Todd Strasser - Kill You Last

She was close now. Her eyes as opaque as marbles. She raised the flashlight. My heart was drumming. “What are you going to do? Kill me, too?”

She didn’t answer, just took another step closer.

I was trembling, but I couldn’t run away. This had to stop.

Now.

“Mom!” I shouted as loud as I could.

She raised the flashlight like a club.

Smack! I slapped her in the face as hard as I could.

She stopped.

And blinked.

The right side of her face turned pink where I’d hit her.

She lowered the flashlight and looked around for a moment as if she wasn’t sure where she was.

Then her eyes came back to me, and I saw recognition.

A breze blew through the trees, rattling the leaves. Mom and I faced each other. She frowned down at the flashlight in her hand as if she didn’t know why it was there, then looked around with a perplexed expression on her face.

“Where’s Ashley?” I asked.

She pointed at a gap between some big gray boulders. The opening was just large enough for a person to squeeze through. I hurried to it and called into the dark. “Ashley?”

A desperate muffled sound came out of the inky stillness.

Thank God she was alive!

“It’s Shelby. It’s okay.”

I took the flashlight from Mom and crawled into the gap between the big rocks. Ashley lay in the shadows, gagged, her hands and feet tied. When she saw me, her eyes widened in terror, as if for a moment she didn’t know whose side I was on.

“Please,” she begged when I undid the gag.

“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “Nothing bad’s going to happen.”

Even then she gave me a look like she wasn’t sure. As soon as I undid the rope around her hands and feet, she scrambled away through the opening like a terrified animal and then ran. By the time I crawled out, she was fleeing as fast as she could through the woods, back to the fence and Playland on the other side. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to stick around.

Whit was sitting on the trail with his hands on his head. This time, there was blood. Mom stood beside a rock and stared at the water. The whole scene felt surreal. I don’t know how I managed to keep it together enough to call the police. Mostly, I think, by trying to make sure Whit was okay. Unlike the last time he got hit, he didn’t have much to say. He just sat holding his head and grimacing in pain.

When the police arrived, I told them everything I knew. But when they handcuffed Mom and took her away, I broke down. It was too much. Still, I managed to wait with Whit until the EMS people arrived and put him on a stretcher. The police found Ashley and insisted that she also had to go to the hospital, just to be safe.

They drove me to the police station, where a detective named Payne took my statement. I was numb with disbelief. When we got to the part about Dad and the girls he’d fooled around with, Detective Payne paused and gave me a sympathetic look. “Listen, Shelby, we’ve been working with the police in Trenton, Scranton, and Hartford. And other cities, too. So we know this part of the story and who some of the girls are. You don’t have to go into this if you don’t want to.”

“I know,” I said.

He studied me. “We’re pretty sure at least one of those girls was under seventeen. If you’re going to tell me what I think you are, I want to warn you that, when a girl is underage, it’s considered statutory rape. That’s a felony, and in some cases, punishable by time in prison. I just want to make sure that you understand what you’re doing by giving this statement.”

I understood that Dad would get into serious trouble. He might even go to jail. Even if he didn’t, his career as a photographer was probably over.

But then I thought of those girls, and of Ashley, and how he took advantage of them.

I gave the statement.

On a gray morning in November, Roman drove me out to the airport to meet Mom’s sister, Beth, who was flying in from China. I was now living with Roman’s family and no longer had my Jeep. It had been sold to help pay for Mom’s lawyer.

“Thanks for doing this,” I said.

“No prob,” Roman said. “It’s too bad Beth has that flight to Boston in a few hours. We’d be happy to have her come to our house.”

Not only had Roman’s parents been fantastic about taking me in, but Roman herself had been incredibly supportive about everything. When the story broke and reporters found out that she was my best friend, all sorts of magazines, Web sites, and even TV shows had offered her money to tell what she knew. But she’d refused them all.

At the airport, we waited for Beth to come through security. My temples began to hurt, and I realized I’d been clenching my jaw. I massaged the sides of my head with my fingertips.

“Nervous?” Roman asked.

“You mean, because I’m massaging my head?” I asked.

“You’re also tapping your foot a mile a minute.”

I hadn’t realized I was doing that. “I don’t know. It’s just…so strange. I mean, she’s Mom’s sister. They’ve always been really close.”

“Shels!” a voice called out. Beth came through the crowd, wearing a bright red scarf. I jumped up and we hugged, and I felt tears rush out of my eyes.

“It’s so good to see you,” Beth said, holding me tight.

“You, too.” Relief radiated through me.

Roman came over, and I introduced them. Beth thanked her for being so kind to me and such a good friend.

“She’s worth it,” Roman said, squeezing my arm. “So I’m going to go do some window shopping in these fabulous airport stores. How about I come back in an hour?”

She left, and Beth and I sat down in a Starbucks and talked about her flight and teaching in Shanghai and my living with Roman’s family and my plans for the future. Beth seemed genuinely glad to see me. Still, it was hard to relax when there was so much we hadn’t talked about.

Finally, the inevitable awkward silence came, and it was time.

“I’m so sorry,” Beth said.

I nodded. I’d heard those words a lot, and there were plenty of moments when I felt sorry for myself. But it didn’t make anything better, and I always tried to get past it.

“There’s something I think I should tell you,” Beth said. “I think it may help you understand your mom…”

I nodded. In her e-mails, Beth had hinted that there were aspects of Mom’s story that I still didn’t know.

“You know that she never really got over your brother’s death,” Beth said. “What you probably don’t know is that she always felt responsible for what happened…”

“But he died of pneumonia…”

“She took him outside. It was winter, and she bundled him up and went on one of her hikes. She used to do that with you, too. Put you on her back and walk in the woods for hours.”

“And…that’s how he got pneumonia?”

“It’s hard to know,” Beth said, “but that’s what your mom and dad thought.”

“So…Mom thought it was her fault?”

Beth nodded. “And so did your dad.”

“He…blamed her?”

“Yes.”

I tried to imagine what that must have been like. Mom blaming herself for the death of her child, and Dad doing nothing to disabuse her of the idea.

“If you want to understand what happened…both to your mom and to your parents’ marriage,” Beth said, “I think that’s where you have to start.”

“That’s why Mom suddenly stopped all the outdoor stuff?” I asked.

Beth nodded. “It was probably too painful for her.”

“And Dad fooling around?”

“A way of punishing her?” Beth said with a shrug. “I mean, that’s just speculation. We’ll never really know. I asked her once why your dad had moved his studio out of the city so suddenly and after so many years.”