The Cheerleaders(29)

Tom brought me to the gun range when I turned sixteen in the spring. My mom almost had an aneurysm when she found out, and there was some shouting and Tom saying I should know how to protect myself.

When I asked Tom the following weekend if I could go to the range with him again, he said to let Mom warm to the idea first.

Neither of us mentioned it again. I know exactly what this is about: Tom thinks I’m having some sort of freak-out because of the security camera and Ethan McCready things, and he figures a refresher in self-defense is the answer.

I follow Tom into the dining room. “I don’t know. Mom might get pissed.”

Tom looks at me as he sets the deli bag on the table. “Mom doesn’t need to know every little thing that happens around here.”

I decide that he found the unlocked drawer and knows that I was in his desk. This father-daughter day at the range is a recon mission; he’s going to confront me about the phone, ask what else I saw in the drawer. For the first time ever, the thought of being alone with him unsettles me.

“I’m meeting Mike there,” Tom says, as if reading my mind. “In case that sways you.”

Mike Mejia is Tom’s partner. I have no doubt that when he got married, he devastated every woman in his life who isn’t a blood relative. All four of us were invited to the wedding in April. Tom let Mike’s new stepdaughter, an apple-cheeked four-year-old, step on his shoes while he whirled her around on the dance floor. Even my mother, three flutes of champagne deep, got up from the table to dance when they played her favorite song.

Mike is popular around here. Tom used to tease me about how I had a crush on him when I was a kid. Now the thought makes me want to throw up, because Mike is Brandon’s age.

Something lights up in my brain. Mike’s first year on the job was the year of the murders. He might be able to give me insight.

“Let me change,” I say.



* * *



—

I sit in the backseat of Tom’s car so we can pick up Mike. He gives me a “Hey, kid” and a flash of a smile.

“Hi,” I say. “How are Anna and Danielle?”

“Good, good. Anna made me sleep on the couch for forgetting the mashed potatoes from KFC, but good.”

“I remember those pregnancy hormones,” Tom says. “Phoebe threw a glass at me because I made a joke about—” Tom eyes me over his shoulder. “Well, a dirty joke.”

“Ew,” I say.

They launch into work banter, then gun talk, and I close my eyes, trying to buoy myself against the nausea that comes over me every time we drive on these winding country roads. Triple B Gun Club is twenty minutes north of Sunnybrook, but it may as well be another state, culturally speaking.

The owner of Triple B remembers me from when I was last here in the spring, so she doesn’t hassle me too much with the mandatory safety briefing. Tom ushers me through the door dividing the lanes from the lobby.

The pop-pop of guns going off sends my shoulders up to my ears. Tom puts a hand on my back and guides me to the lane he’s rented for us. He sets me up with his .22 caliber pistol and keeps his eye on me as I adjust my ear protectors and safety goggles.

I assume the proper stance and aim the gun at the paper target, a sickly skinned cartoon zombie. My index finger trembles around the trigger.

“Remember,” Tom says. “Don’t expect it.”

I fire off ten rounds. All hit the zombie’s belly and not the bull’s-eye on its head.

“Here.” Tom takes the gun from me when the chamber is empty. “You have to relax your shoulders. Watch my stance.”

I step aside and let Tom take his shots at the zombie. The first round pierces cleanly through the zombie’s head. He fires the rest off in succession, his shoulders taut, eyes laser-focused, and I’m hit with a rush of nausea.

Was it this easy for him to fire his gun at Jack Canning? Did he hesitate?

Did he go into that house expecting to kill Jack Canning?

Tom turns, motions for me to come try the gun again. I shake my head. “I don’t want to.”

“Why? You were on the right track. You were leaning to the left a bit—”

“I don’t want to shoot the damn gun.” The sound that comes out of me is guttural. Mike and the woman in the last lane must have heard me, because they’re staring.

“I’m still carsick,” I say. “Can I please just wait in the lobby?”

“Of course.” Tom’s forehead pinches, and I tear out of there without looking back.

On our way out, the range owner flags us down and gives us a 20 percent off coupon for the bar and grill next door, which she owns too.

After the hostess seats us in a booth and takes our drink orders, Tom and I head straight for the salad bar. I drop some mixed greens and pale tomato chunks on my plate, keeping an eye on Tom. One of the waitresses, an older woman with a face like a basset hound, has recognized him and pinned him at the other end of the salad bar. Tom nods politely at whatever she’s saying, a held-hostage look on his face.

I finish dressing my salad plate and slide into the booth across from Mike. There’s a sweating glass of Diet Coke on the table in front of me; I didn’t even see the waitress bring it over.

Mike cradles a bottle of Heineken, eyeing me carefully like I’m a skittish cat. “How the hell have you been, kid? How’s junior year going?”