Watched (15 page)

If I ever have to retrace my steps, I couldn't tell you how I got here. I remember cutting through the woods across the street from my uncle's. Heading down the hill, staying off the road. There were dogs barking as I ran through the trailer park, babies crying behind curtains and TVs flickering. Then I was on Pine Street—not the nicest part of Smithfield with its condemned properties and crowded row houses, more bars than streetlights. I crossed the railroad tracks, hit the warehouses on Broad Avenue, and realized I'd reached the old bottling plant turned into student housing for the college.

That's when it hits me—I can't outrun the cops. Not forever. But I can hide in plain sight on campus, surrounded by a thousand other guys.

Smithfield College is an oasis of hope in an otherwise failing city. It sits between the warehouses along the railroad tracks and an old neighborhood with nice, big houses where most of the professors live, while the far edge of campus backs up to State Game Lands that lead up the mountain.

I need a place to hide, I need to call Miranda, and I need to get the recordings from the pen to her.

I stop running. There are classroom buildings across from me, windows dark. I jog between them, my stomach gnawing. A little food wouldn't hurt, either. The library is closed for the night, but the student union is open.

There's a guy and a girl heading inside it just as I arrive at the door. The guy gives me a nod, as if I belong there, even holds the door open long enough for me to reach it. Once inside, they go one way, toward a room with music coming from it. I stand tall and, ignoring the overhead TVs hanging at every corner, most filled with student events but a couple tuned to CNN and local news, saunter to the food court's vending machine area.

Five minutes later, I'm sitting in a shadowy corner, my back to the wall at the far row of computers, where I found one with its browser open, account still active. As I wolf down a microwaved cheeseburger and bottle of milk, I send Miranda an IM.

Griffin:
Safe to call?

Miranda:
You OK?

Before I can type an answer she calls the cell. “Jesse!” Her voice is breathless and hushed, like she's worried someone will hear.

I hate that she's calling me Jesse again. I prefer being her hero, Griffin.

“Are you okay? What happened?” she asks.

“First, I need to send you some video.” Funny, now I'm the one with a plan. As she walks me through uploading the video from the pen's USB to an anonymous cloud account she has set up for us, I tell her everything. About King. My computer being wiped. My uncle. The fire. The gun.

And the man who tried to take me. “He's the same one King sent to hurt Janey,” I finish. “I didn't know what else to do, so I just ran.”

There's a long pause. I can almost feel her mind working on the problem. For the first time tonight, I feel like I might have a chance. Because Miranda's still on my side. She believes me, believes in me.

I take another bite of the cheeseburger and I can actually taste it. Wish I couldn't—the carton it came in would have more flavor, but that's okay. Miranda's still with me.

“Jesse,” she says. I almost tell her to call me Griffin but don't. “You need to turn yourself in.”

Disappointment pulls me down so hard I slump in the chair. The upload beeps that it's finished, and I put the recording pen back in my pocket. I have to try twice to clip it in place; my fingers have gone numb again. Sliding my lighter from my pocket, the reflection of the computer screen making it shimmer with color, I yearn for the comfort of fire.

Then I put it away. Fire's what got me into this mess.

I close down the computer, erasing my history like Miranda taught me, and grab the phone. Should I leave it? What's the point if she doesn't believe me?

Music and the voices of students edge my awareness. But really, I'm all alone.

“I believe you, Griffin.” Her voice returns, solid, certain, lasering directly into my brain. “I do. But don't you see? That's why you need to turn yourself in. So the police can hear the truth.”

Griffin. She called me Griffin again. I sit up in the chair, holding the phone tight against my chest. The fight-or-flight reflex starts to ebb—a little.

“I can't,” I tell her. “There's no way to prove I'm innocent. My prints are on that gun. I'm the one who left him there. It's my fault he's dead.”

Then I realize. She's right. If I ever want to be Griffin—to be the kind of man who stands up for what's right and takes responsibility for what goes wrong—then I have to surrender.

“The police think you're armed and dangerous,” she says, sounding more scared than I am. “You can't let them chase you down—that's how people get hurt. The best way is for us to arrange for you to turn yourself in. My dad can help.”

I blow out my breath, nodding even though she can't see me. “How? What do we do?”

“Are you safe now?”

“Yeah. I'm in the student union on campus.”

“Smart. Hiding in plain sight. Last place they'd look for a deranged killer on the run.” She's trying hard to be funny, but neither of us laugh.

