Red Heart Tattoo

by Lurlene McDaniel

  He pressed his fingertips to her lips. “It’s all right. It’s okay.” He knew what he wanted, but he wouldn’t push her. “This is for you to decide,” he said reluctantly.

  At that moment, his will was all that stood between them.

  She turned onto her side. “Hold me.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and snuggled against the curve of her body. He stroked her hair until she stopped trembling, and he stared into the dark until her breathing became even and regular in sleep.

  The FBI showed up at the Rothman residence two days after the storm with search warrants for the house and for Max’s place of business. Max called Paige and then headed down to his shop, where Hal was waiting for him. Carla stayed behind with Roth. The search was methodical and thorough. Nothing in the house or garage was left undisturbed. When Paige arrived, Roth asked, “Can they do this? They’re tearing the place apart!”

  “They have legal warrants,” Paige said grimly. “Ignore them.”

  Roth sat between Paige and Carla on the sofa, the two women protecting him like iron walls. Inwardly he did a slow burn, bouncing between anger and fright with every drawer opened, every shelf’s contents put on the floor. “This sucks.”

  Carla patted his arm. “Hey, hey, be careful,” she called to one man. “That vase is valuable. Came all the way from China.”

  The man gave her a quizzical look. Roth snickered. There was nothing of great value in the house. Most things had come from local secondhand stores.

  “Where’s your computer?” one of the men asked Roth.

  Roth looked to Paige and she signaled he could answer. “I don’t have a computer.”

  “What do you use for Web surfing? For homework?”

  “I use my uncle’s, at his shop.”

  The man went back to trashing the room, then moved on to the bedrooms.

  “How did they get the warrants?” Roth asked. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “The blog chatter and your interview by the police. And because they have no other suspects,” Paige answered. “They’re desperate.”

  Morgan struggled to keep her sanity and her good grades afloat in spite of being blind. She recorded class lectures, listened and relistened to her teachers’ words. She took verbal tests, aced most of them. But inner turmoil over her lost sight, along with her vanished sense of control, sneaked out to haunt her when she least expected it. Her emotions were up, down, like a roller-coaster ride with no end in sight.

  She ran student council meetings, was astounded by the kids who suddenly wanted to be a part of the group. “Nothing like an explosion to pump up school spirit,” she told Roth one afternoon after he ushered her inside her house.

  “I can’t recommend it as a game plan,” Roth said dryly.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  “No one here but us.”

  They’d gone into the kitchen. “You want something to eat or drink?”

  “Can’t stay. Promised Max I’d help around the studio.” His strategy for self-control when near Morgan was to not spend too much time alone with her—difficult, but necessary.

  She was disappointed. She liked hanging with him. His company kept loneliness at bay.

  Roth said, “Oh, here’s your mail. Picked it up off the floor when we came in.”

  Her interest pricked up. “Is there anything for me?”

  He thumbed through the short stack. “Coupon for free fish sticks.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “A letter for you from Boston College,” he said, turning the envelope over in his hand. It looked pretty official.

  Her breath caught. “Open it and read it to me. Please.”

  She listened to the tearing of paper, the unfolding of a letter. He read, “ ‘Dear Morgan—’ ” He stopped.

  “What does it say? Tell me what it says.” She was as jumpy as a puppy.

  “It says you’ve been accepted into their fall freshman class.”

  She squealed. “Oh my gosh! This was my first choice!”

  Roth stood reeling as the implications hit him. “You’re going away to college?”

  “That’s always been my plan. I want to go to law school someday. I want to have a great job and travel and … oh, you know, all that stuff.”

  “But what about—”

  “Blind people go to college,” she interrupted. “I can’t let it stop me.”

  He felt petty for bringing it up. Her blindness was never supposed to hold her back, but he hadn’t thought beyond the end of high school. She would leave and he couldn’t follow.

  She fumbled in her purse, which she’d set on the countertop, for her cell phone. “I’ve got to call Mom and Dad. Oh my gosh!”

