Burn (12 page)

He had forgotten he had it.

The blade is sharp enough to cut through the thick denim like it’s air. It will slice easily though Patterson’s skin, into his throat. Cameron won’t have to hear the guy’s smug laughter, his taunting voice anymore. That’s why he’s going for the throat. Patterson will die quietly. And Cameron can forget what he did to him in the locker room. Forget it all.

But even as a fantasy, Cameron is never able to watch Patterson’s death through ’til the end. That’s gotta change. He makes himself stand over Patterson until the guy’s eyes roll back in his head, until his hands fall away from his throat and lay at his sides, his fingers curled into a wannabe fist.

“You’re dead, Patterson. You’re dead.”

“You can’t get him off your mind, huh?”

Cameron’s body jerks until he nearly topples the chair. His pocketknife falls to the deck and scuttles a few feet.

“Sorry,” Randy says. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”

Randy picks up the knife, pushes against the handle so that the blade snaps into its sheathing, then hands it to Cameron.

“I didn’t hear you,” Cameron says. His voice is thick with defense. “I wasn’t spooked.”

“Startled,” Randy corrects. “Are you planning some revenge?”

Randy sits down in the chair next to Cameron’s, stretches out his legs, and crosses them at the ankles.

“You want me to confess?” Cameron’s fist closes over the knife; the sweat from his palm makes it slick.

“Before you even get a chance to knock the kid around a bit? No.”

Cameron feels his heart slow. He strokes the smooth plastic handle of the knife with his thumb.

“He’s bigger than me. Older. A junior.”

“Yeah. That’s usually the way it goes. The kid probably has about as much courage as a field mouse.”

“I think I can get a piece of him. I just haven’t tried yet.”

“What are you waiting for?”

Cameron looks for sarcasm in Randy’s face, but he’s serious.

“You don’t sound like a cop,” Cameron says.

“I’m not trying to be a cop right now.”

“You sound like my father.”

“I’m not trying to be him, either. Your mom said he wasn’t much help today.”

“That surprised her?”

“Not really. She was hoping, though, that your dad would come through for you.”

“He never has before.”

Randy nods. “Not from what I’ve heard.”

“Mom talks bad about him?”

“No. She doesn’t talk about him at all. Good or bad. She does things, though, you know? And I can guess how she feels from watching her.”

Cameron does know. As soon as they got home today his mother went through the house, opening windows, taking down curtains and tossing them in the washing machine. He hears the vacuum cleaner in the living room. Next she’ll wipe down the bookcases and tables and the house will smell like a bushel of overripe lemons. Seeing his father has that effect on her — a need to clean.

“Yeah,” Cameron says. “She won’t be done ’til midnight.”

Cameron turns, lets his gaze fall on Randy’s profile. “Did she send you out here?”

“No. I came up with this idea all on my own. I figure you need someone to talk to even if you don’t think so. You’re at that age now where all hell breaks loose inside your body.” He shakes his head. “I’d cut off a toe or two before I had to relive that.”

“I’d give up an arm.” If it would change things. If it would drastically improve his situation.

“Yeah, but later, when high school is just a memory, you’d want your arm back.”

Cameron turns away, looks across the yard to the woods and follows the swooping ascent of a swallow with his eyes.

I don’t think so. If losing my arm means Patterson never happened to me, no one calls me Cameron Diaz or fag or girly-boy, if I have friends again, losing an arm doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice.

“So if you’re not talking to me as a cop or as my dad, what are you doing?”

“This is one man to another,” Randy says. “A conversation on equal footing.”

“Now you’re trying to build me up.”

“Because I called you a man?”

“I can’t even drive yet.”

“Experiences age a person, mature them faster sometimes than years,” Randy says. “I think you already know that.”

“Because my life sucks?”

“Does it all suck?”

“Pretty much.”

“And you don’t see how it’s going to get any better. Not now.”

“The whole school saw the photos,” Cameron says.

“Probably,” Randy agrees. “Next week they’ll find something else to talk about.”

“I doubt it.”

Cameron flattens his hand against his thigh, the knife filling his palm perfectly. The curved handle against the meaty part of his hand feels right.

