Craig liked seeing his stepmom like this, a bit shook up. He couldn’t remember the last time he had called her “Mom,” if ever, and now was the time to get things settled.
“What’s up?” he said. “This is what’s up, Jessica. It’s time for you to know some facts, okay?”
Her voice was soft. “What kind of facts, Craig?”
He had to laugh. This was going to be fine. Months and years of frustration were about to come right out and slap his pretty stepmom right in the face. Yeah, she was pretty, and maybe she was a MILF after all, but this was going to be all right.
Craig calmly said, “Your precious, pampered track star, your golden girl who can do no wrong, is one mean cold-blooded bitch.”
“Craig, I’m not going to let you—”
“Oh, you’re going to let me, Jessica, or I’m going to the police.”
That seemed to knock her back on her heels. “The police? What for?”
“To tell them the truth about Emma—and everything else.”
Jessica turned her head and looked at the school. The wind had come up, disturbing her hair, and she had a memory of a Greek mythology class and a drawing of the evil Medusa.
Like mother, like daughter.
“What truth is that, Craig?”
“Truth? Here’s the truth. Me and Emma, we went over to Sam Warner’s house Saturday night. Your sweet precious innocent little girl knew I’d done math homework for Sam, and she wanted me to introduce her. Seems like some of her teammates had been invited to this special party and she couldn’t stand being left out. She also wanted a chance to see if she could hook up with the captain of the wrestling team. Pretty basic, huh? But Sam had other ideas. I was there and found out he had her taken up to his bedroom after a few drinks. So I did the noble older brother thing, tried to go up and get her out of there, and this is what I got for being brave and looking out for your perfect daughter.”
Craig slowly lifted his jacket and T-shirt, showing his stepmom the fading letters on his belly. FAG.
Jessica gave it a good long look. He lowered his coat and shirt.
“Emma barfed all over Sam. He was pissed, and as I got her out of there, after they whacked me around some, he told me that Emma had better come back sometime later to finish the job or he’d make her life hell at school.”
“How?” Jessica asked.
“Go figure it out,” Craig said, nearly shaking his head at how stupid she was. “You want to know why Emma was in her bedroom all day Sunday? She was still coming down off the drinking and the roofie. I told her what Sam was threatening to do, and then she came up with a plan.”
Craig stopped talking. Waited. Jessica just stood there as if she were carved out of rock or some tough gray wood.
She shook her head. “What was the plan, Craig?”
“Pretty simple. When I went in to grab Emma, I saw that Sam was recording what was going on. I told Emma later. The plan was for me to reach out to Sam, ask him for a copy of the video, and then we’d make a trade—the video on a thumb drive, and then Emma would suck him off. Sam wouldn’t pass the video around, and Emma wouldn’t get the treatment.”
Jessica said, “Oh, no.”
Craig laughed. “Man, you really don’t know the half of it, do you, Jessica? That was only part of the deal. Emma wanted something else.”
“What’s that?”
Jessica gazed at the nearly empty stands and thought, how could she have been so stupid? The wrestling team hadn’t been up there to support their fellow athletes, as she had assumed. No, they had been up there on a scouting mission, seeking out fresh meat.
“I don’t believe you, Craig,” she said.
“I don’t care if you do or don’t,” her stepson replied. “But it’s the truth. And there’s more.”
Craig now knew what it must have been like to be Sam Warner, feeling on top of things, good and stable, and most of all, being in charge. Jessica was no longer his stepmom, complaining about toilet seats being left up or socks not going down the laundry chute. Nope. This adult woman, twice his age, now belonged to him. It felt great. No wonder Sam Warner had smiled all the fucking time.
Craig said, “Emma came to me with her plan, her deal. The two of us would meet Sam in the town woods, Sam would hand over the thumb drive, and then I’d . . . I’d shoot him.”
“You? How?”
“Thanks to Mark Borman’s dad. He’s a gun nut. Belongs to the NRA and the Gun Owners Action League. I took a shotgun from his collection that you can break down and put in a knapsack. So I had that with me, and when Emma was going to go up to Sam and take care of him, I was going to kill him.”
