Killman Creek

by Rachel Caine

  "Do you have a dog now?"

  "Boot," I say. "He's a rottweiler."

  "He know any tricks?"

  "He can fetch and lie down and roll over," I say. "I'm teaching him to shake hands."

  "Is he a good hunting dog?"

  "I don't know."

  "You like to go hunting?"

  There's something about the way he says that . . . I don't know. It feels ugly. So I hurry past it, the way you're supposed to hurry past a graveyard at night. "No, I just--I got lost, and Lanny and--" I stop myself, because I almost used Javier's name. "Lanny got Boot to help find me." I wasn't lost, not really. After watching that video, I'd been so angry and hurt that I just wanted to leave. But I hadn't gotten far before I realized I didn't have anywhere to go. Dumb. I should have kept going. "So I guess he can hunt. He's a good dog, and he's smart, too."

  "I like dogs," Dad says. "Not cats. I always think of dogs as boys, and cats as girls. Don't you?"

  I don't know what to say to that. It sounds weird, like he wants to go somewhere with that, and I don't want to follow. It doesn't feel right. I shift position, and hangers clink above me. The smell of cedar is tickling my nose. "I called because I need to ask you something," I say. I've only just now realized that I'm going to do this, really do it. I feel sick, but I make myself do it anyway. "You know how they said Mom, uh, helped you kill those ladies?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Did she?"

  "Kiddo, I'm sorry. I just--son, I believe you're old enough to know the truth. You've been lied to most of your life about me, didn't I tell you that? But what's worse is that it's your mother who's been doing the lying. She's no innocent, believe me. I felt like you should start to know what really happened when you were little."

  The way he says it makes me feel stupid for being upset about what I saw. Like I should be better than that. Stronger. "Okay," I say. "Well, I watched the video, you know that."

  "And you made sure they didn't know you have this phone, right?"

  "Just like you said," I told him.

  "And your sister saw the video, too?"

  "Yeah." I wish I hadn't done that. I hate seeing her cry, and I hate seeing her not cry when she should want to. But I needed her to know what I did: that Mom couldn't be who she said she was.

  "Nobody knows you're talking to me?"

  "No." I take in a breath and let it out. "Is it true? That you killed that girl later, the one you were carrying?"

  "You mean the one your mom helped me carry?" His correction is a little sharp, and then he softens immediately. "Sorry, Brady. It's just that I've been spit on and lied about for so many years. And your mother got away with everything."

  "Did you do it, though?"

  "Did I what?"

  I swallow. My mouth is dry. I don't want to ask this. But I do want to, and I make myself. "Did you kill them? All those ladies?"

  He doesn't answer, for long enough that I'm listening to the wind through the phone speaker and his quiet, even breathing on the other end. Finally, he says, "There are things you just won't understand. It isn't what you think."

  "It's a simple question." I sound suddenly pretty adult now, I think. "Did you kill them, or not?"

  "I did kill one girl, but that was an accident. We were going to hold her for ransom, that's all. We needed money for you and your sister, and her family was rich. It was an accident."

  "But all the other ones . . ."

  "There were no other ones. The other stuff they say about me, the other girls--that's all made up. Faked--I'll send you links to articles about it, how the scientists in the police lab switched my DNA for the real killer's. That's why I had to get out of jail. I need to prove my innocence. Nobody would listen to me while I was behind bars."

  The real killer. My heart speeds up, because this sounds right. It makes sense. My dad can't be a killer, not really. TV shows, they always have people who were accused but didn't really do the crime, and the real killer gets found in the end. So why can't that be true now? Why can't Dad be innocent? Didn't that make more sense, that he and Mom did something stupid to help us, and then the police decided he was guilty for everything else? And Mom lied to us so she could stay with us and take care of us?

  I'm glad I think of that, because I didn't like to believe Mom lied just to hurt Dad. No, she was trying to help us, that's all.

  If it was an accident, it makes more sense than trying to imagine that my dad, the big, warm shadow who took me to my first baseball game and watched TV with me and sometimes read me stories at night . . . that my dad is a monster.

