CASEY
Dylan and I doze off and on. Several times throughout the night, I rouse out of my sleep and sit up in bed and look across the room. Sometimes he’s up, pacing back and forth, and other times he’s lying on the couch wrapped in his blanket. The TV still plays in the background, but no one has reported our news yet, at least not while I’ve been awake. Finally, I see the sun beginning to peek through the bottom of the blinds, and I know it’s almost morning. The theme music of the morning news show on Channel 6 plays.
I sit up in bed and look over at Dylan. He’s asleep, so I don’t want to disturb him. Instead of the usual morning anchor, I see Macy Weatherow. I suck in a breath and sit up.
She looks deliberate, intense. I know this is it. “Dylan,” I say.
He looks up at me with sleepy eyes.
“She’s about to report it.”
He sits up and jerks his cover off of him.
I turn up the volume as the music stops playing. The camera zooms in on Macy. “We have breaking news this morning regarding the Casey Cox case.”
Dylan jumps up and goes to the window again, peers out. Macy begins her report, rattling off a short intro, then they play parts of my phone call, which they’ve transcribed on the screen. I listen to my own voice, a voice that the media hasn’t heard before now, and I try to put myself in the shoes of every person out there who will view this today, and try to decide if I’m believable. I don’t know if I am or not.
“That’s good,” Dylan says when they go to commercial. “You did great.” He holds out a hand for me, and I get out of bed, aware of my wrinkled clothes and my bed head. He doesn’t seem to notice. He pulls me down next to him on the couch.
When the news comes back on, he puts both arms around me and rests his chin on my head as we watch. I feel his heart beating against my head as I listen to more of our interview.
The anchor comes back on, along with the normal morning host, and he interviews Macy about her call with me. She tells him that their network is going to be reporting it this morning, that I’m expected to turn myself in today, and according to Chief Gates, there will be a press conference later this morning where he will discuss the things I’ve revealed.
I look up at Dylan. “What should we do? Should we stay here or go somewhere else? Should we call Barbero to come here? Should I go ahead and turn myself in?”
“Not yet,” he says. “Tell him to fly here and you’ll turn yourself in as soon as we hear Chief Gates’s statement and know what we’re dealing with.”
“Maybe you could call Chief Gates now?”
“No. I can’t trust him to be honest with me. What he says to the press will tell us what we need to know. We have to wait.”
“Then let’s stay here,” I tell him. “I think if we go out we risk being seen. Everyone will be looking for us now. They know we’re in town.”
“Yeah, let’s just stay like this. I’m liking it.”
I smile and lay my head back against his chest as they come back from commercial and play more of our interview. When they break again, he says, “I wonder what’s happening with Keegan.”
“I’m sure he’s desperate by now.”
When NBC opens its Today Show, they immediately launch into the same breaking news report. My blood pressure has just shot up a few points, and my heart is racing as if I’ve done a cardiac workout.
But I feel unburdened, and sitting here like this with Dylan is a miracle. I don’t want it to end.