Dr. Patterson. Coach Holt. Mr. Humphrey. Mr. Ganza. Mr. Emmett.
She would destroy them. If it was the last thing she did, Harleigh would end their lives.
She asked her sister, “What time does Linda get home in the morning?”
“Nine.”
Harleigh looked at the bedside clock. She had less than thirteen hours to fix this.
She asked, “Where is the camera?”
“I—” Callie put her hand to her strangled throat like she needed help pushing out the answer. “The bar.”
Harleigh’s fists were clenched as she walked down the hallway. Past the guest room, the bathroom. Past Trevor’s bedroom.
She stopped, turned around. She cracked open Trevor’s door. His night light spun pinprick stars against the ceiling. His face was tucked down into his pillow. He was fast asleep. She knew without asking that Buddy had made him take his sleepy medicine.
“Harleigh?” Callie stood in the doorway. Her skin was so pale that she looked like a ghost hovering in the darkness. “I don’t know w-what to do.”
Harleigh pulled Trevor’s door closed behind her.
She walked up the hallway, past the aquarium, the couch, the ugly leather club chairs with their cigarette-burned arms. The camera was on a pile of wine corks behind the bar. Canon Optura, top of the line, which Harleigh knew because she had sold electronics over the Christmas rush. The plastic case was broken, a chunk missing from the corner. Harleigh ripped the camera away from the power cable. She used her thumbnail to drag the tiny slider to eject the mini-cassette.
Empty.
Harleigh searched the floor, the shelves behind the bar, trying to find the cassette.
Nothing.
She stood up. She saw the couch with its depressing, solo imprints on opposite sides. The grungy orange drapes. The giant television with the cables hanging down.
Cables that went into the camera she was holding in her hands.
The device had no internal storage. The mini-cassette, which was slightly larger than a business card, held the recordings. You could plug in the camera to a TV or VCR, but no cassette meant no movie.
Harleigh had to find that cassette to show it to the cops so that they could see—what?
She had never been inside of a courtroom, but she had grown up watching woman after woman get knocked down by men. Crazy bitches. Hysterical girls. Stupid cunts. Men controlled the system. They controlled the police, the courtrooms, the probation agencies, welfare services, juvenile hall and the jails, school boards, car dealerships, supermarkets, dentists’ offices.
Dr. Patterson. Coach Holt. Mr. Humphrey. Mr. Ganza. Mr. Emmett.
There was no way to prove they had watched the video, and unless it showed Callie screaming No the entire time, the cops, the lawyers, the judges, would all say that she had wanted it because, no matter what happened to women, men always, always covered each other’s asses.
“Harleigh.” Callie’s arms were hugged around her slim waist. She was trembling. Her lips had turned white. It was like watching her baby sister disappear in stages.
This was her fault. This was all her fault.
“Please,” Callie said. “He—he could still be alive. Please.”
Harleigh looked at her sister. Mascara ran down her face. Blood and lipstick smeared her mouth into a clown’s grimace. Like Harleigh, she had been desperate to grow up. Not because she wanted to distract the boys or call attention to herself, but because adults got to make their own decisions.
Harleigh slammed the camera down on the bar top.
She had finally seen their way out of this.
Buddy Waleski was sitting on the kitchen floor, his back against the cabinets under the sink. His head had dropped forward. His arms were at his sides. His legs were splayed out. The cut was in his left leg, a tiny spring of blood bubbling out like sewage from a broken pipe.
“Please ch-check.” Callie stood behind her, black eyes unblinking as she stared at Buddy. “P-please, Har. He c-can’t be dead. He can’t.”
Harleigh went to the body, but not to help. She stuck her hand into Buddy’s pants pockets, searching for the small cassette. She found a wad of cash on the left side along with a half-roll of Tums and some lint. A remote control for the camera was in the right pocket. She threw it across the floor so hard that the battery cover broke open. She checked the back pockets and found Buddy’s cracked leather wallet and a stained handkerchief.
No cassette.
“Harleigh?” Callie said.
Mentally, Harleigh pushed her sister to the side. She needed to keep her focus on the story they would tell the cops—