Chapter Nineteen
Pam drove home because they’d taken her car, and Jake rode in the passenger seat, in suburban exile. They’d barely spoken for the remainder of the game, and he didn’t know if she’d talked to Dr. Dave, though he assumed she had because she’d been on the warpath. Jake’s thoughts kept circling to Lewis Deaner, and he’d spent the rest of the game looking for him in the crowd. He’d even checked the parking lot after the game let out, but no luck.
Pam braked when they came to a red light and glanced in the rearview mirror at Ryan, who sat in the backseat, plugged into his iPhone, listening to music. The Chasers won, forty-five to thirty-eight, but Ryan had been benched for the second half, unprecedented in his basketball career. He’d scored six points instead of his usual fifteen or so, and missed every three-pointer. He hadn’t played good defense either, and the ball had been stolen from him twice. After the game, he’d come out of the locker room with his head down, stone-faced and atypically apart from his teammates, who’d emerged laughing, talking, and slapping five after the victory.
“How are you feeling, honey?” Pam asked, to the rearview mirror. The sky around them was gray-bright, thick with a winter cloud. The air smelled damp and chilled, like snow was coming.
Ryan didn’t reply. Jake glanced back, but he couldn’t see Ryan, who was sitting behind him.
“Ryan? You okay?” Pam repeated, louder, though it was obvious that Ryan was avoiding conversation. He knew Ryan had to be dying inside, the least of his worries being the way he’d played.
“Ryan!” Pam said, more sharply, because she knew when she was being avoided, too.
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“Honey, don’t beat yourself up. Everybody’s entitled to a bad day, and you’ve been sick. Your body can’t recover that fast. You’re probably dehydrated.” Pam squinted into the rearview. The traffic light was still red. “Don’t you have any water with you?”
“No.”
“We could stop at McDonald’s or Dunkin’ and get you some. You want to?”
“No thanks.”
“But they’re on the way home, and you must be hungry. Don’t you want to stop and get something to eat? It might perk you up.”
“I don’t want anything.”
“What did Coach Marsh say?”
“Not much.”
“But what?”
“He said, next time to tell him if I’m not feeling good.”
Pam frowned. “Okay. But what would he have done differently?”
Ryan shrugged.
“He didn’t say?”
“No.”
“He would have played you, no matter what. You’ve never not started.”
Ryan said nothing.
“Did you talk to Dr. Dave?” Pam glanced sideways at Jake, who knew that she wanted to know if Dr. Dave had said anything about their argument.
Ryan didn’t reply.
The traffic light turned green, and Pam hit the gas. “Ryan, did you talk to Dr. Dave?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“Ryan, he didn’t say nothing,” Pam shot back, her tone exasperated. “Can’t you fill me in? Do I have to pull teeth here?”
“Mom, watch your driving!”
Jake cringed. “Ryan, please don’t talk to your mother that way.”
Ryan gestured to the road. “Dad, she’s not looking where she’s going. She didn’t even see that Subaru, turning left.”
Pam frowned in annoyance. “I saw it, Ryan. It wasn’t anywhere near us.”
Jake didn’t know what Subaru he was talking about, but anxiety was plain in his son’s voice. “I’m sure she did, Ryan. Just watch your tone.”
Pam’s head snapped toward Jake. “Thanks, but I can talk to my son myself. I don’t need you to intervene.”
Jake let it go. He knew she was only blowing off steam and he wasn’t about to fight with her. Instead he looked out the window, and his gaze flitted restlessly over the strip mall with its CVS, Subway, and Rita’s Water Ice, a sight he found oddly comforting. He’d heard people complain that the country had become so homogeneous, with the same chain stores everywhere, but he didn’t have a problem with that. The chains were a part of his daily routine: he got his coffee at the Wawa, his turkey hoagies at the Subway near his office, and his chocolate-covered doughnut at Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru, right before he hit the on-ramp. The sameness of the stores and their food implicitly reassured him that everything would always be the same in his life, at least until recently.
I bet you drive a nice car, like an Audi.
Pam straightened up. “Ryan, I know you feel disappointed about the game, but you don’t have to sulk like Achilles in his tent. I’m trying to talk to you because I love you. It’s a good problem to have, that you have a parent who cares enough about you to ask you how you’re feeling, okay?”
Ryan groaned. “Mom. You’re not asking, you’re nagging.”
Jake kept his face turned to the window, feeling a pang. He knew that Pam would be hurt by that dig and that Ryan was hurting inside, too, which was why he’d made it. Jake didn’t say anything because he’d been warned off, so he kept his own counsel. Pam defaulted to silence, but she fed the SUV some gas. He felt the lurch of its angry acceleration and watched the scenery go by faster; the Acme, the Cold Stone Creamery, the Walgreens, and the Pottery Barn blurring into one neon streak of commercialism with convenient parking, open on Sundays and taking all major credit cards.
They traveled in silence, then crossed into Concord Chase, and Pam steered onto Concordia Boulevard. They passed another Wawa and a massive Wegman’s, then she put on her left blinker and moved into the left lane. Jake realized with dismay that she was going to take the shortcut home, via Pike Road. They’d go around the same curve on which they’d struck and killed Kathleen Lindstrom.
Jake had to do something. He couldn’t put Ryan through the pain or take the chance that the boy would throw up, cry, or react involuntarily, showing their hand.
