Put Me Back Together(42)

“…cut him to pieces,” one guy said. “I read an article about it once that went into all kinds of detail. And the kid was only, what, five? Shit was f*cked up.”

“I don’t get it,” another guy said. I recognized him as Tim, one of the friends Lucas had introduced me to earlier. “Why’s it on the news now?”

The first guy finished swallowing a gulp of beer before replying. “Who the hell knows? The media’s gone ape shit over the case from the beginning. Probably some tiny little piece of evidence came to light, like a hair follicle or something. Who cares? What I want to know is the guy’s name. They never released it because he was a minor when he killed that kid. But I bet you anything the second he gets out somebody will leak it. Can you imagine being the one who has that information? The media would pay a pretty penny for his name.”

I leaned back against the bookcase wanting dearly to leave the room and yet unable to move my feet.

“Wasn’t there a chick, too? Some babysitter?” This voice came from the floor in front of the TV. I froze again, this time with my hand on the doorknob. Suddenly it felt as though my entire arm had turned to ice and I couldn’t move my wrist.

“Oh yeah, I always had a theory about her.” This was the first guy talking again. His voice sounded vaguely familiar to me.

“Oh, do tell, Sherlock,” somebody said.

“Well, you know how women are,” first guy went on. “Always nagging, badgering, bitching. ‘Get me a soda. Hand me the remote. Come pick me up.’”

The whole room laughed. I didn’t see how they could. There didn’t seem to be enough air in the room to breathe, let alone laugh.

“Babysitter chick always claimed she was knocked out, didn’t know a thing, didn’t see nothing. Total dead-end investigation-wise, right? Or maybe perfect alibi?”

“Wasn’t she, like, thirteen years old?” said the dude on the floor.

“So what? So was he. The way I figure it, the whole thing was her idea. She was the mastermind behind the whole murder. You know how chicks never want to get their hands dirty, so, yeah, he did the actual cutting. But she was right there next to him, egging him on, whispering in his ear, ‘Do it, you loser. Don’t be a p-ssy! Do it and you can have me right here on his bloody little corp—’”

“Shut your mouth!” I yelled.

Somebody flicked on the overhead light. Though I didn’t remember deciding to do it, I had launched myself off the bookcase and taken the four steps across the room, shoving the guy who’d been talking back in his chair with both my hands planted on his shoulders. When I’d yelled out, I’d done it right into his face. Now I stepped back, panting, as the guy looked up at me with a mildly freaked expression on his face. I recognized him as his face was illuminated by the muted television set. It was one of the guys from the night I’d first met Lucas. It was Two.

“Whoa,” Tim said.

Looking around the room at the other guys, I began to twist my fingers.

“Easy, girl,” Two said, very slowly, as though I was a skittish horse who had just kicked him. “What the f*ck was that about?”

“Well,” I said, my self-righteousness fading quickly under the lights, “I guess I overreacted a little. But I just don’t think you should be making up stories—”

“How do you know it was made up? Maybe it’s the truth. You don’t know,” said the guy still sitting on the floor

I felt my anger rising again, and a steady whistle growing louder in my ears. “That girl is a real person who went through a terrible trauma—”

“She isn’t the one who got cut up. All she did was stand by while that kid got murdered.” The guy on the ground was really starting to piss me off. He was eating a licorice whip, and as he spoke I could see little bits of red stuck between his teeth.

Then Two spoke up. “I think we’re getting away from the matter at hand,” he said, “which is that you owe me an apology.”

There was a hard look in his eye that I remembered from the night with the cat.

“In your dreams,” I said as fiercely as I could while also backing toward the door. As I took another step I bumped into something. Only when I turned to find my route to the door blocked by the guy wearing a football jersey did I realize my real mistake in taking my eyes off of Two. In that second of diverted attention he’d clamped his hands on both of my wrists.

Behind me I heard the door to the room open and close, but it hardly registered.

“Let me go,” I said angrily, struggling against his hands as they pinched at my skin.

“You don’t think I remember you, do you?” Two said, leaning in toward me. He wasn’t a bad looking guy. He had a boyish look about him and light eyes that I might have found attractive if we’d met at some other time when I didn’t want to scratch them out.

He breathed in my face. His breath smelled sour, as though the beer he was drinking was rotting in his stomach. “I remember you,” he said.

A shiver ran down my spine at his words. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the night with the cat and not any events much further in the past.

“Dude, just let her go already,” said the guy at my back, who seemed to be reconsidering his position. Two wasn’t quite so changeable.