Trust Me (12 page)

“Well, suck it up. You said you did a lot of stupid stuff,” Rae answered, surprising herself.

When she was with Marcus, she would never have said something like that. “So, you still been watching
General

Hospital?”

“Who wants to know?” Marcus asked.

Rae
almost
laughed. “Just tell me what’s been going on,” she said. “Do a good deed for a poor girl whose father
thinks television rots the brain. Start with Lucky,” she urged.

“How far back?” he asked.

“Since the last time you told me, if you can remember,” Rae answered. She rolled onto her side and cradled the
phone closer to her ear. This was so perfect. She didn’t have to say anything. She could just let his words wash
through her, turning her from stone back to flesh.

Marcus talked on and on, and Rae’s breathing grew deeper. “Hey, I need a massive Dr Pepper if I’m going to keep
talking,” he finally said. “How about if I pick you up and we hit the food court?”

Rae knew if she stood up from this couch, it was all going to hit her again, all the guilt over what she’d done to
Anthony. Just the thought brought up the image of his face. The pain, the anger. He was never going to trust her
again, and he’d been there for her so-

“Rae? Did you fall asleep on me?” Marcus asked.

“No. No, it was great. Thanks. But I need to go,” Rae said in a rush.

“Okay,” Marcus answered. “Do you think… would it be okay if I asked you again sometime? I had fun at Sliders.”

Rae squeezed her eyes shut against the image of Anthony’s face. Of course, it didn’t help this time, either. “I had
fun, too. But I have to go. Bye.” She hung up without answering his question.

Anthony saw the pothole, but he didn’t slow down. He pushed down on the accelerator and went over it with a
bone-jarring thump-thump. The thumps seemed to say
murder.

I should have asked Rae how he did it. Did he get up close, use a knife, get sprayed with the blood? Or did he have

a semiautomatic and just coat the room, hitting whoever was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place?

It doesn’t matter. It’s just… crap. I don’t even know the guy,
Anthony thought.
He was in my life a total of what? A

couple hundred minutes out of seventeen years. He means nothing to me. He-

He’s my father.
The answer came clear and strong. And true.
He’s in my blood. He’s part of me, a part I can’t rip out

even if I slash a chunk out of my heart or my brain.

Anthony came up to the street he needed to take to his house. He passed it by again. He wasn’t readyto go home.

He wasn’t ready to do anything except drive. Drive and drive and drive. That at least took a fragment of his attention.

If he stopped, all he’d be thinking about was his father, and that would make his head spew like a friggin’ volcano.

He hit the accelerator and made it most of the way across the street before the yellow light went red. He didn’t want
to stop. Couldn’t stop.

The next light was a solid red when he reached it, so Anthony took a right without lifting his foot off the gas. He got
a honk from the guy he ended up tailgat-ing. “Screw you,” he muttered.

He heard a little cough from the Hyundai’s engine and shot a glance at the gas gauge. The red line was riding
below the
E.
“Screw you, too, you freakin’ car.” The 7-Eleven where Nunan worked was only a couple of blocks
away. If he could just get there, he could pump in enough gas toThe engine coughed again. Anthony jerked the wheel from side to side, weaving the car back and forth in his lane.

Sometimes that would slosh enough gas from the sides of the tank over the hole to get a car at least a little farther
down the road.

But not this time. The engine died. Right there in the middle of the street. Anthony switched on the flashers, put the
car in neutral, got out, and-steering with one hand-managed to shove the Hyundai overto the side of the road. He
yanked the keys out of the ignition, then slammed the door so hard, the frame shimmied.

All you have to do is get over to Nunan’s. He’ll have a gas can he can loan you,
Anthony told himself. He kicked the
closest tire as he passed the car. “Piece of crap. Mom should have traded it in a long time ago. She-”

My father is a murderer.

The thought shoved everything else out of his brain. Questions pounded through him as he started walking,
questions hard as stones thrown at his head. Knife? Gun? Up close? Man? Woman? With a family? Planned or did
the robbery get out of hand? Did his father… did he
like
it? Did it give him some kind of rush? Had he killed before
but not gotten caught?

Anthony started to run. If he could just get to the 7-Eleven, there’d be someone to talk to. Maybe that would stop
the questions or at least turn down the volume on them. He turned the corner, spotted the big red-and-green sign,
and kept his eyes locked on it, putting on even more speed.
Mur-der-er,
the rhythm of his feet on the cement said.

Mur-der-er,
the beat of his heart agreed.

He swung into the parking lot and forced himself to slow down. He wasn’t going to go running insidelike a freakin’

maniac. Anthony shoved his hands through his hair, pulled in a couple of deep breaths, and sauntered through the
door.

Nunan looked up when he heard the electronic doorbell. “Fascinelli. What’s up? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Been busy,” Anthony answered. Although the truth was, he’d been avoiding the place. Avoiding temptation. “I ran
out of gas a couple of blocks away.”

“I can hook you up with a gas can,” Nunan answered. He ran his fingers over his shaved head and giggled, a sure
sign that he was high. “Is there anything else I can get you-smoked almonds, some other kind of smoke?” He
laughed until he snorted. The guy actually thought he was Dennis Miller.

