The Long Way Home (14 page)

“Yes, you are. I know it when I see it. You’re not doing this because your feelings have changed. You feel just the same . . .”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do, Charlie. Don’t lie.” I looked away from her and she knew she was right. “Tell me what’s the matter.”

When I looked at her again, my face was still set, still hard, but she could see the doubt in my eyes.

“Look,” I told her. “It just . . . it isn’t right, that’s all. You and me. It’s a mistake.”

“Don’t say that. You know that’s not true.”

“You’re just going to get hurt, Beth. That’s all I’m trying to tell you, all right? I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You have to tell me what’s wrong.”

“Look . . .” I tried again. “Look, I can’t. I can’t tell you. Okay? We have to end it, that’s all. Can’t we just leave it at that?”

“No,” Beth said. “We can’t. I mean, haven’t you been paying attention? We don’t have the right to just end this. We didn’t make it and we can’t end it.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” I said sourly.

She put her hand on my arm. This time I let her. “Charlie, look at me.” It seemed to her I had to force myself to meet her eyes. “Charlie, this thing happening with us—it doesn’t happen to everyone. They say it does in the movies, but it doesn’t. It’s special. You know that, right?”

“Yeah. I know it.”

“Then you know we can’t just throw it away because there’s some kind of trouble.”

“I’m not trying to throw it away, I’m just . . . Aw, Beth.” I bowed my head and dug the heels of my palms into my eyes. “I don’t even know what to do.”

“Just tell me what’s happening.”

It was a long time before I could raise my head and look at her again. “It’s the worst thing,” I said. “The worst thing ever.” Now all the hardness was gone from my face. Now it was me reaching out for her, taking her by the shoulders. “They’re coming for me, Beth.”

“Who? Who is?”

“The police. They’re going to arrest me.”

“Arrest you? For what?” But she already knew. “For Alex? How do you know?”

“I know. That detective . . . That detective Rose. He called my dad. They . . . they found a knife. A combat knife. It’s the murder weapon and . . . Well, they say it has my fingerprints on it and my DN A. And they say there are traces of Alex’s blood on my clothes.”

She stared up at me. “There has to be some kind of mistake. I mean, how could that happen?”

“I don’t know, I . . .” She saw my shoulders sag. I closed my eyes a moment as if I were surrendering to something inside myself. When I opened them again, Beth said, it was as if a mask had fallen away from my face. As if I had been pretending to be someone else and now I was Charlie again. I said to her, “Listen to me, Beth. All right? Listen because . . . well, because I need you to get this. I didn’t kill him. Okay? No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, no matter what it looks like, I didn’t kill Alex. You looked at me before and you knew I was lying. Now I need you to look at me and believe I’m telling the truth.”

“I am,” she said softly. “I do.”

“Never stop. Okay? Never stop believing it. No matter what happens.”

“I won’t.”

I took her into my arms and held her against me. “You were right,” I said, my lips against her ear. “You were right and I was wrong. The stuff I feel for you—I didn’t make it and it isn’t mine to throw away. And I won’t. I can’t.”

“I can’t either. And I won’t, Charlie. I promise.”

“No matter what happens.”

“No matter what.”

When I got to school that morning, the police were waiting for me.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
An Incredibly Stupid Plan

When Beth was finished telling me about that, we sat together holding hands. As the chill air blew through the parlor window, a smell of autumn leaves came to me from outside. The smell brought a touch of memory with it. That happens a lot, I’ve noticed—smells bring memories and memories bring smells. For a moment, as I breathed in the scent of the fallen leaves, I felt as if I could almost recall the days Beth and I had had together. All the stuff she was telling me about—I felt it was there, in my mind, just beyond my reach. I felt if I could just concentrate hard enough, it would all come flooding back to me. But the harder I tried, the further away it seemed.

Then the smell was gone and the memory was gone and I let out a long breath and shook my head.

“What?” said Beth.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” She was still here anyway. Beth was still here, still looking at me that way—the same way she must’ve looked at me on the path that day. “Why did you believe me?” I asked her suddenly. “When I told you I didn’t kill Alex. I mean, the police had fingerprints, they had DN A, they had bloodstains. Why did you believe I didn’t do it? I mean, maybe I’m just a really good liar.”

