39 McKenna
McKenna
“Georgia? Like the state? I have no idea why Leo would have been going down there.” This is what I tell Beck when he calls
me Thursday afternoon. I’ve just left the library, and I’m walking back to my car on the other side of campus.
The police have found Leo, and Beck’s parents are on their way down to southern Virginia, where the cops apparently intercepted
him. Leo hasn’t told the police why he was on this pilgrimage to the South, so Beck says he’s calling to see if I have another
guess.
“I think you’re going to have to wait until Leo wants to tell you.”
“It’s no wonder he likes you so much. Seems like you really respect him,” Beck says, and I can’t help but roll my eyes. If
Beck thought I was so great, he shouldn’t have ghosted me after what happened at Hollyhock. But then he pulls back again anyway.
“That said, the texting between you two, it’s got to stop.”
“Whatever, Beck.” I tap my thumb against the phone and disconnect the call.
The next night when my phone rings, I’m shocked to see Leo’s number on the screen. So much for Beck and his grand plans to boot me from Leo’s life. I step out of Glory’s room and answer from the hallway.
“Leo! Everyone was so worried about you.”
“I didn’t get the drone. I’m sorry. They caught me and made me come home before I got there. Are you mad I couldn’t get it?”
“The drone? What drone?” And then, all of a sudden, I realize. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. “Oh my god, Leo.
You found the nephew? How?”
“No, I never found him because they caught me first. But I was on my way to his house in Alpharetta. That’s a town in Georgia,”
he says.
“How did you find his address though?” I repeat my question.
“The buyer sent me a message last week. He said his nephew said I could have it back, that he never disassembled the drone,
so it was still intact. He didn’t want to pay for shipping, so I’d have to pick it up.”
“So you decided to go all the way there? Why didn’t you just call the guy?”
“His uncle said if I wanted it back, I had to pick it up.” Leo repeats this point as if it’s obvious.
“Leo!” I’m so frustrated that he put himself in this situation to help me, but I force myself to rein in my voice before continuing.
“I know when people give you instructions, it feels like you have to do exactly what they say, but sometimes there are other
options, and it’s okay to ask. I bet the guy would have worked out a different arrangement with you had you just asked.” I
know Leo interprets things hyperliterally, but I hate what his whole family just went through all because of me.
Before he answers, I get another incoming call. Glancing down at the screen, my stomach drops.
“Leo, I’m going to have to call you back.”
As I switch over to the other line, preparing for the tongue-lashing I know is coming my way, I notice Mauricia outside another
resident’s room, watching me from down the hall. She must see something on my face. I nod to let her know I’m okay, and she
proceeds into the room where she was headed.
I move the phone back to my ear and say cautiously, “Hi, Berry.”
“McKenna, we need to talk.”
I’m seated in the Becker family’s living room with Berry and her husband, Phil, and Phil’s father, Hollis. Phil’s dad has
a Roman nose like his son and closely cut white hair. Even though they’re much older, they both look so much like Leo and
Beck that it’s a little unnerving. I shift my eyes away from them and study my surroundings instead.
It’s the first time I’ve been inside a private home since we closed on Glory’s house, and I’m struck by so many small things
I didn’t realize I’d been missing. The lingering smell of pancakes wafting in from the kitchen, the framed family photos hanging
in the foyer, the pile of shoes near the door. I’m not here to get nostalgic though. Berry purposely invited me at a time
when Leo would be out, so I brace for whatever is coming.
“Leo explained to us why he went searching for the drone,” she says as soon as she sits opposite me.
“I’m so sorry,” I rush back at her, glancing at Phil and Hollis too.
“I didn’t ask him to do that. If I’d known his intention, I would’ve told him not to go, I swear.
I know how dangerous it was for him to set off all alone like that.
And to go to some stranger’s house? The guy could have been an axe murderer. ”
Berry holds up her hand to get me to stop talking.
“He’s not an axe murderer. I actually spoke to him by phone yesterday, and he’s very personable. He’s the manager of a nice
hotel right outside Atlanta.”
“Thank god. I’m sorry Leo went on this wild-goose chase for me. If I had known what he was planning, I swear, I never would
have been on board with it. You have to believe me.”
“We’re not mad, McKenna. Not at you. Leo shouldn’t have gone off by himself like that, but we understand why he wanted to
help you. We still want to help you.”
