The Row(77)

The chief puts his hand out like he’s going to pat me on the shoulder, but when I shrink back, he only returns it to his side. Without another word, he turns away and starts organizing the many officers who’ve gathered in the clearing.

Under Vega’s command, the police swarm through Mason Park like honeybees in a field of wildflowers. They’ve taken so many pictures that I’ve lost count, and I watch them move Mr. Masters’s body into a black bag. It’s exactly like the one they put Valynne Kemp in. I haven’t cried. I’ve barely blinked. Even though I can’t see Mr. Masters anymore, I can’t take my eyes off the lumpy contours of the bag. It feels wrong to stick someone who was vibrantly alive only a couple of hours ago into a black sack. It feels like he has already been discarded. Even though I know he doesn’t care anymore, it makes me feel claustrophobic just looking at him.

Jordan comes to sit beside me on the car hood, but he doesn’t speak. I tuck my feet beneath me because I can’t stop thinking about walking over and unzipping his bag. Seeing him one more time. Letting this man, who has been there for me through everything, have access to the air that he can no longer breathe.

Eventually, I stop trembling, but my jaw won’t seem to unclench. The paramedics—who have now declared us to officially be in shock—keep bringing me wool blankets and draping them over my shoulders, but I feel so overheated that I keep pushing them off.

Chief Vega has been in charge of telling what appears to be every officer in Houston what to do and where to search for Stacia. He questioned me after I basically ordered him to, but I’m not sure he’s spoken to his son at all. Jordan’s shoulders slump farther in on himself as he watches his father from a distance. He looks like a turtle trying valiantly to pull his head into a shell that has somehow become too small for him.

Everything about this feels so unreal. Mr. Masters’s voice over the phone … he’d sounded terrified, and now I’ll never know exactly what he’d wanted to tell us. Was it about Stacia and what she was capable of? Even his final word, run. From what? What did that mean? Did he somehow not know that Stacia had already left?

Now one of only two people who’d never left me is gone. The man who was more like family than my own family is dead.

Except for the pictures from the trial and the bag from Valynne’s crime scene, I’ve never seen a dead body. Now I know what it’s like to see the life drain from someone and the spark leave their eyes.

I shudder as a tiny sob escapes my lungs and it burns. The quaking begins all over again.

After about two hours of waiting, Chief Vega finally turns in our direction again. His skin is as pale as Jordan’s. The main difference between father and son right now is that while Jordan looks terrified and angry, his dad looks exhausted. “I’m going to need you both to come down to the station for a few more questions. Riley, I’ve called your mother, and she is going to meet us there.”

I groan, looking at my watch and realizing I’ve definitely broken my promise about being home by curfew.

Jordan’s hands ball into fists beside me as his father turns away. I hear him respond with a “Yes, sir” that is so vehement that it might as well have been a curse. Chief Vega’s back stiffens, but he continues walking away without even another glance toward us.

*

Jordan and I are placed in separate rooms as we fill out written statements about everything we saw and heard at the crime scene. By the time I’ve relived and written down what happened, I feel like someone has squeezed me like a rag and drained all the emotion from my body. I hurt everywhere, but it feels like an ache so deep that it’s burrowed below my muscle and into my marrow. The kind of pain I may never be rid of. Still, I feel like I did a good job of remembering everything. I’m not sure if I’m too rushed or if Jordan’s far too detailed, but I finish long before he does.

I’m sitting alone in Chief Vega’s office and looking out the window behind his desk. I’m so tired I just want to go home and pretend this night, this month, this lifetime never happened. My mind is absent as I stare into the darkness outside, until a navy blue Toyota pulls up and turns off its headlights. I sit forward, squinting because the car looks so familiar.

Then the door opens and a very wobbly Stacia climbs out.

I tense, wondering if I should duck down so she won’t see me. She doesn’t even look my way. Vega sent officers to her home and we’d heard someone over the police radio report in that she wasn’t there. I’d thought maybe she’d made a break for it, but here she is.

I watch her stumble out of her car, obviously drunk and wearing heels that are so high I’m certain I couldn’t even walk in them while sober. Her makeup is darker than I’ve ever seen it, and there are black mascara trails down her cheeks. She’s wearing a sequined top with a multicolored scarf and she has on more jewelry than I’ve ever seen on her before. Compared to her normal appearance, this looks like an explosion happened while she was standing in front of a jewelry store.

Stacia looks more like she’s getting ready to go clubbing than stopping by the police station after just murdering her boss in a park. I breathe out a small sigh of relief when I look closely at her outfit and can’t see anywhere that she could be hiding the gun she’d run off with.

When she makes her way toward the station entrance and out of my sight, I get to my feet and move to stand in the doorway so I can see what happens when she comes in. She walks straight up to the front desk. Everyone is busy and no one is there, so she dings the small silver bell again and again until everyone stops what they’re doing and looks over at her.