You'd Be Home Now (91)

“Daniel, if you call the police, I will literally push you out of this car while I’m driving and leave you to die on the side of the road.”

“That’s a little…violent. And here I thought you were just a nice quiet girl with excellent taste in cardigans who likes to gaze out the windows of classrooms with her chin in her hand.”

“Daniel.” I glance at him, then back at the road. “If you were me, and you had a chance to help somebody you loved, wouldn’t you do anything? Anything you could?”

“If you don’t stop crying, you’re going to crash,” he offers. “Blurry vision.”

I wipe my face with one hand. I didn’t even realize I was crying. I can barely feel anything with all the adrenaline running through my veins.

    “And yes,” Daniel says quietly. “Yes, I would do anything.”

“Then shut up and help me.”

“What’s in the backpack?”

“Money. Jewelry.”

Daniel laughs, sharply and high, like a small child. “Oh my god, this really is a heist. I’m going to have a panic attack, right here and now—”

My phone rings. Daniel looks down at his lap, stricken.

“Answer it,” I hiss. “But don’t say anything. Just put it on speaker.”

From the corner of my eye, I can see his hands fumbling, fingers trembling. He holds it up and out for me.

“Hello,” I say.

“Emmy,” Luther says. “Were you a good kid? You have what I need?”

“Yes,” I tell him.

“Excellent. Drive north out of town. Get on Wolf Creek Road. When you see me, you’ll see me.”

I’m on Main Street. I take a left.

“Wait.” I pause. “Wolf Creek Road?”

“That’s right, Emmy. Where this whole shitshow started.”

He clicks off. Daniel puts the phone back on his lap. “Wolf Creek Road? That’s way out there.”

“I know,” I say, my body flooding with fear.

Snow is coating the windshield, just like rain smeared it that night, making everything hard to see. I turn on the wipers, take a deep breath.

“He’s taking me back to where it happened. The accident.”





43


THE PINE TREES ARE dusted with snow, the branches hanging out over the road like white hands. I’m not sure exactly what I’m supposed to be looking for. A car? Luther and Joey, standing by the side of the road? What I do know, though, is that I’m not supposed to have Daniel because Luther said not to bring anyone.

“You have to get down,” I tell Daniel. “Scrunch down there. Take off your jacket and put it over you. I wasn’t supposed to bring anybody.”

He turns and looks at me. “Oh, well, now is a good time to tell me that, Emory,” he says, and I flash him a weak smile. “Thanks so very much for that. As Adam Sandler so succinctly put it in The Wedding Singer: ‘I could have used that information yesterday!’?”

“In a better universe, I would laugh very hard at that, Daniel Wankel.”

He thunks the backpack into the backseat and wriggles out of his blazer. “You know, while you’ve been sitting there stone-faced, yet also weeping, which is weird, and we can talk about that later, I’ve been having a lot of thoughts. Like, what if he has a gun? What if he’s not alone? What if I end up hog-tied at the bottom of Wolf Creek? What if—”

“Just get down,” I snap. I’m starting to get more scared. It’s so dark on this road and I’m remembering how twisty it was, and how the rain that night obscured everything. How it sounded like Candy was drowning in her own blood.

    We are driving through sheets of white snow and I can barely see anything.

Daniel pushes the passenger seat back a little and squats on the floor, awkwardly trying to throw his jacket over his head. I reach down carefully, keeping my eye on the white road, and try to fix it so it covers him.

I don’t think Luther would have a gun. We played Angry Birds together. He was never mean to me at school.

But the thought makes me quiver anyway. People can change. They’re onions, like Simon Stanley said. One layer might reveal one thing, but go farther and you might discover another, one that stinks worse than what came before.

I drive slower so I can make sure to spot something in all this white, anything, on the side of the road, in the thickets of trees.

Then I see it. A little kernel of orange light to the right, off a clearing. A cigarette.

And a car farther down the clearing. A figure steps out from under a cape of snowy pine branches, holding the orange glow.

It’s Luther. He motions for me to stop. “Over there,” he calls. “Park over there.”

I move the car. On the passenger seat, my phone buzzes. My dad. Shit.

“I can’t get that,” Daniel whispers under his jacket.

I ignore him, and the phone, and reach back for the backpack. I hold it in my lap for a second, staring at the parked car. It’s about twenty feet away, snow layering the trunk, the roof.

He’s in there. He has to be in there.

    I open the door to Daniel’s car slowly. Close it slowly. Walk toward Luther slowly. My sneakers slip in the snow.