Before the Storm (24 page)

his head.

“No,” he said. “Don’t.”

“Where were
you
when you saw him outside?” I lowered the

tissue to my thigh.

“Inside.”

“What part of the church?”

“By the window.”

“Which window, Keith?”

He hesitated. “In that office or whatever—” he winced,

hunching his shoulders for a second “—back of the church. I

looked out the window and there he was.”

I remembered the small room at the back of the church. It

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was for brides to primp in. That sort of thing. It did have a

clear-paned window or two. Or at least, it used to.

Snot was running toward his lips now, and when I reached

with the tissue again, he let me take care of it.

“Why were you back there?” I asked.

“What’s it matter?” He answered quickly, like he’d expected

the question. “I was just hanging out.”

I’d let it slide for now. “Were you alone?”

“Yes.”

“And it was dark out, right?”

“Must of been a moon or something, ’cause it was light

enough for me to tell it was Andy.”

“What was he doing?”

Keith licked his lips. They looked dry, the skin cracked and

flaking.

“Do you want a sip of water?” I asked.

He shook his head and shut his eye. I wasn’t ready to let him

fall back to sleep.

“Keith?” I prodded.

“He was walking by the side of the church,” he said.

“Looking at, like, where the ground and wall meet.”

“You could see that?”

He opened his eye to cut me a look. “I’m not fucking

making it up.”

“Did he have anything in his hands?”

“Don’t remember.”

“Could it have been another boy who looked like Andy?”

He tried to laugh, but coughed instead. I held the plastic cup

of water for him and he took a sip through the straw.“Only one

Andy Lockwood,”he said,shutting his eye again.“One’s enough.”

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I’d let him sleep. Didn’t want to hear more, anyway. I

shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

I called Flip Cates as soon as I got to the hospital lobby.

“Cates,” he answered.

“It’s Marcus, Flip,” I said. “I’m taking myself off the investigation.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Flip said. “Because I was about to take

you off myself.”

“You talked to Reverend Bill?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe Andy could be responsible for that fire,” I

said, “but as long as his name’s getting tossed around, I figure

I’d better—”

“There’s something else,” Flip interrupted.

“What?”

“A woman called the hotline last night. She said she was

driving by the church the night of the fire on her way to Topsail

Beach and saw a kid—a boy—walking alone outside the

building.”

“What time? Did she give a description?”

“She was vague on time. Between eight and nine. It was dark

out, but she thought the boy had dark or brown hair and looked

around thirteen. A young teenager or preteen, is what she said.”

“Did you get her name? Why’s she just calling now?”

“We got her name. She was renting a cottage the weekend

of the fire and left that Sunday morning to go back to Winston-

Salem. She didn’t make the connection between what she saw

and the fire until the hotline number was broadcast on her local

news yesterday.”

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I rubbed the back of my neck. It felt like a noose was tightening around it.

“We’re going to ask Laurel if we can search Andy’s room,”

Flip said.

I don’t know why I was surprised. If we had this kind of

information on another kid, I’d expect the same action. But

Andy? It seemed like overkill.

“Okay,” I said, after a minute. “Keep me in the loop, all

right?”

I WAS MR. POPULARITY AT SCHOOL TODAY. That’s what

Miss Betts called me. They showed the
Today
show on the TV

in all the classrooms. Everybody saw me. My friend Darcy said

I was awesome. A boy I don’t really know said, “Next, your

ugly mug’ll be on the cover of
People
magazine.” He was the

only one who said a mean thing, and I didn’t mind. Could I

really be on the cover of
People?

Miss Betts had me tell what it was like to be on TV in front

of everybody.
Don’t brag,
I kept saying inside my head.

Remember, we don’t brag.

After school, I sat on the bench at the bus place when my

friend Max showed up.

“Hey, Andy,” he said. He was in the ninth grade but was way

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209

taller than me. “I heard about your lighter,” he said. “That

sucked.”

“Yeah,” I said. “If you go on a plane, don’t put a lighter in

your sock.”

“I’ll remember that,” Max said. “You got any coffin nails on

ya?”

“Sure.” I took off my backpack and put it on the bench. I

reached into the secret zipper place to find my cigarettes. I

liked how Max called them “coffin nails.” When you first had

one, you coughed a lot. I didn’t get the “nails” part, though.

I found my package of coffin nails and gave him one. I took

one for me, too, and he lit them with a cool green lighter.

“You’re in the market for a new lighter now, I guess, huh?”

he asked.

I used to think “in the market” meant going to the store, but

I now I got it.“Yeah,” I said.“You wanna trade me for that one?”

Me and Max were good traders. I got my old lighter from

him. And one time a pen with water in it that had a girl in a

bathing suit. You turned the pen upside down to make her

bathing suit come off and then she was naked. I only had the

pen for one day, because Max wanted it back. He traded me

a whole package of cigarettes for it.

“You can have this lighter for five bucks,” he said.

“I don’t have five bucks,” I said. “I’ll trade the rest of my

coffin nails for it.”

“You only got four left, dorko. What else you got in that

book bag?”

I took out my three books, my inhaler, my iPod. Two sticks

of gum. A matchbox car.

“Why you carryin’around a retarded matchbox car?”he asked.

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“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t. Matchbox cars were for

little kids.

I saw something at the bottom of my book bag. “Look!” I

pulled out a picture a girl named Angie sent me. I was sure

Max wouldn’t call the picture retarded.

“Oh, mama!” Max licked his lips. He looked like he wanted

to
eat
Angie’s picture.

