Call It What You Want Page 25

  A clean break from what?

  “I do feel badly for young Rob,” says Mrs. Tunstall. “He was such a good boy.”

  “Oh, please. He knew. He had to know. He’s lucky he’s walking around without an ankle bracelet. I knew it was a mistake when Robbie Senior was bringing him in to help out on the weekends. A kid could bring the whole thing down around us—and look what happened.”

  Wait. Wait.

  “It’s not his fault,” says Mrs. Tunstall.

  “I probably owe the guy a drink for pulling the trigger.” A darkly amused chuckle.

  My hands form fists.

  A phone rings throughout the house, and I jump, bumping the table. It cracks against the wall and the bowl rattles.

  “Hello?” says Bill from upstairs.

  “Did you hear something?” says his wife.

  “The alarm company is on the phone—a bad code was input after the front door opened.”

  The alarm company.

  He changed the panel by the hallway. Of course he changed the front door code.

  “I knew I heard something downstairs!” Panic in hers.

  “Mom?” Connor’s sleepy voice. “Is something going on?”

  “They’ve sent a patrol car,” says Mr. Tunstall, and now there’s alarm in his voice.

  A patrol car. Shit.

  I tear across the living room and throw open the front door, making no effort to be quiet.

  I’m instantaneously lit up with spotlights.

  “Freeze!” yells a voice. “Put your hands on your head. Put your hands on your head!”

  I put my hands on my head. Breath escapes my mouth in fast, panicked bursts. I don’t know what to do. I hadn’t planned for this.

  Cops are screaming at me. “Do you have any weapons? Lie down on the ground! Lie down on the ground NOW!”

  A knee lands in my back when I comply. Handcuffs slam onto my wrists, and they haul me upright. The front of the house flickers with emergency lights. Everything is spinning. I can’t breathe.

  My eyes find Connor, standing on the front porch with his parents. He’s in boxers and a T-shirt. His father looks furious. His mother looks shocked.

  Connor looks confused. “Rob? What—what are you doing?”

  “He was in on it,” I call to him, and my voice breaks. “Your dad. He was in on it.”

  Then I’m shoved into a police car, and the door is slammed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Maegan

  My father is waiting in the kitchen when I come downstairs before school. Full uniform and everything, which isn’t unusual, though the dark scowl on his face is. Mom is sitting at the kitchen table in her robe, a damp towel wrapped around her head. Her expression is equally tense.

  We don’t usually have this much drama before six in the morning.

  “What’s wrong?” I realize who’s missing, and I add, “Is it Samantha? What happened?”

  “It’s not Samantha,” says my mother quietly.

  My father’s voice is not quiet. “Did you continue to see Rob Lachlan after I told you not to?”

  The question hits me like a slap. I falter and blush and have to clear my throat. “It wasn’t—not really. We’re just friends.”

  “Did you go to a party with him?”

  I’m frozen in place in the kitchen doorway, and I wish so badly that I could go back to my bedroom and start over.

  “Answer me,” he says.

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  He gives a heavy sigh and exchanges a glance with my mother.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “What did he do at that party?”

  “I don’t—” I falter and have to start over. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  My father’s voice could cut steel. “I mean, what did he do at the party?”

  “Jim,” whispers my mother.

  “It was a party.” I’m all tripped up, wondering if this has to do with Samantha’s drinking, though Rob had nothing to do with that, so I can’t make any connections there. “Just a party. Why?”

  “Bill Tunstall says you and Rob snuck into a private area of his home.”

  I suddenly feel light-headed. I put a hand against the door frame. “We didn’t—we didn’t sneak. Rob knew the code. He and Connor used to be friends, so he knew—”

  “Used to be friends.” My father’s hand is tight on the edge of the table. “They used to be friends. So, you know they are not friends now. You know Rob would not be welcome to use a code to access a locked door.”

  I inhale to answer, and my dad makes a slashing motion with his hand. “Don’t answer that. I know you know.”

