“Uncle Bobby?” the voice repeated uncertainly.
I turned slowly, the gun still tucked in my waistband. The voice belonged to a girl in jeans and sneakers and an oversize Oberlin High School sweatshirt that dwarfed her body. She had one foot on the first step, one hand on the unsteady railing. She was young—fifteen? Sixteen? Olivia’s age. I forced the thought away.
“Tell her everything’s okay,” I ordered, my voice low.
“Everything’s okay, Katie,” Robert Saenz called. “Why don’t you go back inside?” He was cool, much cooler than I would have been if the roles were reversed, if it were Olivia standing at the foot of the stairs.
“Who are you?” Katie asked, not moving. “Do we know you?”
I looked again at Robert, who called down, “Don’t worry, Katie. Everything’s okay. Don’t you need to leave for school soon?”
She squinted up at us, assessing the situation. “I’m coming up there.”
“Don’t come up here, Katie,” Robert said.
“You don’t need to come up here,” I repeated. It was my Mr. K voice, coming from deep within me. It was the tone I used with my students—friendly but firm. “I’m just here to talk to your uncle.”
“Then I’m going to talk to him, too,” she said, reminding me more and more of Olivia with each second. She took a few steps and stopped again, watching me. Closer, I could see that her hair was still wet from a morning shower, combed flat but with the ends beginning to curl up as they dried. The sunlight glinted off some metal in her mouth: braces, the colored bands alternating purple and blue.
I couldn’t let this girl be involved. In all the thousands of times I’d played this scene in my mind, it hadn’t included anyone other than him and me.
That was how it had to be now.
I surprised Robert Saenz with a one-handed shove against his chest, and he took a staggering step back into the apartment. All I needed was to get him inside, the door locked behind us. There would be only a few minutes. Oberlin was a small town, after all. I remembered the police sergeant telling me that a paramedic from Lorain County had been on the scene of Daniel’s accident in less than three minutes.
But then, two things happened.
Katie, frozen on the step below, screamed.
And in the driveway, a car screeched to a sudden stop. I only vaguely registered this out of the corner of my eye; Robert Saenz had regained his footing and was launching himself in my direction.
“Say his name, Saenz,” I sputtered. “Say his name before you die.”
But then a car door slammed, and someone yelled, “Dad! No!”