Later

66

The Chief and two other cops turned up at the MedNow place an hour or so after Officer Caroline and I got there. Also a guy in a suit who introduced himself as the county attorney. A doctor examined me and said I was basically fine, blood pressure a little high but considering what I’d been through, that wasn’t surprising. He felt sure it would be normal again by morning and pronounced me “your basic healthy teenager.” I happened to be your basic healthy teenager who could see dead folks, but I didn’t go into that.

Me and the cops and the county attorney went into the staff break room to wait for my mother, and as soon as she got there, the questions started. That night we stayed at the Renfield Stardust Motel, and the next morning there were more questions. My mother was the one who told them she and Elizabeth Dutton had been in a relationship that ended when Mom discovered Liz was involved in the drug trade. I was the one who told them how Liz had scooped me up after tennis practice and took me to Renfield, where she was expecting to rob a big haul of Oxy from Mr. Marsden’s house. He finally told her where the drugs were, and she killed him, either because she didn’t get the jackpot she was expecting or because of the other stuff she found in that room. The pictures.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Officer Caroline said as I gave her back her jacket, which I had kept wearing. Mom gave her a wary, ready-to-protect-my-cub look, but Officer Caroline didn’t see it. She was looking at me. “She tied the guy up—”

“She said she secured him. That was the word she used. Because she used to be a cop, I guess.”

“Okay, she secured him. And according to what she told you—also according to what we found upstairs—she tuned up on him a little. But not all that much.”

“Would you get to the point?” Mom said. “My son has been through a terrible experience and he’s exhausted.”

Officer Caroline ignored her. She was looking at me, and her eyes were very bright. “She could have done a lot more, tortured him until she got what she wanted, but instead she left him, drove all the way to New York City, kidnapped you, and brought you back. Why did she do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You had a two-hour ride with her, and she never said?”

“All she said was she was glad to see me.” I couldn’t remember if she’d actually said that or not, so I guess it was technically a lie, but it didn’t feel like one. I thought of those nights on the couch, sitting between them and watching The Big Bang Theory, all of us laughing our heads off, and I started to cry. Which got us out of there.

Once we were in the motel with the door shut and locked, Mom said, “If they ask you again, say that maybe she was planning to take you with her when she headed west. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” I said. Wondering if maybe that idea had been knocking around someplace in Liz’s mind all along. It wasn’t a good thing to speculate on, but better than what I had thought (and still do today): that she planned to kill me.

I didn’t sleep in the connecting room. I slept on the couch in Mom’s. I dreamed that I was walking on a lonely country road under a sickle moon. Don’t whistle, don’t whistle, I told myself, but I did. I couldn’t help myself. I was whistling “Let It Be.” I remember that very clearly. I hadn’t gotten through more than the first six or eight notes when I heard footsteps behind me.

I woke up with my hands clapped over my mouth, as if to stifle a scream. I’ve woken up the same way a few times in the years since, and it’s never a scream I’m afraid of. I’m afraid I’ll wake up whistling and the deadlight thing will be there.

Arms outstretched to hug.