Delicate Monsters (16 page)

It was Detective Gutierrez who knocked on the door early Friday morning as dawn crept into town. Emerson waved her in with a yawn. He hadn't slept all night. He couldn't. His mind, his whole body, felt jumpy and dark.

“My mom's in her room,” he whispered. “The doctor made her take a pill. I could try and wake her, though.”

“No, don't do that.” The detective stayed on the stoop. “How's she doing, Emerson?”

He shook his head. “Not good.”

“We're working as hard as we can.”

“I know.”

“Do you think you and I could talk for a little bit?”

“About what?”

“About Miles. And … your mother.”

Something bubbled in Emerson's gut. Hot and bitter. As if some stove burner of emotion flickering beneath him had just been turned up.

“Sure,” he said. “Let's go outside.”

Detective Gutierrez nodded, and she waited while he grabbed a key and stepped out, pulling the front door shut behind him. The morning air was chill and fresh, and Emerson breathed in deeply as they walked out to the parking lot to stand beneath the redwood trees that shaded the complex from the road.

“What did you want to talk about?” he asked.

“I know this might seem—”

“Don't screw around with me,” he said. “Just tell me what you have to say. I know it's not anything good or you wouldn't have brought me out here.”

The detective nodded, meeting his gaze with those sharp, steely eyes of hers. “Five years ago your mother was arrested for suspicion of child abuse and child endangerment.”

“And those charges were dropped.”

“True. But the suspicions were raised after your brother made multiple trips to the ER for different physical ailments.”

“So? He's not a strong kid. He's got all sorts of allergies. That's not exactly a criminal act. But him getting sick so easily, it's exactly why you guys need to find—”

“Last week your brother was in the ER again.”

Emerson folded his arms. “What's your point?”

“My point is that it kind of raises suspicions again.”

“Isn't it more suspicious that
this week
Miles got beat up by a bunch of asshole kids running around the streets of Sonoma?”

“Did he?” she asked.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

The bubbling inside Emerson turned up. Way up. A full-boiled rage. “Unbelievable. This is unbelievable. My mother has
nothing
to do with this.”

“Well, we can't find the boys who beat him up. There were no witnesses, and Miles wouldn't tell us anything.”

“That's not my mom's fault! Just…” His voice cracked. “Just find my brother.
Please.
”

“We're trying. I promise you that.” She reached out to touch his shoulder, but Emerson flinched. Sidestepped out of her reach.

“Fuck your promises,” he snarled. “And fuck you!” He stalked off, didn't look back. He marched up the stairs and went inside the apartment. Slammed the door behind him. He tried talking himself down by standing outside his mother's bedroom, which was a joke. Like he'd ever been able to shield her from anything.

Emerson sank to the floor in the darkened hallway. Put his head in his hands. Tried to tamp down his roiling emotions. It hurt too much, thinking, feeling. He shouldn't have lost his temper with the cop, he
knew
that, but he just wanted this all to end. To be over. For Miles to come back and for things to be how they were.

That was it. That wasn't too much to ask.

Was it?

 

chapter thirty-one

Theory #3: The Most Dangerous Game

I know you know the story because you called me Rainsford once, like you saw some of him in me. Or maybe you saw yourself in General Zaroff. Whichever it was, Connell's story's one I reread recently, and I was struck by something I hadn't noticed before. I'm guessing it's one of those questions that doesn't come with the teacher's discussion guide when it's taught in high school English, because it's so obvious to people who aren't me. But here's what I noticed: Zaroff and Rainsford are both hunters. Rainsford is set up to be different because of his ethical boundaries; he won't hunt men. But by the end, Zaroff and Rainsford aren't actually different at all because Rainsford is pushed to cross the same ethical line he condemns Zaroff for crossing by killing him in cold blood. I get that it's a story about perspective, about how what looks like madness or evil from one vantage point can look like righteousness when you're standing somewhere else.

But is the assumption that, deep down, we're all capable of murder? That we only hold those impulses back due to moral vanity and for no other reason?

Sometimes I feel like that's truly the world we live in, and I'm the only one who doesn't understand the rules. Everyone else is walking close to the cliff's edge, peering down at the bloody ground below, trying to guess who's going to get pushed over next. Meanwhile, I'm the one clinging to the wall, too broken with grief over those who've already been lost.

I guess what I'm saying is I know that you're Zaroff and I know you're Rainsford, and maybe that's the answer. Maybe that's humanity in a nutshell, rather than that hamster wheel bullshit you tried to spin me. The thing is, I'm not playing the same game as the rest of you. In my heart of hearts, I know I'd choose death at the hands of Ivan the giant rather than risk becoming the hunter. Every single time. Maybe Father Carson would let me believe there's nobility in that choice, which is the kindness I find in my faith, but even I know there's no grace in fear. My life is not a life of sacrifice or martyrdom.

My life is maddening.

—R

P.S. Why did you want to know about Charlie Burns?

 

I wanted to know about Charlie because of a boy here that I met. He reminded me of you and he got beat up by some guys, only he wouldn't say who did it. I guess I wondered if something similar happened with you and Charlie. And it did. And maybe I guess I also wondered if that was part of why this boy and I got to know each other. Because of you. Or me. Or something. I don't know.

What happened to him?

What do you mean? Why are you asking me that?

You're using the past tense to talk about him.

Yeah, well, he's missing. He disappeared.

Missing how?

I don't know how. He's just gone. He left school on Wednesday and no one's seen him since. That's two days now. He's only fifteen.

You're worried about him, aren't you?

No. Yes. I guess.

That's interesting.

Why?

I didn't think you cared about other people.

I don't. I mean, I'm kind of fucked up right now. But he's a sad kid, R. I don't know. He might be really screwed up.

