Say it Louder (26 page)

I slip in through the back door to avoid the media still camped on Tyler’s mom’s lawn. A circle of angry faces around the kitchen table accosts me.

“Where the hell were you?” Jayce demands.

“Considering it’s my bail money, I deserve an answer.” Gavin shakes his head, like I’ve disappointed him. “Where?”

I open my mouth and then shut it. I drove like a madman back from New York, knowing that the clock was ticking and my absence would be noticed before I could get back. I turned off my phone.

When I passed a police cruiser on the side of the road doing over eighty, I felt like the wind was knocked from my chest as adrenaline pounded on my temples.

But lights and sirens never pursued me, even though I checked my rear-view mirror a thousand times.

“Do you
get
how much shit you’re in? You can’t just disappear.” Gavin smacks his hand on the kitchen table and I flinch.

“I had to see her.” My quiet admission sends a shockwave around the table.

“See. Who?” Jayce demands, but Gavin already knows without me saying.

“You
what?
You fuckwit! You unbelievably stupid, rash, arrogant bastard!” Gavin jumps up from the table and pins me to the wall. I cringe, ready for him to hit me, but the blow never comes.

“Settle down, Gav.” Tyler’s mom Cheryl’s voice slices through the mess and Tyler pulls Gavin off of me. Jayce just seethes, still seated.

Cheryl walks around Tyler, pushing him back toward his seat at the kitchen table. She places a gentle hand on Gavin’s shoulder. “Take a seat. Fighting isn’t going to do Dave a bit of good.”

She looks me up and down, her hands on her hips, in full Mom/referee mode. “Ty, get Dave a cup of coffee. Looks like he needs it. Dave, take my seat.” She points me to where she’d been sitting with the band.

I gratefully follow her instructions, then promptly burn my tongue on the black sludge Cheryl and Tyler call coffee.

It’s far stronger than I feel.

Cheryl points to her front window, where the blinds are drawn against cameras’ prying eyes. “Out there, there are dozens of people waiting to tear you up. But I imagine you’ve done that to yourself already.”

I give her a small nod.

“So we’re not going to be like that. In here, we’re a team. You’re a band. I remember when
you
gave these pep talks, Dave, when you guys were trying to go in four different directions. Ty brought the band together, but you held it together.”

Cheryl pulls an empty chair over and sits so her eyes are level with mine. “You did that with strong will and smarts. And no matter how many ways you’ve messed up in the past, no matter how high a price you’ll have to pay, you’re going to get through this with the same tools. Strong will and smarts.”

I rake my fingers through my hair, wishing it could be true. “There’s nothing left,” I mutter. “Nothing I can do. Kristina went to the police. They’ve got the bar tab. They know I drove drunk that night.”

There’s a long silence.

“Then you pay the price,” Cheryl says.
 

Gavin adds, “But you don’t go down without taking Kristina with you.”

***

Even though I swear up and down that I won’t leave Cheryl’s house again, the band doesn’t trust me. They take turns babysitting me all afternoon.

My lawyer shows up at dusk and offers no good news. He’s got a dozen new details that the police uncovered now that they know where to look.

The Explorer I sold before we moved to New York has been located. It doesn’t have its original front bumper, and there are no service records to show when
that bumper was replaced.

Kristina’s credit card—connected to my account—turns up a charge that night at a convenience store for a little over five bucks. She was out of cigarettes, I’d guess. I don’t even remember stopping there.

And then there’s the most damning piece of evidence, a grainy still frame from a red-light camera a couple of blocks from where the man was hit. I can barely look at it. The Explorer is speeding through an intersection on a red, its bumper lumpy and mangled, and the glow of streetlights illuminates two hands on a steering wheel.

My hands. My fault.

This homeless man, whom I now know was a Vietnam Vet and longtime transient, died at my hands. Because I liked to party.

