Deadly Stakes

13

What’s wrong with you?” Sasha Miller wanted to know. “You’ve been like on the moon for days.”

A.J., who had been dozing with his head on the Camry’s headrest, opened his eyes and looked at his girlfriend of three months. After two mostly sleepless nights, the warmth of the sun-filled car had lulled him. His peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich lay half eaten on the leg of his jeans.

He straightened up, grabbed the sandwich, and took another bite. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

The presence of Sasha in his life was one of the unintended consequences of A.J.’s having his own set of wheels. Having his own car had greatly expanded his social milieu. Before the Camry, he’d been limited to places where he could walk or hitch a ride with one of his neighborhood pals. Back when he’d had to suffer the indignity of riding his bike home from work at Walgreens, the possibility of ever having a girlfriend had been nothing more than a pipe dream. Now the dream had come true, and Sasha Miller was a huge part of A.J.’s life-another part that his mother knew nothing about.

Sasha definitely hailed from outside his neighborhood. Her sprawling family home on Missouri was almost a mansion in comparison with the Sanderses’ small but tidy bungalow. Sasha came from a privileged background, with an insurance-executive father, a stay-at-home mother, and three younger sisters. Sasha could have been a spoiled brat, but she wasn’t. She was bright, funny, and fun. She was also black; well, partially black. That was something A.J. was prepared to tell his mother eventually, but not right now. Again, not an outright lie, but one of those sins of omission.

Although attending a private high school had been one of Sasha’s options, she had elected to come to North High to take advantage of the Advanced Placement courses available through the International Baccalaureate program. She drove to and from school in a two-year-old BMW that had been given to her, fresh off a yearlong lease, for her sixteenth birthday.

The difference in their wheels-her shiny BMW versus A.J.’s less flashy Camry-testified to the disparity in family income and economic status. Yes, they had both gotten cars for their sixteenth birthdays, but A.J. had never mentioned to Sasha that his had been an unexpected gift from a mostly absent father who also happened to be an ex-con. And even though his father’s treasure-hunt letter was the reason A.J. hadn’t slept for the better part of two nights, he didn’t mention his father to her now, either. Not that A.J. thought Sasha would care about his father one way or another, but he wasn’t so sure about her family. The Millers attended church services two to three times a week, and A.J. had convinced himself that having an ex-con counterfeiter turn up in his family tree would be the ultimate deal-breaker.

A.J. and Sasha had met in Mr. Cotton’s trigonometry class, where they were both star pupils, and they had been unofficially hanging out ever since the school year started. Because their classmates regarded them as something of an odd couple, they steered away from the cafeteria at lunchtime and ate their sack lunches in either his car or hers.

“It’s not nothing,” Sasha insisted, scanning his face with her penetrating brown-eyed stare. “Tell me.”

He wanted to tell someone about his father’s improbable letter and to find out whether other people thought it was for real. He wanted to tell someone about the horror of having that woman die right there in front of him. He wanted to, but he couldn’t.

“Just some stuff with my mom,” he said.

Sasha rolled her eyes at him and shook her head, making her beaded cornrows rattle.

“Come on,” he added. “It’s almost time for the bell.”

Half an hour later, during trig, A.J.’s cover was blown when Mr. McArthur, the assistant principal, summoned him to the office. All the way there, A.J. was sure someone had figured out that his excuse was a forgery. When he walked into the principal’s office and found his mother waiting for him, he was even more convinced that he was toast. One look at her face let him know she was beyond upset.

“Mom,” he said, doing his best to play dumb. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s your father,” Sylvia said, rising from her chair and coming to meet him. “James has been murdered. The police came by my office a little while ago to let me know.”

A.J. felt his knees buckle. “Where?” he said, staggering to a nearby chair. “When? How?”

Somehow he suspected he knew the answer to his question even before she told him.

“Up near Camp Verde someplace,” Sylvia answered. “Officers were investigating another homicide and found James’s body nearby. At this point there’s no way of knowing if he was involved in what went on with the other victim-a woman. They’re still trying to sort that out. I wanted to come here to tell you so you wouldn’t find out on your own.”

A.J. nodded numbly, thinking about the dying woman and the light going out of those brilliant green eyes. Was this the time when he should admit that he had been there, too? Was this the time to say that he was the one who had sent the text to 911 to try to summon help for her? The problem was, A.J. knew that if he did so, his carefully constructed house of cards would crumble. His mother would know he had been in touch with his father behind her back. She would learn about the forged excuse; so would the school. At the very least, he’d probably receive a suspension. He’d end up having to tell the cops that lame story about his father’s supposedly buried treasure. If his father was dead, chances are the pipe dream about his father’s promised money easing his way through college was probably gone, too. More than that, if A.J. admitted to having been at the crime scene, the cops might think he had something to do with the woman’s death. As for Sasha? Having her find out the truth about any of this just wasn’t an option. Looking at his mother’s anxious face, A.J. made up his mind.

“What happened to him?”

“The cops told me he was shot at close range,” Sylvia said.

“You said someone else was dead, a woman,” A.J. managed. “Do the cops think he has something to do with what happened to her? Was my father a killer?” His voice cracked as he asked the last question.

“The officer I spoke to hinted that might be the case,” Sylvia replied, “but I don’t believe it. Not at all. James did plenty of questionable things in his time, but I can’t believe he’d be involved in a homicide. I never once knew him to be violent.”

A.J. was thinking about the shovel he had left behind at the crime scene. He was thinking about his damning fingerprints on the cell phone.

“I know you barely knew your father, but this has to come as a terrible shock,” his mother began, studying his face. “If you want to go home-”

A.J. hopped up out of his chair. “No,” he said quickly. “I should probably get back to class. We’ve got a big test tomorrow.”

His mother looked a little surprised. “All right,” she said. “But if you don’t want to go to work this afternoon, I understand. I’ll be glad to call Maddy to let her know you won’t be in today.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll be fine, and I need to go to work.”

The truth was, he dreaded being at home with his mother. That would be far worse than going to work.

He made his way back to class. Sasha, seated two rows away, caught his eye as he returned to his desk.

A.J. sank into his chair and covered his face with one hand. He knew he would have to tell Sasha the truth sometime, and when he did, it would all be over.

Maybe that was just as well.

When the bell rang, she caught up with him before he made it to the corridor. “What’s wrong? And don’t try telling me it’s nothing.”

“It’s my father,” A.J. said softly after a long pause. “He’s dead.” Then, to his horror and as much as he tried to keep it from happening, he began to cry.