Chapter 35
The suburbs closest to the Wisconsin border were where I spent the most normal years of my childhood, back when my mom was alive and we lived in Winthrop Harbor, close to where Willa lived now.
I didn’t take Benjamin there often, and yet there was easier access to Lake Michigan from places like Zion.
The public beaches weren’t especially beautiful, but the swimming was free and by late afternoon—tipsiness from the wine at Ray’s converted into a dull headache—it seemed a much better place to be than our stuffy apartment.
Benjamin always preferred the pool, whereas I preferred this, an escape from the judgmental eyes of our Pleasant Park neighbors, even if the coarse yellow sand was spoiled by cigarette butts.
When we arrived with our towels, Benjamin nodded to the squat concrete building visible at the shoreline, just to the north. “Is that really a nuclear reactor?”
“Sure is.”
“Does that mean there’s radiation in the water?”
“Makes it a little warmer.”
Benjamin’s eyebrows went up.
“Kidding. You think the fine communities of northern Illinois would let us swim here if there was anything wrong with the water?”
I chose not to tell him about the long history of toxic pollution precisely where I—and he—had grown up. Even my father, who’d enjoyed fishing for coho off Waukegan piers knew to release every fish he caught.
Benjamin pulled off his T-shirt. “No point waiting.”
“Hold on,” I said. “I need to ask you something.”
I reminded him about Curtis’s offer to take him away to his father’s place, where Benjamin could do chores and help out.
“Yeah, so?” Benjamin asked.
“Would you like to do that?”
“No, I’d like to do what other Summit kids are doing. Go to California for screenwriting summer school. Go to Italy for mountaineering.”
“I can’t send you to California, and I can’t send you to Italy.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
“So? Would you rather earn some money helping Curtis?”
“Yes, if I have no other choice. I’d prefer to go somewhere and see something new and earn some money, instead of just boiling inside our apartment. Of course I would.”
Of course he would. Why had I asked him if my gut told me he shouldn’t go? Maybe I was hoping for an out—an act of resistance on Benjamin’s part, so I wouldn’t have to be the one to say no when Curtis asked again on Monday.
“Enjoy your swim,” I said. “Don’t go too far out.”
“What’s too far?”
“I don’t know. Farther than I can see you.”
He exhaled through his nose, aloof superiority audible in that little puff of air.
When he was younger, fart noises were the thing.
I missed those playful noises now. Someday, I might even miss moments from this summer, as difficult as it had been so far.
Children grow up too soon. Even the challenging ones do.
There was my answer. I didn’t want to send Benjamin away, even if he wanted to go, and even if it might make my life temporarily easier.
I couldn’t let him go away with someone I didn’t know well, even if Curtis was well-intentioned.
My gut was telling me, loud and clear. I couldn’t afford to make even one more mistake with Benjamin.
He would have to be mad at me on Monday, if Curtis offered again and I refused. We’d both live with it.
“Benjamin,” I said just as he stepped away from our towels.
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good swimmer. I trust you. Just be careful.”
After he’d waded into the water, I pulled a folder from my tote bag.
Inside it were some FBI technical papers from Robert’s files.
All weekend, I’d kept sifting through materials, trying to shake off the inexplicable perception of a continuing threat, even with Weber dead and Veronica Lovell released.
That strange line from the news interview came back to me now.
Kittens need to catch their own mice. Who were the kittens? Who were the cats?
I read another FBI report, one meant to dispel popular myths.
Serial killers, it said, are not always single, dysfunctional loners.
Serial killers are not all white males. Serial killers do not want to get caught over time, even though they do tend to get careless following years of getting away with their murders.
I knew those things already. What else?
My next homework assignment was even less pleasant. Curtis had sent me the hypnosis transcript. Squinting at the dim screen, I opened and began reading.
First, it was easy to take in. Curtis had typed everything he’d recorded, even our banter at the beginning of the hour.
Within half a page I was no longer on the Zion beach, reading a dim screen.
Not in Curtis’s office, either. I was at the forest preserve not far from here, reliving it all again.
Age thirteen. With my brother and his friend. Grant. A name I’d rather forget.
I read about getting drunk, needing to vomit, needing to pee.
Ewan following me. His taunts and his violence.