Anthony started to shake his head. He hadn’t bought any weed since the first day of school, when it finally sank in
that if he was ever going to graduate, it wasn’t going to happen if he spent all his time sharing tokes in the
bathroom.

But somehow right now he was finding it hard to remember why that even mattered. “Actually, yeah. I could be up
for some smoke,” he answered.

Tonight it was just what he needed. Man, he loved the way he felt when he got high. The world slowed down, and
nothing seemed all that important anymore.

Nunan gave him an I-knew-you’d-be-back-buying smirk and pulled a paper bag out from under the counter.

Anthony knew Nunan already had the stuff in the bag-and that Nunan would be selling him the smallest amount
possible. Even when Anthony was a regular, he’d always bought a little at a time since he never had much cash on
him. “Okay, you got a Slim Jim and a pack of gum,” Nunan said, adding them to the bag and ringing them up with a
flourish directed at the nearest security camera. “You want the gas now, too?”

Anthony shook his head. “I’m going out back for a while. I’ll get it later.” He handed over a twenty-dollar bill and got
back a lot less change than he would have for a lousy Slim Jim and some gum. Nunan gave him a half salute as
Anthony headed out. Since he was careless, he found a seat in back of the place where a Dumpster hid him from
view. Usually there were a couple of guys back there, but tonight it was empty. Which was fine by him. He pulled the
little bag of weed out of the plastic sack and realized he didn’t have any rolling papers.

He could feel the questions starting to build in his head again, getting ready to stone him. He needed a couple of
tokes. Fast. That would at least dull the questions out, make them feel like they were being asked from far away.

If he went back in the store, Nunan might be in atalkative mood and keep him in there for half an hour before
coughing up the papers. There was no way Anthony could wait that long. He scanned the ground. Yeah. Halfway
under the Dumpster was a bong someone had made out of a beer can. He grabbed it, turned it over in his hands.

Still usable. Less than a minute later he was pulling in his first lungful of smoke. Yeah. Oh God, yeah. Exactly what
he needed.

“You wasted yet?” a voice asked in the darkness.

“No. Sadly,” Anthony answered. He wished whoever it was would just go away, but Sean McGee appeared from
around the Dumpster and sat down next to him.

“Good. Because I have a business proposition for you,” McGee told him.

“I heard about the security codes,” Anthony replied.

McGee scowled. “Somebody talks too much.”

“It’s not like I heard it all over the place,” Anthony answered, not mentioning that he’d gotten the info from Jesse.

He held out the bong to McGee, but Sean shook his head.

“Got to stay focused,” he said. He reached down and adjusted himself. Not something Anthony needed to see. “So
I need one more guy. Getting in the houses is going to be no problem-I’ve got all the security codes, which is
probably what you heard.”

Anthony nodded.

“I just need help moving stuff out. We’ve got to be fast. Organized. And I don’t want anyone who panics. You
interested?” McGee asked.

Anthony took another toke, held it in. He’d always wondered if he was like his dad. Maybe he should find out if he
was, especially since Rae went to all the
trouble
of tracking the guy down.

“I need a decision now,” McGee said. “I’m picking the last guy tonight.”

“I’m in,” Anthony told him.

Have you enjoyed my little gifts, Rae? The reminder of a past I ’m sure you want to forget? I haven’t been able to

find out who else is watching you, Rae, but I refuse to let them have all the fun. It ’s my turn to play now, and no one

else will get in my way. I want to see the look on your face when you finally realize the truth about me. I want to be

the one to watch the life drain out of you. That pleasure belongs to me and no one else.

*

“I brought Chinese food,” Rae’s father called as he came through the front door.

Rae started and almost fell off the couch.
I must have dozed off after I hung up with Marcus,
she realized. God,
what an awful dream. Anthony had been in the electric chair, and Marcus was pulling theswitch. Rae was watching
through a sheet of glass so thick that Anthony couldn’t hear her screaming that she was sorry, that she was so, so
sorry. Then it had switched, and Rae’d been about to get a lethal injection. She’d been strapped down; the needle
had-

Rae’s father leaned over the back of the couch and shook a large brown paper bag in front of her face. Her
stomach curled up into a squishy little ball when the odor of the food hit her. The last thing she wanted to do was
eat. But she needed to talk to her dad, and she didn’t want to wait. She pushed herself up. “I’ll nuke some water for
tea,” she said.

“I’m always bragging to the other professors about how domestic we are,” her father teased as he followed her to
the kitchen.

Rae forced a laugh as she grabbed two mugs out of the cabinet. They were nice and clean, so she didn’t get any
thoughts. She wished she could run and put a coat of Mush on her fingers, but she was going to need her
fingerprint ability during the dad-daughter convo. As much as she hated rooting through his thoughts, tonight she
was going to have to do it.

Okay, I need an intro,
she thought as she began filling the first mug with water. Yeah, she and her dad had talked
about her mother a few times. But almost all those times Rae had ended up getting furious andslamming into her
room or making up some excuse to get out of the house.

She put the mugs of water into the microwave and hit the beverage button, then shot a glance at her father. He was
humming to himself as he set the table with the paper plates and plastic utensils from the Chinese food place.

How can he be so smart and so delusional?
she asked herself. She knew that as soon as she mentioned her
mother, he’d be all goo-goo romantic and start telling Rae what a wonderful person her mother had been. Even
though they both knew what she’d done.