Shine - Lauren Myracle [90]
I might not ever know that part. What I did know was that instead of going home, he drove back to the Come ’n’ Go.
Maybe he and Patrick talked. I was purely speculating, but maybe Beef just wanted Patrick to hear his side of the story, while Patrick just wanted Beef to stop lying to himself and get clean.
Somehow things turned ugly. Patrick might have given Beef an ultimatum, like stop using or I’ll tell Roy, or I’ll break up with you, or I’ll turn you in, or whatever. And then, because Bailee-Ann’s truck was there . . .
I refused to believe that Beef set off that night planning to hurt Patrick. No and no. But people in the country always had stuff in the backs of their trucks. Tarps for spreading on wet ground, rope for lashing stuff down when there was hauling to be done, a container of gas for refueling on isolated mountain roads. In Bailee-Ann’s case, apparently one of Robert’s baseball bats.
So Beef, most likely high on meth, had gone with what the opportunity gave him. He bashed in Patrick’s skull with Robert’s baseball bat and strung him to a gas pump. Afterward, realizing what he’d done, he’d hosed down Bailee-Ann’s truck from top to bottom.
Beef made sure my truck was back in my driveway by the time I woke up, Bailee-Ann had said. He even washed it for me. Wasn’t that sweet?”
“We have to go to the police,” Jason said. “What if he does something else crazy? Goes after someone else?
“I know.” I was twitching my foot like a scared rabbit. “But no one’s in danger this very second, right?”
“They have a cop outside Patrick’s hospital room, so Patrick should be safe,” Jason said, as if he was thinking out loud. “Beef’s a loose cannon, but unless something sets him off, I don’t guess I see him lashing out at someone for no good reason.” He glanced at me. “Do you?”
“All I know is that he pretty much hates me right now.” The gift he left on my pillow made that abundantly clear. He’d hitched himself over my window while Christian was with Tommy, or possibly earlier, since I was out and about most of the day. Stop flapping your tongue, or I’ll cut yours out, too.
“Yeah, and that’s why you need to stay away from him,” Jason said. “When we get into town, we go straight to the police. Deal?”
I flopped back against the seat, knowing he was right. Was that enough, or did I need to do something now? What if I didn’t, and someone else got hurt?
“What about Bailee-Ann?” I said. “If Beef finds out she’s cheating on him with Tommy . . . and he could, because Robert knows all about it, and he could say anything at anytime. For that matter, what about Robert?”
I thought about the bus trip together, and how he smelled my hair. How he waggled his eyebrows at the ice-cream shop, when I told him he was a big boy and could wipe his own mouth.
“He acted strange that day in Toomsboro,” I told Jason. “Like . . . sexual, in a weird way.”
“How old is he?”
“Eleven, same as your sister.”
“Well, not to be crude, but . . .” He broke off, his neck turning red. “Guys are interested in girls by then. Even at eleven.”
“This was different,” I insisted. Robert had been . . . courting me, almost, as if he’d learned that acting like that got him attention. Then, after I bought him ice cream and actually gave him attention—in a normal way, a talking-and-listening way—he went back to being a kid. He was still Robert, don’t get me wrong. He was still squirmy and annoying and yet somehow slightly adorable. But he’d stopped pretending to be something he wasn’t.
“What if . . .” I stopped, not wanting to put it in words.
“Go on and say it,” Jason said. The car swerved out of the lane as we rounded a curve, and he overcorrected to pull us back. The engine protested with a high-pitched whine. “Might as well lay it all out.”
“In school, Beef always stood up for Patrick. Beef was a jock. Patrick was nerdy and got picked on.” I quickly added, “I didn’t know anything