TWO
Amber Youngblood pulled a black Camry into a street-side parking stall and killed the engine. She stared out at the downtown square of Hastings, Nebraska. Dark storefronts. Empty sidewalks. Vacant parking stalls lining the silent street. This early in the morning, there was no activity in the small town—but that would soon change.
Her husband, Ross, sat in the passenger seat, statue still, no expression on his hawkish, weather-beaten face. Black jeans, black sweatshirt, both tight against his thin, scrawny-strong frame. His long hair was tied into a ponytail, a sprinkle of gray sharing space with the darker hairs.
“So we’re doing this,” Ross said. “We’re really doing this.”
“Damn straight we are.”
Ross turned and faced the man who’d just answered. His older brother, Shane. The third and final member of their party. A massive, stocky man squeezed into the car’s small backseat like an elephant in a cartoon. He had a flat, unsmiling face. Unkempt beard. His lips were arranged into a scowl, his eyes emotionless. Late thirties, a few years older than Ross and Amber.
“Ain’t getting cold feet, are you?” Shane said.
“Hell no,” Ross answered. “I’m ready to go.”
“Good.” Shane looked at Amber. “You?”
“Yeah,” Amber said. “I’m ready.”
The discomfort in her stomach told a different story. She’d already puked once this morning because she was so nervous; she felt like she could again at any moment.
They stared out the car’s tinted windows for a silent moment at the not-yet-open businesses lining the town square. A few restaurants, an insurance office, a barbershop. At the end of the block was a building they’d driven by repeatedly over the past week, committing every last detail to memory. It was a large building with a brick façade. HASTINGS STATE BANK, the sign above the door read. WHERE PEOPLE COME FIRST.
“There it is,” Shane said. “The bank. About to take that bastard down.”
“Let’s review the plan,” Ross said. “One last time.”
“Review the plan? Shit, Ross. You should have the plan down cold by now.”
“I do.”
“Then why the hell you asking to review it again?”
“Just wanted something to talk about. I don’t like the silence. Trust me, I know what to do when this goes down.”
“You better. Focus, man. We gotta focus. Can’t afford any mistakes here. You grabbed the baggie before we left, right?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Ross said. He pulled a small baggie filled with about twenty pills from his pocket, a mix of white, blue, and yellow ones.
“Pop one,” Shane said. “Time to get serious. And stick with the yellows. Don’t need much. Just a quick hit.”
Ross grabbed a yellow pill from the bag and put it into his mouth.
“Good,” Shane said. “Now toss it back here.”
Ross tossed the baggie toward the backseat. Shane pulled out a yellow pill and swallowed it.
“A little vitamin R,” he said. “Just what the doctor ordered.”
He threw the baggie back to the front seat. Ross grabbed it and put it into his pocket.
They waited. Amber glanced at the dashboard clock: 7:44. Just a few more minutes. She drummed her fingers against the steering wheel, wiped away the sweat on her forehead, chewed on her lip. She couldn’t believe they were about to do this. Rob a bank. Like something out of a movie. She never thought things would actually reach this point; she figured a minor detail would fall through and they’d have to back out at the last minute. But here they were. Only moments away.
“Let’s get ready,” Shane said.
He grabbed a backpack resting next to him and pulled out three Star Wars masks—cheap plastic Halloween masks, the kind available from countless Web sites and novelty shops. He handed Yoda to Amber. Chewbacca to Ross. Kept Darth Vader for himself.
They put on their masks. The Yoda mask was hot and the eyeholes partially obstructed Amber’s vision. Smelled, too—a musty, plasticky smell that hung in her nostrils. She turned and looked at Ross in his Chewbacca mask. His eyes were jumping around in the mask’s eyeholes, going crazy, the same jittery gaze he always got whenever he was wired on Ritalin. But past that look, she could see the fear in his eyes. The nervous fear.
The look said everything. They’d been through a lot together. But nothing like this.
Shane pulled three black handguns from the backpack and handed them out.
“Should open any minute now,” Shane said, staring out at the bank. “Only one thing left to say.”
