Try Not to Breathe, page 4
“I’ve had better moments.”
“You could still be a real cop if you wanted to.”
“You know that ship has sailed. I’m in school for something else so I don’t have to arrest frat boys or drunk drivers or whatever else anymore. And with the Tanya Burns shooting, by a KSP officer, the job is never going to have the same luster for me. Maybe not for anyone.”
“That’s what the fight was about. Dad and Anna. They got into it over Tanya Burns. You can imagine Dad’s take on the whole thing. Plus—”
“Plus, he trained Shaw. I’m sure he sang his praises to Anna. Dad’s not going to back down. We know that.”
“We do.”
Avery turned away. She couldn’t look at Alisha when she spoke again. “And I have a paper to write this weekend. Anna is a college student. She’s probably off having fun. Maybe she’s saying ‘Fuck you’ to Dad the way I always wanted to.”
“I think he got that message from you, Avery.”
“Did he? I’m not sure he ever heard anything I said.”
Alisha planted both feet on the floor and placed her hands on her thighs. “So I guess you’re giving me a hard no.”
“The hardest.”
Alisha slipped her phone out of her back jeans pocket. Her mouth scrunched. “And I have to head back. It’s an hour drive.” She stood up, reached for her coat. “I’ll keep you in the loop. Let’s hope we hear from Anna soon.”
Something beat at the walls of Avery’s chest. Words and gestures that wanted to get out but couldn’t. A block of ice that wouldn’t melt. A barrier existed between her and even Alisha, one she couldn’t find a way around. One she didn’t remember erecting but that had always been there.
“Do you remember what Mom used to say about Dad?” Alisha asked, her hand on the knob. “You know, after he left her.”
Avery remained silent.
“She used to tell Dad he was going to die alone. Remember that?”
Once Alisha was gone, Avery said, “Drive safe, Al.”
7
As Anna drove out of Breckville in the late afternoon—sun rays slanting, light catching the leaves just turning gold and red—she felt like a curtain had dropped behind her.
Something was finished. Completed.
Time to shut everything down and start all over again.
She breathed easier, opened the window on the driver’s side of her thirdhand Corolla, and let the air stream in and blow against her face. Tiny Breckville receded in the rearview. On either side of her, fences gave way to fields, acre upon acre of rolling grass, bright green from the recent rain. Cows, moving like they were in slow motion, dotted the landscape. Giant round hay bales, as gold as the sun, covered the hillsides.
Relief.
Anna opted for taking back roads to Louisville. She wanted to avoid crowds and traffic, the endless, mind-numbing parade of fast-food restaurants and gas stations. She wanted to see something real, allow her mind to clear.
She’d done her due diligence before leaving town.
She had texted Kayla, honoring the request her roommate had made. She said she was headed to Louisville for the weekend to see her high school friend Rachel. All true. Anna had texted Rachel that morning, told her that she was planning to make the two-hour drive east and then north and that Rachel should put some beer on ice for her. Rachel had texted back raising-hands emojis, five of them in a row, and that was all Anna needed to start the drive.
Kayla wrote back one word: Cool.
A feeling of ease swept through Anna’s body like a soothing balm. Was Kayla letting her off the hook? That was so unlike her. . . .
Then another text: Did you talk to your mom?
Anna’s skin prickled as if she were lying on a bed of dull nails. She hated to lie. Kayla was the best friend she had at school. Kayla watched her back with a ferocity usually found inside families. The way a sibling should watch your back. Like Alisha. But Alisha’s kids took precedence now. Anna couldn’t blame her sister for that—obviously. The dynamic had shifted when her nieces were born. She still talked to Alisha on the phone, saw her whenever she could, but her sister always seemed distracted. Frazzled and tired, like someone who had just lost their to-do list and couldn’t re-create it.
And Avery . . . Anna gritted her teeth. Fucking Avery, who lived in the same town. Who even went to the same school. Anna had texted Avery a few times when she moved to Breckville, asking if she wanted to get together for coffee or lunch or just to go for a walk, but her oldest sister always wrote back claiming to be too busy or tied up with something else, until Anna just stopped asking and accepted they wouldn’t ever be close.
Fucking Avery.
No, no. No negative thoughts. Look ahead to the weekend. Enjoy the ride. . . .
But Anna had lied to Kayla. She texted back before leaving town: It’s cool.
What does that mean?
I’m taking care of it. My mom.
Did you talk to her?
I’m going right by their house on the way to Lville. It’s halfway. I’ll stop.
A long break in the messages. Anna loved Kayla, loved her to death, but sometimes Kayla felt more like a parent or a teacher than a friend. Why did Anna always think she was letting Kayla down?
Are you really?
For sure. I’ll let you know when I get there.
Was there any sign of the creep?
Nada.
And Anna consoled herself by thinking that she wasn’t really lying about her parents. Not yet, anyway. She’d be lying only if she drove past her hometown—Upton—and just plain old didn’t stop. Or, she could tell herself, she’d stop and see them on the way back to campus once she’d had a good weekend of fun in Louisville.
Right? That could also happen?
Tanya Burns. Officer Shaw.