  Roth felt pressure in his chest. He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted her to stay. He wanted her with him. He heard her reach her mother and excitedly tell her the news. Roth retreated from the room and walked out the front door, locking it behind him.

  Roth lay on his bed in the dark. He’d kept the lights off because the darkness matched his mood. Morgan had dreams and plans. He did not. He had no plans in place after graduation.

  There came a gentle rap on his bedroom door. Go away. The door cracked open and Carla peeked inside. “Can I come in?”

  He said nothing, but she entered anyway. Carla eased down beside him. Roth threw his arm over his eyes to block out the stream of light from the hall that cut a line across his chest and stopped below his chin.

  “You missed supper.”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t hungry.”

  “You should eat something.”

  “I’ll have a bowl of cereal later.”

  Carla sat quietly for a few minutes. “What’s got you down?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I’m the chief suspect in my school’s bombing.”

  “You’re innocent and we all know it,” she said. “And I don’t think that’s all that’s eating at you.”

  “Carla, please …”

  “It’s a girl, isn’t it?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Guys don’t give up food unless they’re having problems with love.”

  “I’m not in love,” he said, but he didn’t sound convincing even to his own ears.

  “It’s that girl you told me about last fall, isn’t it?” Carla’s voice was soft, kind and sure. “The one you wanted to go after.”

  Roth was amazed how quickly his stepmother had zeroed in on the truth. True, he couldn’t get Morgan off his mind. “How do you remember a little conversation we had months ago?”

  “I care about you,” Carla said as if that explained everything.

  Silence descended. Roth heard the movement of his clock from across the room, the muffled sound of the TV from the living room, where Max was watching a basketball game. Roth wanted to be alone but didn’t know how to kindly make Carla go away.

  “Do you know what was the worst day of my life?” she asked suddenly.

  He sighed.

  “It was the day my doctor told me that I could never have a baby of my own.”

  Roth turned his head so that he could see her face. Light haloed her silhouette—the frothy hair, the slope of her shoulders. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Do you know what was the best day of my life?” She let the sentence hang for a heartbeat. “It was the day I moved in with you and Max. I got two kids at the same time.” He heard the smile in her voice. She flipped Roth’s hair off his forehead. “You are a great kid, Stuart.”

  He cringed at the use of his given name but was still moved by her compliment. “Your point?”

  “That’s my point. You’re a great kid and I love you. Somewhere out there in your future life there’s a girl for you. A lucky girl. You may not recognize her at first when she comes along, but be on the lookout, because she’ll appear when you least expect her.”

  He wanted only Morgan.

  “Now come on,” Carla said, tugging at his elbow.

  He didn’t want to
leave the dark, but he let her lead him into the kitchen and fix him a sandwich anyway.

  • • •

  Morgan called him on a Saturday morning. “I need you to come over right now.”

  Alarmed, Roth asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Something’s right. Big-time right.”

  He raced over in his blue pickup in record time, on freshly plowed roads, his heart pounding. Her voice had been upbeat and excited. Maybe she’d gotten her eyesight back. He’d known it might come quickly when it came. And if she could see, what would it be like between them?

  Morgan threw open the front door the second he stepped on the porch. She threw herself into his arms, hugged him tightly. “It’s over,” she said, her eyes glowing but still sightless. “They’ve caught the kids who made the bomb!”

  “Over?” Roth repeated. Had he heard correctly? “Is that true?”

  Over Morgan’s shoulder he saw Paige walk into the foyer. She beamed him a smile. “It’s true. Morgan wanted to be the one to tell you, but they’ve caught the bombers.”

  “How? Who?”

  “Come into the den and I’ll tell you everything,” Paige said, motioning Roth forward.

  Roth hadn’t been inside the den since the night of the blizzard when he and Morgan had tenderly touched and explored one another until they finally fell asleep in each other’s arms. He kept his eyes on Paige, looking for any sign that she knew about that night, but saw no hint of it as he and Morgan settled on the sofa. Paige took a place in an easy chair beside the fireplace.

