How to Disappear(77)

I don’t understand where she’s going with this.

I say, “Is Mendes all right?”

She reaches into her briefcase for a yellow legal pad, which she holds up like a shield. “What were you thinking? Do you value your freedom this little?”

Don’t ask someone who just spent his first night in prison if he values freedom.

“I was thinking that if I didn’t make Nicolette Holland disappear, I could visit you in the Manx crypt.” It comes out as a snarl, but at least I don’t call her a name.

The pad drops to the metal table. “We might be talking about two different things,” she says slowly, back in overly calm control. “Was someone threatening me?”

“Your laundry room went up in flames, someone tripped the alarm inside the house when the security cameras weren’t working, and then they messed with the brakes on your car. You do the math.”

“Watch your tone, Jackson!”

I’m sitting in lockup, and my mom wants me to watch my tone.

“Sorry.”

Then I tell her what Don said I had to do; what I thought I had to do; what I thought I had a plan to get out of doing—only everything backfired, and I ended up in Cotter’s Mill, Ohio, holding what turned out to be a murder weapon.

She’s clutching me and sobbing hard, despite all the signs prohibiting physical contact, and no one’s doing anything about it.





85


Nicolette


If they’d just laid it out sooner, I could have fixed it sooner.

“Jack didn’t kidnap me. Why would I say he didn’t if he did?”

My lawyer, the good cop who thinks I’m a porcelain teacup, and the bad cop who thinks I’m the devil, don’t believe a word I say.

They’re talking among themselves about Stockholm syndrome. This is when a hostage starts thinking her captor is Mr. Dreamy. It’s caused by mental collapse due to the stress of being a hostage.

Not me.

I’d act like he was Mr. Dreamy. I’d peer into his eyes with pseudo-adoration. Then I’d cut his heart out with my nail file.

I say, “I can’t have Stockholm syndrome. Nobody kidnapped me. I was nobody’s hostage.”

Bad Cop says, “Where did he hold you?”

Clearly, this is bad.

They don’t believe the truth.

Not that I plan to tell them that much of it. But there are critical bits of the truth that should (if there’s any fairness in the world) keep Jack out of jail.

I mean, Alex was coming at me with a knife. Isn’t that classic self-defense? (I looked it up.) I’m not letting Jack go to jail. The whole point was for us to be safe. Not dead and not in prison.

My lawyer hooks her hand onto my arm, all boney and tight. She says, “Could we take a break?”

Bad Cop won’t stop glaring at me.

I say, “I know I screwed up.” My lawyer’s hand tightens like a vise. I say, “I believed the wrong thing. I’m sorry.”

My lawyer’s hand is cutting off the circulation to my arm. I don’t know if this is maximum sympathy or another signal to shut up.

Good Cop says, “Nobody thinks what happened is your fault.”

I’ve watched enough Law & Order reruns to know they mostly say this when they’re trying to get killers to confess.

I’m not confessing. I’m assessing my target. Like Jack kept saying to do.

“It is my fault. Kind of. I thought Steve was going to kill me! So stupid. But he said.”

Bad Cop says, “Is that why your boyfriend shot him?”

I have to fix this.

I have to fix this fast.

My lawyer says, “We’re leaving, Nicolette.”

I’m done with leaving.

“He isn’t my boyfriend! I’m not even allowed to talk to him. I said I was running straight into the house to get Gertie. Jack kept going, ‘No, Mendes is going to kill you! Don’t do it!’?”

Blankness and incredulity.

I say, “Gertie is my dog. I just wanted to get my dog back and not be killed. Why don’t you get it? Jack was there just in case. The gun was totally my afterthought.”

Even Good Cop isn’t buying this. “Um, that’s not what Mr. Manx says. Miss Holland, if you could walk us through it.”

“Of course that’s not what he says! Like he wants people to know he’s in jail over a cockapoo? He was trying to save me. I was going in to get Gertie, and then he was going to help me leave the country. He had the cash in his trunk.”

“That’s where you found the gun?”

“I told you! It was wrapped up in his fishing gear.” I look up. Three blank faces. I can’t tell which one of them snorted. “I mean, it was a gun. I wasn’t going to leave it lying there. Somebody could get hurt.”

My lawyer sighs.

“So I stuck it in my bag.”

Bad Cop mashes his pen into his notebook.

“Out of the country where?”

“I didn’t care where. It was some kind of a plantation. Somewhere like Costa Rica? Does that sound right? Argentina, maybe.”

The stupider I sound, the more they like it.





86


Jack


I’m bailed out, cleaned up, and living in a hotel in Cincinnati, a cop posted at my door. He makes a big show of frisking the room service waitress every time she brings a burger. We’re waiting on Don. Everybody knows he’s going to finger everyone in sight, after which he’ll get a deal and I can get out of here.