The names made an uninvited appearance in Anna’s mind. A bitter taste filled her mouth.
A grain silo, its roof collapsed or blown off by a storm, stood in the distance. It looked lonely, forgotten, with no farm nearby. No purpose to serve. Anna hated trying to lie to herself most of all—and who exactly was she kidding? She wasn’t going by her parents’ house. She knew she had no intention of doing it. Call it what it was—she had lied to Kayla. Just to make her escape, to slip away for the weekend without any consequences.
She kept her eyes on the silo as she passed. She pictured the old man collapsing in on himself. Nothing for him to do but nurse old wounds, curse the world that had passed him by. She felt pressure in her chest, heaviness. Her dad always sat there like a stone inside of her. Her grip grew loose and shaky on the wheel.
No, no. Don’t fall for it. He milked his injury for all its worth. What did Alisha call it? Learned helplessness? Her dad got everybody in his orbit to do exactly what he wanted. And right now he wanted Anna to finish her degree in criminology, go to law school, enter the family business of law enforcement. Her dad had started pushing her even harder toward a career in law the day Avery quit working for the Kentucky State Police. Before that, Anna couldn’t recall the old man showing any interest in her career or major.
Something else to thank Avery for. Wasn’t the oldest sibling supposed to absorb the heat? Clear the way for the ones who came after? Wasn’t the youngest supposed to lie back and draft off the others, let the older kids get all the scrutiny?
Avery had made that impossible when she left her job. Alisha had always flown under the radar, and then she got married and started pushing out babies. So Anna’s number came up. Dad elected her to carry the family torch. And Anna did it for a while. Was that why Avery hated her so much? Because Anna basically took over for her, stepped into the limelight that their dad seemed capable of shining on only one of them at a time?
No, it had started long before that. It started before Anna was born, when their dad fucked around on Avery and Alisha’s mom, caused that marriage to fall apart before Anna’s sisters were teens. Anna kind of hated the old man for doing that too, even though she—strangely—owed her life to his inability to keep his urges under control.
Whoop-whoop.
A blue flash in the rearview. “Shit.”
The cruiser steamed up behind her, its lights and grille filling her vision.
Had her speed crept higher while her mind wandered?
Anna guided the car to the berm, her tires crunching gravel and who knew what else littered the side of the road. She shook her head, slapped the steering wheel, and added that inconvenience to the list of grievances she kept against her family.
“Fucking cops,” she said.
8
Anna’s heart thumped.
Two cars whooshed by in the opposite direction, sending a gust of air through her already open window. In the side-view mirror, she watched the cop step out, start to approach.
She recognized the gray shirt and gray pants, the ludicrous Smokey Bear hat the size of a flying saucer. KSP. Kentucky State Police.
“Score,” Anna said. Her breathing eased. It could have been a county cop or a local yokel, but she had caught a break. KSP cruising out here in the hinterlands. She watched him come closer, smelled the tar and oil from the road.
The trooper leaned down. He wore reflective sunglasses, and beneath the silly hat, his hair was cropped close to his head. His jaw looked like it had been sculpted out of marble.
“Good day, ma’am,” he said, voice laced with a gentle Kentucky twang.
“Hello there.” She spotted his name tag. Always spot the name tag. Officer Carmichael.
“Do you know why I pulled you over today?” he asked.
It wasn’t Anna’s first rodeo. She’d been pulled over more than once. In high school, she’d liked to drive fast on the country roads near their house. But she’d slowed down since then, tried very hard not to overdo it. Of course, no cop had ever issued her a ticket. She needed only to mention her dad’s name and occupation. . . .
“I do,” she said. “I think I was going a little too fast back there, Officer Carmichael. See, it’s been a while since I came this way, and I was looking at—”
“Can I see your license, registration, and proof of insurance, please?”
Rude. He had interrupted her. Carmichael looked to be just a few years older than she was. If he’d walked into one of her classes and sat down next to her, wearing a T-shirt and shower sandals, she’d have assumed he belonged there.
“Sure. But can I just say something first?”
“What’s that?”
“Well, look, I know this is going to sound all entitled and everything, but my dad is Russell Rogers. Captain Russell Rogers. He’s retired from KSP. Actually, he got shot in the line of duty and had to retire with a disability. The bullet just totally wrecked his knee. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”
The cop’s lips pressed together. His head swiveled, turning to check out the back seat. Then the mirrored eyes landed on Anna again. He wore a short-sleeved shirt, and his arms were lean and sinewy. “Yes, ma’am, I’m familiar with Captain Rogers.”
“Oh, good. He always told me to mention his name if I was ever pulled over by the KSP. I’ve never actually been pulled over before, so I didn’t know—”
The lips spread into a cold smile. “If you don’t mind just getting me those documents I asked for. Thanks.”
Anna felt her mouth open. She knew she looked like a customer about to launch into a litany of complaints in a restaurant. She didn’t want to be that person. But she’d dropped the old man’s name more than once, and whenever she had, the officers had simply stepped back and wished her a good day. No need to see any documents. No need to talk or check anything else.
Why did Carmichael want to be difficult? Was he a rookie looking to earn some cheap points by catching a speeder?