  “First, ‘who,’ ” Paige said. “Do you know a Tommy Watkins or a Jackson Sinclaire?”

  Roth came up blank. “No. Should I?”

  “They’re ninth graders,” Morgan threw in. “I don’t know them either.”

  “They did the deed,” Paige said.

  Roth’s jaw dropped. “But why?”

  “Let me tell you what I know,” Paige said, leaning forward in her chair. “I was in police headquarters last evening with a client and the place was buzzing about two kids who’d been brought in earlier and were sitting in separate interrogation rooms. Cops do that, you know. They separate suspects and then question them to see how their stories match up.”

  Roth remembered his own interrogation and how accusatory it had been. These guys were no doubt treated the same way.

  “FBI showed up, so I knew something important was happening. I hung around the precinct eavesdropping. Turns out these two boys were in the hot seat. Of course, their parents were with them, and attorneys from Detroit, but the cops were pretty sure they’d got their bombers. I overheard Sanchez talking—you remember her.”

  Roth would never forget the woman. She’d been like a bulldog with him.

  “Sanchez is saying that one kid, Tommy, cracked like an egg the second the cops pressured him—confessed to everything, cried like a baby. His lawyer couldn’t get him to shut up. But the other one, Jackson, he was cold as ice. Clammed up at first, but when he heard his friend had confessed, and he knew it was over, acted proud of what they’d done. Didn’t seem to care a whit about murdering teachers and fellow students.”

  “Ninth graders? At Edison?”

  “ ’Fraid so.”

  “But why?”

  “According to what I overheard, when an agent asked that question, Jackson answered, ‘Because I could. Because I felt like it. I was nothing to them. They were nothing to me.’ The agent tried to give him an out. He asked him, ‘Were you bullied? Is that why?’ ‘Bullied?’ says Jackson. ‘Naw … I just told you, they don’t even know we’re alive.’ ”

  Morgan stirred beside Roth on the couch. “We don’t have cliques at Edison … do we?” She aimed her question at Roth.

  Morgan and her crowd had been part of Edison’s elite, top of the high school pecking order. How could Morgan not know this? “I’m not the one to ask.”

  His answer stung her—she felt she’d worked hard to make everyone feel involved with the school.

  Seeing Morgan’s reaction, Paige said, “Life is cliquish. People tend to hang out with others like themselves. Groups form. It’s human nature. Perhaps no one could have made these two feel like they fit in.”

  “So now what?” Roth asked, not wanting to be sidetracked.

  “I marched up to Sanchez and asked if this confession vindicated my client. She said it did, so you’re free to be the hero we know you are.” Paige looked smug and satisfied.

  Roth didn’t feel like a hero. He felt used and abused. Neither could he get his head around how two kids could cause so much damage and affect so many lives when they seemed to have no grudge against anyone. Why would anyone commit such a detestable random act of violence? There was no logic. “I still have a lot of questions,” he said.

  “We all do,” Paige answered. “And trust me, this story will be pounded to death by the media over the next few weeks. Some things we’ll learn, some things we’ll never know. They’re in the courts’ hands now. Your involvement, it’s over.”

  Paige predicted correctly. The minute the story broke, the media was all over it. The national media returned to Grandville like flies to a carcass. The local reports were far more sensitive, because those media outlets shared in the town’s grief. The two boys were charged as adults, and their names made public. Interviews were extracted from anyone who’d stand still in front of a microphone. Reports soon labeled both boys as “young minds gone awry, smart and from decent homes” with “ordinary families.” Roth learned that while both their sets of parents worked, Jackson and Tommy had unlimited free time and access to almost anything they wanted. He wondered how he might have turned out if his parents had lived and he’d been given an “ordinary life.” Of course, his parents would have had to give up drugs. He wouldn’t think about that.