It doesn’t matter that since that night I’ve pushed the band to party less and work out more. I’ve demanded we pump iron instead of toking up. I rarely drink more than a few beers—that ugly incident with gin excepted—and I’ve never driven with a drop of alcohol in my system.

All that penance does nothing to make up for the life I took.

“The arraignment’s tomorrow, and she’s going to point the finger at you while making herself look like a helpless victim, like you forced her to ride with you,” Greer says. “We need to talk about a deal. I think we can put something together with minimal jail time and a heck of a lot of community service.”

The words
jail time
feel like the slamming of a door, blocking me from the release of
Wilderness
and Tattoo Thief’s stadium tour this fall. I feel a tight mass build in the back of my throat at the prospect of losing the only good thing I have left in life.

But what brings me to my knees is the knowledge that yesterday there were
two
good things in my life—the band, and Willa. And I’ve lost her too.

Greer talks me through a plea bargain. It’s worthless if the court finds out I drove to New York. Breaking bond would send me permanently back to jail until trial, or kill my chances of a favorable deal.

As Greer prepares to leave, Tyler answers a knock at the front door.

“I have a question.” Her voice penetrates the fog in my brain, sharp as pain, precise as a needle. Willa.

I stagger from the kitchen to the living room, where Tyler’s already pulled her inside to shut out the media. I don’t know what to say, where to start.

Even though
go to hell
was the last thing she said to me, my heart’s working overtime as I try to wrap my head around the fact that she’s here.

She’s here. For me.

That has to count for something.

“I’ll just go … put on headphones,” Tyler says with an awkward smile as he hustles out of the living room, patting my shoulder as he passes.

“You’re here,” I stammer. Apparently, being in the presence of this woman automatically drops my IQ by fifty points.

“Took a bus. Nine hours is a lot of time to think.” Willa’s blue eyes are warm today, like a tropical bay. “I realized I hadn’t really given you the benefit of the doubt, any more than most people give me that.”

I bow my head, fresh shame making it impossible for me to look at her. “But I don’t have a better answer for you. I did it. I can’t remember it, but I can’t deny it. A man died because I was reckless.”

Willa takes a step closer to me and tilts her head. “That’s the thing I don’t get, though. You said Kristina reported this to the police.”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m on house arrest.”

“She was the only witness. She’s the only one who can point the finger at you. And you don’t even remember what happened.”

I shake my head. “Not a thing. I don’t even remember stopping for her cigarettes.”

Willa’s smile confuses me almost as much as it drenches me in that pure warmth of hers. She’s so close now I can smell her cinnamon toothpaste and eucalyptus soap. Her hands bracket my face, forcing me to meet her eyes.

“I always thought you were a smart guy, Dave.” She leans in and kisses the corner of my mouth. “But right now, you’re being pretty dumb.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

I’m all ready to lay out what I’ve been thinking about nonstop since Dave showed up at my apartment when a guy walks into the living room.

Dave pulls away from me a little, maybe embarrassed to be caught in this position even though there’s really nothing
happening.
He fumbles for introductions.
“This is my attorney, uh, Mr. Greer. He’s working on my plea deal.”

Excuse me—what?

Greer extends a hand, but I’m still stuck on two words: plea deal. It sounds like everyone’s already made up their minds that Dave’s guilty. And it doesn’t help that Dave agrees with them.

But I don’t. “Why?” I ask the attorney, ignoring his hand.

Greer clears his throat. “Why what? I’m sorry, but who is this?” he asks Dave.

That attorney gives me a dismissive little nod, but I’m ready for it. I don’t give Dave time to answer. “The more important question is, why are you entertaining a plea bargain? Are you seriously giving up on him?”

“I’m offering him the best defense possible. It’s not a question of guilt, so the issue is managing the sentence.”

I snort. “Maybe if you’re more concerned about your tee times than your track record. But have you noticed that even though Dave
admits
he did it, he can’t offer a single detail to back it up, other than what Kristina stuffed in his head?”

