Pretending to Be Erica (22 page)

I squirm, trying to get purchase on the sandy ground, but Kerwin has his leg on my feet. He’s shaking too. I can hear him swallow as the gun presses harder into my knee.

“I’ve been shot a few times.” Sal sighs. “And trust me when I say that the kneecap is the most painful. You’ll never be able to walk right again. Where do you think I got this little limp?”

The tears start. “S-Sal, please—”

“Ah-ah.” He puts a finger up to my lips. “No begging. I never taught you to beg. You’re better than that.”

“I d-don’t want to be shot.”

“Tell me what the code is, and this all goes away.” Sal smiles. “It’s just a code, Vi. It’s just a painting from one woman who won’t miss it. You’re willing to get shot because of her? Do you think she’d want you to get shot defending some silly painting?”

The exertion of digging the grave closes the distance and lunges for my vital points. My arms droop. My head feels so heavy. I can’t fight. I can’t move.

“Tell me what the code is, Violet.” Sal’s voice raises a notch. It’s not much, but it’s the loudest I’ve ever heard his voice go. “You want out of the con life? Fine. You can have that. But you need to tell me the code. This is your last chance.”

Honesty
.

“It’s just money,” Kerwin whispers in my ear. “Just give it to him. It’s not worth getting hurt.”

I’ve already gotten hurt.

Sal’s finger pulls the trigger in slow motion, every millimeter taking years. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt, but not as much as James hurt. Not as much as Taylor hurt. Not as much as Cass and Merril and Mrs. Silverman hurt. Leaving them hurt more.

Lying to them hurt more.

“Freeze!”

The word rings clear, then there are clamors of “Police!” and “Put your hands up!”

Sal jerks the gun away and points it a man in a trench coat: Mr. White.

Sal’s gun squeezes three bullets off. Mr. White ducks, and from somewhere else several guns scream at once.

Sal gives a grunt and collapses onto the sand. It melds around his tracksuit. I scream—scream for him. Kerwin shouts his name, a keening scream. Children crying for a father dying.

The silence after he hits the ground echoes in my chest.

From behind Mr. White step two men in uniform—police. Kerwin bolts across the sand, the police sprinting after him. Mr. White rushes to me and cradles me in his arms.

“Did he get you?”

I glance at the motionless lump on the ground, my heart twisting around. “Is he . . . ?”

“I don’t know.” Mr. White shakes his head. “But you’re okay now.”

I give a wretched laugh, short and biting, and exhaustion starts to darken the edges of my vision.

“Erica’s over there,” I say breathlessly.

He nods. “Good work.”

I’m going to faint. My head lolls back. “Violet.”

Mr. White looks down at me. “What?”

“That’s my real name.”

The shouts of the officers fade. Mr. White’s face and the sky framing it fade. The motionless body of the man who raised me fades. Blissful silence.

My new roommate watches as I unpack. The drawers are rusted, hard to get open. I shove my clothes in and throw the suitcase on the creaking bed.

“So.” She snaps her gum. “What’re you in for?”

“Technically? Grand theft auto. They gave me a year.”

Her eyebrows quirk, a little impressed. She adjusts her sweatpants. “Guess what I’m in for.”

I turn and study her face. Amber skin, thin lips. Pear-shaped but muscular. Her hair is a dead giveaway—kept in a low ponytail. Not vain.

“Definitely not shoplifting,” I finally say.

“Aggravated assault.”

“Your stepdad?”

“Yeah.” She looks perturbed. “How’d you know?”

I smile and fold back the covers. They’re thin and used and smell like strong bleach.

“I’m just good at reading people.”

Los Amos Juvenile Detention Center is in the middle of nowhere. A small town is to the south, with a grand total of two blocks of main street. I drove though it in a police car on my way here. The officer pointed out the bank and laughed, telling me not to rob it. Like I would con a tiny place like that.

Like I would ever con again after what I’d been through.

The girls in this place are in for shoplifting, substance abuse or possession, and breaking and entering. Those are the top three. The food is little more than slop, the exercise yard is a seventy-by-seventy fenced-in mud pit, and the guards like to blow whistles in your ears, but it could be worse.

I’ve been in worse.

We all wear the same gray sweat suit. There’s the same hierarchy you’d find anywhere—the bullies and those who allow themselves to be bullied. The really intimidating and abusive girls are kept in a separate wing.

I pick at my stew. Angela, my roommate, squirms.

“This is the fourth day in a row we’ve had stew.”

I shrug and sip broth. Angela drops her spoon.

“Oh
shit
, Bren’s coming this way.”

I glance up. Bren—tall, wiry, a tattoo curving down her arm—approaches our table flanked by two other girls of almost equal height. Bren was—is—in a gang, has more connections to the outside than she can count, and runs the import of cigs, pills, makeup, decent tampons, and everything a girl might need. In exchange for equal favors.

She looks me over. “New girl.”

“Bren.” I smile. “I’m Violet. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Heard you were a con artist. The one pretending to be that missing girl.”

“You heard right.”

I feel Angela shrink away from me, like she doesn’t want to be noticed. Bren takes my fork off my plate, stabs a piece of meat, and eats it. She chews slowly, thinking, and swallows.

“Lock picking?”

I nod. “Anything made before 2012.”

“Hacking?”

“Not so good with computers, but I can turn them on.”

“Fighting?”

“None of that, really.”

“People?”

“Oh.” I smile wider. “I’m the best at people. Would you like a demonstration?”

