“What?” His voice is deathly quiet. All I can do is nod my head while he processes this. “How could she do that? Like, how would she even be capable of it?”
“She might have been a dropout, but she was a smart girl in her own way. She had street smarts. She was wise. She understood people.” Derrick nods, agreeing with me. “She knew nobody would suspect her.”
“What did she do?”
“She helped him cook the books, first of all. Remember when he had her in the back office? I never thought anything about it—if anything, I was glad she had something to occupy her time. I was naïve enough to think it was a good thing, her having a job. She wouldn’t be sitting around the house all day with the temptation to shoot up. I didn’t think to question why Kenny would take a high school dropout and put her in charge of something so important. He showed her just how to do it. She estimated he skimmed at least a half million before the cartel got wise.”
“Holy shit! What do you do with that kind of money?”
“Launder it. Put it into different club funds nobody ever touched. The rest would be stashed away. She’d hide money all over the place. Sometimes even in the house.”
“But you could have been caught! Everyone would have blamed you.”
“I know. Believe me, I’ve thought this all over a lot of times. More than I can say.” She cared more about Kenny, about the money he’d give her for her drugs, than me. Or our marriage. Just like all Kenny cared about was keeping the money hidden. I used to think he looked at me like a son, or a kid brother. He didn’t give a shit that I’d take the heat if the money were found in my house, as long as nobody found it in his. It took me a long time and a lot of drinking to come to terms with that.
“You didn’t know anything about this while it was going on?”
“Not until the day in the woods. I didn’t know a damn thing. After the ambush, when Kenny and the others were killed, you remember how she was.”
He nods, eyes wide again. “She was a mess. Crying all the time. Sometimes she’d call me in the middle of the night, just babbling. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I remember coming out to the house to see her. I couldn’t get her out of bed.” He shakes his head, going back to that time. “I remember thinking, she’s falling apart right in front of me. I thought it had to do with you. Sometimes I would even ask if you did something, and she wouldn’t give me an answer. I assumed I was right.”
“I get it. She couldn’t be honest with you.” I sigh, running a hand over my head. “That went on for weeks afterward. At first, I thought it was just the shock of losing so many friends. She grew up with all of them, just like you did. But after a little while, I started to get a little suspicious. I wondered if she weren’t maybe fooling around with one of those guys on the side. It made sense. We hadn’t been together, not like that, in a long time. She wanted nothing to do with me. I always made her feel guilty about the drugs, she’d say. She couldn’t stand being around me when I judged her.” I sigh, rubbing my temples. “Maybe I did. It’s always easy for a person who doesn’t understand the addiction to judge the people in it. I loved her, though. In the end, it was all a matter of wanting her to be healthy. I wanted my wife back, for God’s sake.” I feel a catch in my throat, like I’m about to cry. I push it away.
I continue. The words are just pouring out of me now. I locked them up for so long. “That day…that last day, before she went to the woods…she was desolate. She sat for a long time at the fire, just staring at it. I knew better than to get in her way when she was like that. I gave her room. I didn’t ask her questions, except to find out whether there was something I could do for her. I went out to get some firewood together, and when I got back, she wasn’t there. Her coat was still hanging by the door. I looked around and found the box for my gun on the bed. Empty.
“I ran out the door. I followed her footprints to the woods. She had the gun. She was going to kill herself. I begged her to stop, to think about it. She had her mind made up. Told me the whole story. All those deaths—Kenny and the others, especially the others—were her fault. She couldn’t live with herself.”
“Oh, my God.” His face is white as a sheet of paper. I know I’m getting through to him.
“She pointed the gun at me at first. To get me to stay back when she was confessing everything. Then she turned it to herself. She was going to shoot herself in the heart. I lunged at her, just desperate to get her to stop. I thought I could overtake her. She was so tiny. But I was too late. She pulled the trigger just as I got to her. She died right there.”
I’m crying. Remembering the look on her face when she told me everything, the way she’d sobbed. She hated herself. She hated who she’d become. She was tired of being an addict, tired of lying. She had killed her friends by lying to them. All because Kenny let her shoot up and do whatever she wanted when I wouldn’t. She would have done anything for him, she said, because he let her be who she was. But she didn’t want to be that person anymore. And she couldn’t live with the guilt.
Let me go, Christopher. Those were her last words to me, before turning the gun on herself.
“I took the gun and left her there. I knew if I called the police, they’d immediately think it was me. So I went to town, to one of the payphones. Called them anonymously, told them about a body in the woods. She was only there for a little while, man. I didn’t leave her out there. It was so cold outside; they had no idea how long it had been since she died because her body temperature went down so fast. She wasn’t even wearing a coat.”
