The Girls I've Been(72)

We’re turning, off the two-lane highway and onto one of the offshoot roads that litter this stretch of outskirts. Gravel crunches under the tires as he speeds down the road, acres of rolling hills and scrub oaks for as far as the eye can see. Where is he going?

The gravel road curves and I spot it: the barn. He’s going to hide the car. They’ll never find us. He’ll kill Iris. Wait until night and take me out of the state. They can’t set up checkpoints everywhere. There are back roads that are a tangle of logging and mining trails that no one bothers with, but you can get all the way to the coast if you take the right ones.

I have to make a move. Now.

I look at Iris. I can’t leave her. I have to. If we’re going to have any chance, I have to get him away from her. Take away the leverage. He’ll follow me. He’ll leave her behind. He’ll have to.

I’m the only valuable thing he’s got at the end of this shitshow. He needs me.

The barn’s getting closer and closer. He’s driving too fast down the road.

Now or never.

I jerk the car door open and pitch myself out of it, and let me tell you, I could’ve really used my damn flannel at that point, because rolling out of a car and onto gravel tears the hell out of your T-shirt and your skin. Pain peppers my arms and shoulders like buckshot, but I force myself to get up as I hear him swear and yell and jerk the car to a stop.

Yes. Yes. The car’s still out in the open. If they get a chopper in the air, they’ll spot it. Go. Run. Make him chase you before he kills Iris.

I run toward the barn, because maybe there’s a weapon, maybe there’s a pitchfork, maybe there’s a tractor I can run him over with. I don’t care. I’ll find it. I’ll use it. I’ll kill him if I have to.

I think I’m going to have to.





— 57 —


    Raymond: How I Did It (In Four Acts)



Act 3: Slice

Five Years Ago

Shooting Raymond didn’t kill him. Obviously.

I could spin this. I could say that I never wanted him dead. That I’d aimed for his leg on purpose.

I’d be lying. My hands were shaking and it was dark, and I was just a bad shot. (I’m not anymore.)

Sometimes I still regret not pulling the trigger a second time and finishing it.

Sometimes I wonder where I’d be if I’d just walked off that beach and kept going, leaving him in the sand and Mom in the McMansion . . . and just fading into the world, where no one would find me.

I know how to disappear. Mom raised girls who could go invisible, ciphers who could turn into someone else with a bottle of drugstore hair dye and a smile in the mirror as they repeat names like a magic spell as they are born anew.

I made a different choice. To stop running. To be visible. To stand still.

To learn how to be someone real instead of a juggled handful of hurt and cons and hunger.

Things happen fast after I squeeze the trigger. He falls, but he doesn’t pass out. He reaches for me, and I react, just like before. Like I know what to do now. This time, I don’t miss, but my weapon is different. I clock him with the edge of the metal box, right on the temple, and he goes facedown on the sand, but he’s still not out. So I hit him again. And again.

And then I’m still, the box raised high, poised for another blow, and he’s finally limp. My heartbeat’s roaring in my ears louder than the waves, and I want to run.

But I can’t. Because I’m not done.

There’s a plan in place. My sister’s getting me out. It was just eight days away, and now . . .

Plans change. Oh, God, look how I’ve changed them.

I stand there on the beach; my feet are bare, and sand grits between my toes. I know how the world works; I especially know how turning snitch works. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing. Turning snitch, so the FBI puts my mother and Raymond away. So we’ll be safe. But the FBI needs hard proof. That was the deal my sister made with them. I get them the proof and I’m out of reach for good.

I need leverage. I need to get in Raymond’s safe.

My hands curl around the box. Along with the gun, two other things are inside it: the burner cell my sister uses to contact me. And a knife.

Raymond’s safe is biometric. It needs a fingerprint. My sister is supposed to get me a kit to take the print. But I’ve fucked everything up and now I’m here, with too many bruises and too little time and absolutely no fucking calm, because I shot him. I shot him and I knocked him out, so there’s no taking it back and I’ve got a metal lunch box with a knife in it, and we all know where this is going, right?

There’s no taking it back. There’s only moving forward.

I need in his safe.

So I set the lunch box down on the ground and I get the knife.





— 58 —


    Transcript: Lee Ann O’Malley + Deputy Jessica Reynolds Pursue the Hostage Taker


August 8, 12:30 p.m.




Deputy Reynolds: Go! Go!

O’Malley: Do you see him?

Deputy Reynolds: This is Deputy Reynolds. I need someone to get the hospital chopper or the fire chopper on Highway 3, heading north and looking for a white four-door. We need to set up roadblocks on the 3 and the 5 immediately.

[Recording cuts out for 3 minutes, 56 seconds. Please refer to Sheriff’s Report Part 3A for the dispatch transcript.]