The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon (18 page)

There in the surreal, theatrical glow of Federated Oil’s floodlights, MacLennan slowly got out of his truck while Kogen waited a couple yards away.

When Albert was eavesdropping on MacLennan’s conversation in the driveway, he’d assumed the person on the other end of the line was one of MacLennan’s asshole friends. But it was Kogen who was behind MacLennan stealing Lily’s journal—it had nothing to do with MacLennan wanting to help the girl who had once been his friend. Once again, Albert had missed the point, and once again, he’d let Lily down—badly, this time. His body shook as he risked it to watch MacLennan approach the spot where Kogen, looking relaxed, stood waiting.

Albert couldn’t figure out how these two even knew each other. What was a grown man doing sneaking around at night with a teenager? Knowing as he now did how screwed up Kogen was, Albert was afraid he wasn’t going to want to find out.

When he thought about the people that came in and out of his daily life—his parents, the other kids at school, his teachers, even the cops—it seemed impossible that someone he knew could really be such a … the word “villain” came to mind. Albert knew this was an incredibly naïve attitude. Of course, he knew that people did bad things—horrible, unspeakable things sometimes—but it was still hard for him to really believe that such viciousness could ever touch his life, or the life of someone he loved. That he would ever face real danger from another person.

Now he was facing danger from two people, and not only did he not understand how or why they’d come together, he didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to do about it. He watched, hoping an idea would come to him.

From where he was hiding behind the dumpster, Albert’s view of MacLennan was mostly of his back; Kogen was almost directly across from him, his calm, unreadable face very clear in the electric light. If Albert shifted even just a few inches, he knew his movement would catch Kogen’s eye.

It’s too much
, he thought in a panic.
I’m sorry, Lily.

“Be smart,” were the first words Lily’s stepfather said to MacLennan.

It was as if the those flat, reasonable words were really directed at Albert, and that flame of anger blazed up and made him stronger. Whatever he had to do, he would do it.

“Just give me the book, then we can both get out of this godforsaken cold and go home.” Taking another step forward, Kogen smiled slightly at MacLennan, an expression meant to be friendly and reassuring, but failing. His normally handsome face was cut with deep shadows.

Albert’s anger gave him courage. He waited to see what MacLennan would do before making his own move, but now that they were about to make the exchange—Lily’s journal for what?—MacLennan seemed to hesitate.

“Go on, then,” Kogen said, closing the gap and holding out his hand. “I’ve had enough teenage angst for today.” His words were harsher than they’d been before.

He’s losing patience
, thought Albert. It was as if he could read Kogen’s mind—Kogen knew it was about time to make a move for the journal, and he was about to do it. At that moment Albert would have given one of his limbs for a cell phone, and he had to push black and hateful thoughts about his control-freak parents out of his head.

Despite Kogen’s obvious impatience, MacLennan was still holding on to Lily’s journal, the little book prized by all three people in the gas station parking lot that night. “Why did that fag she was dating steal this thing in the first place?” he asked, still holding the book.

“Because he’s a very disturbed young man—one who quite possible knows where my daughter is and may be responsible for her disappearance.”

Stepdaughter
, Albert shouted at Kogen in his brain. His head was burning.

MacLennan turned his head and Albert could see that his expression was uncertain. “Then why make me steal it back for you? He was acting suspicious … he probably knows by now that I took it. If he’s crazy, why didn’t you just call the police?”

Kogen’s hand rested on his hip. “I needed some proof first, which is what’s in my daughter’s journal.”

Which was true, but not in the way Kogen was implying.

“They’re not going to just arrest the little creep on my say-so, are they? Use your head, Patrick. It doesn’t matter what my reasons are, anyway. I’m fairly certain you’re not in a position to question me.”

“That’s another thing that’s bugging me,” MacLennan said, his voice carrying as it rose. “What guarantee do I have that you won’t call the cops on me after I give you this?” He held up Lily’s journal as if he were going to hurl it at something.

That smile was back and Albert thought Kogen seemed relaxed again, as if he’d gotten back control of the situation. He said, “You have my word on it.”

Before he could catch himself, Albert snorted. Fortunately, MacLennan snorted at the same time. But why the hell, Albert wondered, would Kogen call the cops on MacLennan? It didn’t seem possible that the police would arrest MacLennan, a seventeen-year-old boy, for the theft of a diary that had been stolen in the first place by Albert, while
not
arresting the adult man who asked him to do it. And how could Kogen even prove anybody stole anything when he had Lily’s diary back in his possession? The conversation wasn’t making any sense.

“My word is going to have to do,” Kogen said, ignoring MacLennan’s disbelief. “I’m not the one who broke into my friend’s father’s dental office after hours to steal a controlled substance and probably money, if I could find it—”

“We weren’t after any money,” MacLennan protested.

“—and probably money,” Kogen went on as if MacLennan hadn’t spoken. “I’m painting a picture here. As I was saying,
I’m
not the one who was then foolish enough to let my idiot friend overdose on said controlled substance, stupid enough to let the rest of our friends leave her there to die, then
stupid
enough to come back and get caught by the dentist he was trying to rip off. Now am I?”

“No, sir,” MacLennan mumbled.

“Right,” said Kogen. “I did you a favor by not turning you in—”

“A favor? That didn’t have anything to do with me,” MacLennan objected angrily. “You just didn’t want to get Lily in trouble because it would embarrass you and your family and might be bad for business. I mean, who would go to a dentist who’d put his own daughter in jail?”