He chuckled dryly.
“May the force be with us.”
The microwave beeped and Karen Mayo grabbed two bowls of instant oatmeal from inside. She carried the bowls over to the kitchen table and placed one at her seat, the other in front of her son. Joshua sat at the table, eyes glued to his smartphone, wearing pajama pants and the same faded blue MEN’S GOLF CONFERENCE CHAMPS T-shirt he wore to bed most every night.
“You know the rule,” she said. “No phones at the table.”
“I know. Just a second.”
Karen took her seat. Joshua’s eyes remained locked on his phone screen.
“So, what’d you do while I was out last night?” she asked. “Anything exciting?”
“Not really.”
“Just a regular, boring old night?”
He glanced up at her. Back down at his phone.
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
She already knew something had happened last night; she just didn’t know what. She wanted to give Joshua the chance to come clean and be up front with her. But if he wasn’t going to say anything . . .
“Actually, while you’re on your phone, maybe you can do me a favor,” she said. “Google ‘How to fix a cracked car windshield’ for me, will you?”
He looked up at her, his blue eyes wide with alarm.
“What?”
“Your car,” Karen said. “I saw it this morning when I was in the garage. The cracked windshield, the broken grille. What in the world did you do to it last night?”
He lowered his eyes. Stared at his bowl of oatmeal. Busted. And he knew it.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Doesn’t answer my question. What happened, Joshua?”
He fidgeted in his seat. His eyes skittered around the room.
“Well?”
“Aaron came over to play some Madden,” he said. “He was—”
“Madden? What is that?”
“Football. On PS4.”
“PS4?”
“PlayStation 4. It’s a video game. He scored a touchdown to beat me and was rubbing it in, joking around. I started chasing him around the house. He ran into the garage and tripped, knocked over that big shelf thing.”
“Is he all right? Injured?”
“He’s fine. But the shelf fell onto my car and slammed against the windshield.”
She gave one of her long sighs, the type she reserved for Joshua anytime he did something that would end up costing her money. It was a reaction they were both familiar with by now. She couldn’t even count the number of times he and his friends had broken something in her house while horsing around; they were like little Tasmanian Devils when they got together. Over the years, they’d shattered windows, put a gaping hole in a trampoline, left countless scuff marks and spills throughout the house. The basketball hoop she bought Joshua for his birthday last summer hadn’t lasted even two weeks before one of his friends jumped off a chair to slam-dunk the ball and snapped the rim right off.
Now she could add his car grille and windshield to that list.
“This is wonderful,” she said. “You’ll look great, driving around in a car that looks like it was in a demolition derby.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. “It was a dumb mistake.”
“You got the dumb part right.”
“I feel bad. I do. I promise I’ll pay for it all myself.”
“With what money?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.”
“I just wish you would be more responsible,” she said. “I’m not angry. I’m—”
“Disappointed. I know. I really am sorry, Mom.”
She decided not to press the issue. What was the point? All that would accomplish was starting the day out on a bad note, maybe even a minor argument. She didn’t need that. Neither of them did.
Fifteen minutes later, Karen backed out of the driveway and drove through a winding labyrinth of gravel roads, passing empty, frozen farmland and the occasional house until she arrived at the on-ramp for I-380. She eased onto the interstate and drove toward Cedar Rapids, six miles away.
In the passenger seat, Joshua was bundled up in a thick black winter coat, looking (of course) at his phone. She told him she didn’t want him driving his car until that crack was fixed—she was probably being overcautious, but it looked unsafe.
“I forgot to ask you,” Karen said. “Did you see that photo I posted to Facebook yesterday? The one for Throwback Thursday?”
“Yeah,” Joshua said, not looking up from his phone. “Pretty funny.”
She smiled. “I thought you’d like that one.”
Every Thursday, she scoured her photo albums to find an old picture of Joshua to post to Facebook for Throwback Thursday. She had endless options to choose from; as he was growing up, few milestones in his life passed without her documenting them with a roll or two of film. She had album after album full of photos of him at various sporting events, photos commemorating a variety of firsts (his first haircut, the first time he lost a tooth, his first days of school), photos of him posing with spreads of the gifts he received for Christmases and birthdays over the years—action figures and Legos when he was younger, golf clubs and balls and tees when he got older.
