OCDaniel (15 page)

Her mom seemed taken aback. “Oh. Well . . . I think it was at a function somewhere.”

“Bar,” John said.

Sara's eyes flicked to him, and then she kicked me again. I winced.

“Cool,” I murmured. “Recently?”

Her mom regarded me for a moment. Sara had her mom's piercing eyes. “A year or so ago.”

“Longer than that,” John said. “Two years at least.”

Sara's mother shot him a look and turned back to me. “But let's not talk about us old fogies. How long have you two been . . . friends?”

I looked at Sara, but she, of course, remained silent. “Not long. Couple weeks.”

“Do you talk much?” John asked, grinning at me. Sara's mom gave him another annoyed look.

“Tons,” I said.

Her mom looked at me. “You . . . do?”

“Sure. We talk all the time. Right?” I asked, looking at Sara. She nodded.

“Oh,” her mom said. “Good.”

Another kick. It was starting to hurt.

“What do you do, John?” I asked.

I did not speak to adults like this. Or to anyone. But my shin was sore.

He leaned back, drinking his beer heavily. “Work at the car plant,” he said. “Been there for years. A few odd jobs. Construction and so forth. You know how it goes.”

Not really, but I nodded. “Kids?”

“No,” he said. “Not a big kid person. No offense.”

“None taken.”

Sara's mother obviously wanted to retrieve the situation. “So, what do your parents do?”

“Dad's an engineer. My mom volunteers and stuff.”

“Very nice.”

Another kick. I glared at Sara, and she glared right back.

“So,” I said to John. “You a hunter or anything? Saw the big truck in your driveway.”

John nodded. “Yeah. Hunting, fishing.”

“Cool. What do you use? Like, a rifle or a bow . . .”

“Rifle,” he said. “Scope and everything. It's nice. You shoot?”

“No. I always wondered . . . can you hunt with handguns, too, or just rifles?”

He shrugged. “You could, but why would you? I just use the rifle.”

“Gotcha. So you don't even have a handgun, I guess, then, right?”

He raised an eyebrow and took a bite of roast beef. “No. Just the rifle.”

There was no kick. Whew. Though, of course this also meant that John was lying about the gun. Which was not a good sign, considering we'd found one in his drawer.

The rest of the dinner went by normally enough. Sara's mom asked me a few more questions, John told a story about killing a deer, and Sara sat there silently, her eyes on her plate. It was the longest hour of my life. After some coffee cake Sara grabbed my arm and led me out of the kitchen. She took me down to the basement, and we plunked down in front a big TV. She looked at me, smiling.

“You did well.”

“Thanks,” I muttered. “I don't think we accomplished much.”

She shook her head. “Sure we did. He's lying about the gun, he works odd jobs for cash, and he met my mom even earlier than I thought. He killed him, Dan. I'm more sure about it than ever.”

“Aren't you kind of hoping that you're wrong?”

She met my eyes. “Of course. But my father would never leave me, Dan. Never. If he'd left, he would have taken me with him. We were closer than anything. There's only one reason he's gone.”

“So, what do we do now?”

Sara sighed and looked at the TV. “I have no idea.”

It was Wednesday before I knew it. We were practicing every day now, so I hadn't even gotten my Tuesday break. I hadn't spoken to Sara since Sunday. I was thinking about her, though. I couldn't help it.

Most of my time was spent thinking about the play-off game on Saturday, since Kevin still wasn't better and it looked like I was playing again. The guys were all still talking to me, which was nice, but I felt like I was going to throw up every time they mentioned the big game.

I don't know if it was nervousness, but the Routine was getting longer. The night before, I hadn't gone to sleep until five, and by then I'd been sobbing quietly, and had even scratched my face without thinking when I'd been trying to stop the tears. I was tired all the time.

That night after practice, Sara was waiting for me again. I hurried over, conscious that I probably stunk like football gear. She noticed.

