Innocent Mistakes

by Melissa F. Miller

  His thoughts match the cadence of his feet slapping against the ground. First slow, then they speed up as he runs faster. And then, like always, when he moves fast enough, the magic takes over and everything falls away—school, mom, the creep who catfished him. He imagines them underfoot, as he pounds against the pavement, faster, faster, faster. Leaving them behind.

  It’s always been this way. It’s why he started running. Third grade. Mom and Dad were arguing in the kitchen. Dad stormed out and Mom screamed at his back, ‘You can’t run away from your problems, Paul.’ And Hunter thought, but I bet I can. I can outrun anything. And it turns out, he can.

  He turns onto Hampden Road. Mom was right for once, the fog is heavy and the sky is gray from the ground to the treeline. He inches closer to the shoulder as he nears the blind curve. He doesn’t like to run with his back to traffic, ever, but the other side of the road is loaded with ticks. And he knows a guy from Greenmont who used to hold the record in two events who got Lyme disease and is in a wheelchair now. What’s that kid’s name? Dorian? Something like that.

  That’s when he hears the engine. He looks over his shoulder, but the car doesn’t have its daytime running lights on. Jagoff. He shuffles even closer to the metal guard rail until he’s nearly bumping it. The car speeds up.

  He’s trapped against the guardrail. There’s nowhere to go. This stretch of Hampden crosses over the highway. It’s an overpass with nothing but a steep drop-off on the other side of the railing. He pours on the speed and sprints. He knows he can’t outrun a car, but if he can cross this bridge, he can jump the guardrail into the empty lot.

  The car’s closer. He can feel the rumble of the engine in his chest. He’s sweating now, his pulse is pounding. He throws another panicked glance over his shoulder, and the driver swerves toward him. The front bumper of the car clips his leg, flinging him into the guardrail. He hits it hard, making contact with his hip and his ankle, and then he’s down. He grabs the guardrail with both hands and hangs on tight—more afraid of the cliff than the car.

  The car jerks away, tires squealing, and shoots forward around the curve and vanishes into the fog. He doesn’t catch the license plate or the make. No glimpse of the driver. All he knows is it’s a dark minivan. Like that’s gonna help. Dad always says the women around here would pick a minivan over Brad Pitt. He can’t keep them on the lot.

  Hunter hangs on the railing until he catches his breath. Then he pushes down, using the metal rail as leverage to pull himself to his feet. White-hot fire shoots up his leg from his ankle up to his thigh. He screams, then collapses back to the ground. His ankle is toast. He scrabbles around in his pocket for his phone.

  He doesn’t like running with it, but Mom insists. For once he’s glad. He almost pushes the speed dial for her number but, even through the pain-induced dizziness and nausea, he’s clearheaded enough to know she’ll freak out and overreact. He hits the contact card for Dad instead.

  33

  Siobhan’s out of bread. The ducks were extra hungry today. She leaves the pond and circles the park, pausing at the top of the hill as the palest rays of sun struggle to break through the thick fog and blanket of clouds. It’s barely a sunrise.

  The sound of an engine revving cuts through the early morning silence. She turns to watch a dark minivan careen around the bend from Hampden Road, going way, way too fast for conditions and for that windy road. Whoever it is, they’re driving like they’re being chased. The minivan swerves across the yellow line, then the driver yanks the wheel and the minivan shoots back across the line with a jerky motion.

  Holy crap. Mr. Ward, the driver’s education instructor, would bite that person’s head off for driving this way. She turns and squints toward the intersection, half-expecting to see a line of police cars chasing the minivan. But the road is empty.

  Weird.

  She shrugs it off and sticks her hands in her pockets, then continues walking, down the hill to the playground where she and Colin used to spend hours. She stops at the swings. She hasn’t been here in ages, but she can’t resist. She lowers herself into a plastic U-shaped seat and grips the coated metal chains. As she lazily sways back and forth, back and forth, thoughts swirl through her mind.

  Society. Gurl Pwr15. Hunter. Mallory and Colin and their stupid secret. She’s been keeping her own secret about the deep fakes shoved down deep inside her. But ever since her talk with Aunt Sasha, it keeps bubbling to the surface. Would she feel better if she let it erupt?

