Forty
Moments before Gage had left his house, his cell had rung. He’d already had the phone in his hand and, seeing who it was,
answered before it rang a second time. He didn’t want his parents asking who he was talking to.
“Hey,” Gage said.
“Hey, kid, look,” said Holden, “where are you right now?”
“Home.”
“What’re you doing?”
“Just, you know, parents.”
“What’s that mean?”
“The usual shit. Nothing to worry about.”
“Can I pick you up?”
“What for?”
“I’ll explain when I get you.”
“Okay.”
“But not out front. I don’t know how your dad would feel about us hanging out right now. Kind of had a bad scene with him
and your mom a while ago.”
“I can go out the back way, meet you one street over.”
“Deal.”
He slipped out of the house undetected and without his skateboard and two minutes later, Holden’s old Honda CR-V appeared
on the street one over from Gage’s place. Holden left the motor running as Gage jumped in on the passenger side, the door
creaking on rusty hinges.
“Sorry to drag you away,” Holden said, taking his foot off the brake and hitting the gas. “Sorry about everything, really.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’ve been trying to get hold of Alicia, you know? Been calling and texting and she should be off work by now but she keeps
putting me off. I really need to talk to her, and if I can’t talk to somebody, I’m gonna start doing something I shouldn’t, and right now, I’m ready to get so high that I’d be looking down from space,
you know? More than ever, right now, I need a clear head, to be able to deal with all this. And you and me, we got a good
rapport, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ve told you stuff I never told anyone else except Alicia, and you’ve been good about keeping the lid on it. Maybe I shouldn’t’ve,
but I’ve always believed you need to know the truth about this family.”
Glumly, Gage said, “I wish I’d never known.”
“Shit, I get that. Sorry to dump on you.”
“So where are we going?”
“My mom’s,” he said.
“Why?”
Holden gripped the wheel a little tighter. “A whole bunch of things got real clear today, like the clouds opening up and the
sun shining in?” He shook his head slowly, as though still putting the pieces together. “I’m the lesser brother.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not whole like your dad. Not to my mom. Explains a lot.”
“I’m not getting any of this.”
Holden took one hand off the wheel and waved it around. “It’s okay. I’ll get her to explain it, you can get it firsthand.”
“You’re gonna confront her?”
“Yeah.”
Gage shook his head vehemently. “No way, not again.”
“It’s different this time,” Holden said.
“Let me out.”
“No, come on, man, I need you.”
“I want to go home.”
“Okay, okay, look. I’ll swing by Alicia’s, see if she’s there, and if I can talk her into coming with me, you’re off the hook.”
“I’m off the hook no matter what.”
Holden sighed. “Fine, I’ll see if Alicia’s there, drop you off back at your house, regardless.”
“Thanks.”
They were silent as Holden made a couple of turns, bailing on the route to his mother’s place and instead heading to Alicia’s.
Quietly, Holden asked, “You okay?”
“No.”
“It’s all going to work out.”
Gage shrugged.
“My dad,” Holden said, “did some dumb stuff in his life, but at his heart, he was a good guy. Cared more about others than
he did about himself. Had a conscience. That’s why he quit Big Pharma. He was even willing, for my sake and Reece’s, to stay
in a marriage he didn’t want to be in. That says something, right?”
“Yeah,” Gage said. “I know.”
“Just up here,” he said, looking ahead, nodding. “She’s in that building on the right.”
He parked on the street and tried texting Alicia one last time. When he didn’t get a reply, he said, “If she doesn’t want
to talk to me, she can tell me why to my face. Come on.”
They got out of the Honda and entered the lobby of the low-rise apartment. Holden had a key, so he didn’t have to buzz to
get Alicia to let him in. They took the elevator up, headed down the hall, and stood together outside the door to her place.
Holden rapped on it with the knuckle of his middle finger. “Hey, Aleesh?” he said, putting his mouth to the doorjamb. “It’s
me.”
The knock went unanswered.
He knocked again, louder this time. “If I did something to piss you off, just tell me.” He waited another moment, then turned
to Gage and shrugged.
“What’s this?” Gage asked.
He was staring at the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor. Holden took a step back so that the hallway lights
would better illuminate what Gage had spotted.
“That oil?” Gage asked.
A thick, dark liquid was seeping out from the room. Like something in there had spilled and this was the farthest point it
had trickled to.
Holden said nothing as he knelt down and tentatively touched his finger to it, then examined what was on the tip.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said.
Gage swallowed hard. That dab of liquid on the end of Holden’s finger was deep red.
