Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [596]
“Detectives Carmichael and Pakula might have let you get away with all that dancing around because they don’t know you. I know you, Tony. You’re not fooling me. And you know what, you didn’t fool those detectives, either. They’ll be bringing you in again for more questioning.”
“What are you talking about? I already answered all their questions.”
“Oh, yeah, you answered their questions, all right. You know what it reminded me of?” Nick tried to calm his anger down a notch. “Remember in sixth grade when we kidnapped Mrs. Wilkes’s antique vase off her desk because she always made us come up with those stupid poems about it?”
“They were supposed to be haiku.”
“Yeah, well, see, that’s even more lame.”
“I remember,” Tony said, but from the look on his face Nick could tell he had a different memory of the event, one that didn’t instill shame and guilt like Nick’s.
“We hated that ugly vase,” Nick continued. “We wanted it gone. But we really were just going to hide it in the closet for a while. Make her sweat, then find it and be her heroes.”
“Still sounds like a brilliant idea,” Tony said, laughing.
“Yeah, brilliant. Only you dropped it.”
“It slipped out of my hands.”
“And it shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.”
“It was an accident.”
“Principal Kramer called us into his office,” Nick said, now pleased that Tony’s renewed memory was not quite as pleasant as his initial one. His sudden defensive tone was accompanied by his arms crossed over his chest, and his interest in the scenery was no longer convincing. “He asked if we stole Mrs. Wilkes’s vase. You told him no. It wasn’t a lie because we called it kidnapping. He asked if we broke the vase. You told him no. That wasn’t a lie either because you accidentally dropped it. I felt like we were back in Principal Kramer’s office again. You sidestepped all of Detectives Carmichael’s and Pakula’s questions.”
He took a long glance at his friend, catching his eyes if only for a brief moment. “I gotta ask, Tony. What the hell are you lying about?”
Nick expected more sidestepping. He expected Tony to get angry with him. Instead, he simply said, “I can’t tell you, Nick.” And he looked away, to stare back out the window, closing the subject and keeping Nick completely in the dark.
CHAPTER 20
Omaha, Nebraska
Gibson didn’t realize he had been sitting staring at the computer for what must have been hours. The game had come and gone and he had watched, not participating, not really even paying attention. It was the first time ever that he hadn’t played.
He heard the front door slam and searched for the time in the lower right-hand corner of his computer—5:25 p.m. His mom would be pissed. She’d go on and on about how worried she was that he was cooping himself up in his room. That he’d become a recluse like Emily Dickinson and die without anyone really knowing him. This week it was good ole Emily because his mom’s summer college class had been discussing dead poets. Several weeks ago she had compared him to some fourteen-year-old Palestinian boy terrorist whose tearful parents described him as always being so quiet and smart and keeping to himself until he walked into an Israeli café with enough dynamite strapped to his body to kill fifteen innocent people. There seemed to be a new comparison every other week.
His mom wasn’t like this when his dad was alive. At least Gibson didn’t remember her being like this—worried all the time about the littlest of things, the stupidest things. So tense and nervous that she couldn’t make a decision or stand up to even a rude grocery clerk who wouldn’t give her a discounted price. And now she cried all the time. At least she did at first. Maybe not so much anymore, not since the Zoloft.
He didn’t remember her ever crying when his dad was still alive. But then his dad had a way of making them all feel safe and secure. They didn’t need to worry as long as he was around. He just took care of things. He had been the strongest and most confident…the best man Gibson had ever known.
For Gibson it hadn’t just been