“Okay, sure. Yeah.”
Anna fumbled in her bag, found the things Carmichael wanted. She held them out in her left hand, thinking maybe he’d stand on the side of the road, look them over, and then hand them back. Let her go with a smile and a kind word, a gentle admonition to drive more safely. But he glanced at the license quickly and said, “Anna, are you a student at Gracewood?”
“That’s right. Down in Breckville.”
“But you’re from Upton?”
“Yes. I grew up there.”
“My dad went to school at Gracewood.” He smiled again, and this time color rose in his cheeks. He took off his sunglasses, revealing eyes the same blue as the sky. “That was a while ago, of course.”
“Okay, cool. Yeah.”
“I went to UK myself. I studied criminal justice. But Gracewood is a really good school. I have friends who went there and said it was tough.”
Was this guy flirting with her? This cop? Anna’s friends took various approaches to getting out of tickets. One approach was crying. The other was to flirt—bat their eyes and smile and compliment the cop on how brave he was. She wasn’t sure the cop was supposed to flatter her.
He was better looking than Trevor. Or Eric.
And if it got her out of the ticket . . .
“Yeah, it is. Totally. But UK’s a really good school too. Both of my sisters went there.”
“Really. Nice.”
Anna waited for him to hand the stuff back and let her go. Instead, he tapped the documents against his palm. “Sit tight for a moment.”
“Oh . . . okay.”
He took one step, then turned back. “Do you mind if I ask where you’re headed today?”
A car whooshed by in their lane, kicking up road grit, but the cop didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m going to Louisville for the weekend. To see a friend. Can I ask how fast I was going? You haven’t said.”
“I clocked you at fifty-one in a thirty-five.”
“Sheesh. Well, did you hear me say I don’t drive out here that much? And you know, the speed limit changes from time to time, and I have a lot on my mind and everything. So you see how I slipped up. Right?”
“Yes, Anna.” He smiled again, like she’d really amused him.
When he was gone, Anna said, “Fucking cops.”
Like her dad. Like Avery. And now that guy was acting like he was going to write her a ticket. Sure, he claimed to have heard of the old man, but maybe he’d said that to be polite. It made sense her dad’s name would start to fade, that younger cops wouldn’t know who he was. A surprising sadness passed through her, and she again pictured him hobbling around the house, using a cane or even a walker to navigate the short distance from the living room to the bathroom. Her mom had asked Anna to take the trash out the last time she was home, and the number of empty bottles made the bag almost too heavy to carry.
She shut her eyes, dropped her chin to her chest. “Fuck. Am I a terrible daughter?”
“What’s that?”
Anna’s head popped up. “What?”
“I thought you said something.”
“I thought you were back in the cruiser writing me up.”
“Oh, no.” The cop looked sheepish as he handed her things back to her. “I don’t think there’s any reason for that. You’re right that the speed limit changes, and they don’t always mark things clearly. Besides, your dad . . .”
“Right.”
“You said something about being a daughter. I think.”
“I was just talking to myself. Like I said, there’s a lot on my mind.” She put her documents away. “Thanks for understanding. Well, be safe out here. . . .”
“Do you really want to know why I started to go back to the car?” Carmichael looked down at the road and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Once I heard about your dad, I wasn’t going to give you a ticket or anything. Really, I was just stalling because . . . my shift’s almost over, and I was going to get something to eat. And I thought, if you wanted to . . .”
Anna felt the tips of her ears burn. And a twisting in her stomach. He was flirting with her. “Oh, I see. Well, I am driving on to Louisville.”
“Everybody needs to eat,” he said. “And there’s a diner right up the road in McCoy. It isn’t fancy, but the food’s good. My treat, of course. And I could get called back on duty any minute. You know, if there’s a high-speed chase or a drug bust.”
“Or a cat stuck in a tree.”
He laughed, looked down at his shoes. “That’s the fire department. I’m afraid of heights.”
“You’re right. Firemen are a lot braver.”
“Seriously?” He looked back up, the smile wider to show he wasn’t really offended. “Are you going to say that to me? After I let you out of a ticket?”
“I think my dad got me out of the ticket.”
“And I bet your dad would want me to make sure you’re okay, to make sure you had a good meal in a fine dining establishment. One of the finest in McCoy.”
“Actually, my dad always told us not to date or marry cops. He said it was a bad choice.”
“He sounds like a wise man.”
“My sister dated a cop, though, a nice guy from what I know. But she never worried about what Dad thought.” Her stomach started rumbling, kicked into gear by the very mention of food. And free food at that. Anna’s funds were limited, since, when she had stopped going to class, she had also stopped going to her part-time job as the supervisor in a campus computer lab. “How far is this place?”
“Five miles. In McCoy, the next town.” He pointed in the direction she’d been heading. North. “I’ll be honest. There’s nothing else in McCoy. You can’t miss the diner. It’s called Glenn’s Place.”
“Sounds very fancy.”
“Glenn is a master chef. Actually, Glenn died in 1982.”
“Did he give himself food poisoning?”
“Car accident. He was speeding on this road. Going fifty-one.”