Holden tried the door, found it locked, inserted a key, and slowly pushed the door open.
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” he said under his breath.
Gage, behind him, peered around his shoulder, and seeing Alicia on the floor, took two steps back, pressing himself up against
the opposite hallway wall. His mouth hung open, and his hand was frozen halfway to it, as though he couldn’t decide whether
he was going to need it to stifle a scream or keep it away so he could puke.
Holden stepped slowly into the apartment, careful not to get blood on his shoes. He didn’t need to be a coroner to know it
was too late to help her. He could see the vacant stare in her open eyes, the hole in her forehead, the blood that ran from
the wound to the floor and out the door.
But that didn’t stop him, once he had reached her, from getting down on his knees, huddling over her, running his hand softly
over her hair and starting to whimper.
“Holden,” Gage whispered, barely able to get the word out.
Holden’s back began to heave as he cried. “No no,” he said softly. “No no no no no . . .”
“We gotta split,” Gage said, glancing up the hallway in one direction and then the other.
At the far end, the ding of an elevator.
“Shit,” Gage said under his breath. He couldn’t be seen standing here, with the door open, the body visible. He quickly stepped into the room, taking the same care his uncle had to avoid stepping in blood, then closed the door behind him.
Holden looked up, his eyes wet. “Look what they did to her . . .”
Gage didn’t have time for that. He had to find a toilet, and fast. He was unfamiliar with the layout of Alicia’s place, but
it was far from palatial and it only took a second for Gage to find the bathroom.
He flipped up the toilet lid, leaned over and vomited. Once, then again. Finished, he slowly sank to the floor. He pulled
the handle to flush it, then collapsed against the tiled wall, butt on the floor, his legs extended out toward the toilet.
Gage sat there, breathing in and out in quick, shallow gulps. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to go back out there, see
that dead woman.
He jumped when his phone started ringing. He took it from his pocket, saw it was his mother trying to reach him. He muted
the phone but it kept vibrating, and he’d barely recovered from that when he jumped again. Holden was standing in the doorway,
and for half a second, Gage thought Alicia’s killer could still be in the apartment.
“Just me, man.”
Gage took a breath. “Who did that? Who did that to her?”
Holden raised his hands in a beats me gesture. “I don’t know, kid.”
“Maybe there’s like some crazy serial killer living in this building?”
Holden shook his head. “It— it looked like a hit.”
“A what?”
“I mean, like, one shot to the head. That’s no serial killer.”
“You mean like a hit man?”
“I don’t know!” Holden shouted, then looked panicked, as though someone in a neighboring apartment might hear him. He dropped
his voice low and said, “I don’t know what kind of shit she could be into that would get her killed. I mean, okay, like, she
probably knows a few dealers—so do I—but I can’t think why any of them would want to hurt her. She wasn’t even using.”
Something suddenly occurred to him. “You touch anything?”
Gage thought, You kidding? He’d had his hands all over the toilet, his puke was everywhere. There was enough Gage Chartwell DNA in this bathroom to
make a new him.
“I was sick,” he said.
Holden extended a hand to help Gage to his feet. “Shit, I’m sorry, man, I’m sorry you had to see this. But we have to be smart
now. Clean up in here. Get a bunch of toilet paper and wipe down everything you touched and any barf that missed the target
and flush it away.”
Gage nodded and went to work, pulling yards of toilet paper from the roll, balling it up and wiping the handle, the rim of
the bowl and the floor. He threw the wad into the toilet, got some more paper and did it again and flushed. He rejoined Holden
in the kitchen area.
“Don’t think I touched much,” Holden said.
“The door,” Gage reminded him.
“On the way out.”
Holden was examining the room from where he stood, careful not to move even his feet without thinking first. He noticed some
shreds of duct tape on the floor and a knife and scissors on the table, as though someone had used them to open a package.
But there was no empty package to be seen.
Gage spotted something over on the couch. He walked over, examined it without picking it up, then asked, “Was she into cars?”
Holden turned. “What?”
“Did Alicia like old cars?”
He shrugged. “No idea. Who cares? Hey, don’t touch that—”
Too late. Gage had already picked up a magazine off the couch. He held it up for Holden to see.
It was an issue of Collectible Automobile, a magazine for classic car enthusiasts. On the cover was a picture of the green Mustang Steve McQueen had driven in the
movie Bullitt.
Gage pointed to a sticker on the cover’s bottom right-hand corner.
“It’s addressed to Grandpa,” Gage said. “It was mailed to Brent Chartwell.”