Trial by Fire (12 page)

J
ake was waiting nervously for her in the front yard at the vacant house, smoking a cigarette. She pulled her car into the driveway and quickly got out. He dropped the cigarette and stubbed it out with his toe.

“Thought you quit smoking,” she said.

“I did,” Jake said. “Cruz doesn't like it. But I'm a little stressed right now. This way, Issie.”

He led her into the house to a back bedroom, and she saw the boy lying on the floor in a back bedroom. The tall blond girl sat against the wall with a worried look on her face. Cruz stood at the center of the room like a traffic cop. “Before you touch him,” he said, “I need to warn you that you can't breathe a word about this to anyone. It was an accident. He was drunk and playing around with a knife…”

Issie fell to her knees beside Benton and tried to uncoil the boy. “Let me see, Benton. I can't help you until you give me your leg.”

Cruz was getting impatient. “One word, and the next injury won't be an accident. Are you hearing me?”

Issie had coaxed Benton out of his coil and saw that the towel pressed against his cut was soaked. “Benton, I'm gonna move this towel. I need to see how bad the cut is.”

“I'm talking to you!” Cruz yelled.

Issie shot a fiery look up at him and yelled back, “Do you want me to help him or not?”

Jennifer grabbed Cruz before he could react. In a soft voice, she said, “Come on, Cruz. Let's go to another room, and we can fill each other in about tonight.”

He didn't want to leave, but he finally let her coax him out. Jake stayed behind.

“What is his problem?” Issie peeled the towel off the wound, and Benton groaned and tightened up, starting the bleeding again. She winced as she saw the depth of the cut.

“This is not a cut, Jake,” she said through her teeth. “This is a stab wound.” She looked up at him. “Isn't it?”

“No,” he said. “He was just playing around with his knife, that's all. He got drunk and was playing around.”

“You're trying to tell me that the guy was drunk enough to give himself a cut three inches long and at least an inch deep?”

“Yeah,” he said weakly.

She shook her head. “I can't do anything with this. He's going to need lots of stitches. He needs to be in a hospital.”

“Issie, he can't go. That's all there is to it. We need you to help him.”

She got on her knees and tried to see if he was lucid. He was half-conscious. “Benton, can you hear me? I need to get you to the hospital.”

He shook his head. “No, can't go,” he slurred.

She groaned and looked up at Jake. “What is it with you people? I'll do what I can, but I'm going to need your help.”

Jake nodded and got on his knees.

“You're going to have to hold him down. I'm going to have to clean the wound first, and it's gonna hurt. If he was drunk, maybe he won't feel it.”

“Hope he drank enough,” he said.

“Me too. Now, hold him down.”

As Jake tried to keep him from writhing and recoiling, Issie began to do the best she could to take care of the wound.

 

L
ater, when she had sterilized it and stitched it up, Cruz came back in.

“We need to get him to a hospital,” she said.

“But that isn't an option,” Cruz bit out, dismissing the subject by leaving the room.

Issie started to object, but she caught Jake's eye, warning her not to pick a fight with him. Benton had passed out long ago, whether from blood loss or alcohol, she wasn't sure.

“Jake, you've got to figure a way to get him treatment,” she said. “He lost a lot of blood. He needs fluids. Antibiotics.”

“I can't,” he said. “Cruz knows what he's doing.”

Issie didn't doubt that for a moment. “What is their draw, Jake? What do they have that you want?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“You're risking prison to hang out with them. I want to know why. Is it that girl?”

He glanced toward the door. “It's a lot of things. I'm somebody with them. Not just a freak who gets in the way. And they've given me something to believe in. Something important to
do.
We're all gonna help build the compound where we're all gonna live. And Cruz, he's special. There's something
different
about him. He's on a higher level than we are. Like, if there's a God, maybe Cruz has an in with him.”

Issie couldn't believe what she was hearing. “So he's setting himself up as some kind of Messiah figure?”

“Yeah, kind of,” Jake said. “Only it's not his fault. He was chosen, just like we are.”

Issie brought her hand to her forehead, trying to puzzle this out. “Jake, have you quit school?”

“Well, not officially, but I haven't been there in a couple of weeks. Mom and Dad don't know. Since they're both at work during the day, the school hasn't been able to fink on me yet.”

“Jake, you're sixteen! What are you gonna do without a high school diploma?”

“I won't need one,” he said. “We're all gonna live together in the compound when it's built. We'll take care of ourselves and mind our own business.”

“Where is this compound?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I can't tell you that.”

She wanted to throttle him.

“They're good for me, Issie.”

“Jake, another kid was killed in another church fire tonight. Did you have anything to do with that?”

He looked down at the crude stitches on his sleeping friend's leg. “Issie, I don't know what you're talking about. My band played at the Viper Pit tonight, until just a while ago. Since then I've been right here with Benton, trying to figure out what to do about his leg.”

“Well, there's a lot of secrecy around here, Jake, and a lot not being explained. Where was Cruz?”

“At the police station, being questioned about the other church burning. So see? He couldn't have done it. The rest of us were all at the Pit. None of us could have done it. And the cops can verify it. They were there, giving us all a hard time.” He met her eyes and seemed to read her doubt. “Why won't you believe me?”

“Because there are too many secrets. Scary secrets. The kind that get people like you killed.”

Jake got quiet.

Her eyes stung as she stared at him. “You know, you remind me a lot of myself when I was sixteen.”

“You're not that much older now.”

“I'm eight years older than you,” she said. “I know you think that's not very much, but there's something I've learned in the last few years that you apparently haven't caught on to yet.”

“What?”