“It’s hard at fourteen to pull yourself out of the moment, to see a few years, or even a few days down the road.”

Cameron just wants to get through tomorrow.

“Life will get better,” Randy says. “Sooner rather than later.” He shifts, turns in his chair so that he’s facing Cameron. “I’ve worked a lot of violent crimes. You’re probably real familiar with the anger that follows an assault, but there’s more than that. I think you should be ready for it.”

“For what?”

“Delayed reaction. Victims of violent crime move through the aftermath in stages. You’re going to be dealing with this for a while,” he says. “It’s part of moving on, getting past it.”

“I’m only angry.”

“Right now,” Randy agrees.

“What else is there?”

“Fear.”

Been there, done that.

“Anger and fear are a dangerous mix of emotions,” Randy says. “Together they make a whole new person. Make a person do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Hurt someone. Hurt themselves.”

Cameron feels like Randy is walking circles around him, that he knows something Cameron doesn’t but needs to, and it’s keeping him rooted. He thinks he should get up, walk into the house, into his bedroom and close the door. It’s what he wants to do. Instead he says, “You think I would hurt someone?”

“I think you might,” Randy agrees. “You might get yourself a whole lot of hurt, too. I don’t want that to happen.”

“Why?”

“The system is filled with lost boys.”

“You’re just doing your job.”

“It’s more than that. I have a special interest here.” He places his elbows on his knees and leans forward. “You’ve already acted in fear and anger.”

Cameron’s hands loosen, fall completely without feeling against his thighs.

“How did you get that scab on your head?”

Cameron doesn’t answer.

“It looks like a burn.”

“It’s not.”

“You hear about the fire?”

“It was on the news,” Cameron admits. “I saw some of it last night.”

“Did you go anywhere near there yesterday? After you left school?”

“I went through the woods,” Cameron says. “I go there a lot.”

Randy nods. “Good answer. Someone reported a kid matching your description cut into the woods shortly before it went up.”

“And you think I did it?”

“There weren’t a whole lot of kids out of school yesterday. Sometimes anger can get the better of a person, can cause a whole lot of things to happen a person never intended.”

“I think I’ll remain silent,” Cameron says.

“You’ll need to do better than that,” Randy advises. “The fire department found your school ID card not far from that burnt-out car. I’m just wondering, if you did do it, was it a reaction to what happened to you in the locker room? Is it going to happen again? I’ve been thinking a lot about it. Some firebugs, they get into it because it gives them a rush. It becomes an addiction. Others, especially kids acting out of anger, feeling helpless, find it by accident. It scares the hell out of them. They’ll never touch it again.”

Randy waits for him to work it out in his mind, to decide where he stands. An addict or an accident?

“You think if I did do it, I’m done with it now? I scared the hell out of myself and will never touch it again?”

It wasn’t scary, not like Randy means. It was so much bigger than him and impossible to control. But he beat it. Something that big and wild and he beat it. That’s power; it just about makes him a superhero. He knows it, wants it, won’t give it up.

It’s in his blood and he supposes that does make him an addict.

“That’s where my money is. My job, too.”

Randy’s voice is so full of confidence that Cameron feels his guts twist. He doesn’t want Randy’s trust. He doesn’t need the extra weight, another face in his head popping up and trying to turn him into Dudley Do-Right.

“Maybe you should arrest me,” Cameron suggests.

Randy taps the arm of Cameron’s chair to get his attention and then looks into his eyes almost like he’s trying to drill for understanding.

“You don’t want to be in prison, Cameron. What’s been happening to you at school pales in comparison.”

Cameron nods. He doesn’t think prison could be worse, but it’s probably more of the same. And Randy is right, Cameron doesn’t want that.

“I’m trying to help you,” Randy says. “You’re still a kid. You’ll get past what happened this week. One traumatic event doesn’t have to make a kid a criminal.”

Randy sits back in his chair, turns and stares into Cameron’s face.

“I’ve read studies, real case reports that describe fire as a reaction to trauma and in every single one the flames seem to flow from the hand without conscious thought. Most of the respondents couldn’t remember holding a lighter or a match. They couldn’t remember how the fire started, only that it was.” He turns to Cameron. “I’m going with that. For now.”

