I knew I wasn’t supposed to blame Mrs. Rollins. She was a victim of domestic abuse. I was savvy enough to understand that systemic abuse did things to the psyche that other people couldn’t fathom. However, even with that in mind, a very large, very loud part of me wanted to tell her exactly what I thought of her choosing her dirtbag loser husband over her son.
I felt dizzy every time I thought of the boy I adored behind bars for the crime of protecting his mother.
So while my parents decided to move forward with coming up with bail money, I decided I was going to fix the whole damn mess. I was going to make it clear to everyone, including the blind-as-a-bat Chief Ogden, that Lucian Rollins wasn’t the dangerous one in the family.
I just needed the right opportunity.
I thought of going to Lucian’s friends Knox and Nash Morgan for help. But I didn’t know how much they knew about Lucian’s situation, and they were boys. They were more likely to go off half-cocked and screw up everything. It made sense to keep it to myself.
What I needed was irrefutable proof of Ansel Rollins’s villain status. To sixteen-year-old me, that meant video. After double checking that Virginia was a single-party consent jurisdiction when it came to recording conversations, I squirreled away my parents’ camcorder under my bed along with a mini tape recorder I borrowed from my friend Sherry.
Every night, I stayed up late, sprawled on the window seat with my window open wide, listening.
Waiting with a sick mix of anticipation and dread churning in my stomach.
I dropped the book I’d been ignoring onto the cushion and shot my legs up in the air above me. My toenails were purple, and both pinkies had already chipped. I’d painted them the day before Lucian got arrested, and since then, everything else had seemed so frivolous.
This wasn’t how the summer before my junior year was supposed to go. I was supposed to be looking forward to the summer softball league that was starting in a week. The one where I was going to get scouted by one of my dream colleges. I was supposed to be accepting invitations to Third Base and making out. Maybe even losing my virginity. I was supposed to be convincing Lucian that it was safe for him to go out into the world and live his life.
Instead, I’d been the one to ruin any chance at that future.
I sat up and peered morosely out the window. The look on his face when he’d seen me standing there as he was led to the police cruiser, when he realized I’d done the one thing he’d made me promise not to…
I’d begged to be allowed to visit him at the county jail. Dad had diplomatically told me it wasn’t a good idea, but I knew by the shifty look behind his glasses that Lucian didn’t want to see me. Because it was my fault he was there in the first place. Because I’d broken that trust.
I heard the chirp of tires, the squeal of brakes, and I popped up onto my knees. Mr. Rollins’s pickup came to an abrupt stop in the driveway. He’d parked crooked, and he stumbled when he got out from behind the wheel. He slammed the door, but it bounced open again without his notice.
I scrambled off the window seat and dove for the box under my bed. I stuffed the camera and the recorder in an NPR tote bag, shoved my feet in a pair of sneakers, and let myself out into the hall. I held my breath as I tiptoed to the stairs, ears straining for any noises coming from my parents’ room on the opposite side of the house.
They were going to be so pissed. I’d be grounded until I was thirty. But the end justified the means. If I could show the police department irrefutable proof that put Mr. Rollins behind bars and freed Lucian, it would all be worth it.
I detoured into my dad’s office and grabbed the cordless phone off his desk. I wasn’t sure if the signal would reach from next door, but I could at least run and dial 911 if necessary. Phone secured in the tote bag with the rest of my equipment, I unlocked the front door and slipped out into the night.
I stumbled twice in my haste, my heart pounding louder the closer I got.
There were lights on, upstairs and down.
“Please be downstairs,” I murmured to myself, wincing when I realized I was actually hoping that a woman was about to be attacked. I felt sick to my stomach as I stayed low and made my way up to the front window.
This was going to work. It had to work.
I heard voices, one soft and pleading, one raised. A shadow passed by the glass, and I ducked low in the overgrown flower bed. Something with thorns bit into my forearm. Every twig snap, every breath, every beat of my heart sounded like it was amplified.
There was a dull thud inside and an angry muttering. Carefully, I reached into the bag and produced the recorder. I didn’t know if it was sensitive enough to pick up what was going on inside, but it was worth a try. I hit Record and placed it on the skinny window ledge.