  She twists the chains, turning the swing in a circle, tighter and tighter. Then she lets them unwind, and she spins, her feet dragging in the dirt beneath her.

  There will be a lot of damage. A lot. And she knows enough to know Hunter will be in real trouble, with real consequences, not like the dumb bullying charge his mom keeps yapping about.

  Who cares about Hunter? He did this, not you. He deserves whatever he gets.

  Hunter can’t put any weight at all on his foot. He crawls to the empty lot to wait for Dad and focuses on breathing through the pain the way Coach always tells them to. In. Out. In. Out. It helps, kinda.

  The pain lessens enough that he can think, and his mind starts to spin. If he’s out for the rest of the season, he’s going to kill the moron who did this to him. He tries to convince himself that they must not have seen him in the fog. But he can’t forget the image of the minivan swerving toward him.

  No way. There’s no way someone would hit him on purpose. Right? The McCandlesses have a minivan …. No, that’s too wild.

  He pushes the idea out of his head and scans the road for Dad’s car.

  But when Dad pulls up in a shiny, dark green Jaguar, he’s coming from the wrong direction—not from the dealership. Dad jumps out of the car and runs to him.

  “I thought you were at the dealership?” he mumbles as Dad lifts him to his feet.

  The pain slices through him, and he inhales sharply, lifting his foot.

  “Just put your weight on me.” Dad loops Hunter’s arm over his shoulder and guides him to the car.

  A cloud of sickly sweet perfume clings to Dad’s shirt, and, as Hunter presses his face against Dad’s shoulder, the scent of roses and candy fills his nostrils. Mom’s signature scent, as she calls it, is spicy and rich. It smells nothing like roses and candy. A thought cuts through Hunter’s pain: he’s not the only one in the family keeping secrets.

  Dad racks the passenger seat all the way back and gets Hunter settled into the bucket seat. “I’ll call your mom on the way to the hospital. Did you get a good look at the SOB who did this to you?”

  “Too foggy. It was a minivan.”

  “Crap, that’s no help. The ladies around here would choose a minivan over a night with Brad Pitt,” Dad says as he pulls the seatbelt across Hunter’s chest and fastens the buckle.

  Hunter chuckles, then he lets his head loll back against the headrest and closes his eyes.

  34

  Sasha jogs up the stairs to her front door, stripping off her reflective vest and warm hat as she goes. It was chilly and foggy when she left for her sunrise five-miler, but once the sun burned off the fog, it warmed up quickly. That run up Negley Hill from Fifth Avenue is getting steeper every year. She’d swear to it.

  She stops in the entryway to soak up the unfamiliar sound of silence, then does a series of wall stretches. After a quick swing through the kitchen to grab some water, she heads upstairs to take a long shower with no risk of being interrupted by another living creature. No barking, shouting, mewling, or requests for help.

  She stands under the stream of water for ages, letting the spray pound against her shoulders as she plans her day. Her highest priority is getting through to Siobhan. Maybe if she knows Mallory sent that message, it’ll spur her into action?

  She wrinkles her nose. Pitting the girls against each other to expose Hunter feels dirty. But then she remembers her call with Connelly. Hunter was more than willing to exploit Connelly’s fifteen-year-old alter ego. He’s not goin
g to stop. Unless she stops him.

  She twists off the water and squeezes the excess water from her hair. She hopes she did the right thing by asking Connelly to sit on the audio clip of Hunter making the fake 9-1-1 call.

  Just for a day or two. Just until I get this situation with Siobhan cleared up.

  Adding a criminal charge of her own against Hunter will make the situation impossibly messy, and could cause Joe to move for her disqualification if they do end up in front of a judge. No, this is the right play. Expose Hunter’s harassment of Siobhan, secure a promise from Joe not to charge Siobhan, Mallory, or Colin with anything, and then drop the hammer for the swatting.