Cameron likes the image Randy created, of fire shooting from his fingertips. That’s exactly what it felt like, fire instead of blood in his veins.

“Don’t talk to anybody about the fire,” Randy says.

Cameron nods.

“Not your friends. Not your mom. Not the police.”

“Okay.”

“The police are going to come. I told them you’re not talking unless I’m in the room.”

He stands up, his gun belt creaking, and looks down at Cameron.

“You tell them what you told me. You were in the woods yesterday. You go there a lot. And that your ID card has been missing for days.

“They’ll ask you why you go to the woods. Do you have an answer for that?”

“It’s quiet there. I can think. Sometimes I hike the trails all the way to the lake.”

“You go there to hike,” Randy says. “And, Cameron, if you have a problem with them searching your room, your clothes, you go take care of that now.”

Cameron doesn’t jump to his feet, doesn’t want to give himself away. He rolls the pocket knife under his palm, drying the sweat against his jeans, and holds Randy’s gaze a few seconds longer.

“Listen to me, Cameron, sometimes we do things we never intended to do. Your whole life doesn’t have to be defined by one mistake.”

THURSDAY

8:00PM

The police didn’t come.

Randy sat in a chair in the living room, first reading the newspaper and then a magazine on fly fishing, until after ten o’clock. Cameron sat at the kitchen table with his Spanish book and his mother and guessed the best he could at what might have been assigned. They completed a lesson on traveling from Barcelona to Madrid, using phrases that connected them with food, a bathroom, and a place to stay that wasn’t too expensive. Robbie watched TV in their bedroom, canned laughter seeping through the floor.

Randy appears in the doorway. “They’re not coming. Not tonight.”

Cameron feels his mom grow tight, like every muscle went on instant standby. She places the English/Spanish dictionary on the table with too much care and then sits back in her chair.

“Maybe,” she says, her voice at about thirty degrees below zero, “they found the person who really set that fire. They’re busy arresting the
criminal.
”

She accused Randy of being cynical. Of taking his work home.

“Cameron did NOT set that fire. Have you ever seen him with matches? Does he seem like the type of kid who’d go out and deliberately destroy property?”

“No. But he went through a traumatic event yesterday —”

“He didn’t set that fire, Randy. My son did NOT set that fire.”

“The detectives are coming,” Randy warned.

“Why?” his mom demanded. “Why do they think it’s Cameron?”

Randy told her about the witness, about Cameron’s ID card. He told her, when looked at from a police perspective, setting the fire was a natural reaction to what happened to Cameron in the locker room. “Victims of violent crime, of sexual assault, a lot of times they explode or implode.”

“Sexual assault? No way! That didn’t happen,” Cameron protested. He jumped up from his chair. His pulse slammed in his wrists, in his temples. “They didn’t do that.”

Randy turned to him. “We’re treating it as a sexual assault, Cameron. They held you against your will, exposed you, and took pictures they later put on the Internet.”

As if that settled it. As if that was all that mattered. Everyone knows sexual assault means rape. Everyone will know, will think that’s what Patterson did to him.

“But they didn’t
touch
me.” Cameron heard his voice rising, turning sharp. “It was nothing like that.”

“When are the police going to talk to Cameron about that?” his mom wanted to know. “
That
was a crime.”

“We know that, and Cameron will give his statement, but the situation is contained. The boys were arrested.”

“Are they still in jail?” Doubt dripped from his mother’s voice. “They aren’t, are they?”

“They were released to their parents this morning,” Randy admitted. “Neither one has a history of trouble with police, or at school —”

“Neither does Cameron. But the police are still coming. Not because my son was hurt, but because they think
he
committed a crime.”

“It wasn’t sexual assault,” Cameron tried to interrupt them. He wanted to scream but his heart wasn’t cooperating. It kicked into slow and he couldn’t get his breath to do more than whisper.

“The fire is an open case and the evidence leads to Cameron.” Randy pushed his hands through his hair and looked down at both of them. “You need to know that. You both need to know that. This isn’t about guilt. Right now, right here, our concern is damage control. The fire torched a lot of land, damaged public access, and came within three hundred yards of a domestic residence. The case will stay open until someone is arrested.”