“It’s my favorite,” I said. “I have four pictures.”

“Who is she?” Max asked.

“My friend Angie.”

“Your friend Angie’s got some bodacious hooters.”

Angie sat on a motorcycle in her picture with shorts and a

shirt that let you see a lot of her hooters. Hooters are breasts.

One day I said, “Emily’s got almost no hooters,” and Mom

started yelling how we
never
call breasts hooters. But around

Max, I still did.

“I’ll trade you the lighter for this picture,” Max said.

I had to think hard. I’d miss Angie’s picture a whole lot. It

was bent though. Kind of crinkly from being in my book bag.

Max’s lighter wasn’t bent at all.

“Okay,” I said. We traded fair and square. I’d have to hide

the cool green lighter good, like in the secret zipper part of

my book bag where I kept the coffin nails. I didn’t like hiding

things from Mom, but sometimes I had to.

The bus came and I got on it but Max didn’t. He took a different bus than me. I waved to him, but he was staring at Angie’s

picture and didn’t see me. I missed Angie’s picture all of a

sudden. I’d probably have more in the mail when I got home,

though.Then maybe Mom or Maggie could take me to the store.

I wanted to see if my face was on the cover of
People.

FROM THE PORCH OF OUR HOUSE, I could see the lights on

the mainland across the sound. It was the first night warm

enough to be outside without a sweater, and I welcomed the

salty balm of the air as I sat on the old glider, my feet propped

up against the railing. Maggie was studying at Amber

Donnelly’s and I’d finally gotten Andy settled down enough

to fall asleep and could take a minute for myself.

I’d really had to rein Andy in today, his first day at school

since being on the
Today
show. I had to remind him not to brag

about his heroism or newly found celebrity status. I was beginning to wonder if appearing on TV had been a good idea.

Today’s mail brought dozens more cards and letters from

around the country, and I knew he was being inundated with

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e-mail. For a boy whom the world ordinarily treated with

sympathy, curiosity or suspicion, such attention was heady

stuff.

I heard a car door slam, the sound rippling across the water.

Standing up, I peered around the corner of the house and saw

the tail end of a pickup in my driveway. Marcus?

The doorbell rang as I walked back into the house. I pulled

the door open to see him standing on the front porch.

“Is everything okay?” I asked. It was unusual for Marcus to

show up like that, and I thought of Maggie, the only one of my

small family not safe at home.

“Mostly okay.” The porch light caught concern in his smile.

“Just wanted to run a thing or two by you. Can I come in?”

“What does mostly okay mean?” I asked as he walked past

me into the living room.

“Let’s sit on the porch,” he said. “It’s a great night.”

I led the way back through the family room to the porch.

“Do you want some iced tea?” I asked.

“I don’t need anything.”

I sat on the glider once again, but without the sense of calm

I’d had earlier. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been alone with

Marcus. He visited Maggie and Andy frequently, because I

decided long ago that whatever happened in the past, I

wouldn’t stand in the way of his relationship with them. I

knew he loved them. My guidelines were simple: always let

me know where you’re taking them and when they’ll be back,

and no boats of any sort. So he visited them, but he didn’t visit

me. My arms automatically folded themselves across my chest,

holding everything in. Holding me together.

“I wanted to let you know I’m not part of the fire investibefore the storm

213

gation any longer,” he said, sitting down on the old wicker

rocker.

I wasn’t sure why he’d make a special trip to tell me that.

“Because Andy was there?” I asked.

“Because…there’s some small…right now it’s only hearsay

and I’m sure it will stay only hearsay, but—”

I saw his discomfort, and it wasn’t at being alone with me.

It was something else.

“But what?” I prompted.

“We’ve had some reports that Andy was outside the church

shortly before the fire.”

I still wasn’t getting it. “What do you mean?”

“Look, this is all confidential, okay?” he said.“I shouldn’t even

be telling you, but I don’t want you to be blindsided by it.”

“By
what?
”

“I went up to Chapel Hill today and talked to Keith

Weston, and—”

“They’ve taken him out of the coma?” That sounded like

good news.

“Yes. And Reverend Bill went to see him and Keith told him

he saw Andy outside shortly before the fire. So I went to see

him myself and he told me the same thing.”

“Why would he be outside?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But we also had a woman call the hotline to

report seeing a boy with…a small stature outside the church

that evening. And Emily Carmichael said that Andy disappeared for a while before the fire. Then there’s that bit about

him hiding a lighter in his sock.”

“Oh, Marcus,” I said. “You don’t honestly think Andy had

anything to do with the fire, do you?”

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“No, I don’t. But no one’s reported seeing anyone
else

outside. So he has to be ruled out.”

I was more annoyed than worried. “Okay, Marcus,” I said.

“So let’s say it
was
Andy. Where did he get the gasoline or

whatever was used? How did he get it to the church, huh?”

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “And I’m sorry he’s

being dragged into this. I just wanted you to hear it from me

first, all right? We—they—have to explore every possibility.”

Panic rose inside me, expanding in my chest.“I’m mad!” My

fists curled around the edge of the seat cushion. “I’m mad you

could…go along with this. That you could even
think
about

it.You need to tell whoever’s doing the investigation to leave

Andy out of it.”

Marcus didn’t respond, and I continued. “Keith’s a troublemaker,” I said.“He smokes dope and he’s done things you don’t

know about.”

“I know.”

“You
know?
You know about the truancy? Possession of marijuana?”

He nodded. “Sara talks to me sometimes.”

I felt a kernel of jealousy that surprised me. Sara was my best