He was right, Albert thought. There was no way Kogen was doing anyone any favors but himself. It was just luck—really shitty luck for Lily—that he could use that “favor” against MacLennan all this time later.

“—and all I want is a favor in return,” Kogen continued, his words rolling over the top of MacLennan’s. “One good turn deserves another. I’m not looking for anything else, except that you keep your mouth shut. If you say anything to anyone, I will be forced to mention your part in the crime that was committed against me. Maybe it would go away, or maybe you’d go to jail for assaulting my daughter. Maybe you’d just lose your scholarship, I don’t know.” He managed to sound both aggrieved and regretful at the same time. “Nod if you understand what I’m saying.”

Looking humiliated, MacLennan nodded as Albert watched from behind the dumpster.

“Now that everything is just oh-so-clear, give me Lily’s journal and let’s both go home.”

“I didn’t have a problem helping you because Lily’s cool, and if this helps her, I want to do it,” MacLennan said. “But I have to be sure that you’re not going to come back and hold that night over my head again the next time you need something shady done.”

To Albert, MacLennan sounded like he was trying hard to convince himself that helping Kogen was helping Lily. If MacLennan found himself questioning Kogen’s motives, Kogen’s actions, Kogen’s creepy attitude, then he would have to stand up to the guy. He would have to make a choice between sticking up for Lily and pissing Kogen off, or keeping himself out of serious trouble by choosing to believe Kogen and letting his doubts go. But he was waffling; Albert could tell that MacLennan was waffling. Now was the time to show himself, before Kogen had the diary in hand. If he did it just right, it could be two against one.

As Albert was about to shout out, he heard MacLennan give a startled cry—

What is he—?

—and then Albert saw that Kogen was holding a gun on MacLennan. His pulse racing, amazed at the very bad moment at which he’d almost thrown himself into this little drama, Albert hung back, unable to look away. He was as grateful for the cover of the dumpster as he’d ever been for anything.

“You gotta be kidding me,” MacLennan said, his voice breathless and cracking.

“I really am done with you,” Kogen said. “Give me my daughter’s diary. Now.”

Terrified, Albert watched MacLennan reach out as far as he could to hand the little book over; he saw MacLennan flinch when Kogen took it roughly from his outstretched hand. There was a moment of complete stillness as Kogen and MacLennan regarded one another across just a few feet of space. In that moment, Albert was convinced that Kogen was going to shoot MacLennan anyway, no matter how absurd the idea was.

Time stretched out as nothing happened, but anything might. And then Kogen began backing away, his eye and his aim still focused on MacLennan. As for MacLennan, he just held his hands up and shrugged. He muttered something that Albert didn’t entirely catch, but which sounded like
it’s cool.
After putting some distance between himself and the kid he was blackmailing, Kogen made an abrupt turn and moved quickly across the parking lot toward his car. It roared to life, and then Albert and MacLennan were left alone.

A voice in the back of Albert’s head was screaming for him to catch Kogen while he still could, to attack him at a dead run, whatever might happened after that. And he was angry with himself when he found that he wasn’t man enough to do it. His legs wouldn’t do what he told them, so he stayed where he was. And even if he might rationalize it by saying that he would be hurt or worse if he tried to interfere with Kogen at this moment, that he couldn’t help Lily if he ignored his judgment, he knew that the rationalization didn’t matter. What was really happening was that he’d seen how serious Kogen was, and he was too afraid.

Legs aching from squatting on the blacktop, Albert wished MacLennan would hurry up and leave, too. He crawled back from the edge of the dumpster and sat all the way down with his back against the dented blue metal. He wanted to scream and curse and kick the dumpster until it rang with the same frustration he himself was suffering. Not only had he completely
failed
to get Lily’s journal back, he’d been forced to watch it go to the last person on earth who should have it.

There was no doubt in Albert’s mind that now that Kogen knew the diary existed—
thanks to me and my brilliant detective work
—and had it in hand, he would destroy it immediately.

And when he did, there went the best proof they had of Kogen’s crimes. Actually, the second-best proof, but what would’ve been the first best—Lily herself—was nowhere to be found, and half of what she’d endured was probably stilled locked in her brain anyway. What details there were existed only on the pages of her journal.

Gone with it was any protection Albert could promise to Lily, so that he could convince her it was safe to come home. She’d left because she was terrified of her stepfather, but had she recovered from that buried place in her mind the full reason why?
Did
she remember the details, or did her journal really hold the sole story behind the gruesome night of her accident? There was no way right now to know. Albert felt as if he’d been running forward in the dark and just bounced off of a particularly hard brick wall.

Several minutes passed as he struggled under the growing weight of his gloom. He tried to think of what to do next. It took him a while to notice that the night was once again dead silent, except for the cattle and the distant buzz of freeway traffic on the other side of the hill. He didn’t hear MacLennan, nor had he heard MacLennan’s truck drive away.

Once again Albert edged to the corner of the dumpster, ignoring the pain in his calves. He peered around the corner and came almost face-to-knee with MacLennan’s legs, barely a foot away. The breath startled out of him, Albert leapt to his feet and scrambled back a bit. He gave an involuntary yell.

“What the hell?” MacLennan cried, his words echoing loudly.