I freeze. My heartbeat is jacked.
“Allison,” I say. “Allison, please.”
“You’re not a cop,” she says. “Stop acting like one.”
“Allison,” I say more firmly. I want to scream,What the hell?But it’s not a good time to piss her off. “What’s going on?”
“Drop your gun.”
The barrel of her weapon presses into my scalp. I do as she says, releasing it from my hands. It thuds to the ground. It’s a terrible, naked feeling.
“Now put your hands behind your head and walk.” She pushes me, forcing me deeper into the denser forest. “No games.”
I think of the others she’s killed: Loman brutally with a slit across her throat, Askens by gunshot. My head scurries to catch up with the realization. Allison? My friend? Jess’s friend? She can’t possibly be capable of so many terrible things.
But I can feel the cold metal of her gun against my own neck. I have my vest on, but it will do nothing if she shoots above my torso. I raise my arms and walk where she prods, stepping over fallen logs and dry shrubs, realizing she wants to get me away from Greene. I turn my head, trying to see her out of the corner of my eye. I pray Sam is safe with Greene.
“You raised Leon? Leon was Tom?”
“This is good enough,” she says when we get into a thicker patch of pines and cottonwoods. “Turn around.”
She’s standing five feet away from me, her nine-millimeter pointing at my face. Her eyes are open so wide I can see the whites in the pale light. “He preferred Leon after he graduated.”
It hurts so much to think of him.Allison’s nephew.She raised him. I haven’t raised Sam myself, but I’ve helped extensively. I’d do anything for him, like he was my own child.
Did Allison think of him as her son? How could she not if it was just the two of them? The air feels like it’s less concentrated, like I can’t draw enough oxygen from it. Jesus. I want to tell her how it pains me. At least try to apologize, but I’m trying to read the situation and what could make it better or possibly worse.
“You didn’t back him.” She winces at the memory. “I was out of town when it happened. He waited a whole two days—suffering—before he even called me and told me what happened. He told me how Railes lied about the knife and shot Mark in cold blood. He told me how the female officer didn’t back him. And when I got back, you were on your fucking decompression leave. Jesus. As ifyouneeded that. Then you quit. Ran, like a coward. Never even checked in with me.”
Now it’s becoming crystal clear. I did run and hide. Sneaked in one evening when I wouldn’t have to see hardly anyone to clear my locker. I ignored all my friends, not just her. And then, not long after I left, she strengthened her friendship with Jess. I thought it was an innocent development, that they’d started hanging out because I’d been such a hermit. “But, Allison, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t believe you were that officer, the one who wouldn’t support him. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to confront you when I got back into town. I rushed home to him, but by the time I got back, he had already hung himself. And you ... you were fucking gone.”
She pushes the anguish away and lifts her chin.
“You lied for the scumbag.” Her tone hardens. “You hung Leon out to dry. His word against theirs. Why? I thought you had some decency, some guts.”
“I know, Allison. I backed Railes. It hurts so much to think of Leon. Everything that happened. You’re right about it all, but I didn’t know he was your nephew.”
“It shouldn’t matter. You fuckingliedfor Billy Railes.” Her voice is sharp in the woods. “What the fuck, Mitchell? How could you do that?”
“You know what Coleman did to Jess, right? She’s told you?”
Allison doesn’t answer. I have no idea if Jess has told her or not. It doesn’t matter. “What he did to Leon, too,” I say. “I didn’t know Leon was, that he was ...” I stop myself from sayingsuicidalorunstable. I need to watch my words. “You’re right. It’s no excuse,” I say, my voice cracking, too.
None of it is justifiable. Mark Coleman was abusive. And a rapist. But none of it makes what I did okay. I feel the full density of it dead center, in my bones, not watching myself through glass. My culpability closes in on me like a colossal wave slamming me under. All the shame, all the anguish, all the guilt finally coming fully home to roost. My chest sears with pain. My knees begin to shake and nearly buckle. Tears sting my eyes. “Allison, I’ve regretted backing Railes every single minute, every single hour of every day since,” I manage to get out.
“If you had such regrets, then why didn’t you come clean after you quit?”
A second wave crashes over me. Again, I feel the same sense that something like sludge is filling my mouth. I could have. I had already quit. All my dreams to make detective had vanished. But Leon was already gone, and I needed to be there for Jess and Sam. I couldn’t stomach the thought of being mired in it all over scumbag Mark Coleman when I needed to stay strong and unencumbered for her and Sam for something he caused. But here I stand—a total scumbag myself, causing endless pain and devastation.
“Thomas cared about him,” she says about Coleman as if she’s read my mind.
“I know he did but, Allison ...” I drop my hands and open my palms to her like a sacrifice. “I’m so sorry.”
But even I can hear how pathetic the apology sounds, a single drop of water out in the dry desert.
“Hands back up. Now.” Her breathing grows more rapid.
