“He got insurance on the kid?” Ben asked.
“Not enough to count. Barely enough for a funeral.”
“Any money coming to him through her in case of her death?”
“Nada.”
“So…,” Ben said.
“It's not about money.”
Ben turned to Scott. “We're running out of our first forty-eight and we're going nowhere. Remember Oakley's spider feet about the Kirby kid?”
“Yeah, we talked to everybody and she didn't know the kid.”
“But, did he know her?”
Scott scrubbed his spiky hair. “What's to lose?”
“So, I thought we had a chance. David would ask some girl out. Someone just like Mom, someone with a bubbly personality. I gave him the lines to make the approach, a few kinda funny things that made him seem a little witty and not so needy, told him exactly what to do.
“And one more time, there wasn't enough hurt sitting on David's shoulder. He goes and finds the biggest hurt he can. Cass McBride.”
I dug my nails into my thumbs again. Pain felt so much better than guilt.
“Here's David, thinking it's his last chance, his last chance ever to get Mom to approve of him, and what happens? Cass shoots him down. And she does it by calling him a loser, a bottom-feeder, gay. She rejects him with the same words my mother has.”
I wiped the tears from my face. “One thing made me feel a little better. The way David did it. Hanging himself so publicly. In front of our house, with that note on his chest. It told me something.
“David finally worked up the nerve to…” I looked at the cops. “The kid just royally shot Mom the finger. For everyone to see. Big and bad.”
Cicadas? My head pounded so hard and loud I didn't know if the sound was inside or out. Dark all around, but white noise. Go figure.
“Hey, are you asleep or dead?”
Kyle.
Not cicadas. Not white noise. Static from the radio. He was back. Oh thank god, he was back. How long had he been gone? Was it night or day? Was it Sunday now? Had I been asleep? Could it be Monday? Had it just been minutes? Time was impossible here. I faded in and out, sentences paused and I didn't know if it was seconds and minutes or…
I moved my thumb to the button. Even that was an effort. I pressed. Opened my mouth to speak. It was already open, my tongue swollen and the tip sticking out between my front teeth a bit. Stuck to the top of my mouth. I tried to talk but my tongue was foreign, too heavy and cumbersome. All I managed was a rusty groan. Even breathing seemed to take grueling effort. I was going to die. That thought wasn't panic now. It was truth.
“Miserable down there?”
I groaned again. Not part of my campaign. Reactive. I couldn't think or plan with this headache or tongue or all-encompassing thirst. I brought my left hand to my lips to break the scab on my knuckles and lick the blood, but a sweet, sick liquid oozed out. Pus? Wounds get infected that quickly? Why couldn't I have learned a few facts in biology classes? I sighed. Like it would help to know what was going to kill me first: infection, dehydration, or the cold.
I worked my tongue loose from my hard palate and tried to own it. I pressed the button again. “Water, please, water.”
A lot of nothing from Kyle. Then, “You sound like crap.”
A lot of nothing from me.
“Okay, but only because I'm not done with you yet.” The silver dollar—sized circle of light appeared above me. It hurt my eyes and I turned my head away. It hurt to move. God, it hurt to move.
“Try to get your mouth under here and I'll pour water down the tube. I've got a quart bottle and I'll give you half. That's all.”
I shifted and opened my mouth. Waited. Water trickled down. Onto my nose. I wriggled up, lapping at the spillage, and then opening for the dribbling stream that dropped onto my tongue. I soaked in the water rather than drank it, my tongue taking it in like a reverse sponge, shrinking as it absorbed, then water oozed into my mouth and finally down my throat, wetting it. I only swallowed two or three times before the trickle eased then stopped.
It wouldn't save my body from dehydrating, but I could talk again. Kyle won this skirmish. He won it big.
If I worked it hard enough, I might be able to get more water, but that would cede him even more power. I couldn't afford that. I knew to keep the endgame in mind. No short-term wins. Get out of the box. Get out of this box.
Then kick his ass.
