You didn’t bleed unless your heart was still pumping.
“Calliope.” Harleigh swallowed so hard that her throat clicked. “Go check on Trevor. Now.”
Callie didn’t argue. She disappeared down the hallway.
Harleigh knelt down in front of Buddy. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and lifted up his giant head. His eyelids slitted open. She saw the whites of his eyes as they rolled back.
“Wake up.” She slapped his face. “Wake up, you stupid cocksucker.”
The whites flashed again.
She pressed open his eyelids. “Look at me, asshole.”
Buddy’s lips parted. She could smell his cheap whiskey and cigars. The stench was so familiar that Harleigh was instantly back in his Corvette.
Terrified. Helpless. Longing for escape.
Harleigh slapped him so hard that saliva flew from his mouth. “Look at me.”
Buddy’s eyes rolled up but, slowly, they came around to center.
She saw the glimmer of recognition, the stupid belief that he was looking at someone who was on his side.
Buddy stared at what was left of the phone, then looked back at Harleigh. He was asking her to call for help. He knew he didn’t have long.
She said, “Where’s the cassette from the camera?”
He looked at the phone again, then back at her.
She got in his face. “I’ll kill you right now if you don’t tell me.”
Buddy Waleski was not afraid. He viewed Harleigh as a prude, a rule-follower, the girl who knew the difference between right and wrong. The twitch that pulled up the left side of his lips told her he was happy to bring down Miss Goody Two Shoes and her baby sister right alongside him.
“You fucking asshole.” Harleigh slapped him harder than the first time. Then she punched him. His head banged into the cabinet. She grabbed his shirt, reared back to punch him again.
Buddy heard the sound before she did. A distinctive click coming from his shirt. She watched his confident expression slip into uncertainty. His eyes moved back and forth, trying to get a read on whether or not she understood.
Harleigh was frozen, right fist still raised, left fist still gripping the front of his shirt. She rolled through her senses, trying to force herself back into that exact moment—the copper-penny smell of blood, the rasp of Buddy’s faint breathing, the bitter taste of lost freedom souring her mouth, the feel of his dirty work shirt wadded into her tight fist.
She twisted the material tighter, bunching up the thick cotton.
The click drew her eyes to his chest.
Harleigh had only checked his pants pockets. Buddy was wearing a Dickies short-sleeved work shirt. The seams were reinforced. Two flapped breast pockets were on either side. The flap of the left pocket was up, worn with two fang-like impressions from the ever-present box of Black & Milds.
Except this time, he’d put the box in backward. The cellophane window on the front faced his heaving chest.
Harleigh slid out the long, skinny box. She stuck her fingers inside.
The mini-cassette .
She held it to his face so that he could see that she had won. Buddy wheezed out a long sigh. He only looked faintly disappointed. His life had been filled with violence and chaos, mostly brought about by his own hand. Compared to that, his death would be easy.
Harleigh looked down at the small, black plastic cassette with its faded white label.
A piece of electrical tape covered the protection tab so that the tape could be recorded over again and again.
Harleigh had watched her sister change over the last three years, but she’d chalked it up to hormones or brattiness or just growing into another person. Callie’s heavy make-up, the arrests for shoplifting, the suspensions from school, the late-night whispered calls that went on for hours. Harleigh had ignored them because she’d been too focused on her own life. Pushing herself to work more, to save more money, to do well in school so she could get the hell out of Lake Point.
Now, she was literally holding Callie’s life in her hands. Her youth. Her innocence. Her trust that no matter how high she flew into the air, the world would catch her.
It was all Harleigh’s fault.
Her hand squeezed into a fist. The sharp edges of the plastic mini-cassette dug into her palm. The world went red again, blood soaking everything she saw. Buddy’s fat face. His meaty hands. His balding head. She wanted to punch him again, to beat him into oblivion, to plunge the steak knife into his chest over and over until the bones cracked and the life spewed from his disgusting body.
Instead, she opened the drawer by the stove. She pulled out the roll of cling film.