Dave’s blackout sparked a niggling doubt almost as soon as I threw him out of my apartment early this morning. It felt off, like I wasn’t seeing the whole picture.

I tried to go back to my canvases, but it was like my brain couldn’t help picking at a loose thread. I’d tug on it and more thread would come away. They say the devil is in the details, but in the case of committing a crime, the truth is in the details too.

Once, I got picked up by the cops when I was out with a group tagging. I was sixteen, my boyfriend was nineteen, and he already had a rap sheet, which meant he could do some serious time for the paint he’d laid down.

So I told the cops I’d done it. Claimed his work was mine. But a cop picked apart my story, detail by detail, until I finally confessed that I was trying to cover for him.

I got off. He got time. And when he got out, he came back with a vengeance, blaming me for his conviction. That’s when he marked me by tattooing his tag on my arm. Like I was his
property.

I’ve spent the last nine years determined never to be anyone’s property again. I’m wouldn’t fall in that trap, clean up their shit, or get close enough that their trouble rubs off on me.

Doing street art suits me.

Living alone suits me.

But because of Dave, I’m breaking my own rules, jumping headlong into asking questions about details that are none of my fucking business.

And it’s both the need to protect him, and the questions that built in my mind this morning, that propelled me to Port Authority for a bus ticket and a nine-hour ride here.

I can’t be too late.

“He was blackout drunk,” Greer explains. Patiently, as if I were a child. “People often do and say things they can’t recall later when they’re so intoxicated.”

It sounds perfect—if you want a perfect pitch for the prosecution. “Have you actually
met
Kristina?” I ask him.

Greer’s brow furrows. “Does it matter?”

“It matters a lot when nothing that’s come out of that woman’s mouth the entire time I’ve known Dave has been trustworthy.”

I tick off the reasons we shouldn’t believe Kristina: she cheated on Dave, she’s angry he dumped her, and even though he’s giving her a massive amount of money to go away, she’s still trying to hurt him.
 

Kristina’s little stunt at the bar with the paparazzi is the perfect example of how she’ll concoct whatever she can to get revenge.

Greer shakes his head. “Kristina’s going to give her testimony tomorrow, and it’ll confirm what the police already have in evidence. She says she can’t live with the guilt of covering up for her boyfriend.”

“Ex,” Dave grits out. He’s watching us go back and forth like a basketball game.
 

“Why do you think it’s taken Kristina this long to come clean?” Sarcasm laces my last two words. “She didn’t cover it up for Dave for love. Kristina uses secrets as
leverage
. And this is the only leverage she has left.”

Greer shrugs. “I hate to say it, but being a calculating bitch isn’t a crime. Nothing you’ve said helps Dave’s case.”

Dave looks at me sadly, resignation reflected in his dark eyes. Over his shoulder, I see a bulky shadow appear in the hall, but I ignore it.

“Look, if Kristina didn’t have a way to control Dave, what would have stopped her from creating a way? She’s the ultimate opportunist. Why wouldn’t she create a secret that’s so awful, he’d be bound to her for life?”

“You think she made this up?” Dave’s voice is hoarse and raw. “I saw my bumper the morning after. I saw … streaks of blood.”

My stomach flips and twists as my mind reels with harsh images of a homeless man lying crumpled on the street. I imagine how he must have hurt, how he might have been conscious while bleeding to death. I struggle to keep my composure. “You saw the aftermath. There’s no doubt it happened. But—”

Dave throws up his hands, angry now. “But nothing! Don’t you get it? Don’t you see why I’m not fighting this? I didn’t keep the secret to protect my own ass.”

“You did it for
her?”
I can’t keep the hurt out of my voice.

“No! We were probably days or weeks from breaking up at that point. That’s why I was drinking so hard … I just didn’t want to be there.” Dave stands straighter, his shoulders back, his eyes on fire, and my heart lifts when I see that he’s still got fight
in him. “I wasn’t protecting Kristina. Or myself. I could have handled the jail time. I did it to protect the
band.”