Jacob slammed his hand into the wall. “What do you mean?” He breathed heavily, his face turning a mottled red.
“Calm down,” Tyler whispered. He grabbed his brother and pulled him out of the kitchen and into the backyard, away from their parents, who were watching old reruns of America’s Next Top Model in the den.
“What do you mean you can’t get it?” Jacob was standing close, and obvious panic was lurking just beneath his skin.
“I tried, dude,” Tyler said. “There was a cop staked out.” He lowered his voice, glancing toward the neighbors’ house to make sure no one was outside. “He freaking walked up to my car and asked me what I was doing there. I barely got out.”
Jacob paced back and forth in the backyard, trampling a pair of their mother’s prized yellow tulips. “Shit. Shit, Tyler. What are we going to do? I have the St. Andrews meet coming up.” He clasped his hands together and blew into them, like it was cold instead of midsummer.
“There’s nothing to do,” Tyler said gently. “Jacob, we’re done. We can’t get it, okay? You need to stop.”
Jacob sat down on the grass and started rocking, and before Tyler realized what was happening, his older brother was crying quietly on the lawn, picking up little threads of grass.
Tyler squatted down. “It’s okay, Jake.”
Jacob glared at him through his tears. “It’s not okay. I can’t swim without them.”
“You’re not going to tell Mom and Dad, right?”
Jacob looked up at his older brother, and for a second, Tyler was reminded of when Jacob really was his brother. When they’d ride through the neighborhood together on matching bikes until their mother called them in for supper. When they played Crazy Eights on Jacob’s bed until Tyler was tired enough to fall asleep. When they would sleep on the floor of the den and watch scary movies after their parents had gone to bed.
How had everything gotten so screwed up?
Jacob wiped his nose on the sleeve of his T-shirt. “You have to figure out a way, Tyler. I won’t tell Mom and Dad, though.”
Tyler nodded. “Thanks, bro.” He reached out and clasped his brother’s shoulder.
“I’ll tell your probation officer.”
Tyler’s whole body felt like he’d just been covered in hot, wet cement. He let his hand fall.
Jacob would tell . . . Jacob would do . . . what? He’d send his own brother to juvie? Into the military? For a drug? Because he was pissed off ?
Tyler felt sick.
“You’d do that?”
Jacob returned his gaze steadily. “Well, you’d ruin my life like that. My whole career. My chance to transition out of community and into a Division One school. So yeah. I guess I would.”
Tyler’s blood went hot-cold and then hot again. “You know, they drug test a little more hardcore in D-One.”
Jacob jumped up. “What are you saying?” He lurched closer, his breath warm on Tyler’s face.
“I’m saying that it’s a lot harder to be an addict when everyone’s watching. No one cares when you’re the big fish at a stupid community college. But when you’re competing at a high level? It’s just a matter of time.”
Jacob smiled. “Then you better get me the good stuff, little brother. Because when I go down, you’re going to go down right along with me.”
“Why wait?” Tyler asked, raising his voice. He felt strange and reckless. “Let’s just do this now. Let’s tell everybody.” He laughed, and it hurt in his stomach. “My dickhead brother’s a cheat, everyone! And I help him do it!”
“Shut up,” Jacob said.
“What? Why?”
“Shut up or I’ll kill you.”
Tyler stopped. He stared at his brother. Into his eyes, which were cold and hard and unfamiliar.
A lot of killing going around these days. Some deep, sick part of Tyler wanted to laugh again, but he couldn’t.
“You’re going to do this for me, Tyler,” Jacob said. “You’re going to call your little friends and you’re going to figure this out. Don’t test me again.”
“Fine.”
The word hurt to say.
Because he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
Jer was being staked out by the cops, the number-one people he wanted to avoid on account of being involved with Stratford.
But if he didn’t return, and his brother actually told, then he’d end up in the exact same position.
Unless he could get the drugs, he was screwed. He was done. But Jacob wasn’t his brother right now. He was someone else.
But Tyler knew what to do.
He left Jacob in the backyard and went up to his room, where he locked the door.
His mother had gotten him a bookshelf back when she was trying to influence his tastes. It was filled, mostly, with a set of encyclopedias she’d insisted on buying, even though Tyler’s father had sworn up and down that nobody ever used encyclopedias anymore.
No one knew, but Tyler did use those encyclopedias. Some nights, when he couldn’t sleep—which was most of them—he’d choose one and look up faraway things until his eyes got tired.
Tyler reached under the top of the shelf, just above the D and E tomes, and unpeeled a tiny Ziploc bag.
Inside, there was an earpiece and a flash drive. It was what Kinley used to record her answers. He’d erase her psych notes, and then use it to record his brother, threatening him. He was going to get to his probation officer first.
He doubled-checked the door, then plugged the flash drive into the computer. His media player popped up, and Kinley’s voice began in his speakers.
Her voice was rich and deep and full. Just like her. He hadn’t talked to her much in the past couple of days, and suddenly he was filled with a strong yearning. She was so damn gorgeous.
He wanted to see her.
He wanted to kiss her.
He wanted to see her naked. To touch the soft velvet that was her skin.
Tyler wished he’d answered her calls. Her texts. He hadn’t wanted her involved in the shit with his brother. He hadn’t wanted anyone involved.
And he hadn’t wanted anyone to know. His brother was supposed to be perfect. Tyler had wanted to keep him that way. He’d wanted to give his parents one child they could really believe in.
Kinley’s voice went on in his ear about psychosexual stages and Freud and pain, and it reached some strange, latent part of him. He lay back on his bed and shut his eyes, and he wished that she was there with him. Beside him. In his arms.
And then she stopped, midsentence. There was scuffling. Mumbling.
He sat, bolt upright, his body cold.
He could hear rain.
There was rain on the speaker. Like rain falling against a building.
He knew that rain.
It went on for a minute, maybe two, before fading into the silence. Thick, heavy silence, the kind broken only by uncomfortable shifts and pain.
And then—
“Are you cold?”
It was Tyler’s voice.
“I know I shouldn’t be, but I am. I hate that he’s in there.”
Kinley.
And then Tyler, again. “I know.” There was some shuffling of straw. “We’re okay, though. And we’re going to be okay, you know. They’ll be back.”
Tyler listened. He listened as the whole horrific scene was played out again. Some parts he couldn’t hear, but he could hear enough.
More than anyone really needed.
And yet . . . Kinley had been quiet that night. She didn’t come off innocent, exactly, but good enough that if she ever decided to turn in the tape, she didn’t look as bad as the rest of them.
A cold rivulet of sweat ran down Tyler’s face.
The whole time they had been worried about a fuzzy phone call that had been made from Mattie’s pocket.
And the thing that could doom them all had been sitting on Kinley’s desk like so much homework.
He ripped the earpiece out. He had to get rid of this. He had to ruin it before anyone else could hear it. It couldn’t go back on his bookshelf, where it had been, hiding next to a bag of good weed and a stolen cell phone.
He unlocked his door and walked, very quietly and calmly, down the stairs. His parents were still in the den, and Jacob wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
He would call Kinley, and he would talk to her, and, somehow, he would find out if she had made any copies.
Tyler rested his hands on both sides of the sink and tried to keep his head from spinning. He clenched his teeth until his jaw hurt and the dizziness subsided.
Then he dropped the flash drive in the drain, and flipped the garbage disposal on.