There was a rumble of thunder. “That was going to happen Tuesday night, with us sneaking out of the house. We borrowed Randy McMahon’s Jetta, but the piece of crap died on us. I wanted to turn back, but Emma insisted we keep on going, even if we had to walk. We got on the trail, and—”
Jessica said, “You found Sam Warner. Dead.”
“Yep.”
“So, no scavenger hunt?”
Craig laughed. “I told Emma that you’d believe that story ’cause you wanted to, and that Dad would be suspicious. But it worked, didn’t it? So we came back home the long way and soaking wet.”
“Some story.”
“Yeah, but it’s not the end. One more thing, Jessica, one more thing, and if it doesn’t get settled, I’m going to the cops in the next fifteen minutes. And then their investigation is going to include Emma, and the whole world will know about it. Know about the real Emma Thornton, not the made-up running doll.”
Jessica tried to bring back that sense she had had a few minutes ago of being on this track field, happy that at last things were being settled and were on the right path, and now this . . . boy. This creature, this demon, had come up to spoil everything.
“Go on,” she said. “Tell me.”
Craig thought, Well, now we’re getting somewhere. He said, “Emma promised me something to go out there and shoot Sam. She said, ‘We get out there and go home and Sam Warner is dead, I’ll take care of you.’ That was the promise.”
“Really?” she asked. “You were going to kill a fellow student because of a promise my daughter gave you?”
Lots of old memories came to him—of Sam bumping his books away, shoving him into lockers, tripping him in the cafeteria. He hated that his eyes were tearing up, but he said, “Once Emma got me going, I didn’t mind. Thing was, I wanted to kill the shit. I really did. And when we got there, he was dead, and then Emma, she backed out on the deal.”
His stepmother said, “A deal? What kind of deal?”
Craig couldn’t believe how happy he felt, telling his nutty stepmother the following sentence. “Jessica, the deal was, Emma said she was going to take care of me if Sam Warner ended up dead. Sam’s dead. And Emma hasn’t taken care of me.”
“Craig—”
“Yeah,” he said. “In exchange for seeing the captain of the wrestling team dead, your precious sweet innocent golden child was going to pimp out one of her friends. Kate Romer. She told me that Kate would go out with me and suck me off. And your bitch daughter didn’t come through. Stupid me, I believed her.”
Jessica looked like she had just been slapped in the face. “That’s the truth?” she managed to say.
He nodded. “The truth. And if I don’t get taken care of . . . well, I’m going to the cops. Christ, I don’t know what the cops will say or do, but I’m sure that Emma’s name will be out there. She’ll be humiliated, embarrassed. Hell, for all I know, maybe she did shoot the asshole.”
“But Craig . . .”
He lifted his shirt again. FAG. Kept it up.
He said, “It’s one thing if a guy or girl comes out gay. So what? But it’s another if people think you’re a fag and you’re not. Kids in school are already talking. And so I need to prove that I’m not a fag, to shut them up.”
His stepmom’s face looked frozen, like one of those Botoxed housewives she liked to watch so much on Bravo.
“So you don’t want students to think you’re gay. You’d force your sister to have one of her friends perform oral sex on you, is that it? And then tell your friends later what happened?”
Craig lowered his shirt. “She promised. I wouldn’t be forcing her at all. And she’s not my sister. So yeah, that doesn’t count.” He reached into his coat pocket, took out a thumb drive, made a twirling motion with his hand in front of Jessica’s eyes. “Here’s the video of your little girl with Sam’s cock in her mouth, before she got sick, that I hacked from Sam’s laptop. So yeah, that’s the truth. And in addition to going to the cops, I’ll email this to every student and teacher at Warner High School. Just to get even. For everything, including my dad getting arrested.”
Jessica just stared at him. Her look should have scared him, but it didn’t.
“So, what’s it going to be?” he asked. “Mom?”