The way that I accepted all of it and still looked up to him, no matter what he threatened.
The way I never knew when he was being serious or simply teasing.
Those moments I never saw coming. His hands around my neck, lifting me off the ground.
The transcript matched my conscious memories. The main difference was the level of detail. The sensations hit me like waves. The heat. The sound of cicadas. The smell of the muddy creek.
When I got to the moment when I was walking through the woods to the next trailhead, where I fell asleep or passed out, waiting for Ewan and Grant to pick me up, I saw there were still many pages left to read.
My eyes flitted across the screen. A trickle of sweat ran down my neck.
These were the parts Curtis didn’t want me to read—until he did.
Dogface. That was Ewan calling out from the open car window. What the fuck. Wake up.
The car stopped. Doors opened. Driver’s side, passenger side, and then a third door, the back passenger door. Grant yelled, Hey! A girl had jumped out.
Get the fuck back here.
Ewan was pulling me to my feet, and I looked and she looked back. I didn’t understand what I was seeing.
She was young, maybe a year older than me, and thin, and pale. Her bare arms and legs glowing in the moonlight. Her beige bra still on, something balled up—maybe a T-shirt—in her fist. But from the waist down she was naked, and her eyes were wide with fright.
Hurry, Grant said to Ewan, who shoved me into the front seat of the car and then climbed over me, so he was in the middle, all the better to yell at Grant.
You better fucking go after her.
It’s all right.
It’s not all right. She’s running straight back to where the cop cars were.
Naw, Grant said. And again: Naw, girls like her don’t tell. She’s totally fucked-up. Last thing she wants is anyone to know. You’re just mad you didn’t finish.
Ewan said, I don’t want your sloppy seconds.
They continue arguing, even as they pulled out and started driving opposite the direction the terrorized girl ran.
Ewan said, Way you gave it to her, she’s not as scared as she should be.
Ewan twisted and half crawled into the back seat, squashing me against the door.
When my brother settled back into the front seat again, he had the vodka bottle and a pair of girl’s tennis shoes that he chucked—one, two—out the open window and into the blur of woods we were passing.
Then he levered himself into the back again and came back with something small and white in his fist.
Promissory note, Ewan said, holding them up for us to see.
I know where she lives. Met her at a party last summer.
I already told her that if she says anything about me, I’m gonna come and give her a lot harder ride than she got, once she’s cleaned up and worth fucking again. Something to remember me by.
Grant said something under his breath but Ewan wouldn’t let it go.
I’m telling you, you damn fucker. You don’t know how to handle a girl.
Grant grabbed the bottle of vodka and started gulping it fast, heavy foot on the gas pedal, driving faster and faster the more Ewan kept ragging on him, telling him his fucking car was no good anyway, telling him he wished he never met Grant with his shitty taste in skinny girls and his piece of shit car and his . . .
But then I’m being pushed hard into the door again, my body suddenly twice as heavy, my shoulder starting to hurt because we are going around a curve way too fast, my eyes flashing open, my hands reaching out automatically toward the dashboard, fingers clawing for something to hold on to.
This, finally, was something I remembered, something I didn’t need the transcript for.
The centrifugal force. The way I knew what was coming.
The way Ewan and Grant wouldn’t stop shouting, even then, the speed and the vodka spilling and the sharp curve and then we weren’t on the road anymore, we were on the shoulder and beyond it, jolting and jumping and still going, forward, down a steep bank—but at least we were slowing, it seemed like. And then the car rolled.
Push, Ewan said.
That, I remember.
Stop crying push the door open help me fucking push, until we were able to get out.
But Grant was still in there, folded so far over the steering wheel it looked like it was part of him. Head turned toward us, mouth open, eyes shut. Big black trickle of blood running down the side of his face, dripping from his chin.
Minutes later, Ewan and I had managed to crawl up to the shoulder of the road. From there, we could still see the glint of light on the rolled car, and what looked like rising steam or dust, but only faintly.
You think he was still breathing?
I think so, I said.
That, I remember.
Ewan, I said. You shouldn’t . . .
Here comes a car.
A man pulled up and rolled down his window. You both all right? Is that your car down there?
I said, We’re fine.
Ewan looked at me.