Things he was good at pretending: sleep, hungry. Things he was not good at pretending: not sleeping, relaxed. But he was laid out on the couch while his mother and aunt Rhonda watched television, and he could still hear the actors. Gunshots. Remember not to gasp.
It was a good show even not seeing the blood.
The killer had a time bomb, a hostage, and a hidden location. Tyrell was keeping track, holding the clues in his mind side by side. He had his guesses. He was counting in his head to see when the police caught up to him. His guess: ten minutes, six hundred seconds.
“So we were getting nice,” Aunt Rho said.
“No surprises there,” his mother said.
There’s music now like horror. He didn’t know the instrument, but those sounds—you know the reveal is coming. Shoes on linoleum tapping on the way to knowledge. Slow walk, but going away from mystery.
“When he did it to me, I felt it down in my feet,” his aunt Rhonda was saying.
His mother cleared her throat. “Girl,” she said. “He missed the point then.”
They laughed and shushed. He could hear them wheezing like life is a comedy and we can’t stop watching. And he couldn’t hear the police. They were on the phone with the terrorist, and he couldn’t hear. This could be the best part. This could be the moment of a clue.
Eight and a half minutes. Five hundred and ten seconds. You want to hear if the next sound is a creaking door. It can be the killer.
“Point, game, series,” Aunt Rho said. “He did the whole season.”
“My sister the winter freak.”
Aunt Rho began to sing-laugh. “Let it snow,” she was going. “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”
The detective’s teeth cramp around his lips. This is whisper. This is the terms.
“Shut up,” Tyrell shouted. “This is the good part.”
His mother cocked her head, crossed her arms. “What are you doing awake?”