopped, eyed Keller. “Who are you?”

  Matt said, “Why don’t you sit down.”

  When Danny didn’t take the seat, the guard pulled out a chair. “Sit down, Dan,” he said. It was stern but had an undercurrent of concern, as if the guard knew what was coming.

  Danny sat, his eyes locked on Matt’s.

  Keller said, “Let’s give them a moment.”

  The guard seemed to welcome the opportunity to esca
pe the room. Yeah, he definitely knew what was coming.

  “What the hell’s going on, Matty?”

  Matt swallowed, fighting the welling in his eyes, the fist in his throat. “There’s been an accident.”

  “Accident?” Danny said. “What accident? What are you—”

  “Dad and Mom. Maggie and Tommy. They were in Mexico for spring break. They’re gone, Danny.”

  “Gone?” Danny’s voice was laced with fear and disbelief.

  “They think it was a gas leak. At their vacation rental,” Matt continued.

  Danny placed his palms flat on the table and leaned back, as if he were distancing himself from Matt’s words. The muscle in his brother’s jaw pulsed. He started to speak, but it was as if the words had been ripped out of his throat.

  For the next ten minutes Matt watched as his older brother shattered into a million pieces, just as Matt had that morning.

  Eventually someone knocked on the door. The guard poked his head in.

  “We’ve gotta get you back,” the guard said. “Say your goodbyes.” The guard was about to shut the door again when he gave Danny a pointed look. “And get yourself straight.”

  Danny wiped the tears away with his shirt. Matt realized that the guard was telling Danny to collect himself. It wasn’t the kind of place to show weakness.

  “I’ll call you when I know more,” Matt said.

  Danny made no reply.

  Matt sat there, not knowing what else to say. What else could he say? Their parents and siblings were gone. And they barely knew each other.

  The guard returned, and ushered Danny to the door.

  Before leaving the room, Danny turned to Matt and said, “Don’t come back here, Matty.” Danny swallowed. “They wasted too much of their lives on me. Don’t waste yours.”

  And then he was gone.

  Keller was at the doorway and had witnessed their goodbye. “You okay?” she asked.