If it were ten digits, there would have been a thousand. Twenty digits, a million. Thirty digits, a billion.
Keep doubling and pretty soon you are in the realm of the number of subatomic particles in the Milky Way and military-grade encryption. I try to use this kind of logic to convince Bunny the Lotto is a racket. She tells me not to take the magic out of it.
But sixteen combinations, that’s perfectly reasonable.
I start dialing. I hang up on eight voicemails, two teenagers, one clothing store, one McDonald’s, and one old man.
On my fourteenth try, I get Wyatt’s voice, sort of surprised, like he doesn’t get many calls or has forgotten I exist.
“It’s Angel,” I say urgently. “We need to talk. I met with Odette’s old therapist today. Dr. Greco. She says you met her, too. She says …”
“Stop.”
“Wyatt, did you kill Trumanell?”
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
“I do.”
Those two little syllables knock my breath away.
“And Odette?” I stutter out.
“I don’t.”
“What was buried in the ground where Odette disappeared?”
“A gun.”
“If you know who Trumanell’s killer is, why haven’t you turned him in?” It’s almost a whisper. “Why did you wait? Is the killer already dead?”
“Trumanell wants me to leave it alone.”
“Please tell me who it is,” I beg. “Please, Wyatt. Please tell Rusty.”
I hear him breathing.
Now I don’t.
“Don’t hang up, please, please don’t hang up!” I’m shouting into the phone. “I think Rusty and his partner are coming for you. I don’t know what they will do to get answers this time. Wyatt. Please. If you won’t talk, just get in your truck and go.” My desperation even surprises me.
Nothing.
“Wyatt, are you still there? I don’t care about Trumanell, Odette would want you to leave.” I pause.
My phone is pressed so tightly to my ear that I can hear my heartbeat. “Please say something.”
There’s a sound cut short on the other end, either the deepest of sobs or a harsh little laugh. In that brief second, I realize that knowing which could make all the difference.
And then he’s gone, reminding me that I’m not that good at saving people.
In less than an hour, I’m back in the park. I drive past the lake, past Rusty’s favorite spot, and turn down one of the unmarked roads. About a mile in, I find a good place.
I pop the trunk. It’s empty, except for a shovel and a saw.
Bunny told me once that all you can do is make an educated decision and let it follow its course. I’m not sure she would think this is an educated decision, sawing away at tree limbs to hide a car in a forest. But I’m guessing there’s at least one tracker on this car from the rental car company, and at least one from Rusty. And I’m not ready to leave this town. Not yet.
I step back and wipe sweat and dirt off my face with my T-shirt. I adjust a few limbs. It’s not a perfect job, but it will do. Before I set off down the road, I feel around in my backpack for the butt of the gun.
I don’t know why. It’s not loaded.
I had to draw a line somewhere. The line was that I would never, ever kill someone like my father did.
61
My father sent a hit man for me once.
The fall Potluck Picnic foster event was in full bloom at a big Dallas park. Everybody said Potluck Picnic referred to the food, but, you know, what a lie. Potential foster parents were out trolling for a kid who was still in decent enough shape to be molded into something or could be tolerated enough for the government paycheck. It was no different than being a dog in a pound. But how else are you going to do it?
After we stuffed in hot dogs and brownies, Mary, me, and six other girls had dispatched ourselves to a row of chain swings about two hundred yards from the main picnic.
We’d done this Potluck drill before. As older girls, we didn’t have a shot. We’d made little Lucia Alvarez stay close to the dessert table, even though she begged to sit on a swing and read her Harry Potter book. She was a cutie, still at least two years away from becoming less adorable. That day, she hooked up with a Mexican family who eventually bought her every J. K. Rowling book on the planet.
About an hour in, a man broke from the picnic and lumbered toward the swings. He was holding a piece of paper in one hand. His other hand was stuck in his jacket pocket.
I didn’t recognize him as one of my father’s old oilfield buddies until he was right on us. It had been six years, since I was only seven, but I remembered. This man had shown me how to sharpen a fishing knife on a stone he found by a railroad track. He’d said to be careful, the knife could slice open my belly like a peach.
No hello that day on the swings. He just began at one end and walked the row like he was picking a teenage hooker, staring into every single pair of eyes. He wore a name badge that didn’t look exactly like all the others. It said Bill Smith, but my dad had called him Hank. It was clever of him to crash.
All the swings had gone completely still. Angry girl hormones fired back at him as he walked the line.
I could hardly breathe. I’d glimpsed what he was holding: a photograph.
I was the girl on the fourth swing. Mary was the fifth. He stopped short at me. Skimmed his eyes back and forth between the picture and my face. I was grateful for the carb-ivore group home diet that had filled out my cheeks. And, of course, for Odette. For my magic eye.
He was struggling to make sense of me. The color of my eyes was unmistakable. My father would have told him to look for a girl without one, or with a very bad substitute. My father had seen my black hole up close and personal. My shot-out eye was the prosecutor’s final pin in that terrible plea deal.
But I had a perfect green pair.
And Hank the hit man couldn’t make up his mind.
I held my breath. His hand remained in his coat pocket. On a gun? On the same fishing knife he taught me to sharpen?
What if I kill the wrong girl? It was like he spoke it out loud.
Mary was standing up by then. The scar on her face was livid in the sun. She was gripping the chains of her swing, rising up and down on her toes, like she was practicing for the ballet, her childhood dream. Instead, this had become her lead-up move before throwing a punch.
I couldn’t let her die for me.
Behind her, a woman and a tiny dog on the walking path were crossing the green space on a fast path toward us. The man was so intent on me he didn’t notice until the dog spewed a yippy little growl at his feet.
“Is this man bothering you?” the woman asked me.
Go, I thought furiously.
Save yourself.
Save my friends.
I am unsaveable.
But I couldn’t get it out. My mouth was sticky with saliva. My thighs were frozen to the seat of the black rubber swing.
“I’m just looking for a daughter,” he drawls.
“Look somewhere else,” the woman ordered.
She held up her cellphone so he could see 911 on the screen, her finger hanging over the call button. Her eyes were glued to the hand in his pocket.
Mary had stopped her toe sit-ups. Her warm-up, over. She was ready to spring.