I would leave, and he would go back to his life. Date someone like Savannah. Get scooped up by a college to play football. Forget the weird months a fugitive lived in his barn.
I would work on the docks in Portland and make friends with the fishermen. They would smuggle me across the bay to Nova Scotia, and I would disappear into Canada. I could work at a coffee shop on one of the islands, frothing designs into lattes and telling the tourists I’d lived on there all my life. The lighthouses would blink back the darkness.
As Cade fell back asleep, I listened to the sheets of rain. The perfect storm is to leave before people don’t want you anymore.
CADE
The heavy rain overnight must have blown in from the tropics, bringing in an Indian summer heat wave. Jane was still asleep, her hair falling in damp strands across her forehead. I brushed them lightly aside, and her eyes flickered open. I pulled my hand quickly away.
“It’s hot,” she mumbled sleepily. “Feels like when I first got here.”
“Sure does.”
But it didn’t. Not beyond the weather. Everything else had shifted. The empty barn was full of Jane. It would feel like she was here long after she left. I knew that.
Jane had to be one day at a time. That was it. No more angst bullshit. I don’t dance. I run. I fight for the wins. I had to stop worrying about the long term and only think as far ahead as the big game on Sunday. My chem test on Wednesday. Savannah’s birthday party. Simple as that. And today.
“Let’s go swimming,” I said.
“Now?” Jane asked.
“What, you got plans?”
“Um, school?”
“Screw school. You’re leaving anyway.”
“Not for a couple of weeks.”
“Exactly. Soon. So let’s go swimming.”
“Cade, I’m serious.”
“Jane, so am I.”
“The cartels are no joke. I need to be lying low. Not doing things that will attract attention, like skipping class.”
“Ivan’s dead. Who’s gonna tell anyone about some teenage girl who maybe knows something about something?”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“Christ, Jane, we’re kids. It should be that simple. We’re going swimming, okay?” I was amped up. “Fuck it.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“No, say it,” I told her.
“Say what?”
“Fuck it.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
“Fuck it.”
“No, say it like you mean it. Yell it. FUCK the cartels!”
“FUCK the cartels.”
When she shouted it with me, in that small moment, we said the cartels didn’t matter, so they didn’t. We could make them sound like nothing, and they would be.
“Let’s go,” I said and pulled her out of bed and the barn before she could change her mind.
Hunter ran ahead of us and jumped into the back of my truck. Mud flew out behind us as we tore down the road. A sagging fruit stand caught my eye, and on a whim I stopped and pulled out the few crumpled bills I had to buy a little green carton piled high with strawberries. It had been a long time since I threw down money on something to eat just because I wanted it.
I kept my eyes peeled for the turnoff. I hadn’t been this way in years. We bounced deeper and deeper into the woods.
“Where are we going?” Jane asked.
“Spot my dad showed me. Long time ago. He used to take me swimming there after we harvested the corn. We’d celebrate. Splurge on empanadas, lemonade, and”—I pointed to the carton—“strawberries.”
I threw the truck into park and rummaged around my football duffle bag for a towel.
“Time to walk. Let’s go.”
I led the way down a narrow path that eventually opened up to the quarry and its crystal-clear water.
“Careful—it’s slippery from all the rain last night,” I said.
But Jane was already peeling off her clothes, running ahead of me in lacy pink underwear with little flowers. I stripped down to my boxers and jumped in behind her.
The ice-cold water kicked my breath out but felt so good at the same time. I came up for air with a big grin. Hunter picked his way down the rocks to explore the shallow water, happily lapping up mouthfuls.
Jane treaded beside me, her dark hair slicked back so her whole face was just those big, bright blue eyes. She gave me this sweet little smile, all innocent, and then wound up to send a big splash in my direction before trying dunk me. We wrestled around a little before she swam out deep toward a big, flat rock. I caught up and climbed beside her. We lay flat, letting the hot sun bake us dry.
Jane Doe. Jane Doherty. If anyone ever told me back when I found her I was gonna be talking to her every night all night and laughing my ass off with her, I wouldn’t have believed it. When she was all matted and sweaty and bloody, if someone said I’d be sneaking looks at her like I was right now, I would have been like, Sure, okay.
But I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over to where she lay with her eyes shut. Her bra was soaked and stuck to her. I rolled over onto my stomach to keep everything under control, but I peeked out from under my arm at her. Her skin was so tawny smooth that the puckered purple cut on her stomach seemed like some stick-on Halloween scar.
“Don’t look at it,” she said. How did she know? Her eyes were still closed.
“Maybe that’s not what I’m looking at,” I couldn’t help saying.
She sat up and folded her arms over her chest. “What’s that supposed to mean!”
“It means your bra is see-through,” I teased, bursting out laughing as she yelled at me to shut up and dove off the rock.
JANE
I pulled on Cade’s T-shirt back at the shore as fast as I could and grabbed the strawberries. Up the path a little ways there was a big old wooden swing. Once I got it going good, it swung right out over the water. This place was perfect. It was secret and pretty, and there was a stillness that went from my fingertips to my heartbeat.