Yesterday, she’d posted a photo from Halloween a decade ago. She was dressed in an oversize foam hot dog costume with only her face visible. Right next to her was Joshua, eight years old, dressed as a small ketchup bottle. “Here’s two doggone cuties!” was the caption she’d added to the post.
“Okay, so it was a little corny, but that’s what moms are for, right?” she said. “Oh, and I’ve got a good one lined up for next week, too. I found all the photos from your sixth birthday party. The one we had at Chuck E. Cheese.”
Joshua cracked a small smile but kept his eyes on his phone. As she continued driving, Karen stole quick glances out of the corner of her eye at him. Something about him seemed . . . not quite right. As they drove down the interstate, she finally realized what it was.
“Your coat,” she said. “Why are you wearing that old coat?”
He looked up from his phone. “What?”
“Why aren’t you wearing your new coat?” she asked. “The one I got you for Christmas.”
“I don’t know. Just felt like wearing this one.”
She shook her head. No use in even trying to make sense of that. He’d begged for a new coat for Christmas—the latest design from some fancy foreign company whose name she couldn’t even pronounce, a big puffy thing with fake animal fur lining the hood. Looked like a coat designed for an Arctic explorer or something. She’d practically flipped when he told her the coat’s four-hundred-dollar cost, but she saved up and bought him one for Christmas anyway.
And now, barely two months later, he’d gone back to the old coat.
She drove on down the interstate, slowly approaching Cedar Rapids, where she worked and Joshua attended school.
“I’ve got a good feeling about today,” she said. “I think today might be the day.”
“For what?”
“The day you find out if you got into Clemson. They said they’d get back to you by the end of the month, right? That’s only a few days away. Wouldn’t that be something? We’ve been waiting long enough.”
No response. She glanced over at Joshua. His phone was gone; now he was blankly staring straight ahead, his thin body slouched in the seat, blond hair combed over his forehead. He looked so gloomy. Off in his own little world. He was about as alert as a zombie most mornings, but there seemed to be something more to it today, something sad and mechanical.
“You there?” she said, snapping her fingers. “What’s going on with you? You’re so out of it this morning.”
He glanced toward her. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
It was more than tiredness, she was sure. Probably had something to do with being eighteen years old and getting a ride to school from Mom. Or maybe it was girl problems. Last week, his girlfriend had broken up with him, and he’d been moping around the house since then. No way she was touching that subject; he’d already been very clear that discussing the breakup with his mother was the last thing in the world he was interested in. She suppressed a chuckle, recalling the look of horror that crossed his face a few days ago when she asked him if he wanted her advice on how to move on after the breakup.
The car was mostly silent for the rest of the drive. Twenty minutes after leaving their house in the country, she pulled into the parking lot of Jefferson High School.
“Have a good day,” she said as Joshua exited the car.
“Yeah. You, too.”
“Hey. Perk up, J-Bird.”
He smiled. But like everything else about him this morning, something about it seemed just a little off.
Head hanging, Joshua Mayo walked up to the entrance to Jefferson High School. He was surrounded by students bundled up in winter coats and hats, backpacks slung over their shoulders. Some in groups, some by themselves.
Inside, he went into the first men’s bathroom he saw. It was empty, thank God. He locked himself in a stall and leaned his forehead against the door, closing his eyes.
He was exhausted; sleep had been impossible. All evening, the grisly, gruesome details of everything that had happened last night replayed in his mind, repeated endlessly, over and over again. He couldn’t believe that he’d killed a man; it was such an incredible, harrowing thought.
This morning, he’d checked on his phone every local Web site he could think of, looking for any sort of news about a body being discovered, but there’d been nothing. It wasn’t so surprising. The accident took place deep in the country. Out on a worn, little-traveled gravel path that cut through a wooded region named Hawkeye Wildlife Management Area. A massive twenty-square-mile stretch of forested land full of trees and lakes and not much else. The only reason people went out by the wildlife management area this time of year was to hunt or camp . . . but hunting season had ended months ago and it was far too cold to camp right now.
