on the screen said 2:17 A.M. She knew the others had to be awake, too. She felt a part of them now, in the worst way possible. They had all done a horrible thing. They were responsible for it. They caused Kyle’s death. Tears came to her eyes, but she wiped them away.
She logged on to the Internet, then AOL Instant Messenger. Sasha and Julian weren’t online, but if they had taken her off their Buddy Lists, she wouldn’t know if they were online. David was online, and he was the only one she wanted to talk to. She knew he’d be feeling as awful as she was, and he liked her. He might be hoping to hear from her.
AllieOop918: hi will u call me?
NetProphet182: i dont know u leave me alone
Allie blinked, bewildered. Maybe she’d messaged the wrong person. She checked the list, and NetProphet182 was David’s screen name. It was him.
Allie heard the sound of the AIM door, cyber-closing.
CHAPTER 46
Barb Gallagher
Barb sat next to Sharon in old-fashioned wooden chairs in Chief Holtz’s office, at the township police station. They had fallen into an exhausted silence, having given their statements, then the chief had told them to wait here. The police suspected suicide, but the cause of death wasn’t official yet. Barb knew it had to be true because it was the only thing that made sense. She knew he was hurting. She knew he’d been drinking. She should’ve seen this coming, especially after the newspaper article. She couldn’t blame anybody but herself, not even her ex. Barb would never, ever forgive herself.
The fluorescent lights hurt her eyes. Her shirt and shorts clung to her, clammy. Her sneakers were soaked and muddy. Buddy slept under her chair, the traces of Kyle’s blood almost gone from his ruff and muzzle. Kyle always called Buddy self-cleaning. Barb would have cried at the memory, but she couldn’t cry anymore.
Barb’s heartbroken gaze took in the chief’s office, with its old wooden desk cluttered with sports paraphernalia, an antiquated computer, and a calendar from a local plumbing company. The air smelled of stale cigarette smoke, though she doubted smoking was allowed. Either way, she didn’t care. She was trying to neither think nor feel.
She didn’t want to live anymore, truly, and she’d said that to Sharon, sobbing, hysterical, brought to her knees when they’d zipped Kyle into a body bag in the pounding rain.
No, no, no, Sharon had said, crying, too, full bore.
I never should’ve let him go tonight, I should’ve known he’d be upset—
—no, you couldn’t know that—
—yes, I could, the newspaper article—
—but you didn’t know he could get a gun—
Chief Holtz entered the office, a taciturn type in his late fifties. A paunch strained the buttons of his blue shirt, and his jowls bracketed his lips, which were fleshy. His eyes were a weary blue-gray behind stainless-steel bifocals, his nose was bulbous, and his chin grizzled salt and pepper after the long night. He closed the door quietly behind him, meeting Barb’s eye with surprising tenderness.
“Ms. Gallagher, Barbara, can I get you another water?”
“No, thank you.”
“How about you, uh . . .”
“Sharon,” Sharon supplied. “No, thank you.”
Chief Holtz lumbered around the desk and sat down heavily, sliding some paperwork aside and folding his hands on top of an old-fashioned green blotter. “You have my deepest sympathies on your loss.”
“Thank you,” Barb said, numb with shock. She had to keep it together. She had to hear what she was being told.
“As you know, this is a small county, so we only have the one medical examiner. That’s why it took so long. I have the autopsy results, not the report. They gave us priority on account of the press attention.”
“I understand.” Barb didn’t want to even think about the reporters already out front, having smelled blood. Literally, her son’s blood. Kyle, her only child. Her big baby boy, oversized, eleven pounds. It took her twenty-one hours of labor and every drug they could give her.
How did you pass that thing? one of the nurses had joked.
With great difficulty, Barb had shot back, and they had laughed.
Chief Holtz cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this terrible news. The coroner has found that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the victim’s temple, self-inflicted. The manner of death was suicide.”
Suicide. Barb imagined the bullet blasting through her son’s brain, destroying everything in its path, the blood vessels, soft tissue, neurons, all the things that somehow comprised his thoughts, memories,