The light flicked away. But not before I caught a glimpse of myself in the dim glow. I'd worried about pee stains? My white pj's were dirt streaked, the knees torn out and bloodied. My guess was that the elbows were in the same shape since I could feel the pain of scrapes there. My fingers and knuckles were in worse shape than I'd imagined from the feel. And the feel was shredded. My right thumb was in good shape. Taped securely to the button of the radio. Stiff, yes, but unbloodied. I wanted out of here with enough strength left to take a swing at this guy, with the radio still taped to my hand.
I had been chasing a thought before. What was it? I couldn't think. I drummed my heels against the wood. Pain. Something wet, slippery. Blood?
The pain brought me back into focus a bit. Kyle. If I was here because I hurt his brother and he was this protector/avenger guy, then why hadn't I ever known about a brother? I had kept tabs on Kyle when I was a freshman. If they were close, I would have seen them together,
something.
Why was David such a secret?
Did Kyle treat David like a creeping fungus and now he felt guilty?
But there was Monster Mom.
Did he have to protect David on the sly to keep Monster Mom on his side? To keep her from leaving him the way the dad already had?
And if he was Kyle the protector and he and David were close, the question I wanted answered was
why me?
If David Kirby was the kind to go suicidal from rejection, why would he ask
me
for a date? And why would Kyle let him? It's not like I have a rep for taking in strays.
Once at a party I told my date to get me another drink, and he said, “Sure, Your Bitchness.” The place went quiet and people kind of gaped. I didn't miss a beat. “That's your Royal Bitchness, peasant, and bow when you say it.” Sure, there was the head tilt, grin, and twinking to make it golden, but…
What tender heart would lay himself open to me? If David's stupid enough to try, am I supposed to know he's walking around with a noose hanging from his neck looking for a convenient branch?
I might be dying, but I was going to die angry.
THIS.
WASN'T.
MY.
FAULT.
It was time to take Kyle to the table and close the deal.
“You've had your water; can you talk now?”
“I can talk.” I said it soft, but firm, taking back my position. “The question is, are you listening?”
Nothing.
Then, “What's that mean?”
“I'll get back to it. First, I've got the big question for you. Why am I here? Don't give me your shit about David and my note. That's an excuse; that's not a reason. Why did David ask me out?
Me.
I bet David didn't get to me by himself.”
I pulled down to regretful and sad. I didn't want Kyle on the defensive. “So, do you have the guts to get real and tell the truth before you kill me?”
The silence went on so long, I wondered if he left. If I had pushed the wrong button, pushed it too hard.
“He didn't get to you by himself. I led him.”
I almost didn't hear it. It sounded like something he had just admitted to himself.
I had to close my eyes to concentrate. If I opened them, there were weird dancing
things
in front of me. Not lights, but sort of muted color, shadowy spots that flicked and flittered.
He had clicked off the radio and I felt him pacing across the ground over me. I sensed he was reaching critical mass. He needed another nudge.
Pulling the walkie close to my mouth and clicking the button felt like it took a year. Things swirled and whirled and I drummed my heels again so the pain would keep me from passing out. “What do you mean?”
He popped the walkie to life, but waited a long time to talk. Or was time going tilty?
“This year Mom started in on David about the gay thing. ‘Why don't you date? You never have a girlfriend. You've never gone on a single date. I think you're queer. That's it. I've got a sissy boy on my hands. My whole life was ruined by a little pervert.’
“David would call asking me what to do. I admit, I was sick of the calls. Couldn't I have a life of my own without David pulling me back into that horror show all the time? I'd tell him to let her blow off steam, to just stay out of her way. Quit making yourself such a target, I told him.
“But he said she followed him around the house, screaming like a maniac, nagging and sniping at him. She was pissed because his grades were bad. She'd spew at him about being gay, not having dates, and ruining her life. Over and over.
“And that's where you came in,” Kyle said.
Something was wrong with me. Really bad wrong. My legs were twitching and Kyle was fading in and out, syncing with the lights behind my eyes that dimmed then glared. The pounding in my head kept the backbeat. No matter how Zen I tried to go, my breath was coming fast, shallow but rapid. On TV hospital dramas, that's never good news.
“Hey, what's with you?”
“Sorry.” I sounded like a sick frog. I tried to slide my tongue over my lips. Like a nail file over rocks. “How did I get in the picture?”
