Period 8 - By Chris Crutcher Page 0,57

glances at the paper.

“Out loud,” Hannah says. “Read it out loud. When this is over and they ask me if I told you what was going on, I want it known you understood.”

Flushed bright red, Wells reads the message aloud, focusing, and softening a bit with each word. “My God, what is this?”

Hannah steps back. “I don’t know. Mr. Logs and Paulie went to the police station. They tried to call you.”

“Kylie. Who is that?”

“A girl from school. The girl whose house caught on fire.”

“Why would my daughter be involved with a girl like that? I don’t think Mary even knew her.”

“She knew her! Believe the text! Believe she’s in trouble! You should go somewhere.”

“I have state-of-the-art security,” Wells says, “and a healthy respect for the Second Amendment. We’ll be fine. Thanks for your concern, though, and . . . thanks for forcing me to pay attention. I’ll call Officer Rankin right away.”

“Okay. I’m gonna tell Mr. Logs to call you if he finds out anything, so answer your damn phone.”

Wells nods. “Thank you again. I will.”

He turns into the house. Hannah hears three clicks and four digital beeps. Floodlights bathe the lawn.

She steps into her car and calls Paulie. Two rings, then a click. She waits for his voice. “Paulie?”

A grunt.

“It’s me, Hannah. Listen, I got to Mr. Wells. Jesus, what a hardass. Anyway, he’s staying there. He says he has a first-rate security system. Probably snipers on the roof or something. He’s going to call the police. Did you guys talk to the police? . . . Paulie?”

Call ended.

She tries again. Straight to voicemail.

She has only Logs’s home number in her contacts so she punches that. Three rings, then: “You have reached . . . the end of your rope. Leave your call for help” Beep.

“You might be right, Mr. Logsdon. It’s Hannah. Call me when you get this. I don’t have your cell and I can’t reach Paulie.”

Standing next to the lime-green Beetle, Officer John Rankin takes Paulie’s iPhone away from his ear and smiles. He moves quickly to his car radio, certain that Wells has called the station by now to see how the police are responding to Logs’s disclosures. When the desk sergeant tells him yes, Mr. Wells called but he referred him to Rankin as he had been instructed, Rankin says, “Don’t worry, I got it. I’ll bring him in later and we’ll get this all on paper.”

Rankin crosses to the Audi parked on the other side of Paulie’s Beetle, raps on the window. “Stack.”

The window slides down halfway. “What do you know about this Hannah?”

“Used to be Bomb’s girlfriend. I was using her to fuck with him a little. Thought I might be able to turn her, too, but she’s too tough. She’s my ace in the hole with Baum, though.”

“Meaning?”

“When Woody kidnapped Mary instead of offing her, he fucked me good. My name’s on that text. If we don’t get Bomb and Mr. Logs, and if Woody doesn’t grow some balls, I’ve gotta disappear. Hannah’s gonna be my ticket.”

“We’ll all have to do that,” Rankin says. “I’ve always known that day would come.”

“Nice of you to let me know that,” Arney says.

“Look, you psycho,” Rankin says, “if you hadn’t gone pyro on the Clinton place we might have some breathing room. I’m guessing she’s keeping quiet. I scared her pretty good—but we can’t get to her in the psych ward. So don’t lay that on me. You’ve known you were on your own from the start.”

Arney shrugs. “Whatever.”

“Well, we’ve got one chance. The only people who’ve seen that text are the teacher and the Bomb kid, Hannah what’s-her-name, and me. If we get them all, it’ll be a while before this shit gets unraveled and we can disappear. If not, our pictures are going to be everywhere. I don’t have to remind you what happens in prison to people like us.”

“No,” Arney says, “you do not.”

Logs and Paulie slip into the water, holding their breath to keep from gasping from the frigid shock of it. They breaststroke, slowly at first, silent as eels. Every muscle tightens, groins ache as they wait for the warmth that comes with numbness. Logs curses their earlier training swim: they worked hard and neither has eaten. This will be done on a diet of adrenaline. They stroke, take measured breaths, increasing the distance between themselves and the lights at the dock. Logs taps Paulie’s shoulder. “I can’t see that far, but it looks like more cars. Am