The Finalists, page 27
“He knew about your status, didn’t he?”
The moment draws out. I stay in my place, feet planted to the cellar floor like weeds.
She starts pounding again, three quick swings of whatever she’s using to bash the door. Wood splinters and cracks, a deeper, more fractured sound than has been made before. More light comes through, a shaft that cuts across Natalia’s face. Sweaty, determined.
She speaks through huffing breaths. “When he and Milo were talking about climbing, Mexico came up. I mentioned that I was born there. I should have kept my mouth shut. But then Milo told him I was undocumented. That’s what I was trying to explain to him before the exam.”
My mouth is dry. “How did Milo know you were undocumented?”
“From honors class. Some of the students knew. He must have heard. He was trying to undermine me with Mr. Hyde by telling him my status. What does this have to do with Mr. Hyde dying?”
Lying to or hiding the truth from students never works. And it rubs me the wrong way. “He wrote a note in the bylaws that indicated he knew you were undocumented.”
“He said he was thinking of making a change to the bylaws. I wasn’t sure if he went through with it. What a shit.”
“He meant to cut you out of the competition. It’s wrong, Natalia, and I’ll do anything I can to fight it. He was drunk or not in his right mind. In fact—”
“So if I remain, I don’t get the scholarship. And if I leave, I don’t get it. And I might get accused of murder too, which means dealing with the authorities and the attendant hassle that might come as a result.”
“I think you should stay. I think we can—”
She swings at the door two more times. The second one punches through, opening a space more than a foot across. Past Natalia a fragment of blue sky, a puffy cloud.
She tosses her tool away and starts tearing at the boards, widening the opening.
Then the first half of her body is through, her legs digging against the wall for propulsion.
I move toward her, but before I get to the short flight of stairs and the door, Natalia slips through the opening and is gone—her heavy shoes disappearing along with the rest of her into the world that exists outside of Hyde House.
I move quickly, heedless of any obstacles.
A shaft of light comes through the opening Natalia made, illuminating the set of stone stairs, the splintered door. Even the bloodstain on the dirt floor where Duffy lay.
My foot mounts the bottom step. My hands go up, trying to find purchase without grabbing a fistful of splinters. I fumble around, get poked in the palm a few times, take splinters under my skin.
“Ow. Shit.”
I toss the book of bylaws out through the opening. I search around, and in a faint sliver of light I see an old screwdriver with a wooden handle. I use it to chip away at the door, trying to expand the opening so I can fit. It’s awkward work in the tight space, and I miss my mark more than I hit it. On my tenth chip, the screwdriver slips out of my hand and clatters back to the cellar floor.
“Crap.”
The longer I wait inside, the farther away Natalia gets.
“Okay, okay.”
I find a clear space where I can grab on and pull with both hands. My body braces, my knees bend.
But I don’t go.
The captain’s close reading of the bylaws pops into my mind. If the presiding officer leaves the house before four o’clock, then the entire scholarship process is null and void. Forever.
Forever. As my dad always says, forever is a long, long time.
But haven’t we all bowed and scraped enough?
Two people are dead. Duffy is hurt. Possibly seriously.
And Natalia is running away—which puts her in greater danger.
What do I care about the most?
The burning pain in my arms and shoulders and back flares as I heave my body up, kicking my legs, digging my shoes against the stone wall in the same way Natalia did.
Splinters dig into my side, tear at my shirt. The opening presses against me, grabbing, clutching. My breath comes quickly, accompanied by the grip of panic, a stuck feeling like I might not make it out.
My mind conjures a picture of a grown man stuck in a cellar opening, waiting for someone to come and rescue him.
“No. Nonononono.”
The words may have been spoken out loud or shouted in my brain. But they inspire me, push me like a mantra.
My arms push against the opening. Push and push. My teeth are gritting, grinding against one another so hard they might crack.
Then a hint of relief, pressure easing against my body. My arms burn and shake, but I keep going. More relief. The opening scrapes against my thighs, my knees.
I grab fistfuls of grass, dig my nails into the dirt as I keep pulling. And pulling.
My feet kick free, clearing the opening. My body collapses against the ground, my heart throbbing in my chest like a ringing alarm. Cold sweat against my skin, beneath my clothes.
I open my eyes. Blue sky. One fat puffy cloud. A flock of birds.
I’m out.
68
MY CHEST RISES AND falls for a few moments.
I smell grass and dirt, hear birds singing somewhere in the trees. The rear of Hyde House is an imposing wall of faded brick and chipped mortar. The bulkhead doors look splintered and rotten.
Where’s Natalia?
I push myself to my feet and wobble a bit. My upper body hurts. My knee stings. The trip through the basement and out the hole has stained my clothes like I’ve been in a fight. I search in the grass, notice the bylaws sitting like a fat toad. I gather them up.
Thirty feet away the woods begin, the trees just coming into the fullness of their spring greenery, but not yet thick enough to hide someone. I jog that way, each step jarring my body and heightening the pain. I reach the trees, crunch over twigs and old leaves. The scent of loam and pine grows stronger.
