Born Evil

by Julia Derek

  “Come straight back home. Right now. Hurry!”

  “Why? Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

  “I’ll explain when you get here. Turn around and hurry home right now. Oh, and one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Are you still wearing your hat? The Yankees one?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Pull the visor down as far as you can, so no one can get a good look at your face.”

  “Um, okay.”

  “Good. I’ll be here waiting for you at home. Hurry!”

  I disconnected the call without saying goodbye. If Shane was at the subway station, it would take him about ten minutes to get back home if he jogged. I needed to pack as much of our stuff to bring with us as I could in that time. We had to get the hell out of here, run away somewhere Detective Morales couldn’t get a hold of us. He sure as hell would have no problem getting a subpoena for Dr. Wilkins’s notes now, and he would probably get it quickly, too. It was perhaps only hours before he came here or to Shane’s school and took him into custody. When he found out that Shane had no real alibi—it wasn’t like I had actually seen my son sleeping in his bed, even if I had no doubt he had—he would have enough probable cause to arrest Shane.

  I could not let that happen. I don’t know who this kid with the bloody sweater was or what he’d been doing at Dr. Wilkins’s building the night of his murder; all I knew was that it couldn’t have been my son. Shane didn’t kill Dr. Wilkins.

  I got the two backpacks that were gathering dust in the walk-in closet and ran around like a maniac, filling them up with essentials for both of us. I was still dependent on the cane to move efficiently, so it didn’t go as fast as I wanted it to. I had bought the backpacks last summer so that we could go camping. It turned out that Shane had no interest in such an activity after all, despite having claimed over and over that he had, which had driven me batty. In the end, I had kept the backpacks and now I was glad that I had.

  I was almost finished packing by the time Shane walked into the hallway, his cheeks flushed under the hat. He stopped in the doorway, staring at me as I was shoving a couple of his sweaters in one of the backpacks. The other backpack sat on the floor, on the other side of the door.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “Are we going somewhere?”

  “Yes, you and I will have to take a trip. We might need to stay away from the New York area for a while.” I made my way back to his room where I fetched several pairs of socks from a drawer. I had totally forgotten to pack socks, I’d suddenly realized. He hurried after me.

  “Why do we have to stay away from the New York area?”

  “Because I did something very stupid. I spoke to the detective who’s investigating Dr. Wilkins’s murder—”

  He sucked in a sharp breath. “Is Dr. Wilkins dead? Who killed him?”

  “The cops don’t know that yet, honey. They only think they do, primarily because of me calling that detective and revealing things I shouldn’t have. At the moment, you’re their best lead, I’m sorry to say. That’s why we need to go on a trip. Until things quiet down and they find the real killer.”

  “I’m their best lead? How can I be their best lead? Why would I want to kill Dr. Wilkins? What did you tell the detective? Bad stuff about me? That I killed Dad and took pics of Alice’s body?” Shane looked terrified. I couldn’t blame him; he should be terrified. Things did not look good for him and it was all my fault. Oh God.

  I briefly considered telling him the truth—that I had revealed all my fears to Dr. Wilkins, whose notes would be read by Detective Morales. But that would only serve to upset Shane further, so instead I said, “No, of course not, honey. It’s because I was one of Dr. Wilkins’s patients and called the cops twice to see how the investigation was going.” It was a lame explanation, but it was all I could come up with off the top of my head.

  “Why would I be a suspect because of that?”

  I cleared my throat and pretended to look for something in the drawer to buy myself time. “Well, I seemed a little too interested in the case. Behavior like that always makes people suspicious. The police will look into my background now, which means they’ll end up finding out about you having shot your father. It’s in the police reports. Unfortunately, that will be a reason for suspicion. Meaning, the fact that you were involved in the shooting. Mainly, they’re grasping for straws because they don’t have any other leads. Anything will do at this point, so they’ll come after us.”

  “Okay, but what’s the rush?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you think they’re on their way to pick me up right now?”

  I stopped what I was doing and faced him finally. “They reported on the news this morning that the police have received a tip about the killer that matches your description down to a T.”

  His chin dropped and his lips parted. “They did? Really? That’s so weird because I definitely did not kill Dr. Wilkins. I swear!” His voice croaked.

  I hugged him then. “I know you didn’t, but that doesn’t matter. It only matters what the police think. This is why we need to get out of the New York area until they find the real killer. We need to leave as soon as possible.” I pointed to his backpack. “Check what I’ve put in it, then add what else you want to bring with you. But only stuff that you’ll really need while we’re away from home. It could be a while.”

  “Okay. Can we go stay at the country house? I love it over there.”

  I clicked my tongue and ruffled his silky, light brown locks. “I know you do, honey, but that’s not a good idea. If we go there, they’ll find us pretty quickly. It’ll be one of the first places they’ll come looking for us. Like I said, we might have to stay away a while. Far away. Like in another state far away.”

  “In another state? What about school? Am I not going to school then?”

  “Definitely not. We’ll have to keep you away from school. If we’re lucky and the police arrest someone soon, it won’t be for very long. Maybe only a couple of weeks.” I smiled at him. “You can afford to miss two weeks of school. You’re already ahead in your class.”