“You're a little ripe,” she commented, smiling.

“Yeah,” I muttered, taking a little step back. “Sorry.”

She waved a hand in dismissal. “No problem. You look cute when you're sweaty.”

“Umm . . . thanks.”

“No problem. Now, I've had an idea.”

She took her cell phone out of her pocket and looked at me expectantly.

“We're going to call someone. . . .”

She laughed. “Not quite. We're going to record him. I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier.”

“That wouldn't be admissible in court, remember? I saw it on
Law and Order
.”

She nodded. “Unless it was done by accident. I did a little research. We're going to ‘drop' the phone under his couch by accident. It has two days of battery life, even when recording. Then we come back and get it.”

“How do we know he's even going to say anything? He lives alone.”

Sara smiled and patted my arm. “Oh, Daniel. You must know by now that I'm far more clever than that. Shall we?”

“We're going now?”

“There's no time like the present.”

She grabbed my arm and pulled me along, almost skipping. I couldn't help but smile. As we walked, I avoided the sidewalk cracks like usual, thinking that it was not a good time to break tradition right before going to a murderer's house again. A few times I paused or took extra long steps. She noticed.

“What's wrong with you?”

I looked at her, surprised. “What?”

She just held my eyes.

I hesitated. “I don't know. I . . . just do things sometimes. To stop bad things.”

She watched me carefully. “Does it work?”

“I think so,” I murmured.

“Have you ever told anyone?”

“No. I don't want them to think I'm crazy.”

She smiled faintly. “I didn't think so.”

We didn't speak again until we reached John's street. His truck was in the driveway.

“He's here,” I said. “We'll have to come back.”

Sara snorted. “We can't exactly accidentally drop a phone when we break in. The judge wouldn't call that accidental, would he? Of course he's here. I checked his schedule. We're going for a little visit.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “You're going to tell him that I'm sorry I have been so mean. And that I want to make my mom happy and make peace with him.”

“As we investigate him for a murder.”

“Precisely.”

I sighed deeply. “This should be fun.”

  •  •  •  

John opened the door, and his eyes immediately flicked to Sara. His Neanderthal forehead crinkled into a deep frown. He was drinking a beer, wrapped up in a hairy hand that looked like a mitt. He turned to me.

“What's up?” he asked gruffly.

I paused. “Sara wanted to come by. She wanted to say that she's sorry she has been so . . . aloof with you. She was just upset about her dad. And she wants to make her mom happy and get to know you.”

John just stood there for a moment. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt, and I saw a tattoo of a woman in a red dress on his right biceps. It flexed as he took a drink and then shrugged.

“You want to come in for a second or something, then?”

I looked at Sara, and she nodded.

“Okay,” John said, obviously less than thrilled. “Excuse the mess.”

We stepped inside and followed him to the living room, which was still a mess of plates with half-eaten food, and empty beer bottles. He gestured to an old, moss-green couch and plopped onto a recliner.

“Don't entertain much,” he said.

Sara and I sat down, a little closer together than usual, and I faked a smile.

“No problem,” I replied. “So . . . umm . . . Sara isn't a big talker, as you know.”

“Understatement,” he said, glancing at her. She kept her eyes on the floor.

“But she told me she has always avoided you and given you dirty looks and stuff.”

John snorted. “Sounds about right. It's fine. I imagine it's not easy when some dude shows up at home.”

She looked up at him, and for a moment I thought she was going to speak. She didn't. One of her hands was fiddling in her pocket, though, the other on her chest. I hoped she didn't Collapse right now.

“Yeah,” I said. “She just misses her dad. . . . You know how it is. Wonders why he left and all that.”

John took a long drink of beer, draining the rest. He put the empty bottle on the coffee table.

“Dads leave sometimes,” he said. “Mine did too. But your mom showed me the note. He obviously cared about you. It had nothing to do with you, Sara.”

She didn't look at him. Her hands were shaking again. It was time to go.