“Natalia?”
I stop, tilt my head to listen. The breeze picks up, shaking the branches overhead, stirring the grass. At any other time, I’d marvel over the beauty of the spring day. I’d want Rachel and the girls here with me, walking through the woods at a leisurely pace together. Relaxed.
No such luck.
I lift my free hand to my mouth again. “Natalia?”
A twig snaps on my left, causing me to spin that way. A squirrel scampers across the ground and then up a tree.
My heart pounds more and more. It must be pumping sweat out of my body with each beat. I swipe my arm across my forehead.
One more time: “Natalia?”
But she’s gone. No sign of her.
I try not to think the worst—the crushed pills, the disdain for Milo, the hateful note written by Nicholas Hyde.
The running away . . .
I can’t dwell.
I can save the others, so I sprint.
Around the side and out toward the front. In the distance, cops and protestors remain at the barricade. Chief stands to one side, a phone pressed to his ear. I run and run, my chest on fire.
The protestors see me, start to jeer and shake their signs.
I ignore them, keep going. Chief sees me, checks his watch, ends his phone call. He starts my way, moving faster and more gracefully than I am.
When we reach each other, I can’t talk. Can barely breathe . . .
“Chief . . .”
“What the hell is going on, Troy? You’re supposed to be inside.”
“Trouble, Chief. Big trouble . . .”
“Where?”
The other cops come our way as the protestors increase their volume.
“People are dead, Chief. Inside the house. Hurt too. Call . . . call for help. . . .”
Without hesitating, he’s on his lapel radio. And moving at the same time. All the police are moving. And so am I. Toward the house, trying to help.
PART 4
AFTERMATH
69
ONE ADVANTAGE OF LIVING in a small community—it never takes long for help to arrive.
The chief’s concern runs in two directions: First he called for help for Duffy. Then he began treating the house as a crime scene and everyone emerging as a suspect.
Within five minutes, an ambulance whoop whoops its arrival, turning down the drive and arriving at the front door, accompanied by two Bluefield town cruisers and a Kentucky State Police car that must have heard the call and decided to come along for the ride.
While the paramedics unload their gear—a stretcher, black equipment cases, a defibrillator—and haul it all up onto the portico and into the house, the chief herds the ambulatory students—and me—out the front door and onto the lawn, all the while barking orders at the officers.
“Lord,” the chief says, “who on earth could have seen this coming?”
Sydney asks to stay with Duffy while the paramedics attend to him, but the chief shakes his head and informs her that she has to leave along with everyone else, that Duffy is in the best hands possible, and that it’s an encouraging sign that he’s conscious and able to communicate.
“Besides,” the chief says, “we need to get statements from all of you while it’s still fresh in your minds.”
“Can I have my phone back to call my mom?” Sydney asks.
“I’d like to make a call too, sir. By the way, did you find Natalia?”
“She ran off. Chief, there’s one missing. Natalia Gomez. She ran out the bulkhead doors and took off. That’s how I managed to get out. . . .”
“We’ll look for her,” Chief says.
“Chief? She’s scared. Okay?”
“I hear you.”
“Can I get my phone?” I ask. “Can we all? Word will spread quickly through the campus community and the town. Rachel and the girls will hear about trouble at Hyde House. A lot of people will. Can we just tell our loved ones we’re okay before the rumors start to fly?”
The chief rubs his forehead. “Sure.” He calls one of his underlings over. “Go get those phones out of the car. One call each. One. To their parents or guardians. And make it a fast one.”
The officer jogs back to the barricade, the equipment on his belt jangling. The three healthy students and I stand around in a loose grouping. Everyone wears a shell-shocked look, like we’ve all been hit over the head with shovels. The sun is bright and warm, mocking us with the beauty of the spring day.
“We’re safe now,” I say because I have to say something.
Chief comes over and starts pointing. “Separate. Stand apart. We need to talk to you all individually. Spread out. One of you knows something.”
The captain’s eyes follow the officer heading to the barricade. “That’s odd.”
“What is?” I ask.
“The protestors. They’re all leaving.”
He’s right. About fifteen or twenty remain, and they’re all wandering off, taking their signs and chants with them. But they don’t appear to be dispersing out of boredom or hunger or exasperation. They walk off—march off—as though they have somewhere else to go.
“Maybe they can tell there’s been trouble, and they don’t want to add to it,” Sydney says.
My eyes pull toward Emily, but I force myself not to look. No one else needs to be singled out. No one else needs to be suspected. Not by me. It’s in the chief’s hands now, so I keep my eyes on the dispersing crowd.
“I don’t really care why they go,” I say, “so long as everyone leaves peacefully and safely.”
“Amen,” the captain says.
“Spread out,” Chief says, his voice rising.
So we do. We drift apart under the watchful eyes of the police.