  “Yes,” I say softly. I feel like I’m going to vibrate apart. “I know.”

  “Damn, Maegan.”

  “Are we in trouble?”

  “That depends.” His eyes narrow, as if his gaze could slice me apart. Cop eyes, Samantha calls them. “What did you do after you went behind those locked doors?”

  Okay, now I’m going to pass out. “Nothing,” I mumble.

  He leans forward. “You’re either going to talk to me or you’re going to tell an officer down at the station. Your choice.”

  This is humiliating. Tears form in my eyes. “Nothing! We just—we kissed! Okay? We kissed.”

  “Bill Tunstall says he found you without your shirt on.”

  “Oh, Maegan.” Mom puts a hand to her eyes.

  I have never wished to be Samantha so hard in my life. She’d roll her eyes and say something like, “He’s lucky he didn’t see me without my pants on.” But I’m not, and I can’t.

  “It was kissing,” I say. “Just kissing. I swear.”

  “What else did you do?”

  “Nothing! He walked in on us, and Rob told me to leave, so I did.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Yes!”

  “So, you don’t know that Rob Lachlan stole a pair of diamond earrings?”

  I thought I had blood left in my face. I was wrong. Now I’m going to pass out.

  Mom gets up and pulls a chair away from the table. “Sit down,” she says. “Jim. This is too much.”

  “It’s not too much!” he says fiercely. His eyes haven’t left mine. “You knew,” he says. “You knew what he did.”

  I can’t even lie. My face has already given it all away.

  “Did you help him?” my father demands. “Did he plan it?”

  “I didn’t!” My father’s face is full of disbelief, so I shake my head fiercely. “I didn’t! I swear! I didn’t find out until later!”

  “Maegan—”

  “I’m telling the truth! I didn’t find out until Sunday night!”

  Those cop eyes are back. “Three days ago. You’ve known for three days.” He pounds a fist against the table. “I told you to stay away from that boy, and not only did you disobey me, you’ve been covering for him.”

  “Did he turn himself in?” I whisper.

  “No! He was caught! He says he was returning the earrings, but at this point who knows the truth?”

  He was returning the earrings. “He was!” I exclaim. “I know he was. I know—”

  “Enough.” Dad sighs. He smooths his hand over the spot on the table that he just struck. “I expected more from you, Maegan. Again, you’re letting us down.”

  Again.

  I swallow. Tears sit heavy behind my eyes, and I take a breath. “I made a mistake, okay?”

  “This is more than a mistake, Maegan. This is—”

  “Just like last spring. I know.” I burst out of my chair and head for the stairs.

  “Get back here!” my father thunders.

  He’s never yelled at me like that. Not even last spring. Tears are in a free fall on my face now. I sprint up the stairs.

  I’m about to go into my room, but Samantha is in her doorway.

  “Megs,” she whispers. She steps back and holds her arms wide.

  I don’t hesitate. I fly into her arms and hold on, as my sister
closes the door behind me, locking our parents out.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Rob

  When Dad tried to kill himself, I was questioned by the police, but it happened in my living room, and it was done with an air of sympathy.

  Today, there’s no sympathy. I’m in a jail cell, sitting on a metal bench, staring at a gray wall. I’m not alone, but the other guy is pushing fifty, and he looks less eager to talk than I am.

  We’ve been in here for hours. The room smells like a combination of vomit and urine and bleach. I’m tired and cold and starving. They took my picture, asked me some questions, and locked me in here.

  I wonder if they called Mom. I expected to be taken to some kind of juvenile detention center, but one of the cops laughed and said, “When you do big-boy crimes, you do big-boy time.” I don’t know exactly what that means, but I’m guessing it means I’m being treated as an adult.

  None of this seems fair. I was putting the earrings back. I wasn’t even going to admit the theft, but I stupidly thought somehow that would excuse me from breaking into their house.

  I was wrong.