  I can distantly hear the shower cut off. Lanny's almost done in the bathroom. She'll blow-dry her hair, and then she'll come knock on my door to say good night. She always does.

  "I have to go," I tell him quickly. "Sorry."

  "Wait! Brady . . . Son, I just wanted to say thank you for talking to me. I know it isn't easy. But it means a lot to me." I can hear that it does. He sounds like he's about to cry. "I never thought I'd get to hear your voice again."

  "Okay." I feel weird now, and sick to my stomach. Is it better, knowing that my dad loved me, still does love me, when everybody expects me to hate him? "I've got to go."

  "One more thing," he says. "Please."

  "What?" My thumb hovers over the button to end the call, but I don't press it. I wait.

  "Just call me Dad," he says. "Just once. I've been waiting such a long time to hear it."

  I shouldn't. It's a line, and I shouldn't step over it. I texted the word, sure. But I haven't said it. It feels like admitting something to myself that's too big to understand.

  But I don't have time to think about it. So I quickly say, "Goodbye, Dad," and I shut it off. My heart's hammering, and my hands are shaking, and I can't believe I just talked to my dad.

  Someone knocks on my door. It isn't Lanny; I can hear the hair dryer just starting up. I turn the phone off and open the closet door to say, "Yeah?" I'm watching the little circle spin around. It takes forever to shut this thing off.

  "Connor? Can I come in?"

  It's not Javier. It's Kezia. When I don't answer, she tries the doorknob, and I'm glad I locked it, because this phone isn't turning off . . . and then it suddenly does, it's dark and silent, and I put it in my pants pocket and go to open up. "Hi," I tell Kezia. "Sorry." I go back to the bed and sit down, cross-legged.

  She doesn't come in, just watches me. "I've been worried about you."

  Everybody's worried about me. Except Dad, who thinks I'm okay.

  When I don't answer, Kezia goes on. "You know, it's okay to be mad with your mom. But you have to know she still loves you. A lot. Okay?"

  "Sure," I say, then shrug. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm fine. Just waiting for the bathroom. Lanny takes forever in there." I hope I sound okay. Normal, at least. On the inside I'm shaking, and I feel like I'm flying apart. I talked to him. I heard his voice. I called him Dad. I don't know how I feel. Elated, because I got away with it. Terrified. Happy. Worried. All those at the same time.

  I can get rid of the phone now, part of me says. I've talked to him. So that's done. I should go smash it now and bury the pieces.

  But I can't. Because this piece of technology in my pocket, it's like a magic button I can press and feel . . . kind of normal. How can I get rid of it now? But it's a risk. If they find out, everybody will be mad at me.

  I remember his voice shaking as he asked me to call him Dad, like it was the only thing he wanted in the world, and I think, I don't care if they're mad.

  I need my father. And now, I really think he needs me.

  I sleep well for the first time in weeks. I don't even dream. It's like hearing Dad's voice silenced something inside me that was screaming all the time.

  And I know that's probably wrong.

  When we get up the next morning, everything seems normal, except me. We have waffles and bacon. I convince them to let me try some coffee with lots of milk and sugar, and I can't decide, once I have it,
whether or not I like it, but I drink it all anyway. Lanny's milk-only now with her coffee. Javier and Kez just drink it black.

  "Why don't you have anything in it?" I ask them, just to have something to talk about. Javier laughs and exchanges a glance with Kezia.

  "Probably the same for both of us," he says. "When I was in the marines, we were lucky to get coffee. Almost never got it with anything else. You only have so much room in a pack, and when you're carrying everything you need on your back . . . you skip the luxuries."

  "I got used to black coffee at the station." Kezia nods. "You grab it quick to go. Creamer's always out, and mostly the sugar is, too. After a while, you just adjust your taste."

  That sounds grown up. Maybe someday I'll be drinking it black, too.

  After waffles, there's washing up, and then I take my bath. When I come out, Javier is gone to the range for the day. Kezia's staying with us. Good thing Norton is a low-crime area, I guess. She gets two calls in the next hour, but neither of them is important enough for her to change plans.