“You probably are a good liar when you want to be,” she said. “But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that I believed you. It was that I knew you. I mean, we hadn’t been together very long, but in some ways I knew you better than I’d ever known anyone. It was like . . . like we’d always known each other . . . like . . .”

“Like we were two computers running the same software,” I said.

She smiled and I smiled.

“Right,” she said. “I mean, I’m not gonna say you could never kill anyone, Charlie. You could kill someone, I think. If it was a war or something or if someone was trying to hurt someone you loved and there was no other way to stop him. I think you could kill someone then. But you couldn’t murder anyone. Or maybe it’s not that you couldn’t—you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t just kill someone for no reason or because you were angry at him or anything like that. You might feel like it, but you wouldn’t let yourself. It just isn’t who you are.”

I shook my head. “I wish I knew that.”

“I wish you did too. I think you did know it once. I think you just can’t remember it, that’s all.” She reached out and put her finger on the corner of my mouth, as if trying to push it up and get me to smile again. “It wasn’t just me, you know. Rick and Josh and Miler—they all knew you were innocent. Your parents knew. Your sister knew. Your karate teacher—Mike. He came to the trial a lot. So did Mr. Sherman.”

“Mr. Sherman? I always thought he hated me.”

“He didn’t hate you. He just disagreed with you, that’s all. But he knew you weren’t a murderer. He stood by you the whole time. You guys really became close.”

“We did? Go figure. I guess you never know who your friends are until there’s trouble. Tell me more. Tell me about the trial.”

“It was weird. It happened really fast. Everyone said so . . .”

She was about to go on, but just then there was a noise downstairs: the door opening.

Instantly, I was on my feet. I was at the door, crouched in a fighting position. I gestured to Beth to be quiet.

But the next second, I relaxed. It was the guys. I could tell just by the way they came galumphing up the stairs like elephants. After another second, I could hear their voices too.

“Don’t drop it.” That was Rick, trying to whisper and whispering so loudly they could’ve heard him in the next town over.

“Hey, do you want to carry it?” That was Miler, loud-whispering back. Then, just before they came into view on the second-floor landing, he spoke more clearly in what was possibly the worst Russian accent I’ve ever heard. “We are comink to find you, younk lovers. No more kissy-kissy face, da?”

I rolled my eyes. “What an idiot.”

There they were. Miler first, then Rick behind him. Miler was swinging a plastic shopping bag in his hand. Rick had what looked like a laptop computer case strapped over his shoulder.

Miler went on making kissing noises as he came toward the door. “Mwah, mwah, mwah. We are not being, I hope, interrrrrruptink anytink?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” I said.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in prison?”

“I’m a fugitive. What’s your excuse?”

“I’m a senior. My first period is lunch. Then I have PE. Then I wave at the stats teacher for credit. Then I have my driver take me to the Savoy for afternoon tea.”

“The school finally figured out they couldn’t teach Miler anything,” said Rick, coming up behind him. “They’re just keeping him around ’cause we’re used to him, like the stuffed lion at the basketball games.”

They came into the parlor and set their packages down on the floor.

“Has this man been bothering you?” Miler asked Beth. She laughed.

“What’s all this stuff?” I said.

Rick planted himself cross-legged on the floor in front of the laptop case. He opened it. “This,” he said, “is the stuff we need for Josh’s incredibly stupid plan.”

“For instance, here’s a cell phone with two-way capabilities,” said Miler. “Because Josh doesn’t have a remote headset for his computer.” He brought the phone out of the plastic bag and tried to hand it to me.

I wouldn’t take it. “I can’t use a cell phone. The police can trace them in about ten seconds.”

“Not this one. It’s not registered to you and it’s disposable. Just like the drug dealers use.”

“Great. If drug dealers are doing it, it must be good. Man, this really does sound like an incredibly stupid plan. What is it?”

“Voilà,” said Rick—only he pronounced it Voy-la. He had set the laptop up on the floor now and pressed the Power button. The machine had obviously already been booted up and in sleep mode because it came on right away. The monitor winked on and . . .

“You gotta be kidding me,” I said.

