Audrey’s arms were slack around my neck, her body drooping with fatigue. As she started to slip, I hoisted her higher, and her head thudded onto my shoulder.
I found comfort in the weight of her and her warm breath in my ear. The task felt familiar. Normal.
I suddenly tightened my grip to keep Audrey from slipping again, my heart seizing. There, in the hospital lot, two rows removed from where our own car was parked, sat a blue Toyota Camry. Just like Sam’s.
Leo saw the car the second I did. Though its appearance left me frozen, it had the opposite effect on Leo. Too late, I realized I had neglected to tell Leo about Carver Sweet taking Sam’s Camry from our driveway.
Leo ran toward the car, his recent injuries making his gait awkward but not slowing him.
No, Leo. My mind screamed, but I remained silent. The words would have been wasted. There was no stopping my son.
My own legs began pumping an instant after Leo’s, Audrey bouncing against my chest as I ran.
Even with his injured knee, Leo covered the distance quickly. He checked the back of the Camry first. I knew what he was looking for: the bumper sticker.
Next, he peered into the back driver’s-side window. But his urgency had faded. I had already scanned the license plate. I knew.
He turned when I caught up with him, fresh heartbreak straining his face. “It’s not Dad’s.”
“I’m sorry, Leo,” I said. And then, reluctantly: “But it’s probably a good thing it isn’t his.”
I started to explain to my son why I was relieved the car wasn’t Sam’s, but my words stuck in my throat.
Because I noticed three things, almost simultaneously.
First, a dark stain on the back seat where someone had installed a car seat. Stolen, I guessed, to cover the blood.
I knew the car seat was stolen because the second thing I noticed was that the car was definitely Sam’s. Someone had disguised it by swapping the plates, scratching off the sticker, and installing the car seat over the bloodstain. But there was no disguising the small dent where Leo’s bike had fallen against the driver’s-side door, or the smudge of white paint on the bumper from when we had repainted the fence.
Unfortunately, I noticed the car seat and the dent and the smudge before I noticed the most important detail: the reflection. In the glass, I caught sight of the shadow of the man who had been driving my husband’s car.
The man responsible for putting a bloodstain on Sam’s back seat.
25
Carver Sweet stood on the balcony less than twenty feet away, cast in the yellow glow of the parking lot lights. From Audrey’s hospitalization as an infant, I knew the balcony opened off a lobby that offered vending machines, a TV, and tables of magazines meant to distract the families of surgical patients. Six years ago, I had been more inclined toward restless pacing than thumbing through copies of Entertainment Weekly.
Scanning a cluster of cars to the right, at first, Carver didn’t see us.
I handed Leo my purse and set Audrey on her feet. Then I nudged them both toward our rental car. “Lock the doors. Call the police. Now.”
Leo hesitated, the concussion and late hour adding to his confusion. “Who is that guy, Mom?” Then he saw my face, and his own went pale. “You can’t—”
I cut him off, my words a determined rush. “I’m not letting that bastard out of my sight this time until the police come.” I pointed to where Carver stood. “Besides, he can’t hurt me from there. Go.”
“But what if—”
“If he moves, I’ll get in the car and run his ass over.” I repeated more firmly this time: “Go.”
Carver turned his head in our direction, and Leo ran, pulling Audrey with him. Behind me, I heard the car door open, then slam shut, but I kept my eyes on the man on the balcony.
Upon noticing me, Carver cocked his head and went still, observing me in the way I had often seen in cats with birds. Since he lacked the power of flight, he couldn’t reach me quickly, but even from that distance I could see his mind puzzling over his options.
“You again.” He sounded almost amused, though irritation flared there too.
My own voice held no amusement and something much stronger than irritation. “What did you do to my husband?”
He laughed so softly I barely heard it. “You must’ve seen the blood in the back seat.” He stepped to the edge of the balcony and peered down. Gauging how far of a drop it would be to the sidewalk below? “Remember what I told you two nights ago. I warned you that your life was already fucked up, but you didn’t know it then. I guess now you do.”
“Where’s Sam?” I asked. “Why’re you doing this?”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Heard that boy of yours took a nasty hit tonight.”
At the mention of Leo, my breath quickened. There was a tremor in my voice when I spoke. “You won’t get close enough to hurt my son again.”
He continued to survey the ground. “I’m pretty close right now.”
“Are you? Why don’t you jump down here so you don’t have to shout?”
And so you can break your leg, or, better, your head?
Just as Carver considered his odds, I considered mine. How long before the police arrived? How many security officers were on duty? And were they even equipped to handle a man like Carver?
He weighed my request to jump as if it had been a serious one. “I think I’d make it, but while I won’t need my mobility for very much longer, I do need it now,” he said. “You know who can take a fall—that friend of yours, Brooklyn. I came here looking for her, but she’s already been released.”
“She isn’t a friend, but I’m glad I was there that night.”
He chuckled, but his eyes closed to slits. “I was less pleased,” he said. “When I was in prison, inmates had an almost sacred belief in coincidence. You know, ‘Sure, it was my backpack, but that wasn’t my heroin.’ Or, ‘Yeah, I was with my girlfriend that night, but it was some other guy who slit her throat.’ But, you see, Cassie Larkin, I don’t believe in coincidence. So how do you know Brooklyn?”
I remained silent, listening for sirens, passersby, or the calls of my children.
“Your friend isn’t here, and she isn’t at her apartment. Do you know where she might be?”
I said nothing, but my face betrayed me. “You do know.” His expression darkened. “I’m going to need the address.”
“And I’m going to need you to screw yourself.”
Carver’s stare was nearly a physical force. The weight of it pressed against me. “Why are you helping her?” he asked. “You’ve risked quite a lot for someone you say isn’t your friend.”
“I don’t need a relationship with someone to help them.”
“That’s a curious thing to say. If you did just stumble on the scene that night, poor you, but there’s little to be done about it now.” He leaned against the railing. “Like I said, I’ll need that address.”
“I think I was clear in my answer to that. Remember—it involved screwing yourself?”
A car passed but it wasn’t the patrol car I waited for. Carver shifted, his face cast in full light now. Somehow, the half-shadow had made it less monstrous, partially obscuring the intensity of his purpose. Obscuring that ropy scar along his jaw. He seemed to grow aware of how long we had been standing there and the risk that stillness brought him.