  Lanny's busy making some kind of braided bracelet. She's been trying all day to pretend like everything's fine, it's all cool, and this is the latest thing. She doesn't even look up. "Stop staring at me."

  "I'm not staring."

  "Yes, you are. God, go do something else already."

  "I hate just sitting around here."

  "Just be patient."

  I laugh, not very happily. "Really? When did you become Saint Patience? Because if you have to wait thirty seconds for the microwave, it's a national crisis."

  "About the same time you became Sassy McQuipperson," she says.

  "Who's the bracelet for?"

  Her fingers miss the next braid, and she hisses under her breath and unravels the knot. "For me," she says, which has to be a lie. Lanny's never worn a braided bracelet in her life. Especially not one in black and pink. Black, maybe. But pink?

  "No, it's not."

  She doesn't say anything for a few seconds, then says, "A friend."

  I'm only asking about it because it's making her uncomfortable. She's shifting around, shooting me burning Drop it looks. "Look, it's cool if it's Dahlia you're making it for, you know."

  She looks up and gives me a long, weird look. Then she says, "It is."

  "Isn't she the one you hit in the nose?"

  "She's been my friend for . . . for a long time."

  I shrug. "You still punched her in the nose when you met her. And it wasn't a long time. Wasn't even a year ago." I pretend to read, but I'm watching my sister. She keeps retying that one twist, over and over, and then she growls and shreds the whole bracelet into separate pieces of yarn and gets up to look out the window. "So. You really like her?"

  "Maybe," she says, which means yes. She crosses her arms. "Yes. None of your business."

  "As long as you don't tell her where we are." I see her straighten, and I put a bookmark in and close the cover. "Don't tell me you told her! You're not supposed to tell anybody, you know that!" I lower my voice so that Kezia can't tell what we're talking about.

  Lanny just shrugs. Her jaw's gone stiff, like she's expecting me to hit it. "That was Mom's rule, and Mom's gone. Besides--she won't tell anybody."

  "She's going to tell everybody!" I'm angry now. I haven't called any of my friends. Or gone to look for them. I've been doing exactly what Mom said I was supposed to do. Well . . . except for the phone. Except that. "Is that where you went when you were over the fence?"

  "No, I went--" She catches her breath and bites her lip, and I see tears in her eyes, but she wipes them away. "I went to go look at our house. That's all. I met her there." She glares at me with such sudden venom that I feel like she's hit me. "Why don't you go read your stupid book!"

  I'm so mad by then that I slam it down on the table, and I say, "It's your stupid book, didn't you even notice?" Because it is. It's the book that she was reading on the day that our lives went wrong. She was reading it, and she didn't look up even when Mom stopped the car for the police, and all I could think about was what was so great about that book, because she was reading it the day Mom got arrested, the day our house and our dad got taken away from us. She was reading this book on the last day when there were no monsters, and parents could still protect us. I rescued it when she threw it away. I wanted to hold on to something, something from home. Something from before.

  I've kept it.

  I'm shaking now. And I'm breathing really fast, so fast my stomach hurts. I've been reading and rereading this book for so long that pages are falling out of it, and two of them have broken loose and are sticking out like broken teeth now.

  Lanny reaches over and draws her fingers over the cover, like touching the face of someone dead. Then she takes the book and she walks over to the fireplace, and I realize she's going to burn it, and I charge over and rescue it and hold it close to my chest.

  We don't say anything. We just look at each other. And then she slumps down on the floor and starts to cry. I'm her brother. I should try to make her feel better. But I don't.

  I go into my bedroom and slam the door and lock it. I can still hear Lanny crying. I pace back and forth, and then I grab my coat from the closet, and my gloves and hat.

  Kezia's been watching the fight from the kitchen table, not interfering, and when I walk out in my winter gear, she says, "It's freezing out there, Connor."

  I don't feel like Connor right now. I just want something warm.

  I want my dad.

  "I won't be long," I tell her. Boot has come up out of his lazy sprawl by the crackling fireplace, and he's bouncing around my legs. "Boot needs to go out."

