by Nic Joseph
We sat there silently, and I floated back to that night and the peculiar, thick, grainy moment when everything stopped.
Footsteps pounding down the stairs.
Sam Farr’s face as he appeared in the living room, drenched in water, his entire body shaking.
“What’s wrong?” his father had asked, launching from his seat.
I heard my mother say, years later, that she saw Sam’s expression, and in an instant, she knew her youngest son was dead. I think she said it for the sake of the media, but I don’t doubt there was some truth to it. The quote had been plastered across newspapers for an entire week. She said she knew, right then, what she would find when they got upstairs, and for that reason, she hadn’t wanted to move.
She didn’t want to know.
Sam had stood in front of us, frozen, and it seemed that everybody had started to hurt at the same time, the pain oozing out, everywhere, and then the wineglass had slipped from my mother’s fingertips, and the last traces of the evening’s thick, joyous red wine had coated the carpet like blood, staining it forever.
“How did they explain the silence?” I asked Banks. “Why Sam never talked…”
“Well, as you know, the boy didn’t talk much anyway. A psychologist said the tragic event could have caused a complete shutdown. I just wish the one statement he did make hadn’t been ruled out, you know?” He shrugged. “That might have been the real turning point in the case.”
“Wait, what statement?”
“The…” Banks frowned. When he saw my expression, he tilted his head. “What Sam said to your father that night, while everyone was upstairs. Of course you heard about that…”
He watched my confused expression, and his eyes grew wide.
“Wow, I guess you really were young,” he said, a look of confusion on his face. “But didn’t you hear anything about the case afterward?”
He wasn’t trying to drive a point home, but it felt that way, and I tensed up again.
“I read a few things here and there, but I finished out the school year on the East Coast,” I said, my jaw clenched. “That’s why I’m here now. What are you talking about?”
“The boy apologized—”
“What?”
“Yeah…” Banks said, sitting back and shaking his head. “I can’t believe you didn’t know that. The boy apologized to Alex while everyone else was upstairs. Not another soul in sight, which you can imagine made things difficult for the case. The boy didn’t talk after that night, but according to your father, he said more than enough that evening.” Banks leaned forward. “If I remember your father’s words correctly, Sam said, and I quote, ‘I’m sorry it happened, and I’m sorry I have to lie.’”
Chapter Nineteen
“He said that?”
“If we’re to believe Alex, then yes.”
“But…” I sputtered. “The whole case rested on the fact that he never said anything about that night! A kid of that age was sure to break, but not Sam Farr. How come this was never brought up at the trial?”
“Sam’s lawyers got it thrown out. They denied it ever happened. And they made it clear that if we pushed it, they would be forced to put more weight on what happened right after that.”
“Right after that?” I struggled to put the pieces together. “In the foyer? You mean, when my father pushed him—”
“Yep,” Banks said. “Bad news is that there was no one else around to hear Sam say that he had to lie, but everyone showed up as this thirty-seven-year-old man rushed a ten-year-old boy, knocking him over.” Banks chuckled and shook his head. “I know it’s not funny, but it was certainly a shit show. There wasn’t much we could do about that. It was your father’s word against Sam’s, and no jury was going to find fault in a young boy who had just seen his best friend die in a horrible accident, only to be attacked by the friend’s father.”
“It sounds to me like you thought Sam was guilty too. At least, somewhat?”
Banks blinked and looked at me as if he hadn’t expected such a question. “Well, that’s a tough one. I don’t know that I ever came to a conclusion of guilt. Now, if you’re asking if I think the boy was responsible for what happened to Lucas, then you know what? Probably. Does that make him guilty? I don’t know. He was a kid. We don’t say that when babies do things wrong, they’re guilty. This is a ten-year-old. I don’t know. It’s a tough one. Certainly didn’t give people the right to do what they did, harassing him and everything. But I do think he was hiding something.”
“Why?”
“Because you and I know that the normal reaction for anyone, of any age, to being accused of doing something they didn’t do is to deny it. Whether you scream and shout it or whisper it quietly, you deny it. He never even tried.”
“Who else spoke at the trial?”
“Oh, all sorts of people. A scene-by-scene analyst who testified to all of the possible accident scenarios that could have led to Lucas’s death. All speculation, really. There was the on-the-scene detective who interviewed Sam first. He made it pretty clear that he thought Sam was guilty. Then there was the expert who testified that yes, Sam Farr, with enough anger in him, could have pushed Lucas hard enough to make him fall and hit his head. A real shit show, I tell you. We all had an expert who showed how things could have happened. But nobody had any real proof.” He shrugged. “Nobody except one person. I think he’s taking the truth with him to his grave.”
“Do you keep in touch with anyone? Other than my father?”
He frowned. “No, there’s no reason to,” he said.
“Do you know if Alex did?”