Derrick is sobbing. “My sister…” His head is in his hands, the bottle forgotten on the floor. I move to the couch, beside him, and put my arm around his shoulders. He leans into me, crying. He doesn’t push me away. I know he believes me. “My baby sister.”
“I know. I know.”
“Wasn’t she pretty?” he asks, sobbing.
“She was. She was beautiful.”
“She always wanted everything to be nice, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. She decorated the house like something out of a magazine. She’d always have fresh flowers everywhere. She wanted it to be special. She was funny and sweet and kind. She rescued Scout, you remember? Found him on the side of the road after a truck hit him. Insisted we take him to the vet, nursed him back to health. She had a big heart.” I don’t want to think about the lying, thieving person she became. Like I told Derrick, that wasn’t her. That miserable, scheming person wasn’t my wife. She might have been my wife again by the time she pressed the muzzle of my Glock to her chest, clear-headed at last. But it had been a long time since she’d had clarity.
“Why didn’t you just tell me? Years ago?” He’s finally calm enough to speak clearly.
“I knew it would hurt. I mean, not only did she kill herself, but she was stealing from the club. Sleeping with Kenny. I didn’t know you knew about the H. I wanted to keep it from you.”
“You’ve been living with this all this time. I can’t believe it.”
“I blamed myself. I still do.”
“Christopher…it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was. If I could have kept her away from the drugs…or let her know I loved her anyway…maybe she wouldn’t have ended up with Kenny. If I’d been fast enough to stop her, she wouldn’t have shot herself. There were things I could have done.”
“Listen. Michelle was a beautiful girl. I loved her so much. I still do.” Derrick looks at me. “But she also had mental health issues, outside the drugs. I know you had to think there was something wrong with her. She’d have her happy moods, her upswings. Then she’d crash. Remember?”
“Yeah, I do remember that. She’d be on a buzz for, like, days. Then she wouldn’t get out bed for two days straight.”
“Exactly. Our mom and dad…they weren’t what you’d call attentive.”
I snort. That’s an understatement.
He nods. “Yeah, you remember. They wouldn’t take her to a doctor when she was young. They didn’t get her the help she needed. She probably hit a low swing at the same time she was guilty over Kenny and the rest. It was a combination of things. That’s what killed her. Not you.”
“You believe me,” I say.
“I do.”
I can’t describe the relief that floods me when he says those words. I’ve just wanted him to believe me all this time. I didn’t care about anybody else, since Derrick was the one I was closest with.
“I’m sorry for everything…” he mumbles.
“I know. I don’t blame you.” Now that he trusts me again, I have to move on. “There’s a reason I came here. I needed you to believe me, that I’m not the person you thought I was, before I could ask for your help.”
“What’s going on, Christopher? Why are you hiding?”
“It’s Amanda. I was with her last night because her ex was stalking her. He sent her a threatening letter in the mail. She ran away from him a long time ago, but once she got it, she knew he found her.”
“Oh, shit. Poor kid.”
“She’s gone. He took her.” Derrick’s eyes fly open, wide. “I got to her house, there was blood on the floor. It had to be him. I have to get to her.”
“Shit, Christopher! What do you need?” He jumps from the couch much faster than I’d think he would, drunk as he is. It’s like he as a purpose right now.
“Your bike. They’ll find me in a minute if I’m on mine. They wanna pin this on me, man. They haven’t even tried to look for her.”
“Oh, hell.” Derrick gets out his keys. “Man, if I have anything to do with this—the way I accused you to them—I’m so sorry.”
“I know.” I go to the door.
“Where are they, do you think?”
“Somewhere in Texas. Maybe five, six hours away. Their college. I think he took her there.”
“She’s a nice girl. Be safe, brother.” He hugs me for the first time in years.
As I run down the front steps, he calls out to me. “I’ll hide in here so they think I’m just out somewhere!”
“Thank you!” I wave once before pulling away. He’s right. They’re going to hit his house soon enough. All my old friends. Why not head for my brother-in-law’s house first? I’m honestly surprised they haven’t shown up already.
I take off into the night, heading south. I haven’t prayed in years, and even then I was never exactly a regular at it. But I pray now. Please let me get to her in time. I’ve already lost another twenty minutes talking with Derrick. I had to convince him to protect me if the cops came, along with convincing him to give me his bike. Now I know he’s back on my side.
As I ride, images of Michelle and Amanda fill my mind. I can’t lose them both.