Handcuffs (32 page)

“Should I drive over to the apartment and see if she’s there and not answering her phone?” Dad asks Mom.

Mom sighs. “I’ll call West’s parents again and see if they know anything.” Dad has his keys in his hand and he keeps walking back and forth, picking up his coat and putting it down.

We’re all sitting in the kitchen waiting to see what will happen. My mom puts a plate with chicken fingers in front of Preston, even though we all know he won’t eat them.

“You should eat,” she says to me. I shake my head.

I reach over and pat Miracle Child—I mean, Preston’s leg. I tell myself that no matter how screwed up our family is, I will try to be there for him. Maybe tonight I’ll play Monopoly with him, or one of his stupid video games so he can beat me. I know he’ll like that. It makes me happy when he laughs. He has a great laugh.

The phone rings. Mom answers and we all hold our breath. She nods a couple of times. “Yes, we’ll see you in a little while,” she says, but she’s worried—the line between her eyes is more pronounced than ever.

“That was Paige. West went to his parents’ house. She’s coming home,” Mom tells us. “It’s going to be all right, everything is going to be all right.” My mom sounds all teary. I think maybe it would be good for her to let some emotions out. Maybe it would be good for all of us.

Preston goes out onto the porch to wait for Paige. I sit at the kitchen table, voluntarily in the same room as my parents for once.

“I got another job offer, right here in town,” Dad tells me, with a sad little smile. “Not as much money as before, but it could turn things around.”

“That’s great, Daddy.” I smile at him across the table.

“Mommy, Dad, there’s a police car in our driveway!” Preston calls through the open front door.

“Now what do you suppose . . . ?” Mom’s forehead creases again with worry.

“She said he left, didn’t she? You don’t think he came back . . . ?” Daddy stands up and they walk to the door together. I peek out around them.

They think the police are here because of Paige and West, and I don’t know whether to hope that’s true or not. I don’t know what to think. If they are here because of Paige that might mean something bad happened, and I don’t want that, but if they aren’t here because of Paige . . . My stomach clenches and I take a step back, thinking that I’m actually truly going to throw up.

“Mr. and Mrs. Prescott?” the police officer asks.

“Yes.” My father’s voice sounds quavery.

“We need to ask you a few questions.”

“Of course.” One police officer, who is tall and heavyset, falls into step beside my father and follows him into the house. The skinny one stands and watches us—well, not Preston, who’s sticking close to my side, but me.

Skinny Policeman takes a couple of steps up the stairs. The fourth stair squeaks loudly and he looks surprised. He looks like a normal guy, like a teacher or a parent or whatever, except for the uniform.

My mom walks after him.

“Is this about my daughter?” she asks. “Has something happened?” The police officer looks at me. I am so scared that I feel my legs getting trembly. I wonder if it would look suspiciously weird if I sat down right here in the hallway. Skinny Policeman frowns and walks up the stairs and directly into my room. He’s facing my canopy bed with the pink stripes and the frilly pillows. The princess room. My room. I follow him.

“This is it,” he calls to the other policeman. “This computer could be the one.”

“How do you know?” The skinny one clicks something and both of the officers loom over my tiny seventeen-inch monitor.

“Can we take this computer?” the fat policeman asks. My dad is in the doorway, and I can tell he’s struggling with what to do.

“Don’t you need a warrant to take something from my daughter’s room?”

“Not if you give us permission.”

“I think we need to know what’s going on before we allow you to take anything,” Mom says.

My mom is holding on to Preston as if he might float away. I wish she would wrap her arms around me and hold me the same way.

“Is this your room and your computer, young lady?” The skinny policeman doesn’t look so much like a teacher now.

“Yes.” I feel my mouth move, but I don’t have a voice. I reach for my mother but she’s too far away.

He comes toward me, and I see his handcuffs dangling from his belt. Real handcuffs.

He puts them on me. They’re cold. They don’t feel sexy at all. Mom’s mouth drops open and Daddy’s face is bright, bright red.

“Parker Prescott, you have the right to remain silent,” he begins.

“How do you know her name?” my mom asks. Something about the way she says it sounds unfamiliar, and I’m afraid to raise my eyes and see how she might be looking at me. “You can’t take her outside in those handcuffs. The neighbors might see.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. I want to throw myself into her arms, but I’m frozen, turned into an icicle with the cold metal handcuffs holding me in place.

The police officers whisper to one another, and after a couple of minutes they take the cuffs off and the skinny one escorts me to the police car without them. The other officer stays back to talk to my parents. I want to hear what is being said, but I don’t want to see the looks on their faces.

When we reach the police car, its lights still flashing, the fat police officer opens the door for me, even though I could have done it myself since my hands are free. I stand beside the police car for several seconds. Long enough to make the skinny cop frown. Finally, I force myself to climb into the backseat. The vinyl makes a squeaky sound as I sit back and put my head in my hands.

40

I
don’t think or feel anything as they drive me downtown. Sure, there is an occasional stab of fear, a bit of shame, but overall I am only numb. Empty.

The police station is a big dingy building. A lady comes out and whispers with the officers who brought me in, and then she takes me into a room. There’s a rough orange couch made out of some kind of woven material, a couple of chairs in the same rough weave, only yellow, and a rug over the concrete floor.

I expect them to fingerprint me and take my picture. For some reason I imagine a hideous mug shot plastered all over Marion Henessy’s blog. I clasp my hands and unclasp them over and over, wipe the sweat on my jeans, try to focus on something besides the fear that is building up in me.