  She doesn't like it, but she nods finally. "All right. Inside the fence only." She stares at me for a few long seconds, and I don't dare look away. "Connor? Can I trust you?"

  "Yes," I tell her. I mean it. She can trust Connor. Just not Brady.

  "Okay." I can tell by the way she looks toward Lanny now that she believes me.

  As I open the door, she's already putting her arm around my sister, who's crying like her heart has broken.

  I go outside, and she's right, it's freezing--the kind of dense, damp cold that feels like snow is falling even though it isn't. The clouds overhead are deep gray, so heavy they seem ready to crash down on top of us. Mist hangs in the top of the trees. It'd probably be foggy on the lake today, too, and starting to freeze over.

  Boot is bouncing up and down, and I pick up an old, badly chewed tennis ball and throw it for him. As he's gnawing happily on the toy, I put the book in my pocket, and I take out the phone. This time, I don't worry about it. I don't think about what if or why not. I just dial my dad's number.

  He answers on the first ring. "Son?"

  I feel pressure behind my eyes, and in my throat, but I'm not going to cry, I'm not . . . and then I am crying, like Lanny was, and I say, "I just w-want it all b-back." It bursts out of me, this thing I've been holding back for years. I want to go home to Wichita. To have my old name back. To live in our old house and have a mom and a dad and for things to be right.

  My dad sounds worried when he asks, "Did something happen, Brady? Are you okay?"

  "N-no." It was a good answer to both those questions. "Where are you, Dad?"

  It's the second time I've called him that, and it comes naturally now. I needed to hear his voice, to hear him really care about me.

  "You know I can't tell you that. I wish I could. But you can tell me where you are. I can come see you if you want me to--but only if you want me to, okay? I'd never do that without your permission."

  I try to remember the last time my mom asked me for my permission. She didn't when she moved us, or when she told us we'd have to get called by different names. She didn't when she brought us here and went off without us. Mom orders. She orders, and she lies, and she was never what she pretended to be.

  Dad's asking.

  But I'm not that dumb. However I feel right now, Dad's a criminal on the run, and I can't ju
st tell him where I am--not because of me, but because of Lanny. Dad would never hurt me, I know that, but there's something that whispers deep inside me that I shouldn't take chances with Lanny's safety.

  "Son?" I've been silent too long. Dad's voice is shaking again. He coughs. "Son, I swear, I don't mean you any harm. You don't have to go anywhere with me. I just--I just want to see you, that's all. I miss you so much. You're important. I want you to know that. Believe that."

  I'm not important enough to Mom to make her stay here. But Dad thinks I'm important enough to risk being caught to see me.

  It matters.

  "I can't go with you, Dad," I tell him. It hurts, but it's fair. I don't want to lie to him. "I do want to see you, though. Can we just . . . talk? Just one time?"

  He's quiet for a second, and then he says, "Yes. Yes, I can do that. But, Brady? We have to be very careful about this. If you tell anybody about it, even your sister, you could get me killed."

  "I won't," I say. I sniffle and wipe my nose on my sleeve. "I won't tell anybody."

  "Not even your sister?"

  "No."

  "I love you. You know that, right?"

  I change the subject. "So . . . when?"

  "I have to ask you where you are to tell you that. Is that okay?"

  "Don't you know?" I'm surprised. I think he's probably been tracing my phone. Mom always said he could do that.

  "I don't," he says, and I believe him. "I wouldn't try to find you without your permission."

  She lied about that, too. I'm too angry to care about whether it's right or not when I say, "I'm in Norton. In Tennessee."

  He's quiet for a few seconds; then I hear a quiet little laugh. It sounds bitter. "She never even moved you away, did she? Smart. She knows everybody will be looking other places. Not so close to where you were last living."

  I don't want to talk about that. About Mom. It makes me feel terrible. "So when?"

  "I'm not that far away right now," he tells me. "Listen, son . . . we'll meet somewhere you feel safe. Where is that?"

  I don't feel safe anywhere, ever, but I don't tell him that. I try to think of somewhere, and the only thing that comes to mind is what Lanny said. She met Dahlia at our old house.