Like me.

Yes, like you.

Then you should know where to look.

I should?

Absolutely.

Hey, how come you keep sending me your weird theories? It's stupid, you know. It's not going to change anything.

Because you still haven't told me why.

Sadie put her phone away before she said something else to Roman. Something she'd regret. She was sitting on her ass in the dying sun, half-buried in the dry earth of the southern hillside of her family's vineyard, and she was drunk. It was a lazy stupid kind of drunk, the kind that made her mind move slowly and her mouth taste like vomit.

All around her, the air smelled fetid. The natural decay process of the grapevines had been interrupted by this sudden shift in temperature. Instead of heading into the cool fog days of autumn and signaling to the plants that it was time to go fallow, this freak October heat wave was melting everything into a rancid soup. Not to mention there was a fire burning. It was many miles away, out in the Central Valley, but smoke and ash filled the landscape with an apocalyptic haze.

This hazy shit-smelling place was Sadie's escape. Her sanctuary. How gross was that? There was still no news about Miles, and she'd come out here to read that rambling message from Roman because her insensitive bitch of a mom had invited guests over to the house, some sort of late-season dinner party. Like the town wasn't already in the midst of a tragedy. A kid was
missing
. A kid their family had known. But life went on for the wealthy and uncouth, and the party was a whole fancy thing involving cocktail dresses and sunset views and assholes who threw around words like
charcuterie
and
aperitif
and
m
é
nage a trois
. Sadie figured if she had to spend any time with those people, she was liable to puke, burn the place to the ground, or commit mass murder. Maybe all three.

So she'd taken her phone and a bottle of the most expensive champagne she could find and dragged herself out here, careful to skirt around the back creek and the old press and the abandoned cellar, places that reminded her of Emerson Tate and the twisted things they used to do together. Those were memories she didn't need at the moment. Not ever probably.

Sadie guzzled down the last of the champagne and stared out at the valley and the homes and everything she hated. A soft twinkling to the east told her someone had set floating candles free in her family's pool. She groaned. Floating candles had to be one of the worst party decorations ever invented, what with their fake romantic pretension and atmospheric contrivance. In terms of general tackiness, they ranked right up there with wind puppets and those bags of Jordan almonds that got handed out at weddings.

The malaise and ennui running through Sadie's brain took on strength, made her long to do something bad. Something hurtful. Maybe this was what Roman's Tourette's thing was like. Being filled to the rim with the burning need to
act
.

More than anything, Sadie ached to be elsewhere. Anywhere. In a different body. A different life. This patch of vineyard hillside was the exact spot her father had gotten mad at her once. Sadie had said something mean to her mother, who said something mean back, and Sadie threw a rock at her legs before turning and running as fast as she could.

Like a greyhound after a hare, her father had chased her down in the rows of grapes, scooping her up to lay her across his lap. It was the only time he'd ever spanked her, and while he'd done it, he told her:

This. Is. For. Your. Own. Good.

And maybe it had been.

Only now Sadie's father was gone, long gone, and with something like the bough-snap pain of first heartbreak, she was beginning to understand that he wouldn't be coming back.

Ever.

But with Miles, there was still hope.

Wasn't there?

*   *   *

The thing about Roman and what happened between them wasn't that he'd wanted a friend when she hadn't wanted friends. And it wasn't that he'd wanted to be something more than friends when she hadn't wanted that either. Both of those things were true, of course, but they were on him. Sadie knew that. She'd read
Venus in Furs
. If the boy wanted to be punished, then he must like the punishment.

Or else he believed he deserved it.

But after that awkward autumn afternoon in his dorm room, that day he'd so clearly wanted her, and when she'd so clearly rejected him, Sadie made the choice to push him away. Not because she'd wanted him to leave, but because it felt good to push.

Really
good.

“You're pathetic,” she told him on their next walk through the woods, with the smell of wood smoke mingling with the chilled promise of winter to come.

“How's that?” he'd asked, but kept his brown eyes cast downward, watching his own feet move forward, like he couldn't believe what they were doing. Like they were betraying him by following her.

“It's like, we all have this place in the world. Somewhere we can run on our hamster wheels and be comfortable. There are TV shows to watch. Books to read. Music to listen to. People to spend time with, maybe even fuck every now and then. There's something and someone for everyone. So we can go through life and protect ourselves from discomfort, from having our beliefs challenged, and blissfully ignore the rest of the big bad world that's out there. It's what most of us do. Hell, no one really wants to take a stand or answer any call to action if they don't have to. We just say we do to feel better about ourselves. For most people, though, life is about finding their hamster wheel and running on it. It gives the illusion of progress. Not that things are perfect, nothing ever is, but there's a sweet spot of peace out there, so long as there's food on the table and we don't have bombs blowing up around us or something.

“But there are some people who find comfort in discomfort. In knocking people out of their hamster wheels and setting them free onto the four-lane highway of reality. Look at Sartre. Look at Kierkegaard. Remember what he said? ‘The crowd is untruth.' Kierkegaard knew. And people like that, like us, we're the ones the hamsters should fear. Because other people's fear, it kind of gets us off.”

 

chapter thirty-two

By Friday afternoon the story about Miles had shifted. Emerson felt it happen the way he felt a storm brewing off the ocean or the earth rumble beneath his feet; it was in his bones and in his soul—a swirling sea change in interest, in urgency.

And still, Miles was missing.

The change had something to do with the school psychologist who'd talked to Miles after he'd gotten beaten up. Emerson didn't know what the psychologist had said, exactly, but the whispers of rumors that rode through town were no longer
abducted, beaten, left for dead, killed by his own mom
. Instead they became rumors that Miles had taken his own life. That he'd been suicidal. Or homicidal. And weren't those really the same thing?