A couple stumbles into the first row of computer stations. He spins her against the wall. They're kissing, his hand moving under her shirt. I look away.

“Maybe I should go. There are people here. What if they see me? I can hide in the woods, keep moving.”

“If they catch you while you're running, they'll be more likely to shoot. Griffin, I got you into this. I can't let anything happen to you. Just stay there. We'll figure something out.”

I can't stop watching the couple. They look like they're enjoying themselves and don't mind me at all. Or don't even know I'm here. Like I'm no one. Nothing.

Exactly how King makes me feel.

“I can't do this without you,” I tell Miranda.

Suddenly the computer screen in front of me comes to life. I glance around the room. All the computers are turning on. Their monitors are filling with pictures of me—from the fire, when the TV cameras caught me.

I look like a monster, a madman. My eyes are wide, my mouth open like I'm screaming. I would shoot first, ask questions later myself after seeing that picture.

The TVs scattered around the lounge are all switching to the same image as well. What the hell? King, it has to be.

“Miranda,” I gasp as I push my chair back and jog out past the oblivious couple to the main hall. Every TV there has my face on it, larger than life. “It's too late. He found me. King is here.”

“Get out of there. Now.”

I know better than to run, draw attention to myself. Instead, I join a crowd of kids leaving, chatting about an all-night dance club. Camouflaged in their midst, I walk outside with them just as two campus police cars pull up across the parking lot.

The kids keep going. The officers dash past them, guns drawn, into the building. The look on the officers' faces. Miranda was right. They don't just want to arrest me—they want me dead.

As soon as the crowd is clear, I break away, edging into the shadows, then start running.

I need to find a place to hide. One where King can't find me.

I get across campus without too much trouble—more scaring myself every time I round a corner or cross an open space than anything else. I head past the sports complex and Telenet Arena.

The arena is a huge dome—think of a jelly-filled doughnut. Deep inside is the jelly, the center court on the ground floor of the arena where they hold the concerts and sporting events. Surrounding center court are three stories' worth of seating, tier upon tier climbing up. And the outermost layer, the thick doughy layer of the doughnut that surrounds the jelly, is the concourse, a twenty-foot-wide corridor that hosts vendors, exhibits, storage, and restrooms for the arena, and spirals around the outside all the way up to the dome, where the skyboxes and announcer's box are.

I almost decide to hide in the arena. My uncle took me there once on an inspection tour and I got to see all the tunnels and hidden areas off limits to normal people. It would take days for the police to search it, but my memories of it center on my uncle and I just can't bring myself to try to find a way in.

Besides, this time of night, there'd be guards and alarms and locked doors. I learned a lot from my uncle and the other firefighters, including how to break into buildings, but not how to do it without leaving a trace.

Instead, I keep going, out into the open countryside that used to be farmland but now is empty meadows gone to seed, sloping up into the forest that covers the mountainside. I skirt the edge of the trees that mark the start of the State Game Lands—I could spend the night on the mountain, but I'm already freezing and besides, I have a better idea. I follow the mountain's curve about a mile, to where the train tracks leave the valley. I'm way past city limits, in rural unincorporated land, where the only sign of civilization besides the train tracks and distant lights of Route 322 is Wilson's Salvage Yard.

It's one of those places that grownups call an “eyesore” and kids find irresistible. Old man Wilson, and his father and grandfather before him, turned acres of useless land into a sprawling junkyard. People haul old cars, appliances, heck, even busted-up mobile homes here and dump them. Wilson salvages the scrap metal, sells it, and leaves the rest to rot.

I came here a few times with my dad before he left us. He liked hunting for spare parts to the old cars he was always fixing up and selling. He and old man Wilson would spend hours prowling the lot for just the right parts, talking about cars, the weather, hunting season, the price of gas. Sometimes I got the feeling Dad came more to check on Mr. Wilson than anything else. He always said what a shame it was that the poor old guy wouldn't move to town to live with his son, who'd worked with Dad before they both got laid off.

Even though it's been years since I've been here, I feel safe. Plenty of places to hide, shelter from the night wind, and I can get some rest. I'm so exhausted after practically no sleep for going on three days and all the running and fear blasting through my system, that I'm about ready to fall down and never get up again.

I climb the rusted fence and drop down between a stack of old car batteries and a refrigerator missing its door. I make my way up the hill to an old Impala missing its wheels, sitting on the ground next to the fence. Perfect. I can get out of the wind and I'm high enough and far enough from the main entrance that if the cops come looking, I'll see and hear them before they can spot me.

