What Have We Done (14)

A voice booms. “She’s outside.”

Jenna doesn’t look back at the window but instead runs across the roof and leaps to grab the gutter’s downspout above, which is old and rusted. She prays it will hold.

There’s more voices, but they trail off. They’re running downstairs. Trying to catch the girls in the yard. Jenna shimmies down, sliding too fast, the aluminum burning her hands.

Marta has waited for her. The two lace hands and run into the night.

“Are you Clark Stansbury?” The voice jars Jenna back to the present. The driver of a car with an Uber sticker on the side window is looking at her. She remembers she’s using the scooter guy’s phone, nods, and hurries into the vehicle.

While they drive to Willow’s school, Jenna finds herself returning to that first night at the group home, to the dark-haired girl thanking her for getting them out of the house.

“Those boys,” she tells Marta. “We need to tell Mr. Brood.”

Marta’s response takes the wind out of her: “It’s not the boys we need to be afraid of.”





CHAPTER ELEVEN

DONNIE

“Donnie, how’s it hangin’?”

It’s Mickey, the manager of Tracer’s Bullet. Donnie has the cord to the hospital room’s phone pulled tight. He needs to get a new cell phone. His is at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. He favors the old flip phones, which are harder to find these days. He has considered getting a smartphone, but he doesn’t use social media, doesn’t watch television, doesn’t surf the interwebs, and doesn’t want to start. He’s seen too many people addicted to their phones when there are so many better things to be addicted to.

After some small talk, halfhearted concern, Mickey says, “Look, I’ve got some good news.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you talked to Tom?”

“Not since he kicked me out of my band,” Donnie says. “I’ve had a buncha fans here, even the frickin’ FBI, but nothing from Tom or any of them.” Donnie thinks about the FBI agent, the curious image of the woman lingering outside the federal building where Benny worked. He’s starting to think she looks familiar, but that’s probably the power of suggestion. Still, something has him baffled: If she was on the cruise ship, how would she be outside Benny’s office three days ago? They were at sea when Benny died. The agent asked him a lot of questions about whether anyone arrived via helicopter and when they went to port. But there’s no way the same woman could be in Pennsylvania when Benny was murdered and on the cruise ship at the same time. Donnie asked the agent about that, but Rodriguez was tight-lipped.

Mickey hesitates. “Tom’s probably having a hard time getting hold of you. I got bounced around till they connected me to your room and—”

“What’s the good news, Mickey? You said there’s good news.”

“Look, Tom feels terrible about what happened. He wants to talk. I’m sure he’ll reach out today.”

Yeah, now that Donnie’s getting all this media attention. The nurse told Donnie that he’s been all over the TV, and that the morning shows called the hospital asking to interview him. That there are news vans and lots of fans camped outside the hospital. Donnie hasn’t turned on the old set mounted to the ceiling, but based on all the visitors, he believes her.

“I’ll let Tom talk to you about the band,” Mickey says. “I’m calling about something else.”

That’s interesting. Mickey doesn’t usually talk to Donnie at all. He’s on Team Tom. The team that let Donnie and the other original members of Tracer’s Bullet get screwed out of what was theirs.

“What is it?”

“A book agent reached out to me. Some big publishers are interested in your story, Don.”

“My story?”

“Yeah, you know, like an autobiography. They’ve been selling well. Nikki Sixx has one. Dave Grohl. People eat this shit up now.”

But it’s not like Donnie was in M?tley Crüe or Nirvana or the Foo Fighters. “All ’cause I fell out of a boat?”

Mickey chuckles. “Who knows? But the advance is six figures.”

Donnie thinks about this. His life story. Not an uplifting tale. But six figures, even low six figures, would help with the bills. Put something away for his goddaughter.

“What do I know about writing a book? I write songs, not books.”

“That’s the beauty of this thing, Don. You don’t have to. They got this hotshot writer. All you gotta do is meet with the guy—tell him about your life, feed him some war stories from back in the day—he’ll get it all down, lickety-split.”

“I don’t know, I—”

“Offers like this don’t come along every day. You gotta strike while the iron’s hot.”

Before his plunge off the Royal Voyager rotates out of the news cycle.

Donnie is quiet. He thinks about his mom, the group home, terrain he doesn’t want to revisit.

“You there?” Mickey says. There’s noise in the background, someone saying “check” into a PA system.

Mickey’s at rehearsal. Tom’s probably there right now. So much for him not having the hospital room’s phone number.

“I need to think about it.”