  “Okay. So where are we going then?”

  I sighed. “I’m still working on that. Maybe we can go somewhere in the South. Or to somewhere in the Midwest. Like to Iowa. It’s really cheap to live there, and no one will think to look for us there. We can take the train to Philly and then take a Greyhound bus farther south or west. Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out.”

  “So we might stay in Iowa then?” A frown had appeared on his forehead.

  “Yes, honey. I think that would be a good place.”

  “What about Florida? It’s much warmer down there. Like, in Miami. They speak Spanish there and I need to practice my Spanish anyway. You can practice yours while we’re there, too. It’ll be good for you. You always tell me how you’re losing your Spanish.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at him. He was right; my Spanish was no longer what it used to be, mainly for lack of practice. I’d spent a couple of summers teaching English in Mexico, which was how I had learned to speak Spanish.

  “Fine. We can go to Miami instead if you prefer that. It really doesn’t matter.”

  All that mattered was that I could keep Shane away from the police.

  25

  Before we took an Uber to the train station—I worried there would be cops at the subway stations that might recognize Shane—I made a quick stop at a bank and withdrew 5,000 bucks. I claimed I needed all the cash to purchase a used car. The teller explained that the withdrawal would likely be reported to the authorities and that they might contact me. I told her it was fine. It wasn’t like I would be around to answer their questions anyway. (The last part I kept to myself.) Obviously, we would never use one of my credit or debit cards once in Miami or wherever we’d end up, as the cops could track us down that way. We needed to leave as few traces as possible. Neither would we bring our phones or laptops. I was well aware that the authorities could find y
ou when you used your phone, and I was also pretty sure they’d find you if you used your computer. We didn’t have time to verify computer use, but it was better to not risk bringing our laptops, which were also heavy. We’d survive without constant computer access while on the lam. There were always public places such as libraries and computer stores we could use to surf the web.

  Shane was not happy about having to leave his brand-new MacBook behind. When I told him I’d buy him a new one in Florida, he cheered up a little. Not that I thought I would be able to, but I couldn’t think of something better to say right then. He’d get over it.

  The $5,000 should last us at least a month if we were careful and only bought absolutely necessary stuff. I purchased the train tickets to Philly with a credit card. I wanted the authorities to see that information and assume we were going in that direction, even staying there. Philadelphia being connected to so many parts of the States, there were too many directions for us to travel in for them to figure out where we had gone anyway.

  I had been about to use my credit card to pay for the Greyhound tickets as well. As well connected and affordable as the Greyhound buses were, they were our best travel option. When it struck me that the authorities would be able to easily determine this purchase as well, I changed my mind and decided that I would use cash instead. I couldn’t risk the FBI checking for us at every Greyhound stop. Sadly, it was likely there would be a national manhunt for us now that we’d become fugitives. Hopefully, they’d operate for a while under the assumption that we’d remained in the Philly area. Maybe when we reached Miami, we could take the boat over to Cuba. I didn’t think the US authorities could do anything to us over there. From what I had been able to gather, the Cuban government wasn’t too fond of the United States.

  I had decided that I would mail a letter to my parents as well as to the precinct where Detective Morales worked instead of just handing one to my mother that she’d take to him. I couldn’t risk my mom forgetting bringing it to him. I’d mark the one for the police station with Morales’s name; surely, it would get to him somehow. I would also have my mom call him and tell him we were gone and why. This was by far the best approach. I couldn’t have my parents go crazy with worry not knowing why Shane and I were suddenly gone. In the short letter I had written them while in the Uber, I explained that we needed to disappear for a while, and for them not to worry. I had the situation under control. I would eventually get back to them with more information.

  I wouldn’t get in touch with Shane’s school. Surely, the NYPD would contact the school soon enough anyway, looking for Shane.

  On the Amtrak to Philly, it had struck me that I would most likely have to show a photo ID in order to travel with the Greyhound. I was pretty sure that Shane wouldn’t have to show anything since he was traveling with me and was a minor. I had totally forgotten about this and it was not good. I couldn’t have the Greyhound people know we were using their vehicles.

  We took the bus over to the Greyhound terminal, which was in Philly’s Chinatown. By the time we reached our stop, I had decided that I would pay for tickets down to the northern state line of Georgia. From there, we could use local transportation down to the Florida state line and continue by foot into Florida. We should be able to find a local bus we could get on that would take us farther south in the state. Then we could switch to another local bus and another, inching farther and farther down. It would be a pain in the butt, but I couldn’t risk anyone finding out where we were heading. By getting off in the very north of Georgia, it would be hard to figure out where we had gone next.

  When I had reached the person in the ticket booth, a tired, thin-haired woman in her fifties perhaps, I told her to give me two tickets for a station in the north of Georgia. She prepared the tickets for me and told me it would be one hundred and fifty dollars.

  “I can pay cash, right?” I asked her and reached for my wallet.

  “Sure,” she replied distractedly.

  I found my wallet. “Do you need my photo ID as well?”

  She waved her hand no. “That’s okay. There are a lot of people behind you I need to get to before my break. Just the payment is fine.”