“If David got a date with someone—not just any someone, but someone Mom would approve of—she would back off. How could she come down on him if he dangled a pretty girl in front of her?”
I heard expelled air in the radio. It hurt my ears and made my head roar. “I told him just what he had to look for, the type. She had to be like Mom. She had to be…it had to be someone that was so much like her that she had to think David finally stepped up. She would give him her approval if he picked her clone for a date. God, I was such a moron.”
It took me a minute. Because my synapses were dying or because no one wants to see their ugly side?
“That's why he picked me,” I whispered. My eyes burned but there were no tears there.
“I'm her. I'm your mother.”
Ben's first impression of the woman at the door was that she might have been pretty once. Before disappointment hardened her face into angles and points.
She backed away, gesturing them in, and then preceded them into a large room, leaving Scott to close the door. Seating herself in the middle of the couch, she didn't ask the men to sit.
Ben knew a power play when presented with one and sat in a leather club chair and pointed Scott toward another. Mrs. Kirby crossed her legs.
“David's case is closed. It was ruled a suicide.”
“I understand that, Mrs. Kirby. Detective Michaels and I are sorry for your loss and don't intrude on your time lightly. But, there's been a kidnapping, and we need some information from you and we'd like to talk to your son Kyle.”
“Kyle.” She waved dismissively. “Who knows where he is? He's been in and out. Mostly out. I can't keep track. We mourn differently. He does everything alone.”
Ben stared down at his notebook. How had the investigating officer characterized her? A piece of work?
“Mrs. Kirby, did David know Cass McBride?”
She laughed. Or barked. Ben wasn't quite sure what it was.
“For pity's sake. If you had known David–Stop, if you even had gotten a good look at him, you'd…well, you'd know how laughable…”
She smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle in her slacks. “I'm quite certain David knew who Cass McBride is. Even I know who she is. Rich, pretty – her picture is in the local newspaper regularly. But would she know David? She wouldn't give him the time of day. No girl like that would.”
Ben's spine stiffened and Scott's mouth gaped slightly open.
“David was – well, what some would call less than desirable,” she continued. She turned to the men and ran the fingers of her right hand through her hair, massaging the temples, then down to the nape of her neck, rubbing. “Bless his heart.”
When she noticed Ben's stiff posture, she pulled her hand away from her neck and looked directly at him. “You're not used to honesty, are you? No one is. Everyone thinks I'm heartless. But I'm simply honest. David was a timid boy, and he wasn't tough enough for this world. He quit everything he started. I'm not surprised he quit his life. I
am
surprised at the violent way he did it, though.”
Ben thought the tendons in her neck would snap.
“Kyle is off being traumatized somewhere, my husband is just off somewhere, and here I am, holding down the fort alone. As always.”
Ben wished he could tell Scott to close his gaping mouth. Sure, this woman was shocking the squat out of him too. Her son hadn't been dead a week and she was—well, Ben guessed it didn't matter how long the kid had been dead.
“Does Kyle know Cass?”
“That would be more in line,” she said. “But he's never mentioned her.”
“Would you mind if we had a look at Kyle's closet? His shoes?”
Mrs. Kirby's self-pity took a sharp turn. “Seriously? What the hell are you up to?”
“I told Cass all about her, you know. My mother.”
The young cop had been pacing, but now he sat down. The big cop was still leading me with silence.
“The first time I saw Cass, I hated her, because I thought she had it all. But when word went around school that her dad divorced her mom and left her without a cent…”
My thumb was bleeding again. I tugged the sleeves back over my hand.
“See, once I met Cass's dad and then heard how he treated her mom, I thought what a bitch she must be to stay and live with him. She either had to be just like him, or she'd sell her soul to stay on his paycheck.”
I looked up at the big cop. “Have you met her father?” The cop didn't give me anything but I kept talking. “I met him once. He sold Mom her car. Shit. I can't believe it. How much my mom and Cass's dad are alike. With Cass's dad it's sales and with my mother it's torture, but it works the same way. Keeping the prize dangling just out of reach. If the sale is too easy, you can walk away.…