  On top of it all, I can’t shake what I overheard. They can lock me up forever, but it won’t change the truth.

  Connor’s father is just as guilty as mine was.

  I tried to tell the cops what I overheard, but they exchanged glances and sighed and ignored me.

  I’d ignore me, too. I have no proof. Nothing. A conversation I barely overheard bits and pieces of. It means nothing.

  To them. It definitely means something to me.

  The man across the cell shifts his weight and sighs. I understand the feeling. Fear and adrenaline and fury battled for space in my brain when they locked me in here, but they’ve long since settled into my bones. A sleeping lion, waiting to consume me.

  There are no windows in here, and they took my phone. Nothing but a row of bars separating us from a narrow hallway, with a locked door at the end. I don’t even know how much time has passed.

  I wonder if that’s deliberate. A torture method.

  I wait.

  I wait.

  I wait.

  The worst part is that I don’t really know what I’m waiting for. If I’m an adult, will I be allowed to see my mother? I get an attorney at some point, right? Will I have to go to prison? How does bail work? Where would Mom get money for that?

  I swipe suddenly sweaty palms across my thighs.

  Eventually—an hour later? A minute?—a loud buzzing sound echoes through the cell, and the door at the end of the hallway opens. We both turn to look as an officer comes through.

  He looks at me and makes a come here gesture with his hand. “You’re out, kid. The family isn’t pressing charges.”

  I almost choke on my breath. “I’m what? I’m out?”

  “Yep. Let’s go.”

  “Take me with you,” says the middle-aged man. It’s the first thing he’s said to me since we were locked in together.

  I don’t say anything to him. I spring off the bench and make a beeline for the officer. Relief has bled through all the anxiety, and I practically want to give the guy a hug. I’m jittery with adrenaline again, but this time for an entirely different reason. I wonder if Mom is here to take me home.

  The police officer leads me back through the doorway and into the main part of the police station. My eyes find a wall clock, which tells me that it’s ten o’clock in the morning. I’ve been here almost twelve hours. I expect everyone’s eyes to be on me, like they were after my father put a gun to his head, but they’re not. Maybe breaking and entering isn’t as exciting as white-collar crime.

  The officer stops at the front desk and hands me an envelope that holds my cell phone and my keys and my wallet. My cell phone has gone dead. Fantastic.

  “That’s it?” I say.

  “That’s it,” he says. “You’re free to go.”

  I stand there dumbly. Do I ask them to call me a cab? I don’t have any money. I can’t exactly walk home from here.

  A man in the waiting room stands and approaches the desk. I’m so wrapped up in my own drama that I don’t pay him any attention until he stops in front of me and says, “I’ve talked to your mother. I told her I’d give you a ride home so she doesn’t have to leave your dad.”

  Bill Tunstall. He looks smug and well rested.

  Every muscle fiber in my body freezes in place.

  The officer behind me chuckles and claps me on the shoulder. “You’re a lucky kid. If I broke into a friend’s house when I was a teenager, I think they all would have let me sweat it out a little longer.”

  Lucky. My tongue won’t work.

  I want to bypass theft and commit a murder right here. A flicker of thought makes me wonder if I can grab the cop’s gun.

  Bill’s eyes are fixed on mine. There’s no love lost there. This isn’t a kind gesture.

  He knows I know.

  “Come on, Rob,” he says casually. “We can talk it out on the way home.”

  I don’t want to. My heart hammers away at my rib cage.

  When I don’t move, his eyes narrow a fraction. “Your mother is worried. I know she’s waiting for us.”

  Nothing in his words are a threat, but somehow I hear one anyway. He can do whatever he wants to me, but my mother is the last innocent person in this whole thing. She doesn’t deserve this.

  I swallow. “Fine.” It’s impossible to keep fury out of my voice. “Thanks a bunch for the ride, Bill.”

