“Gimme the keys,” Marshall said. “You’re shitty drunk.”
“Screw you,” Grace said. “You were just doing shots.”
“You can’t even run straight,” he said as Grace veered off the sidewalk.
“Let me drive,” Ellie said. She had never had a sip of alcohol in her young life.
They found their car on a side street two blocks over from Sarah Cayling’s house, where they had been instructed to park to avoid detection by the neighbors. Ellie sat behind the wheel and stuck the key in the ignition.
“Let’s go!” Marshall said, climbing into the passenger seat.
Grace slammed the door as she sat in the backseat behind Ellie, who put the car into gear and hit the accelerator. A police car streaked past on a crossroad ahead of them, causing Ellie to take a sharp right turn down a side street. Marshall veered with Ellie’s sudden jerk of the wheel.
“No one’s chasing us, Ellie,” Marshall said. “The cops are going to break up a party. Just drive like a normal human being.”
Ellie took a deep breath to calm her nerves, closing her eyes momentarily.
“Stop,” Marshall said. “Stop! Ellie, there’s a goddamn stop sign!”
Ellie opened her eyes in time to see the red hexagon, but it registered a second too late. The sign was already past her, and the nose of the car was well into the four-lane highway before she lifted her foot from the accelerator and slammed it onto the brake pedal. It was in that moment that Ellie looked to her left to see the car speeding toward her. She flipped her foot back to the gas and punched the engine, hoping to squeeze past the oncoming car in just enough time to make the left turn. Her hopes came true. The car, screeching and veering, narrowly missed her, coming within an inch of the rear bumper as Ellie skidded across the lanes, pulling the car hard into a left turn.
She never saw the U-Haul truck speeding from her right. The impact of the truck’s front grille was square to the right passenger-side, where Marshall was sitting. His head connected with the side window, producing a sickening impact that rose above the screeching tires and crunching metal like a gunshot fired into the night.
When the cars stopped spinning, nothing was left but the bleached aftereffect of a collision: ringing ears, blurred vision, and the smell of rubber burned across the pavement. Grace looked from the backseat at Marshall, who was slumped and unconscious in the passenger seat. A spiderweb pattern clouded the glass to his right.
CHAPTER 18
Monday, June 5, 2017
AFTER HER INTERVIEW WITH MR. AND MRS. SEBOLD, SIDNEY ASKED TOvisit with Marshall. It was agreed that Derrick would not record, as the Sebolds worried that sensory overload would cause Marshall to shut down. Maybe after Marshall got to know her, the Sebolds suggested, he’d be open to a documented interview. Sidney was looking for ways to show the audience who Grace was before Sugar Beach, and meeting her brother would only help her efforts. If it led to a recorded interview later, all the better.
“He’s going to ask you to play a game of chess,” Glenn Sebold told Sidney before she entered Marshall’s room.
“Chess?”
“It relaxes his brain and takes the edge off his anxiety. All he’s known since he was a little kid was how to compete. He can’t do that on the football field anymore. Hasn’t touched a football since the accident. But somehow with chess, it makes him a normal kid again. Hell, he’s not a kid anymore, but when he plays chess, it reminds me of the old Marshall.”
“Is that how you two connect with him?” Sidney asked.
Glenn shook his head. “Gretchen and I haven’t played chess with him for some time. He’s thirty-five years old, but having to rely so heavily on us has caused a teenage-type rebellion in him. I told him you’d play, if that’s okay.”
Sidney nodded. “Of course. If it helps him answer a few questions.”
“He’ll talk your ear off during a game of chess. If you need anything, let me know. I’ll be in the living room.”
“I’ll let you know when we’re done.”
She knocked softly and then opened the bedroom door. Marshall sat in his wheelchair staring at his computer screen.
“Can I come in?” Sidney asked.
Marshall shrugged, so Sidney walked into his bedroom and closed the door.
“I was hoping to talk with you a little bit about Grace. No cameras.”
“They said you’d play chess,” Marshall said.
“Yeah, I’d love to play.”