“We don’t know yet if charges will be pressed. Sit in here, honey. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Is that good news? She called me “honey,” is that good? Does it possibly mean she likes me or feels sorry for me, or does she call everyone “honey”? Can I start feeling hope now? The little glimmer of hope just makes me that much more aware of the fear I’m trying to keep under control. I had American government last year, why can’t I remember the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony? Where does two thousand dollars fall? Am I going to jail?

There’s a noise, a creaking footstep noise, and I look up so quickly that a sharp pain twists its way through my neck. Kyle Henessy is in the doorway. The security in this police station must be pretty lax if they’ll let my sister’s stalker come into this room. I mean, there
is
a restraining order requiring him to stay fifty feet away from each and every member of our family. I take a gaspy breath. Me and Kyle both at the police station—that means I’d better start figuring out how to talk him out of pressing charges.

He sits down in the yellow chair and turns toward me.

“I knew it was you,” he said. “I found the picture on your computer when I was visiting Paige last week. The one I assume you tried to sell me the first time?”

I stare at his eyebrows. For a guy’s eyebrows they are fairly neat, not bushy or anything. If I stare at them, then I don’t have to meet his eyes, and we’ll never have the deeper connection that comes from looking into another person’s eyes. My own eyes feel weird, like they’re made of plastic, like they could burn right out of my skull. I stare at Kyle Henessy, with his wire-rimmed glasses that are exactly like my dad’s.

“How old are you?” he asks.

“Sixteen.”

“Old enough, I guess. If you’re old enough to blackmail me, I guess you’re old enough to hear some ugly things about your sister.”

“I know some things about her,” I say for some idiotic reason.

“You probably know more than you think. I noticed you never went to parties with her, after that first one.”

“No.”

“I guess you were aware of the big stupid crush I had on her.”

“Everybody knew,” I say. It was pretty obvious.

“Before the restraining order and everything, even when we were kids.”

“Yeah, everybody knew,” I repeat.

“Paige is nearly a year younger than me, and she’s probably the first thing I remember. Before you or my sister were born, I just remember playing with her in our backyard. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t think about her, though when we were little it wasn’t so much attraction as regular friendship. I had a thing for her in middle school, and I took her to my very first dance. My mom drove, and Paige ditched me for some other boy almost as soon as we walked through the door.”

“I never knew she ditched you,” I say. He looks down at his ugly Timberland boots.

“Well, that was about the time the intense feeling started. I call it love, my parents call it obsession. By the time she was a freshman, your sister was extremely, um, notorious on the party scene. It was terrible, Parker. I hated myself for the way I felt and for not being good enough for her and just for being alive.

“I can’t explain to you why I started going to all those parties. At first it helped me to feel more popular, more in touch with other people. Then there was Paige. She was like an angel, the same angel who kissed me on the cheek when I had my tonsils out and signed all over my cast when I broke my arm.

“Sort of. We were older, and Paige was different. Like part of her was gone. The sweet part that I remembered from when we were kids, it seemed locked away.” If I hadn’t been so close to hypnotized by his quiet, stumbling voice, I might have agreed, might have told him that it seemed the same to me.

“Then the thing happened.” He stops and looks at me quickly, and then his eyes dart away again.

“I was at a party, and I went down to the basement to pick up some more beer, and there was Paige, completely passed out. I went to get a blanket. She was just sprawled there on the floor, but when I got back West was lifting her in his arms.

“He took her upstairs to one of the bedrooms. I thought he was probably just going to put her in somebody’s parents’ bed, make sure she was breathing, but still wanted to be near her. I wanted to be the one to save her. So I followed. He took her shoes off. I thought that seemed normal, because a person can’t sleep with their shoes on. I came in the room and I asked him if he needed any help.

“He started laughing, and said something that I won’t repeat to you. Then some of the other football players came and forced me out of the room.”

I start to stand up. I suddenly feel deeply afraid. “What’re you telling me? What did the football players do to her?”

Kyle touches my arm. “No, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to think that. Just West. He was proprietary, but she was his girlfriend. He had this hold over her. The other guys knew she was his. I was the only one who didn’t pay attention when he staked out his territory.

“I followed her everywhere, trying to help. Trying to save her from herself and from West. She drank way too much, not like she was trying to get a buzz, like she was trying to forget herself, like she didn’t care about being conscious. Three different times she drank so much that I called the hospital and had an ambulance come for her. It made her furious, and she was supposed to go into an alcohol program, but your parents signed for her to get out of it.

“I watched her on the way to school, I watched her on dates, and I watched her through her bedroom window. It was all to try to protect her. If I had wanted sex, I could have just done what West did. She was passed out so many times and in so many places, it would have been easy enough.” He clears his throat again.

“I thought I was some superhero guy, but I wasn’t super-sneaky, and I started to seriously freak her out, and she knew that one more trip to the hospital would mean a rehab stay, or some counseling, that there would be consequences. That’s when she got your parents to get a restraining order.”

Kyle takes his glasses off and wipes them on his shirt. Just like my dad does sometimes. What I want more than anything is to get out of this room with the orange couch and the nubby yellow chairs and to go home and curl up in my frilly canopy bed for about a week. It isn’t that I don’t care about Paige and what happened or that I don’t all of a sudden feel sorry for Kyle, it’s just that this is a jail, and I want to go home to my parents.

“So are you going to press charges?” I ask. Because what else
can
I say? I knew he was obsessed with my sister. I knew she liked to party, I didn’t know it was a big problem. I don’t know what to think, really.

“No. No, I’m not. I reported the original blackmail, but once I figured it was you I was prepared to drop everything.”