He thought for a moment. “He was pretty close with the detective. Younger was his name, I think.”
I thought about the tall man who’d practically dragged me out of my parents’ bathroom. He didn’t look like a “Younger.”
We were silent for a few moments, and finally, I stood up to leave. “I guess that’s it then. Thanks for your time, Mr. Banks.”
“Oh, anytime. That case,” he said, shaking his head as he stood with me, “I’m sure I’ll never be able to let it go. There are just some of them that stick with you forever.”
“You’re telling me.” I shook his hand and left his office. While we’d been talking, I’d been forming a plan. There was so much about my brother’s case I didn’t know. So much my father had been living with for years. Some of those insights had to point me in his direction, and maybe—just maybe—Matthew Farr’s.
I knew one person—a tall, striking health psychologist—who had some of those answers, but she didn’t seem willing to share them with me. She said she kept all of her interview notes at her other office in Orland Park.
So I’d have to get them myself.
• • •
What I was about to do was wrong.
Unethical.
Risky.
Against the law.
And borne out of pure and utter desperation. Christine obviously knew more than she’d let on when I’d gone to meet with her, and as far as I knew, she’d had the most regular contact with Alex for the past few weeks.
When I made the decision to break into her Orland Park office later that night to find her notes about her sessions with Alex, I’d underestimated all of the time I’d have to think about what I was doing before I actually got there. As I punched the address from her business card into my GPS, I battled with the voice of reason that told me this was too much, too far, too ridiculous.
I distracted myself during the drive, listening to talk radio, zoning out, and ignoring the overwhelming urge to turn the car around and head home. When I finally parked the car, my hands ached as I released my grip on the steering wheel.
Here we go.
Christine’s suburban office was a storefront on a quiet downtown street. The streetlights were on, but there was no one around.
A few of the storefronts had apartments above them. I waited for a few moments, searching for movement. When the silence continued for a full three minutes, I opened my car door and stepped out. I shivered and pulled my collar up around my face, wishing I hadn’t left my scarf at home. I inched toward the front of the building, my gaze darting all around me. I couldn’t afford to be surprised by Miranda Farr again, not this time.
The sign out front of the modern brick building contained just her name. Christine Sharpe, Psy.D.
I moved closer to the front door and peered through the window. Darkness. I could see the outline of a neat waiting area just past the door. I tried the handle without any expectation and sighed, stepping back.
Of course not.
I walked away from the front door, my head down, weighing my next move.
I walked toward an alley alongside the building, navigating between two large, overflowing Dumpsters. I swallowed, holding my breath as the scent of trash wafted into my nostrils and made my stomach roil.
Don’t look at it, Francis.
Do not look at it.
There had to be a back door, right? All buildings had back doors for the purpose of breaking and entering, second only to escaping fires and trash disposal.
As I moved slowly along, a sudden motion near the end of the alley caught my eye, and I stopped.
What the…?
Standing at the end, near what must have been the back door to Christine’s clinic, was a man.
I moved quickly behind one of the Dumpsters and pushed myself against the side of the building, my back flat against the hard, cold, and rough bricks. The smell of the trash was overwhelming now, and alarms went off in my head as I fought the urge to flee. A creeping sensation began to take over my body, and I pushed it down, determined to ignore it as I craned my neck forward to peer around the large bin.
I couldn’t make out the man’s face, but his hands were stuffed in his pockets, and he shifted back and forth, looking nervously in every direction.
Who was it?
Was he waiting for someone?
I was about to step closer to get a better look when the man suddenly moved.
He slipped his hands out of his pockets, walked up to the back door of the office, and knocked on it with the palm of his hand.
Bang, bang, bang.
Three slow knocks.
A pause.
Then he reached up and banged his palm one final time.
Bang.
I crept closer, squinting to try to catch a glimpse of his face.
What the hell was going on here?
As I inched around the Dumpster, I heard a noise, and seconds later, the back door opened.
I couldn’t see who opened the door, but the man in the alley stepped closer and began to speak. After a moment, he stepped inside, and the door shut quickly behind him.
The dark alley seemed even quieter now, the weight of what I’d just seen making me freeze in place. It didn’t look like I was going to get my hands on my father’s file, at least not tonight. But that seemed less important now. What was Christine up to? Had she been the one who answered the door?
I turned to head back toward the front of the building and then gasped.
Standing just a few feet away from me, his eyes trained on me, was another man.
He was shorter than me but stockier, with sunken eyes and a relatively fresh bruise on his cheekbone. He wore a hooded sweat suit beneath a dirty, light-gray jacket, and he kept both hands in his pockets.
“Is that the place?” he asked, not moving.
It took me a moment to find my voice.
“Uh, what?”
“I said, is this the place?” He stayed where he was but leaned slowly to one side to look around me to the end of the alley.