  She wraps an oversized towel around her body and twists her hair up into a smaller towel. She wonders what the twins are doing right this moment. Sleeping, probably. She misses them so intensely it’s as if her chest’s been hollowed out. It’s this overwhelming feeling, this physical manifestation of love, she thinks, that explains the way parents react when their kids are in harm’s way.

  What was it Joe said? Parents will do anything to try to save their kids. This feeling in her chest is why.

  She wriggles into her bathrobe and combs out her hair.

  “Parents will do anything to try to save their kids.” She says the words aloud and stares at her reflection in the mirror.

  The truth smacks her full in the face. Mallory Fuller isn’t the only person who had access to Siobhan’s phone on Thursday morning. She needs to talk to Lainey Fuller.

  35

  Siobhan watches from her window as the police car pulls up in front of the house. After a moment, Officer Hill gets out of the car and stares up at the porch. Siobhan twitches her curtain aside and walks out of her room. Her heart pounds. Is Officer Hill here for her? She didn’t post that stupid message. How many times is she going to have to say it before they finally believe her?

  She creeps toward the stairs. The doorbell rings. Colin pops his head out of his room and sees her tiptoeing down the hall.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Officer Hill is here.”

  “Oh, weird.”

  She studies him for a second. She hears Mom at the door, talking to the police officer in a low murmuring voice.

  Siobhan clears her throat and says in a casual voice, “Hey, where were you this morning?”

  He blinks at her. “What?”

  “Where’d you go? I got up early and decided to go over to the park. I was going to see if you wanted to come, but you were gone. Mom and Dad weren’t even up yet.”

  She waits to see if he’ll tell her the truth—that he went somewhere with Mallory—or if he’ll lie to her. Before she gets the chance to find out, Mom calls up the stairs, “Colin, Siobhan, come down here please.”

  Siobhan’s heart thumps and her legs start to shake. She doesn’t even know why she’s so scared. She looks at Colin. His face is pale, which makes his freckles pop. She bets she looks the same way. She doesn’t know why, but on an impulse, she grabs his hand. He squeezes hers back. They walk down the stairs that way, hand in hand, and stop in the foyer.

  Mom gives them a puzzled, slightly exasperated look. “Did either of you take the minivan out this morning?”

  Colin shakes his head. “No, ma’am.”

  Mom and Officer Hill turn to Siobhan. She feels her eyes widen.

  “I didn’t. I walked over to the park to feed the ducks. You know we don’t have our licenses yet, right? We only have permits. I can’t drive without an adult in the car.”

  Officer Hill gives her a long look. “Someone driving a dark-colored minivan was involved in a hit-and-run with a pedestrian this morning on Hampden Road.”

  Siobhan flashes back to the sunrise. “Was it like around seven a.m.?”

  The officer cocks her head. “As a matter of fact it was. Do you know something?”

  She can feel the weight of Mom and Colin’s eyes as they stare at her. “Um, not really. I ran out of bread, so I was walking back and I stopped at the top of the hill to watch the sun rise. I couldn’t really see it because it was so foggy. I couldn’t really see anything because of the fog, but a minivan barreled around the corner, coming from the intersection with Hampden Road. They were driving really fast and out of control, like a bat out of hell. I remember thinking Mr. Ward would rip me a new one if I—”

  “Siobhan, language.” Mom presses her lips together and raises her eyebrows.

  “Uh, right, sorry. Mr. Ward would be very disappointed to see someone driving so recklessly.”

  Colin snickers.

  Officer Hill is focused on the substance of Siobhan’s story. “Did you get the license plate? A look at the driver?”

  “No. Even if it hadn’t been so foggy, I was too far away. They crossed the center line, pulled back into their travel lane, and shot out of sight.”

  “What did you do?”

  Siobhan draws her eyebrows together and eyes the officer. “Nothing. I walked home.”

  Officer Hill turns back to Colin. “Did you leave the house today?”

  Don’t lie, don’t lie, don’t lie. Siobhan has never really bought the stories about twins who have some sort of psychic connection, but if there’s ever a time for a leap of faith, this is it. She thinks as hard as she can. Don’t lie to a police officer.

  Colin drops Siobhan’s hand. Siobhan wipes her palm on her pants. His palm was so sweaty. Mom and Officer Hill look at him expectantly.