Some of the tension I’d been holding in my shoulders releases at her words. I nod appreciatively, though I don’t think there’s
anything they can do.
“That’s why I called the guy,” Berry continues. “To ask if he still had the drone.”
Even though I know better, I feel my hopes rising.
“Oh my god, does he have it?”
“He does,” Phil says, leaning forward. I can tell he’s preparing to deliver bad news. “But he deleted all the footage from
the camera module when he first received the package from his uncle.”
I slump back against the cushions. So it was all for nothing. Leo risked his safety, sent his family into days of panic, wreaked
havoc for so many people, and it was all for nothing.
“But my dad here”—Phil puts a hand on his father’s shoulder—“is apparently some kind of tech-hoarder, and he still had the
footage on his computer.”
Hollis nods as I say, “On his computer? I don’t understand.”
Phil and Hollis explain in tandem that when Leo first got the drone, Hollis wanted to watch one of the flights, so Leo set
up the drone to stream to his grandfather’s computer. Afterward, Leo told Hollis how to turn off the functionality, but Hollis
never bothered. Anything the drone recorded was also saved locally to Hollis’s computer.
“Wait, so you have the video? Like right now?”
Phil pushes an iPad across the coffee table, tapping the screen to bring it to life. There’s a frozen image waiting on the
screen, a traffic light, bright red against a dark night sky.
“All you have to do is press Play,” Hollis says.
I follow his instruction, and then I’m watching a video of flight footage. It’s a little disorienting as the camera flies
over houses and yards, streets with moving cars, then dense forest areas. All this time, I’d been imagining the video would
look like the kind of grainy night vision images you see in movies with military action scenes. But this looks more like something
I’d have shot using my phone. I watch the screen get lighter and darker and then lighter again as the drone flies over different
locations, streetlights, shopping centers, homes.
“You should skip ahead, Dad,” Berry says.
Hollis slides his finger along the bottom of the screen, and then I see the Hollyhock pool come into view. The deck lighting
must have been attached to the generator, because there’s enough ambient glow that I can make out the whole area. It’s also
clear that the drone didn’t arrive until after the vandalism already happened. I can tell as soon as the pool comes into view
that the liquid in it is not regular pool water. There’s a sheen to the surface that’s full of swirling patterns.
“So we’re too late?” I look up at Berry, whose eyes are still focused on the screen. “All this effort, and it doesn’t even show anything?”
“Keep watching,” she says.
And that’s when I see it.
A figure comes out of the shadows, a person in a dark raincoat. They run over to the pool and pick something up from the edge,
like a forgotten item. Their hair is tied back in a long ponytail, and I can tell that I’m clearly looking at a woman. Someone
with hair much longer than mine, and darker.
And then she turns, and I see her face plain as day.
I gasp. “Vanessa? That’s my coach’s daughter.” And if there was any doubt as to what she was doing there, I can also see the
item she’s holding now. A paint can.
She looks directly at the drone. Maybe she heard some sort of noise coming from it or caught sight of a light flashing in
the dark sky, and then she runs out of the frame.
“There’s absolutely no question,” I tell them. “That was Vanessa Catapano.” I look back at the screen now, where the video
continues to play the drone’s flight over the golf course. “But why on earth would she want to damage the pool of the club
that her own family’s been going to for years?” I wonder for a second whether she felt the same as I did about the cancelation
of the special-needs lessons, if she was trying to get revenge on the club herself. But that doesn’t make sense.
Berry reaches across the table and puts her hand on my arm. “The who and the why of it don’t really matter anymore, sweetie.
The most obvious thing from this video is that the person who vandalized the pool was not you.”
And then it hits me. “This clears me. It proves it. My scholarship. My housing. I can get it all back!”
They’re all smiling at me, nodding happily. As if we’ve been a team all along. As if they didn’t assume the worst of me, just
like everybody else.
“We owe you a big apology,” Berry says. “A lot of people do.”
Before I can answer, Phil says, “Leo mentioned you’ve been sleeping in your car.”
I can feel my cheeks start to heat with shame at the idea of this perfect, wholesome family knowing how I’ve been living.
But looking at their faces, I don’t see judgment. Berry’s eyebrows are pulled so low, her expression can’t be anything other
than compassion.
Phil’s dad seems to sense my discomfort, and he pushes himself off the couch with a grunt.
“I’ll let you folks finish this conversation without me. There’s some leftover soup in the fridge with my name on it.”