He scratched the side of his neck and stepped closer.
I held my breath, watching him, waiting for him to act.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said quickly when he didn’t do anything. “Pretty sure it is, yeah.”
“What’s the code?”
I blinked. “The code?”
“Yeah,” he said, his gaze darting down the alley and back to me. “Black rock or something, right?” He scratched again.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think that’s it.”
He tilted his head to the side and then began to shake it slowly. “Naw, man, it’s black something, but it’s not that. Shit. I been tryin’ to remember it all day.”
“Black…moon?” I said, taking a stab in the dark.
He frowned. “Was it moon? Naw, I don’t think so, it was like rock, but not rock, you know?”
I struggled for something to say that would make him believe that I had any idea at all about what he was referring to.
“Oh yeah, you’re right,” I tried. “Black…wasn’t it, ‘stone’?”
He shook his head. “Naw, man. Shit. Black…” He closed his eyes for a moment, and I prayed he would get it right. “Box!” He opened his eyes and nodded. “Right?”
I nodded. “Shit, man, you’re right. They should’ve made it something easier.”
“You going in?”
“No, I have to wait here for a friend. I’ll be in soon.”
“All right,” he said. He gave me what felt like a nod of approval and walked past me.
What the fuck was going on?
He walked down the alley toward the door, and with one quick glance back at me, he raised his hand and knocked on the door.
Bang, bang, bang.
He paused and looked at me again before lifting it again.
Bang.
Immediately, the door opened.
The man spoke to the figure shielded by the door for a few moments. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, except for one word.
“Box.”
Then he walked inside.
I knew it wasn’t the best idea, but I knew immediately what I had to do.
I had no other choice.
I could go home and come back tomorrow to find her notes. But Christine was up to something tonight that she didn’t want anyone to know about.
If she was the one answering the door, I’d confront her right away. If not, I’d try to find out what was going on, maybe even find a chance to slip away to find my father’s file.
I had nowhere else to look, and not much else to lose.
I took a breath and walked down the alley, toward the back door, glancing over my shoulder for any other late arrivals.
As I approached, I saw a dim light beneath the door.
Bracing myself for whatever was on the other side, I raised my hand and knocked on the door three times.
I paused, looking once more for any other guests, but I was alone.
The voice that had been pulling me back home all night shrieked like a car alarm, but I planted my feet on the ground and took a deep breath.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I reached up and knocked once more.
Chapter Twenty
I have a recurring dream where I’m running through a public place in search of a bathroom. Each one I find has a serious problem: sometimes it’s covered in filth, or the stalls have no doors. Once, every single toilet was taken up by someone I only sort of knew—the barista at my favorite coffee shop, a neighbor I barely spoke to—and they all stared at me brazenly while taking care of their business. I didn’t stop for coffee for weeks.
Still, the thing about dreams is that as awful as they feel in the moment, there’s a fuzziness to them that always lets me know something isn’t quite right, that it isn’t actually real.
As I stood in the alley outside of Christine’s office, waiting for someone to answer the door, it all felt too real.
Incredibly, painfully, unavoidably real.
I’d been s
tanding there for a full thirty seconds when I realized nothing was going to happen. Had I knocked too quietly? Were they expecting anyone else?
The cold air swirled around my face, and I looked over my shoulder again.
I’d regret it if I didn’t try one more time. I raised my hand and went through the process again, this time banging loudly.
Bang, bang, bang.
Pause.
Bang.
Almost immediately, I heard a noise on the other side of the door, and my stomach flipped over.
Then, the door opened, and behind it stood the largest man I’d ever seen.
He towered over me, and his shoulders almost touched either side of the doorframe. He was wearing a turtleneck, and in the dim glow behind him, I could see a rough scar that trailed from his ear, across his jaw, and down his neck.
“Yeah?” he said, startling me, and I drew my gaze away from the scar, back to his face. His eyes were piercing, and he watched me carefully, waiting for me to respond.
My throat was suddenly dry, too dry to speak, and the words that came out of me weren’t much more than a whisper.
“I’m here about the black moon.”
It sounded so ridiculous, and I half expected him to laugh in my face, turn around, and shut the door.
“The what?” he asked.
I blinked.
Wait, what did I say?
Did I say “moon”?
Shit.
Was that it? I pictured the man I’d just spoken with near the Dumpsters.
I cleared my throat. “The black box.”
His expression didn’t change.
“Who sent you?”
Shit, shit.
A logical question. I should’ve asked the junkie before he went inside.
“He didn’t tell me his name,” I said, and the man’s eyes narrowed. “Look, can I come in or what? It’s cold, and I got other places to be.”
The man looked past me into the alley, and after a moment, he nodded and stepped back. I almost toppled over in relief, but I squared my shoulders and walked inside.
It had worked.
Un-fucking-believable.