  The FBI had the best forensic science people in the world and they found traces of explosives in Jackson’s garage five months after the bomb had been assembled there. They traced the backpack to Tommy from a fifth-grade photo, and they broke the encrypted code of both boys’ computers to find a trail of incriminating emails and blog entries to throw suspicion on a Stuart Rothman, a senior at Edison. For his part, Roth refused all interviews, wanting only to put it all behind him. He hated that the two creeps were being immortalized, even as monsters, by the media.

  Carla read the newspaper stories aloud daily at the breakfast table. “Makes my blood boil,” she said. “These kids are monsters. A psychiatrist is calling Jackson a sociopath. That’s a person without a conscience.” Fuming, she looked across the table at Roth and Max. “Are you two listening?”

  Max shoveled a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth. “Let it go, ma chérie.”

  She squinted at him. “These two almost wrecked Roth’s life. How can I let it go?” She returned to reading aloud. “ ‘The suspects referred to one another as Apocalypse and Executioner in their emails.’ What jerks!”

  “Please, Carla, I’m sick of the whole mess,” Roth said. He concentrated on the back of a cereal box, hoping to discourage Carla’s rant. Roth had precious few months to go before June graduation and he was working double-time to make sure it happened for him. Although as a fringe benefit, his “not guilty” status had cut him some slack in his classes. None of his teachers wanted to flunk a hero.

  Carla shook out the paper, ignored Max’s and Roth’s wishes. “ ‘Police and FBI acted on an anonymous tip before issuing warrants for Mr. Sinclaire and Mr. Watkins.’ ”

  This part piqued Roth’s interest. “What kind of tip?”

  “Says it came via an email to headquarters. They traced it back to a computer at the public library—no way to know who sent it. The note said: ‘In the case of the Edison bombing, you should look at Jackson Sinclaire and Tommy Watkins.’ ” She folded the paper and hit the table with it. “So why is this tip coming out now? If someone knew something, why didn’t they report it sooner?”

  “No idea,” Roth said, returning to his cereal b
owl. If he could get his hands on the tipster, he’d shake the answer out of the creep.

  “They’ll probably get off on an insanity plea,” Carla grumbled.

  “They won’t get off,” Max said. “The feds frown on bomb makers.” He winked at Roth, who grinned and hunched over his cereal bowl, transfixed not by the conversation but by the Cheerios floating in milk, bobbing up and down with every dip of the spoon, but unsinkable—a metaphor for his life.

  Liza stood in the crowded convenience store, hiding behind a row of metal shelves that held snack foods, and watching Morgan stand in front of the refrigerated cases of soft drinks. Liza had ducked when Morgan and Roth entered the store, not wanting to be seen by Roth. Bad timing that they were in the same place at the same time. She’d steered a wide berth around Roth since their argument weeks before. It pained Liza to see the two of them together at school, so seeing them after school twisted inside her like a knife.

  Morgan reached for the handle of the glass case, but her blindness was keeping her from opening the case. Liza understood the dilemma at once.

  Liza glanced to the front of the store, at the line of people waiting to pay for gasoline. Roth was a good ways back and Morgan was hidden from his line of sight. The sole cashier was swamped, so it was going to take Roth a while to get to the man with his cash.

  Liza fidgeted. She knew what she should do. She should help Morgan.

  Morgan grasped the handle of the cold case, but was stumped over how to choose a soda. She’d insisted that Roth pay for gas while she grabbed a soda, and so he’d left her to her own devices, which, at the moment, were failing her. How had she thought she could pick out a diet soda from refrigerator shelves she couldn’t see? This blind thing was getting old.

  She’d thought for sure that the capture of the kids who’d planted the bomb would bring her sight back. It hadn’t, despite Dr. Peg’s continued assurance that her conversion disorder would vanish when her mind was ready to deal with it. She gritted her teeth, determined to drink whatever she pulled out of the case even if she hated it.