  He takes a deep breath, then says, “I was with Mallory Fuller. She borrowed her mom’s minivan, and we went to get coffee. But we didn’t see anybody walking on Hampden Road, and she didn’t drive like a sociopath.”

  Officer Hill’s face crumples. “The victim wasn’t walking, he was running. And it was Hunter Dalton.”

  36

  Lainey Fuller keeps glancing at her garage door. There’s a rhythm to it. She responds to something Sasha says, stirs the spoon around in her tea, flicks her eyes toward the door. Lather, rinse, repeat.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Sasha asks mid-stir, breaking the rhythm.

  “What?”

  “You keep looking at your door.”

  “Oh. Doug’s golfing. He’ll be home soon and I just …,” she smiles apologetically and straightens the placemat in front of her, “… it’d be better if you weren’t here.”

  “Why? Because he’ll tell me that when he left for work Thursday morning, you were alone here in the kitchen with the girls’ phones?”

  “What? Did you already talk to him?” Lainey’s eyes dart to the door again.

  “No. But that is what happened, right? Siobhan was showering, Mallory was in her room getting dressed, and you took Siobhan’s phone off the charger and posted that comment.”

  Lainey blinks at her. Opens and closes her mouth. Stirs her tea. Looks at the door.

  Sasha tries again. “I don’t blame you. Not really. I wouldn’t want my daughter to be dating Hunter Dalton. I can understand trying to protect her, trying to break them up. Did you think if she thought Colin was jealous, it would send her running back to him?”

  Lainey flattens her mouth.

  Nope, that’s not why. The motivation’s wrong. But she’s pretty sure the facts are right.

  Sasha keeps talking, as if Lainey’s responded. “No, that’s not it, is it? Then why did you do it, Lainey? And why would you let Colin face potential federal charges?”

  The skin around Lainey’s eyes tightens. Frustration, anger, impatience.

  “You never imagined Leigh would get her FBI agent brother involved over a silly post on the school intranet. And once she did, you couldn’t admit what you’d done. The FBI might not have the resources to prosecute a child, but they could prosecute you, and they just might, too, if Leigh made enough noise.”

  Lainey’s nostrils flare. After a moment, she says, “I think it’s time for you to go.”

  Sasha pushes back her chair and stands. “Thanks for the tea. You should know that I’m putting together a
case against Hunter Dalton for his behavior. If he did something to your daughter, I can help you, Lainey.”

  Lainey presses her lips together. No need to parse that body language: she’s got nothing to say.

  Sasha turns to put her cup and saucer beside the sink. Mallory Fuller’s standing in the doorway. She clings to the doorjamb, shaking and teary-eyed. She stares at her mother with a vacant, shell-shocked expression.

  “Mom, Siobhan just called me. Colin’s been arrested. And the police are on their way to arrest me, too. They think we ran Hunter over with your car.”

  At that moment, Sasha’s phone rings. Lainey and Mallory both jerk their heads toward the sound. “It’s Jordan,” she says, not at all sure why she’s announcing this.

  “Jordan, hi.”

  “They just arrested Colin,” Jordan says, crying hard.

  “Who? The local police?”

  “Y-y-yes,” Jordan stammers. Then she sniffs, “Officer Hill said he’d be processed and then sent to juvenile detention. Sasha, they think he tried to kill Hunter.”

  Sasha eyes the Fullers. “I know. I’m actually at Lainey Fuller’s house. I was interviewing her about Siobhan’s issue.”

  “Siobhan’s issue?” Jordan’s bewilderment comes through her sobs.

  “The post, her phone … it’s not important. But I understand that Colin was with Mallory when it happened.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I promise you I will fight tooth and nail to keep Colin out of Shuman Center.”

  “Shuman—?”

  “It the juvenile detention facility. It’s in town. Actually, it’s right near my house. But don’t worry, okay? They can’t keep him there for more than seventy-two hours without a hearing, but I’ll do everything I can to stop them from taking him there.” She knows she’s writing a check she may not be able to cash, but she has to give Jordan hope.