If anyone had told me when I was lying in that cornfield watching the clouds move inch by inch overhead that I would smile again, let alone laugh, I would have said, You’re crazy.
But the sun was warm. The strawberries were sweet. And then I felt Cade’s hands against my back as he gave me a push, sending me soaring even higher.
“You gonna share any of those berries?” Cade walked around the swing to face me and tried to grab at them.
I laughed and took a bite of one right near his face before the swing arched up again. He kept trying to steal them, and I kept holding them away, popping them in my mouth, until he grabbed the ropes on the swing and yanked me back in.
Laughing, Cade started twisting the swing in a circle, trapping me, the rope braiding up on itself until there was no more give at all. Just when it seemed like the ropes were so tight they would snap and I would fall, he let go.
I spun with the rapid unwind. Fast, faster, the quarry a blur. Through the whirl of the swing I caught flashes of Cade’s face, his hair wet and tousled like a little kid’s. In the frantic wash of my spinning surroundings, Cade was the only focal point. I could get lost in the safety of his steady gray eyes. Who leaves Captain America? How could I leave when I was finally home?
The swing slowed, leaving me dizzy. Cade swooped in for a strawberry. I gave him a look like nice try, raising one to my mouth to eat dramatically, when he leaned in and bit it out of my fingers, his lips right next to mine. My feet slipped from where they were anchored on the ground, and I swung even closer to him. Our lips pressed against each other for a split second before he gave the swing a huge push, sending me up and away. I’m sure my eyes must have looked as surprised as his, my face flushing so hot. I let go of the swing and let myself fall down into the water.
I swam underwater as far as I could before surfacing to take a breath.
It was an accident. He was playing, trying to get the strawberry. But I felt like I was still on that swing. The backward us and forward we, pendulum perfect, changing minds and circumstances . . . I forced myself not to look back at where Cade was standing. What are you doing to me? I wanted to ask him. You catch me, kiss me, or at least I think you do. Maybe I kissed you. And now Tuesday will never be ordinary.
CADE
It shouldn’t have happened. We were running a play that worked, and it had to work now more than ever. For just a couple more weeks, people had to believe Jane was my cousin. Last I checked, cousins don’t kiss. But was it even a kiss? Maybe I was feeling something she wasn’t: flight risk. From the get-go, Jane was perpetually one headline, one wrong glance away from running. My house was already haunted by my mother. I didn’t need the ghost of Jane to steal my barn.
“You went swimming without us and I had to take the bus!” Jojo yelled at us all the way to school the next day.
“It would have been nice if we could have all gone to the quarry,” Mattey said. “On the weekend, though, so we wouldn’t get in trouble for skipping.”
“It wasn’t like it was a plan,” I tried to smooth things over.
Jojo still stomped off as soon as we pulled into the school parking lot, only to come to a screeching halt the second she rounded the corner. “What the . . .”
Graffiti covered the wall.
WETBACKS GO HOME.
“Nice way to start the day.” Fajardo came up beside Jane and me. His grim expression was one I’d never seen on his happy-go-lucky face.
Gunner was right behind him. He put a hand on the small of Jane’s back. I stifled the urge to push it off.
“You know my mom will get her guys on this,” Gunner said.
“This is real nasty, man. I’m sorry,” I said to Farty.
Farty shrugged. “You didn’t do it. Who cares?”
But he cared. His mouth was in a weird upside-down smirk, trying to hide how upset he was. “Our lockers have pig’s blood on them.”
“What?” I couldn’t have heard him right.
“Yeah. Whoever did this knows where our lockers are. They sloshed it on all the Mexican kids’ lockers.”
Jojo and Mattey looked at each other. Their lockers would be drenched too.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Gunner’s face twisted in disgust. His hand had stayed on Jane’s back. Why was he still touching her? Why was she letting him?
Jojo stood there taking the graffiti in, her eyes dimming angrier and angrier.
Savannah’s voice suddenly sprinkled above the murmur. She was shaking her head dramatically, talking to a group of other kids. “It’s awful. I mean, I realize that the drug problem is because of the Mexicans, but to write hate speech at school . . .”
“Wait, the drug problem is because of the Mexicans?” Jojo turned on her, blazing. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Well, you know what I mean,” Savannah stammered.
“No. I don’t. Maybe you should explain. Who are ‘the Mexicans’?”
“Jojo . . .” Mattey tried to step in, but she threw her hand up in her little brother’s face in a way that made him step right down.
“I’m just saying”—Savannah regained her composure—“we know who brings the drugs in.”
Jojo was fired up. “And who’s that? The Mexicans? Or rich white men like your daddy? Because last I heard, some of the guys that got killed work for him. What’s up with that?”
“Don’t bring my dad into this.”
“Don’t bring mine into it then.”
“I didn’t say anything about your father!” Savannah’s eyes were getting all teary.
“You talk about Mexicans, you’re talking about my father and mother. You’re talking about Mattey. You’re talking about me.”