  Bill drives a Tesla. The door handles pop out as we approach. I’ve been inside it, but before now I never realized how pretentious it makes him seem. The doors seal shut, locking me inside with him. He can’t really lock me in here, and I know that, but the cool silence of the interior makes this feel like a cage all the same.

  I’d rather be back in the jail cell.

  I don’t trust myself to speak. I don’t have enough details, but I know this man was in on it with my father. I know he should be paying, too.

  He says nothing as we pull out of the police station parking lot. As the car accelerates, I’m tempted to grab the wheel and jerk the vehicle into a telephone pole.

  Then again, this car cost over $100,000, and I’m sure it’s loaded to the gills with safety features. Bill would probably walk away without a scratch. Hell, it would probably brake automatically.

  “I’m waiting,” he says eventually. He delivers these words like I’m a toddler and he’s ordered me to issue an apology.

  I turn my head and glare at him. I never liked him much, but right now, I hate every fiber of his being. “For what.”

  “For you to explain yourself.”

  “Why don’t you go first?”

  We’ve come to a traffic light, and he glances away from the road. “Watch the attitude.”

  “Fuck you.”

  His hand comes out of nowhere and backhands me square across the face.

  He’s driving, so it’s not a forceful blow, but he’s bigger than me and stronger than I expect. I feel it in my nose. My lips. Blood is in my mouth, along with a sharp pain between my eyes that draws tears against my will. My breathing hitches more from surprise than anything else.

  He’s pointing a finger at me. “I told you to watch the attitude.”

  I press fingers against my face. I can’t help it. I feel like I ran face-first into a wall. My nose is bleeding.

  “You can hit me all you want,” I say. My voice is nasally. Great. “I know what you did. What you’ve done.”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “I know what I heard.”

  “Like that matters. You think anyone is going to believe you?” We’re going fast now, but he looks over at me and snorts disgustedly. “Seriously. You think anyone is going to believe you?”

  I wipe at my nose, then scrape my hand along the side of my seat. I hope I’m leaving streaks of blood and snot on the tan leather. “Maybe no one. But I’ll figure out a way to make sure—”

>   “To make sure what? To make sure I’m caught?” He chuckles. “Rob, if the feds didn’t find anything when they came after your dad, they’re not going to find anything now.”

  “I don’t care.” I shake my head and spots flare across my vision. “I’ll do whatever I have to do—”

  “No. You won’t.” He glances over. “Unless you want your mother to go down, too.”

  Those words stop time. I turn my head to look at him, and it’s as if I’m underwater. “What are you talking about?”

  “You think she didn’t know? You think she didn’t help? How naive are you?”

  This is worse than everyone thinking I knew. At least people leave my mother alone. “She doesn’t! She doesn’t know anything—”

  “Come on.”

  “You leave my mother alone. Do you understand me? You leave her—”

  He reaches out a hand, and I flinch.

  He chuckles again, as if that’s amusing. He’s pointing at the glove box.

  I hate him. I hate him so much.

  “Look in there,” he says. “Look.”

  I don’t want to look.

  “Look!” he snaps.

  I open the glove box. A folded piece of paper sits there. It’s a printed e-mail.

  From: Marjorie Tunstall

  To: Carolyn Lachlan

  Connor said Robbie is working with his dad on weekends. Bill doesn’t think that’s a good idea.

  From: Carolyn Lachlan

  To: Marjorie Tunstall

  Robbie is only handling clerical tasks. He won’t know.

  They don’t say anything. It’s not conclusive—at all.

  But in a way, it is. That last line is searing my eyeballs.

  He won’t know.

  I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m burning to ash right here in the passenger seat.

  “So, you see,” says Bill. “If you bring me down, I’m bringing your mom down.”

  I force myself to swallow.

  I can’t speak. I don’t know what to say. I barely register that we’ve turned down the road that leads to my house. I want to get out and sprint through the woods. I want to run until my lungs explode or I catch fire or I rot into nothingness. I’m choking on air. Dry heaving in the front seat of Bill’s stupid, awful car.