But as if the protestors hear me and want to prove me wrong, two of them at the rear of the pack stop and come back toward the house. It’s impossible to make out their faces or anything about them from this distance, but they stand at the barricade. Waiting. Watching.
“What gives?” Sydney asks.
One of them, the figure on the right, turns toward the other and reaches into a pack strapped to their companion’s back. Maybe hunger is exerting its influence, the need for a sandwich or a granola bar.
The protestor pulls something out of the pack, extending it from their body, and then the protestor wearing the pack extends their hands as well and starts moving their arms around.
“It’s a weapon of some kind, sir.”
“No way,” I say.
The police officer pays them no mind. He pulls the locked and zippered canvas bag out of the back of the cruiser and starts to jog toward us at the same jangling pace. I try to find Chief, but he’s going back inside the house in the wake of the paramedics, who are tending to Duffy.
“Then what is it?” the captain asks. “Another brick?”
“If it’s a brick, it’s no threat to us,” Sydney says. “No one could throw something that far.”
“You’re right,” I say. “See?”
The officer reaches us with the bag. As he does, something flashes between the two protestors. A dim spark in the afternoon light. The protestor on the left continues to move their arms in that herky-jerky way, almost like—
The flash again.
“Is that a match?” Sydney asks.
“Too bright for that,” the captain says. “They’re lighting something.”
The protestor pivots to their left, moving closer to their partner. Then a burst of sparks erupts between the two of them.
“Is it an incendiary of some kind, sir?”
Sydney gasps.
“Officer?”
The cop turns, takes two steps toward the protestors, the zippered bag in his hand. “Move back, move back.”
We all retreat, stumbling backward toward the safety of the portico.
The protestor on the right lifts the sparking, flaming device in their hand, raising it toward the sky like they’re the Statue of Liberty.
“They can’t reach us,” Emily says. “Even if it were—”
The protestor’s hand erupts.
It shoots a flaming burst into the air. Red. Then another. Blue. Then another—
“It’s a Roman candle,” the cop says. “Just a firework.”
Three more flaming balls shoot out of the tube. They rise high in the air, making a soft whoomping noise that we can hear across the lawn, and when they reach their apex, they pop into a starburst pattern and sparks before falling harmlessly to earth.
“My God,” Sydney says, “I’m sick of this shit.”
When the candle tube empties, the protestor tosses it to the ground, spins on their heel, and starts walking off after the rest of the group, their companion at their side.
“Is that it?” the captain asks. “They just wanted to set off an inane firework and leave? Why?”
“I don’t know,” I say, my breath rushing like a gathering storm again. “I just don’t know.”
The cop turns to us with the bag. “Well, they’re gone,” he says. “We can forget about them for now.”
Something rattles at the door behind us, causing us all to turn.
The paramedics are coming out—with Duffy on the stretcher between them.
70
THE STRETCHER CLATTERS OVER the threshold and then down the one step leading from the portico to the sidewalk.
A sheet covers Duffy all the way to his chin, and his eyes are closed. When the paramedics come abreast of us, Duffy mutters something, and the paramedics stop.
“Is Mr. Gaines there . . . ?”
“I’m here, Duffy. But they need to get you help.”
“Oh.” He swallows hard. His lips look painfully dry and chapped, but some color appears to have returned to his face. “I just . . . I don’t think the captain hurt me in the basement. . . . It wasn’t his fault. . . . He wanted me to stay and not run away. He said that. . . . But then I fell when I was swinging that crowbar at the door. . . . It’s a tight space. . . . I fell back. . . .”
“Just don’t worry about it, Duffy. Okay? The police are going to question everyone. They’ll examine Milo and Mr. Hyde. They’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“I just . . . We all left. . . . Is the scholarship over?” Duffy asks.
I sense everyone else, all the students, looking at me, waiting for the answer. I choose my words carefully.
“I’m not sure. But we all kind of left together, and I’ll do whatever I can to see that somebody wins.”
“But we didn’t—” Sydney says.
“And I know you and Duffy didn’t do the interview part. We can try to take care of that too.”
“But, sir, the bylaws say—”
“Yeah, well, fuck the bylaws. Okay?”
Duffy manages a small laugh, and the paramedics carry him over to the ambulance. They load him in while we all watch.
“Hold on one second,” the chief says. He uses one of his two million keys to open the canvas bag as he walks to the back of the ambulance. “Which one is yours?”
“Android,” Duffy says.
Chief fishes around and brings out the right phone. He hands it to the paramedics and then turns to the rest of us.
“Here you all go,” he says as he opens the bag.
Like a school of piranhas jumping on a wounded fish, the students descend. It takes seconds for them each to find their device and pull it out of the bag. They all step away, ready to call whoever they need to call.
“Just one call,” the chief says. “And make it fast. Okay?”
I grab my own phone and turn my back on the small crowd, tucking the bylaws under my left armpit. My fingers quake as I call Rachel, and it takes forever for her to answer.
“What’s wrong?” she asks instead of saying hello. “It’s only—it’s just after three.”