  I tried not to stare at her. “Actually, how much would two tickets down to Miami, Florida be? I think we’ll go there instead.”

  She checked her computer screen. “Two hundred and fifty for two.”

  “Can I have two of those instead?”

  “One way?”

  “Yes.”

  Without a word, she prepared the tickets for me. Before she could ask any questions, I pushed the cash she had wanted through the hole in the window. She took it and handed me the tickets. I thanked her and went over to Shane, who was sitting on a metal bench on the other side of the terminal, watching our backpacks. I could hardly believe our luck. Who would have thought it would be that easy to buy the bus tickets? Now I felt silly, having agonized for hours over how we would get down to Miami undiscovered.

  “Where are we going?” Shane asked me as I reached him and plopped down beside him, trying not to smile too widely.

  “Straight to Miami,” I whispered to him. “They never asked to see an ID.”

  “Yay, that’s great!” Shane nearly bounced with excitement. A man in a cheap suit who smoked a cigarette a few feet away turned his head in our direction.

  I put a hand on his knee and hissed, “Calm down, honey. We don’t want to attract unnecessary attention.”

  I had already checked the timetable and knew that the next bus to Miami would leave in about two hours. That wasn’t a lot of time, but I hoped it would be enough for us to change our looks before we got on the bus. I had already brought a pair of scissors to use for my long, blond hair. All we needed now was dark hair dye to change the color.

  “Stay here,” I told Shane and walked out of the terminal. I spotted a giant drugstore across the street. With any luck, they should have everything we would need there, including fake glasses and burner phones.

  26

  Mom was sleeping beside me inside the bus or pretending to be sleeping. I couldn’t tell. She was leaning back in the bus seat, her eyes closed while wearing earbuds. She had been listening to music on one of the disposable phones we had gotten back in Philly, but now it seemed she might have passed out. We were driving through the suburbs of some small town in the outskirts of southern Virginia and it was late at night. The moon was high in the dark sky and you could see plenty of stars. I could make out the constellation Orion among them. I took a few pics of it, using my new phone. They didn’t come out very good, as the camera quality sucked, but it was better than nothing. I had never before seen Orion, not even at the country house, so it was worth commemorating.

  At first I thought it was going to be a lot of fun to go on a trip and skip school for a while, but I was no longer so sure about that. So far, the only exciting thing that I had experienced was spotting Orion. Other than that, I was getting more and more antsy. And bored. Bored as hell. My butt hurt from sitting in the same seat for hours and hours, and the jam-packed bus smelled of B.O., fast food, and stale clothes. Most people in it looked either shady or like they were homeless. Some like they were both. I had already begun to miss my computer and video games. All I’d done the last several hours was stare out the grimy bus window at the landscape swishing by. I’d come to the unexciting conclusion that Pennsylvania and Virginia didn’t look much different from New York in the fall. New York state anyway. If we were not near or passing through a city, there were a lot of trees with red and yellow leaves or firs and pines along the highway. Everything was flat and square. A few giant chain stores such as Walmart, Home Depot, and Target popped up here and there. The sky was gray and dreary just like it had been back home most of the time this fall. It rained every now and then. Basically, crap weather all day long. So depressing. I could hardly wait until we would make another stop at some lonely rest area with fast food restaurants. It had only been a couple of hours since we’d stop
ped at a Burger King where Mom and I had eaten super-sized meals and emptied our bladders. I was already hungry again and wished that I had brought a burger or apple pie or something with me on the bus. Now I’d have to suck it up till the morning. It was one in the morning, so I doubted we’d make another stop until it was time for breakfast much, much later.

  Sometimes I passed out in the seat I was so incredibly bored. When I woke up and looked out the window again, I had no idea if the bus had moved one or thirty miles, gone forward or backward. It was all the same out there. I needed to check the time to find out. The last time I checked, I determined that we had about two thirds left of the trip. Ugh.

  At one point, I managed to fall asleep and stay asleep till we’d reached our next stop in South Carolina.

  Mom woke me up and we headed to an IHOP in the rest area. The sun was crawling up the sky and there were few clouds in sight. Hopefully it would stay that way. The bus driver had informed all of us travelers that we had an hour for breakfast, so Mom and I figured we’d go somewhere other than a burger place this time. There were plenty of those types of restaurants in the area that attracted most of the other people on the bus.

  At the pancake place, we got seated at a window table right away. It was pretty empty. Mom wanted me to order from the waiter because she was dead tired and had a headache; unlike me, who’d not only slept but also snored for hours apparently, she had only gotten a few minutes of shuteye. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to people; besides, she thought it could be good practice for me to do it. Make me more comfortable around new people.

  Practice for what? I wondered. I had no problem ordering food out at places nor was I uncomfortable around new people. What was she talking about? Not only that, I was the one the cops were looking for, so wasn’t it risky for me to talk to strangers when I didn’t have to? You would think so, right? Yeah, I had black hair now that made me look like I was a die-hard Marilyn Manson fan, not to mention sick I was so pale, but still. I thought it was pretty obvious that we had both dyed our hair black—Mom’s was also much, much shorter after I’d helped chop it off—so why take the risk?