“I've learned that the kids I hung around with when I was your age, the ones who got into trouble and came up with mystery wounds and committed petty crimes…they're all either dead or in prison right now.”

“Yeah, right,” he said.

“I'm not kidding, Jake. I have three friends from high school who are dead. One died of an overdose and one in a drunk driving accident. He was the drunk. Another was shot in the French Quarter on the south shore.”

“Your point?” Jake asked her.

“My point,” she said, “is that two other friends wound up in prison. These were the people I counted as my closest friends, the ones I depended on for everything, sometimes even my life. This Cruz guy is not going to get you anywhere, Jake, nowhere but maybe dead or in prison, and I don't want to see you in either place.”

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. His eyes narrowed as he inhaled. “You know, you're right,” he said on the exhale. “You are a lot older than me. You're already starting to sound like my parents.”

“Your parents don't want you dead or in prison either,” she said. “These friends of yours don't care. If your parents had any idea what I've seen the last couple of days, this house you've vandalized, the bloody stain on that carpet I saw you burning the other night, the stab wound tonight…”

“Come on, Issie,” Jake said. “You need to just keep your nose out of it. We appreciate what you did tonight, but these things are still none of your business.”

“Hey, Ray Ford is a friend of mine. If you had anything to do with his son's murder—”

“Of course I didn't,” Jake cut in. “You really think that about me?”

“Don't act so hurt,” she said. “You know I hardly even know who you are anymore. You used to be this sweet kid I loved to be around, and now you're turning into…I don't even know what.”

Jake looked hurt. “You were never so high and mighty when it was you that wanted to party.”

His words were like a slap in the face. “I don't do dangerous things, Jake. I don't step over the line.”

“What line?” he asked. “You don't have any lines!”

“I make better choices,” she said. “You don't see me breaking and entering, committing arson, murdering innocent people.”

“Give me a break,” he said. “You live just as dangerously as I do, Issie.”

“How do you figure that?” she demanded.

“Everybody knows you like dating ex-cons and married men, and spending every spare night at Joe's Place. You live on the edge, just like me. You just found a way to make a living at it.”

“How dare you?” she flung back. “Don't you
ever
talk to me that way again!”

“Why not?” he asked. “You talk to
me
that way all the time.”

“I'm trying to save your life, you little fool,” she said. “I'm trying to keep you from going the wrong way.”

“Well, when you figure out what the right way is, why don't you come tell me,” he said, “'cause I don't see your path bein' all that different. At least these people have a purpose and a plan that lasts longer than one night. At least they stand for something!”

“You want to stand for hate and lies and death?” she asked. “Does that make you feel important?”

He made a face as if he couldn't believe she was cornering him this way. “I haven't done anything! Just because a church burns down doesn't mean I know something about it.”

“Well, you knew something about the first one.”

Again, he looked shocked. “What makes you say that?”

“The carpet I saw with the blood on it. The conversation we had when I brought it up.”

He looked at the doorway, as if worried that someone was listening. “Issie, I'm going to tell you this one more time. You need to keep your mouth shut and get out of here now.”

“Or what?” she asked. “Are you threatening me, Jake? Because I'm your flesh and blood, and those people in there aren't. You can pretend ignorance, but you need to know that tonight I tried my best to save that kid's life. We defibrillated him three times. I pumped his heart for twenty minutes. His skin was bubbled up like melted rubber. Even if he had lived, he probably never would have walked again, or moved, or had any of his organs function properly. If you're involved, I want you to know that his death was probably horrible, and you'll pay for it some day. And if you're not involved, then I want you to look around and figure out which one of your friends might have done this, because you might be next.”

She had her nephew's attention now. He was staring at her, his face serious. She knew that he really was in over his head. “Who was the kid?” he asked.

“Some kid named Frankie Sardis who lived over on Twenty-third Street. He was thirteen years old. Seventh grade. What kind of coward goes around killing boys too small to even defend themselves?”

Again Jake kept staring at her. “We were all at the Viper Pit,” he whispered, as if that was the story he was sticking to.

“Look, I don't know what any of you are involved in,” Issie said, “but as a member of Newpointe's protective services I'm obligated to tell what I know.”

“You don't
know
anything,” Jake said.

“I do know some things,” she said, her voice low. “I know what I've seen, and I'm going to tell it. I know that after I saw that bloody carpet, I had someone break into my apartment last night and put a dead cat on my bed. I know that I've had my wall written on and my tires slashed. I know that your friend was stabbed tonight.”

“So what are you going to do?” Jake asked.

“I'm going to go to the police,” she said, “and I'm telling you this, Jake, because I don't think it's too late for you to get out of here. I suggest you surgically remove yourself from this group of friends and make sure that you never become a part of this cancer again. Maybe if you go with me to the police, tell them what you know, this will have a better ending than it looks like it's going to have now.”

He swallowed hard. “Issie, don't do it.”

“I have to do it,” she said. “It would be stupid of me to just sit here and keep my mouth shut, knowing that tomorrow another church might burn down and another kid might be found dead. And I'll be called to the scene and I'll have to try to save his life. Have you ever tried to do that, Jake? Have you ever tried to keep somebody alive who's slipping away, knowing that somebody in your family might have had something to do with killing them?”

“I had
nothing
to do with that,” Jake bit out. “You have to believe me. I wouldn't do that.”

“It's a sickening feeling,” she said. “It makes you vomit. It makes your head ache, and it fills you with so much guilt that you don't know what to do.”

“You don't have any reason to feel guilty,” he said.

“Tell me about it. But you do. And you and I are related and I love you and I don't want to see you follow the path that these guys are following.”

“Issie, I'm telling you. Don't go to the police. It's not a smart thing to do.”