“Where did he go?” she said quietly. John looked at her in surprise, and then me. He leaned forward.

“So you speak,” he replied.

“Where?” she repeated.

He leaned back and shook his head. “I don't know, kid. He just left.”

The room fell into silence, and John stood up. “I need a beer.”

He clomped out of the room, shaking his head, and I looked at Sara. Her face was rigid. But she slowly withdrew her phone and slid it under the couch. Then she nodded, and we both stood up.

John walked back in and saw us. “Leaving?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks. We should go. We just wanted to . . . say all that stuff, I guess. Thanks.”

We hurried to the front door, and he followed slowly. I didn't like the expression on his face. It was suspicious and cold and said that we wouldn't be welcome here again.

But then he surprised me. He looked at Sara and said, “I'm sorry about your dad.”

She held his gaze for a moment, and then hurried outside into the evening. I went after her, and she was already halfway down the street when I caught up. She was hurrying along like a brooding storm.

“Are you okay?”

“How could he?” she whispered. “He looked right at me and apologized for killing my dad.”

“He didn't say—”

“He didn't have to.” She looked at me, her face tortured. “We're going to get him for this.”

“What are you going to do now?”

She faced ahead, still stalking along so fast that I almost had to jog.

“I'm going to make some calls.”

  •  •  •  

We had two days to wait, and Sara didn't update me on her activities. I wasn't sure that I wanted to know anyway. Leaving a recording cell phone and making instigating phone calls was starting to feel like a crime drama. But I had agreed to go back with her to retrieve the phone on Friday, and in the meantime I had plenty to think about.

It was last recess on Thursday afternoon when Raya wandered over. I was watching the other guys play basketball, but my stomach was hurting, so I didn't play. I think it was better when everyone expected me to fail. Now they expected me to score another touchdown on Saturday or something.

“Having fun?” Raya asked, stepping up beside me.

Her hair was down today, just reaching her shoulders and crimped a little. I felt my knees wobbling.

“Obviously,” I replied. “I'm doing my favorite thing. Not playing the game.”

She laughed. “I hear you're not going to be so lucky on Saturday.”

“No,” I said, sighing. “I think I'm stuck out there again.”

I noticed for the first time that her hands were fidgeting a little in front of her.

“Listen . . . I'm having a few people over tomorrow night. Just cleared it with the parents. Nothing big, just hanging out in the basement and stuff. You want to come?”

“Sure,” I said instantly.

She smiled. “Great. Tell Max too, obviously. Anyway . . . keep up the good work.”

“I'll try.”

As she walked away, I turned back to the game, unable to hold back a grin.

  •  •  •  

That night I was lying on the carpet next to Emma, staring up at the ceiling. An open book rested on each of our chests—
A Tale of Two Cities
for me and
The Once and Future King
for her. Our eyes were on the stucco as usual. We had already made up an elaborate story about a lost kingdom.

“A boy called me ugly today,” Emma said.

I glanced at her. “What?”

“Yeah. He threw something at me and called me ugly. And then a nerd.”

She was speaking very conversationally, like we were discussing the weather or something.

“Did you tell your teachers or something?”

She shrugged. “It was a crumpled-up piece of paper. No big deal.”

“Oh.” I turned back to the ceiling. “So what did you say?”

“Nothing.” She paused. “I cried, though. In the bathroom after.”

I felt a bit of anger race through me. “Who was this guy?”

She laughed. “You don't have to beat him up or anything. It was just the first time that happened.”

“Been there,” I muttered.

She looked at me. “Do you think I'm ugly?”

“Of course not. You may be a nerd, though.”

Emma laughed. “Definitely. So how's it going with Raya?”

“She invited me over tomorrow night. For a party or something.”

“That sounds fun.”

“Maybe.”

Emma was silent for a long time. “What about that other girl? Sara?”

“She's a friend.”

“I can't believe you have two girls you talk to now.”