Loving Mr. Daniels(52)

“Fuck you, Danny! You locked me up. You ratted me out. I’m your brother!” he screamed. I could see the resentment in his eyes, his fingers curled into fists.
“You’re my kid brother!” I shouted louder, tossing my hands up in irritation. “You’re my kid brother. I’m going to tell you once, Jace. Don’t do this. Don’t go digging back into this mess.” My eyes went to him and I crossed my arms. “I already buried Mom and Dad. Don’t make me pick out another damn plot in the cemetery.”
“I wasn’t even there…to bury my own parents.” He sniffed and ran his finger under it. His hands landed against his waist. “Red trusts me again.”
“Jace—”
“No. It’s good. I had a chance to rat him and his guys out when I went in, but I didn’t. I kept my damn mouth shut, and Red… He trusts me. He’s letting me back in.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little weird how forgiving he’s being to you?”
Jace shrugged. “I didn’t rat his guys out when I was locked up. It’s called loyalty. Something you wouldn’t know about.”
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my wallet. “Look, Jace…I have two hundred bucks on me. We can go to the bank and I can take out more.” I held the money out toward him. “You can go stay with Grandma down in Chicago for a while. Clear your head.”
“My head is clear, Dan.”
“It’s not.” I walked over to him and wrapped my hands tightly around his head. “It’s not clear if you think for a f*cking second that this Red guy trusts you. Get out of town, Jace. Please.”
“I have to find out who did it, Danny,” he whispered, his eyes filling with tears. “I have to find out who killed Mom, and the best way to do it is from the inside.”
“Why? Why can’t you just let it go? She’s gone. She’s not coming back.”
“Because I did it!” he cried, pointing to the spot where Mom died. “I’m the reason she’s…” He placed his fist over his mouth. “Her blood, her death. It’s on me.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s on the sick * who had the gun.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this, you know,” he spoke softly. “I was supposed to go to college, too. Ya know? Dad thought I would go to college.”
“You still can.”
“I wanted back in. I wanted back into the band. I wanted to get clean. I wanted to stop all of this.”
“Jace…”
He bit his bottom lip and turned away from me. He rested his forearms on the top of his head and clasped his hands together. “Red wants me to pass some of his products to people. It’s easy enough. The clients are easy targets.”
“Clients? What clients?”
He turned back toward me. “Listen, Danny. I just need a little help. There’s a few kids at your school who—”
“You’re selling to kids? You’re selling to my students?” My eyes widened in horror. I stepped backwards.
“It’s not me, Danny. It’s Red. He’s testing me. He’s seeing if he can fully trust me. And if I can get these things out to a few of them, he said he’ll let me get my revenge. Mom’s revenge. He’ll tell me the guy’s name who killed her. With you being a teacher at Edgewood, maybe…maybe you can help get me a few names of the kids who use.”
“You’re f*cking crazy. Do you hear yourself? He’s using you, Jace! He’s mocking you, dragging you back and forth like some toy. You think he didn’t know that I was a teacher there? You think he didn’t know that it would f*ck up my life, too?”
“It won’t!” he promised and lied at the same time.
“It already has.” I paused. “I won’t help. And if I see you anywhere near my school, I will have you locked up again.”
He laughed uncomfortably. “Just like that, huh?”
I said nothing.
“You’ll have me locked up again for trying to find out who murdered our mother?” He paused and kicked around invisible rocks. “Okay. I don’t need your help. But if you get in my way, I will put you down.”
“You’re the one trying to sell drugs to students, Jace. Not me.”
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right,” he said, “But you’re the one f*cking your students, not me. What was it? Ashlyn?” My fists tightened and I could feel my heart rate increase. He must have noticed too. “Ohh, is that a touchy subject? You’re all red in the face and shit.”
“Jace,” I said coldly, but I couldn’t say any more.
“You were right about one thing, Danny.” He pulled a cigarette and lighter out of his pocket. The cigarette rested between his lips and he lit it. His fingers moved to the side of his head and he tapped it. “I am f*cking crazy. So don’t cross me. Or I’ll destroy you and your little student. I wonder what kind of things the other kids would say about her. As we both know, high school can be a real bitch.”
“Jace, if this is about Sarah—” I started to warn him, but he cut me off.
“Don’t!” His words grew darker. “Don’t bring her into this. I’m not kidding. I will f*cking ruin your girlfriend’s life.”
He started to leave, and I sighed heavily. “What would Mom and Dad think? Of what you’re doing?”
“Well”—he didn’t look back—“I think they would be proud of me for actually following through with something. For bringing Mom’s death to justice.”