This Story Might Save Your Life(99)

But of course I have no footage of myself sitting in Carlotta’s car, thinking these thoughts. What I’m watching right now is what happened in the room after I was gone. The moment I knew nothing about, and didn’t understand until Luna snuck into my hospital room the morning after my surgery.

I’m watching the moment Xander dies.

It happens without warning. One minute he’s struggling against Emil’s police hold, the next he’s completely still.

Just like that.

Emil checks his pulse, swears, and rolls him over onto his back.

“What’s happening?” Luna asks as Emil starts chest compressions.

She watches for a moment, stunned. Then she’s cursing. Cursing, and muttering, “Oh my god, oh my god.” She pulls out her phone.

“What are you doing?” Emil shouts.

“I’m calling nine one one!”

“Not yet.” He stops the compressions. “Hold on.”

“What are you—what?”

Examining Xander’s eyes, left then right, he says, “Fuck.”

This, right here, is the moment Carlotta returns for my meds. She halts in the open door.

Seeing her, Emil settles back onto his haunches with a sigh. “Head trauma.”

“Oh,” Carlotta says. “Oh no.”

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.” Luna fumbles with her phone again.

Carlotta gently plucks it from her shaking hands. “Give it a minute,” the judge says, still surveying the room. When she seems satisfied with what she sees, she nods once at Emil. He nods back. “All right,” Carlotta says to Luna, “let’s talk this through.”

Luna is clearly bewildered, but she doesn’t argue. She swipes tears from her cheeks as the three of them run through every possible outcome. Murder. Manslaughter. Self-defense. Accident. There would be a trial. It would be national news. International news. It would almost certainly ruin my life.

“But it doesn’t have to get that far,” Emil says.

“It does not,” Carlotta agrees.

Luna looks back and forth between them. “What…?”

“Let’s just say,” Carlotta says, “Emil knows how to crash a car.”

Luna’s jaw drops.

“Remember, Joy doesn’t know he’s dead,” Emil says, inspecting Xander’s head. “And we got lucky with the blood.”

Pressing her palms to her temples, Luna says, “It’s too risky.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Carlotta says. “You can leave right now and you were never here.”

“But what about you?”

“What about me? I’m on my second round of cancer in five years. I’m sick of thinking about me.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Emil adds.

“If you want to go, then go,” Carlotta says. “We won’t judge. Like I said, you were never here. But you know what she’s been through. And you know—I know you know—that justice isn’t always served by way of the law.”

Luna slides her hands down to her neck and exhales heavily. Lowering her voice, she asks, “But how would you get away with it?”

“Let’s just say,” Carlotta says again, more pointedly, “this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve helped cover things up for a friend in need.”

I was aware, waiting in the Camry, that Carlotta was gone for a disproportionately long time, but never in a million years would I have guessed this was the conversation she was having. On the way to the shelter, Carlotta asked where Xander’s cameras were. Initially, I’d planned to gather them up in the morning while Xander was training with Emil, just before I snuck out of the house. But that was no longer an option. I walked her through the entire setup, excluding only the camera directly above my desk. Luna had given it to me a few days earlier—“for backup”—and I hadn’t yet found a good spot for it. Because of the grille’s busy pattern it wouldn’t have caught much, if anything, which was likely why Xander hadn’t used it for one of his own hiding spots. But I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I left it out because the only cameras we needed were Xander’s.

On the footage from the coyote’s black-tipped tail, Emil disappears for a full five minutes, all the while Luna stands unmoving in the center of the room. When he returns, he’s wearing a black hoodie and sweatpants, latex gloves, and disposable booties over his shoes. He holds out a pair of latex gloves for Luna, as if in question. Are you staying, or are you going? She stares at them, still unmoving.

When Luna snuck into my hospital room that morning, hours before I spoke with the police, I told her I was prepared to take full blame.

“Don’t,” she begged. She took my hand and explained what sacrifices everyone had already made to ensure I would get out of this okay.

Because in the end, Luna stayed.

I watch her take the gloves from Emil now. He nods once, firmly, and then walks her through the plan from beginning to end. I’m sure Luna is afraid, but she no longer shows it. She takes Xander’s phone from his pocket and turns it on with facial recognition. Emil brings over Xander’s laptop, and uses Xander’s finger to activate it. While Luna deletes the surveillance app, Emil ensures there’s no backup on the computer. This goes on for a while, until they’re satisfied all the downloaded videos are gone. They then make Xander’s phone unfindable, and power it off.