“Jojo Morales, you’re being ridiculous,” Savannah mock-scolded her with her hands on her hips, trying to pretend she wasn’t thrown by the attack.
“Savannah Maddison, you’re being a bigot,” Jojo fired back, copying her pose.
“Hey now,” Gunner tried to defuse things. “Everyone’s upset by this. Let’s not blame each other.”
“Yeah, well, someone’s to blame. Someone we go to school with thinks this stuff. Someone I sit next to in class,” Jojo said, noticing the crowd that’d backed away from her and gone quiet.
“Show’s over,” Jojo sighed. Gunner and I exchanged a helpless look. Mattey shook his head. He wasn’t gonna go there. We knew to let Jojo walk away alone.
Savannah sidled up next to me.
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” Her glossy lip was quivering.
“Well, then why were you talking trash?” I asked.
“I wasn’t. It’s true. The drugs come in from Mexico.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s Mexicans’ fault.”
“I know that!”
“Well, you don’t have explain yourself to me. Save it for Jojo.”
“I can’t believe how mad she is at me.”
“You’ll patch things up,” I said.
Savannah slipped her hand into mine. “Thanks, Cade. You always make me feel better.”
She rested her head against my arm.
“I’m going to go, uh, check on Jojo,” Jane mumbled.
“Do you think Jojo and Mattey hate me?” Savannah asked.
“Mattey doesn’t hate anyone,” I answered, distracted by Jane’s awkward retreat down the hall.
Savannah took a deep breath and blinked back her tears, pasting on a big, bright smile. “I hope they’ll still come to my birthday party.”
CADE
Football practice couldn’t end soon enough. I just wanted to get out of there—away from the graffiti and the gossip, the rumors and the drama—and scoop up Jane at the diner to hang in the barn. I was worried about her.
I decided to shower at home to save time, even though my feet were soaked, especially my right one. The tape on my cleat had peeled up, and mud was squishing in, the practice field totally waterlogged from all the rain.
All summer, this was all we’d needed. And nothing. Now it’d been raining on and off all week when all we wanted was for it to clear up by the homecoming game. College scouts.
Everything was on the line.
And none of it seemed to matter if Jane wasn’t going to be around to see it unfold.
The creek runoff was overflowing into the edges of the field and parking lot. A fish flopped in the shallow street flooding. I reached down and tossed it back into the stream by the fence and then sloshed through the parking lot to my truck.
I rested my head against the window. I was frickin’ wiped.
Worrying was more of a workout than football. It made me feel like an old, old man. And I suddenly missed being a little kid. Tree forts. Treasure maps. Pretending to be a tiger or frog. Catching lightning bugs. Racing our little boats until they were sucked under the interstate and out the other side—the other side we never dared cross to see. Funny to think there was a time when the only danger was a busy road.
I called out a couple of goodbyes to my friends and peeled out, loud, through the puddles to make them spray up around me.
It hadn’t rained this hard since right after I found Jane in the corn.
Wait.
Wait.
The fish on the practice field just now.
There’d been a dead fish in the drainpipe where Jane hid.
The fish would only get in there if the creek crested, which it could have during that early summer storm.
All the times Jane and I had crisscrossed the ditch and the drain looking for her bag, I never thought to cross to the other side of the interstate and look there.
What if Jane had lost the b
ag in the storm drain and it got swept under and out like our paper boats did back in the day?
I pulled off right before the woods near the farm and got out by the factories. This was a total shot in the dark. I was being stupid. Wasting more time. But still . . . I had to see.
I started jogging and then broke into an all-out run, trying to still the adrenaline of my crazy theory and prepare myself for the same letdown of every trip to the storm drain.
I slid down the embankment and peeked in.
Muddy water coursed through the normally dry concrete. I ducked in and waded through to where it streamed out, followed the flow down, down, to where the road passed overhead. The water was almost waist-deep, but I kept going, through the darkness underneath the interstate, toward the light of the grate on the other side. It butted up against the drainage ditch from one of the factories—Savannah’s dad’s place, Maddison Electric.
I felt along the grate, under the water. Sticks and leaves. More nasty dead fish. Rusty toy truck. Cooler. Beer cans. Fast-food wrappers.
And . . . a soggy, sludge-coated backpack.
My heart pounded. My hands shook.
I unzipped the top of the bag to find it stuffed with girl’s clothes. I pulled a couple of balled-up shirts off the top.
“No way,” I breathed.
Tucked in each folded piece of clothing were stacks of hundred-dollar bills. I was legit dizzy, like I could pass out, as I counted one of the packets. Twenty hundred-dollar bills with a rubber band around them. Two thousand dollars. Right there. And there were how many of these packets? Damn. There had to be more than two hundred thousand dollars.
Did Jane realize how much was in the bag?
I took one of the bricks of money and riffled my thumb along the soggy edges. What could someone do with this much cash? Even if I shoved just one stack of twenties in my pocket, I could buy the shoes I needed for the homecoming game. And pay the water bill before they cut it off.
Hide with Me Page 13