It's not until I'm inside the car, starting a fire from stuffing torn from its front seat, that I realize I'm shivering so hard my teeth are clacking together. The fire thankfully warms me, but it does nothing to get at what's really wrong: how did King find me?

It had to be through the computer. Which meant Miranda might be in danger if he traced her via the files I uploaded to her cloud drive.

I hate to risk it, but I call her to check.

“Are you okay?” she answers.

“I was worried about you. King turned on all the computers in the student union—and he plastered my picture on all the TVs as well. I got out just as the cops were showing up.”

“He controlled the computers and the TVs?” Somehow she doesn't sound as concerned about this as I am. Instead, she sounds excited.

“Yeah. I was worried he might trace the video upload back to you. Wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“No worries there. I downloaded the video and closed that account while we were still talking. Your evidence is safe.”

“But are you?” I try and fail to keep the worry from my voice.

“You really are Griffin. My protector against evil.”

I smile at the warmth in her voice.

“Are we okay talking on this phone?” I hope so. I feel so alone out here I could really use the company. I could use sleep as well, but look what happened the last time I dared to sleep—my uncle ended up dead. “Can you stay awhile?”

“We should be fine. And of course I'll stay. As long as you like—or the battery lasts.”

“It had a full charge.” I glance at the screen, 98 percent. “We're good.”

“I watched the video. You were so brave standing up to King when he called.”

“You mean so stupid. King's totally on to us. On to me. But I'm sure he thinks I have help.” I pause. “Maybe that's why he had my uncle killed?” Then it dawns on me. “You saw everything, didn't you? Me and my uncle?” Shame burns through me, hot and cold at the same time.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Jesse—Griffin…” Her voice trails off. She's just as confused about who I was when I beat up my uncle as I am. It was the bravest thing I've ever done—and the most vile, the most cowardly.

“They'll use it as evidence. They'll never believe I didn't kill him.” I wrap my arms around my chest, my dad's old leather jacket creaking in the cold. “I'll spend the rest of my life in prison. If I thought my uncle was bad—” I can't finish.

Silence echoes between us as the tiny fire I built dies. I'm cold again but too scared and exhausted to rekindle it.

“We'll think of something,” she promises. I try to hold on to that—she's never let me down, not yet. “I feel so bad,” she continues. “This is all my fault.”

“No. It's not. I knew what I was getting into.” Kinda. “Are my mom and Janey okay?”

“My dad said the police are with your mom in Pittsburgh. She was on TV, asking for you to turn yourself in.”

“She thinks I did it.”

“They don't know the truth—they'll never know it until you tell them.”

“What's the plan?”

“My dad's worried about how upset everyone is, thinks if we give them time to cool down, it will be safer for you to turn yourself in. But he'll come pick you up now, bring you back here where you'll be safe.”

No way. I'm not putting her and her family in danger. “Not tonight. First thing in the morning.”

“Okay. He'll take you to the police, stay with you, even get you a lawyer. He said you shouldn't say anything, just tell your lawyer the truth and let him handle it.”

“Right. Some lawyer I can't pay is going to give a shit about what happens to me.”

“My dad called one from Pittsburgh. Says he's the best. He said he can be here tomorrow—if you turn yourself in.”

“When and where?”

“My dad will come get you. Just say where.”

I give her directions to the salvage yard. “Will you be with him?”

The silence is so long I'm afraid I've lost her. I glance at the cell phone; still plenty of charge and three bars. “Miranda?”

“I never told you how King found me, did I?” she says instead of answering my question. “I was at a sleepover—my best friend since kindergarten. I was born on the third, Nina's birthday was on the fourth, so we took turns celebrating. That year when we turned thirteen, it was her turn. We decided just the two of us would have a sleepover the night before the big party at her house. Her older sister even snuck some rum from her parents, showed us how to mix it in our Cokes. We had so much fun, singing and dancing to music, her sister giving us makeovers, letting us borrow her clothes. Felt so grownup. Sexy.” She makes the last word sound like a curse.

Silence again. Then, “I never even noticed her sister using her cell phone. Never dreamed she was taking pictures. And I was too drunk to have any idea how stupid we were being.”

“Those were the pictures King found?”

“Yeah. That one night ruined my life.”

Then I realize why she's telling me this. “You're still going after him. Alone? No, Miranda, you can't.”