He guessed it would be days, maybe even a week or longer, before someone ventured out far enough to discover the body.
Eventually it would happen, though. And once the body was found, there’d be a police investigation. What would happen then? He truly didn’t know. They’d cleaned up the scene and searched to make sure they didn’t leave anything behind that could link them to the crime, but there was no way to be certain they’d found everything. The moment had been so frantic. He knew the police wouldn’t need much. If they found a piece of fabric, a fingerprint, even something as minor as a footprint, they might be able to connect him to the dead body. And that would be it. His life would be over.
Joshua exited the stall and walked over to the sink. Washed his hands, splashed some water on his face. Before exiting the bathroom, he grabbed his phone from his pocket. Brought up the text exchange from last night. He typed out a message.
Rough morning. Couldn’t sleep last night.
He waited a minute. The response appeared:
Me neither. Just remember, we did the right thing. It sounds horrible, but the guy was dead. No way to save him. Calling the police would’ve only gotten us in deep, deep trouble. We didn’t have a choice.
Joshua stared at the phone. No matter how many times he heard that justification—the guy was already dead; going to the police wouldn’t have saved him—it didn’t make him feel any better about what had happened and the decision they’d made.
He typed: It’s just tough to handle. Really tough.
I feel awful, too. Just hang in there. Try to act normal. We’ll talk when I’m free. Later today.
Joshua texted: K.
He put his phone in his pocket and walked to the cafeteria. The room was packed with students sitting at tables, waiting for the school day to begin. Warbling, excited chatter was everywhere. He found his friends Freddy and Aaron at a table in the middle of the room and sat down beside them.
“Just in time,” Aaron said. He was skinny with long, shaggy dark hair and an easy, full smile. “I was about to tell Freddy about this weekend. I’m going on a college visit. Visiting my older brother at Luther. It’s gonna be wild.”
He started talking about a kegger his brother was going to throw Saturday night, but Joshua could barely pay attention. He looked around the cafeteria, at the groups of students sitting and chatting with friends. Smiling faces and laughter everywhere, gossiping, talking about plans for the weekend. He wondered if he’d ever be able to forget about last night and feel that carefree again.
“My brother was telling me about this one girl,” Aaron went on. “Monica. Total babe. Said he’s gonna set me up with her.”
He pulled his phone from his pocket.
“I found her on Instagram. Check it out.”
He opened her profile and turned the screen toward them. He quickly scrolled through photos of a cute blond girl in various poses: dressed up for a night out, walking a dog, studying in the library.
“You’re telling me your brother is setting you up with this girl?” Freddy said.
“Yeah.”
“And you think you actually have a chance with her?”
“Yeah.”
“Dude, this is a college chick. She’s, like, way out of your league.”
“My brother says I’m her type.”
Freddy laughed. “Her type, sure. Twenty bucks says nothing happens with her.”
“You’re on.”
Freddy and Aaron shook on their bet and continued talking. Joshua silently sat there, still thinking about last night. In bed, he’d come up with a story to explain the car damage, the story about Aaron knocking the shelving unit onto the windshield. Wasn’t the best explanation, and there’d been something in his mom’s reaction that told him she didn’t quite believe him, but he hoped the story would hold up.
“What about your weekend, J?” Aaron asked. “You gonna meet up with Ashley?”
“No,” Joshua said. “I told you. It’s over.”
Last week, when his girlfriend had broken up with him, it had been a hot topic of discussion between Freddy and Aaron, whether the breakup would be permanent or not.
“I still think you’re gonna get back with her,” Freddy said.
“I bet he won’t,” Aaron said.
“Twenty bucks?”
“You’re on.” They shook. Freddy turned to Joshua. “You’re totally getting back with her. Just admit it.”
Joshua tried to smile, but all he could force through was an uncomfortable wince.