Bren narrows her eyes, but jerks her head at one of her lackeys. The girl steps up, a willing victim. She’s wide, wider than most girls. Ridiculously huge thighs. Her rib cage is abnormally large; she breathes slow and even. Once a competitive swimmer, definitely. Her eyes flicker when I meet her gaze. A twitch of her jaw. Something to hide, but not from me. From Bren. Her hair is short and unkempt, and her fingernails are clean but bitten ragged.

“Pills,” I say finally. “You used to swim. Liked it, too. But you weren’t quite good enough, were you? So you took something to up your game one day. And the day after that. And the day after that.”

The girl’s face darkens.

Bren’s eyebrow goes up. “That all?”

“She’s still doing pills.” I nod at her hands. “Uppers. Don’t know where she’s getting them, but she’s taken some recently. Haven’t you?”

“Shut up, bitch!” the girl snarls.

Bren slams a hand over the girl’s chest. “I told you to quit taking that shit.”

“I am! I swear, Bren, I quit! This little bitch is making shit up!”

“Where do you hide them?” I keep my voice calm. “Your pillow?” No response. “Your drawers? The toilet?” No response. “Hole in the wall, maybe?”

A twitch.

“Hole in the wall it is.” I smile.

The girl’s face lights red. “Fucking cunt! I’ll kill you!”

“You won’t touch her,” Bren snaps.

“Do we have a deal, Bren?” I ask politely.

She glares at me for a few moments. “You come when I call you, work your shit when I need you to, and you won’t get touched in this place. You got me?”

“I got you.” I smile and pick up my tray. “Have a fabulous day, ladies.”

It might not be much, but for now it’s home.

They make us do art, home ec. We talk to shrinks, but none of them is as good as Millicent. None of them has that same little smile, that same encouraging presence that lets you say anything and nothing at all. No tea in this place. Just watered-down coffee.

There are no more voices.

No more cons.

No more Erica.

Here, behind bars in juvie, I’m freer than I’ve ever been.

We have two hours of computer time on the weekends. No instant messaging, no video chats or Internet access. Just e-mail and a word-processing program. Taylor’s dad e-mails me—he’s my lawyer. Said he felt sorry for me, said his “friends” (the mob) had always liked Sal. His representing me was a show of respect to one of Vegas’s most influential con men.

The police let me have one of Sal’s many rings.

I stared at it for four days then chucked it over the fence of the exercise yard. A crow flew away with it.

Cass and Taylor e-mail me the most. I don’t think Merril’s forgiven me, or will ever forgive me. She might when Cass talks her through it.

Time, and all that bullshit.

Cass is more understanding. She’s warming up the more I e-mail her about my life with Sal—how I was raised. The more she finds out about the real me, the kinder her words sound. Taylor keeps me in the loop about everything at school, the classes I’m missing, who’s going out with whom. She knows I miss the daily stuff. She hates gossiping but does it anyway. For me.

James hasn’t e-mailed at all.

I expected that though.

Mrs. Silverman called a few times, but our conversations were always short, and she would always start to sob. After the third call, she stopped. Seeing her testifying in court was surreal. She didn’t look at me. Later I learned she’d decided not to press charges. Instead of fraud, all the police could get me on was stealing the car from Home Depot’s lot. Taylor’s dad made me play the victim—wove the story of Sal and how he raised me. I put on a weepy face that wasn’t all faked. The jury ate it up.

A care package arrived for me in juvie on day six, filled with biscotti and fancy shampoo. The note was simple and in elegant handwriting:

Thank you.

Erica’s funeral was held two weeks after my sentencing. Mr. Silverman attended. The newspapers said he was laughing instead of crying.

Taylor is my usual visitor during visitor day. Not today, though. She’s off to New York to visit her mom. Today I’m alone.

“Violet?” A guard taps on my door. “You’ve got a visitor. I’ll take you there.”

Cass, maybe? Or maybe it’s Mrs. Silverman. No, it wouldn’t be her. She still has a lot of healing to do before she ever looks at me again. But she will someday. Or so I hope.

I step into the tiny white room, the door closing behind me. On the other side of the glass is a boy with a windbreaker and long blond hair. It’s shorter, though. His face is thinner. His calloused hands fold on the table in front of him. I don’t move, staring at him from the place where I stand. I should sit. Sitting would be good, but I feel like any movement will make him bolt. Make him break.

Slowly. I move slowly, pull the chair out, and curse it when it makes a screeching noise. Settle, smooth my sweat pants. We sit like that, neither of us looking at each other and neither of us willing to pick up the phone and start the conversation. Time passes, long and stretched. His hand moves for the receiver, and I take ahold of my end at the same time.

His lips open, eyes flickering up to meet mine.

“I lied,” I cut him off, spit it like I’m spitting something foul from my body.

“I know,” he murmurs.

Another silence. It’s a good silence though. I can hear him sigh, clear his throat. It’s all I need. It’s all I can have right now.

“One year in here,” I say. He nods. The soundproofed room is clean and white. A bandage. A point that holds together my two worlds—James and prison.

“I don’t regret it.” I swallow hard. “You, Taylor, meeting everyone and doing things with you guys was the best time of my life.”

“Mine too,” he agrees. A smile tugs at his mouth. I don’t want to cry in front of him, but I can’t hold the sadness back anymore. It’s not just tears of regret for what I did, or for my situation now; it’s tears for Kerwin, now on the run. For Sal, now dead. For Mr. and Mrs. Silverman learning to breathe now.

For Erica, who’s with her family now.

Who’s at
peace
now.

James can’t touch me through the glass, but he wants to. I can see it in his eyes, his tensing muscles. He wants to say something. He bends down and brings out a guitar instead. He props it on his lap, puts his end of the phone on the table near it, and starts strumming. The song fills my tiny room.