Jake waved her off. “Honey, don’t take Pike. Why don’t you just go straight?”
“Why?” Pam glanced over, frowning. A truck was barreling down the oncoming lane toward them, and she stopped before she turned onto Pike to let it pass.
“This is where that girl was killed. Let’s not go this way.”
“Since when are you such a sensitive flower?”
“Pam, really.” Jake knew that she was punishing him for fighting with Dr. Dave, but she didn’t know she was punishing her son as well.
“Don’t be silly.”
Jake turned away. He didn’t have anything left to say that wouldn’t tip her off and he was suddenly tired of the bitterness between them, the back-and-forth. He missed the Pam of last night, the one who wasn’t keeping score. The truck rumbled past, its big muddy tires spraying gravel, and Pam took the left turn, driving onto Pike.
Jake kept his face to his window, to avoid looking down the road and reliving everything that happened before the curve. Ryan remained silent in the backseat. The car grew so quiet that Jake could hear the tinny beat of the music through Ryan’s earbuds and wondered how he could listen to such loud music, then realized the boy must’ve cranked up the volume. He prayed Ryan could keep it together when they reached the blind curve.
“It’s just that it’s so much faster to take Pike,” Pam said, her tone gentler. “Plus I want to get Ryan home. He’s not feeling well.”
Ryan said from the backseat, “I’m fine, Mom.”
“Well, good,” Pam said, lightly. “Glad to hear that, honey.”
Jake looked out his window. He wondered if Ryan was sending him a message, saying he was fine and telling him not to worry. The SUV cruised forward, and he started wondering about Lewis Deaner again when they approached the Concordia Corporate Center sign, with a sign that listed businesses in the B section: Marble Fabricators, Lee Security, Ltd., Tropical Technologies, Inc., Cryotechnics, and a few others.
Jake considered it. Lewis Deaner could have been employed by any one of those companies, in any capacity. The closest office building in section B wasn’t far from Pike Road, maybe a hundred feet to the left, due north, and someone could have been working late on Friday night, in any one of those buildings. Jake hadn’t seen any cars in the lots along Pike Road that night, but there was a large interior parking lot in the corporate center. Deaner could’ve parked there and all he would have had to do to see the accident was to look out the back window of one of the offices.
Jake felt his gut clench, trying to guess how much Deaner knew, if anything. Jake thought back to the accident; he had gotten out of the car first, and Ryan had come later, from the driver’s seat. They were both tall and they looked alike. It would be hard to tell who was driving, from a distance. Maybe Deaner didn’t know who had been driving, whether it was him or Ryan.
Dad … I killed … that lady … I killed … that lady.
The SUV traveled down Pike Road, and Jake remembered what Deaner had said about having an apartment near Pike. He surveyed the woods to the right, and to his surprise, he spotted some buildings through the trees, in the distance. There were a series of red brick low-rises of an older, boxy design, and they looked like an apartment complex, situated on the other side of the woods. Jake hadn’t known they were there, but he used Pike Road only as a conduit, and the apartments wouldn’t have been visible from Pike during most of the year, when the trees were in full leaf.
The SUV closed in on the blind curve, and Jake tried not to think about what had happened that night. Instead he eyeballed the distance from Pike to the apartment buildings and estimated it to be about the length of three basketball courts. That would be too far away for Deaner to see any details of the accident unless he had been using binoculars, which made no sense. But it wasn’t impossible that Deaner had seen the Audi or could identify it at that distance, because the car’s frowny headlights were a well-known design feature, recognizable to anyone who knew anything about cars and easily visible at night, even in the fog.
Pam slowed as they approached the blind curve, and Jake mulled over the possibility that Deaner could have seen the accident from his apartment and could identify the Audi. Still, how could Deaner have identified Jake, much less found him? Had he seen the Audi’s license plate? How? Or if Deaner was an undercover cop, maybe someone else had seen it and called it in as a tip.
Pam reached the blind curve, and Jake reached for the door handle, reflexively bracing himself for a collision that had happened days ago. A forlorn memorial had been set up by the roadside—a motley clump of plush teddy bears, grocery-store flowers, thick Yankee candles, and sympathy cards, next to a maroon singlet from the track team and a handmade sign that read Chasers Pride! We miss you, Kathleen! Xoxoxo
Pam cleared her throat. “I guess this is where the hit-and-run was.”
Jake didn’t say anything, and neither did Ryan.
“It’s a dangerous curve, so I could see how it could happen. But how could he not stop?” Pam tsked-tsked.
Jake didn’t answer, and he prayed Ryan stayed quiet.
Pam steered around the curve, staying in her lane. “Sorry we came this way,” she said softly.
“S’okay.” Jake felt his anger ebb away, if not his shame. The SUV powered forward as Pam accelerated, and he scanned the dirt shoulder of the road, checking. There was no shard of glass, no piece of heavy plastic, not even a skidmark to incriminate them.
Dad … I killed … that lady … I killed … that lady.
Jake found himself sending up a silent prayer, asking forgiveness for himself and Ryan. And yet, at the same time, he watched the apartment buildings recede in the distance, wondering what Deaner really knew about the accident, who Deaner was, and what he wanted. If Deaner was a cop, then he wanted Jake and Ryan, truth and justice. But if he wasn’t, Jake had a good guess what he wanted. He’d find out tomorrow, for sure.