But they weren’t. There on the monitor was Josh. It was a live webcam shot of him sitting behind the wheel of his mom’s black Camry, driving down the road.

“Josh knew this house picks up the hot spots from the mall,” said Rick. “How he knew, I have no idea, but he knew.”

Miler flipped the cell phone open and spoke into it. “Calling Agent Dipstick. Calling Agent Dipstick.”

On the computer monitor, Josh put his finger to his ear as if he had a headset on. It must’ve been a pretty small headset, though, because I couldn’t see it. It must’ve been like one of those hearing aids you stick inside your ear.

“I hear voices,” Josh said. “Must be aliens.” I couldn’t see his microphone either, but it must’ve been there because his voice came back over the two-way’s speaker, loud enough for all of us to hear.

“Give me that,” I said to Miler. I took the two-way from him. I knelt down in front of the laptop so I could see Josh more clearly. I spoke into the phone. “Josh, what do you think you’re doing? Where are you going?”

I could see Josh on the monitor, steering the car with one hand and touching his headset with the other. I could see him glance over at the seat, blinking through his big glasses, when he talked back to me. I guess that’s where the webcam was. “I’m driving to Wyatt High School,” he said.

I felt a twinge inside me. Wyatt High School—that was where Alex used to go. “Why are you going there?”

“Because you can’t, my friend. If you go to Wyatt High School and start asking all kinds of questions, you’ll get arrested. So I’m going instead. I figured I’d start with the two kids who witnessed Alex’s murder. Bobby Hernandez and Steve Hassel. They were in middle school then, but they moved up this year. I’ll talk to them; you watch me on the webcam, and that way, you can tell me what questions you want to ask. Then I’ll ask and you’ll be able to hear the answers. I’ll even be able to clip the webcam to my shirt or something so you’ll be able to see who I’m talking to. Good plan, right?”

“Amazing,” I said into the phone. “Only listen. There’s a new plan. In this plan, you turn your car around and drive home and then go to school.”

“I went to school already. I don’t have another class till two. I’m a senior, remember?”

“All right, then don’t go to school. Stay home and watch cartoons on television. Just don’t go around asking questions about Alex’s murder.”

“Why not?”

My voice rose. “Because it’s dangerous, Josh, that’s why. I told you guys: this isn’t a game. It’s not a television show. There are real people really trying to hurt me. Really bad. And they’ll hurt you too.”

“Well, what’s your plan?” said Josh.

“Well . . .”

“Weren’t you going to go around asking people questions?”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“And where were you going to start?”

I had to admit it. “I was gonna start at Wyatt too, but . . .”

“So it’s the same thing,” said Josh. “Only I’m going to do it for you so you don’t get caught.”

“But . . .” I began—then nothing. I knelt there like an idiot, trying to think of an argument. Finally I said, “It’s too dangerous, Josh.”

“It’s a lot less dangerous for me than it is for you,” Josh answered right away. “In fact, it’s not really that dangerous for me at all. If someone stops me or asks me what I’m doing, I’ll just tell them I’m writing an article about Alex’s murder for the school paper. You know, a kind of retrospective.”

“But . . .” I said again. This was so frustrating. Josh was making really good arguments and I had no answer for them—but I still didn’t want him out there taking the risks that were meant for me. I turned to Rick, then Miler, looking to them to help me out here.

“We had the same problem,” Miler told me. “Josh’s plan is incredibly stupid—but it’s actually the least incredibly stupid plan any of us could think of.”

I looked to Beth now, hoping she’d suggest something. Sitting on the picnic blanket, she only lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

“This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen,” I said.

“Yeah, life can be like that sometimes,” said Josh through the two-way.

“Josh . . .” I said through gritted teeth. I think if Beth hadn’t been there, I’d have said a lot more.

“Look,” said Rick. “You have to give the man credit where it’s due. It really is safer for him to ask questions than it would be for you. And with all this spy stuff, at least we’ll be able to keep tabs on him.”

I covered the two-way with my hand so Josh couldn’t hear me. “Why didn’t you go?” I asked Rick. “You’re twice his size.”

“Yeah, but Josh actually is the editor of the school paper, so we thought his alibi would pan out. Also, it’s his spy stuff.”