Lola on Fire Read online

  His heart hammered as he crossed the sloping lawn toward the pool house, moving on loose legs, the breaths punched quickly from his lungs. I can’t believe you’re doing this again, the voice in his mind persisted. Are you fucking crazy? He provided an answer by imagining—for the thousandth time—his and Molly’s cool new apartment in Cauley, their beds separated by a wall, not a flimsy curtain, Molly wearing nice clothes, eating healthy foods. A rainbow of possibilities arced through his mind as he wobbled across the grass, around the pool, and pressed himself tight to the pool house wall. He wasn’t doing the right thing here, he knew that. But there was sometimes a difference between what was right and what was necessary.

  The voice in his mind fell silent.

  Brody took a moment to work the jitters out of his legs and steady his breathing. His ungainly bustle across the lawn had triggered no lights or alarms, summoned no dogs. So far, so good. He plucked his gloves from his jacket pocket and pulled them on, then peered around the side of the pool house. A single spotlight shone on the water, coaxing a kaleidoscope of inviting reflections. More lights burned inside the large house, probably to offer the illusion that someone was home. Brody was caught, briefly, by the grandness of it. Old stone and rich timber, its faux-rustic structure offset by an extravagance of glass. He peered through this glass and saw Oriental rugs hanging on the walls and modern sculpture and a vast aquarium bristling with exotic fish. Blair’s old man may as well have decorated the joint with hundred-dollar bills.

  Brody watched for movement and listened for any sound—a TV playing, a creaking floorboard, a running faucet—that would indicate somebody was home.

  Nothing. The exotic fish were the only sign of life.

  “Okay.” He took another deep, draining breath. Silvery spots flashed across his field of vision. “Let’s do this.”

  He ducked around the other side of the pool house and used two solid pipes to clamber onto a heater the size of a refrigerator. From here he pulled himself onto the roof, then crawled carefully toward Blair’s bedroom window. This provided the biggest challenge yet; the roof was slick and pitched at an angle. He came close to slipping twice. It would be just his luck—Murphy’s Law in full effect—to slide off the goddamn roof and impale himself on the flathead screwdriver he’d tucked into his jacket pocket. He imagined Blair’s bitchy stepmom stepping out for her midnight skinny-dip, and discovering him moaning, near death, bleeding into the pool.

  He grasped the window ledge with both hands. When he was sure he had his feet beneath him and that he wasn’t going to slip, he transitioned his grip to the bottom of the frame. Blair had told him she’d leave the window unlatched. He closed his eyes and lifted.

  A part of him wanted the window to be locked in place. That way he could abandon this nonsense. Hey, I tried, he’d say to Blair. You forgot to leave the window unlatched. This shit is on you, honey. Now give me my goddamn wallet back. Another part expected an alarm to sound—for a helicopter to appear suddenly and hover overhead, its searchlight covering him.

  Neither of these things happened. Blair’s bedroom window slid up smoothly. Her lacy curtains billowed against his face.

  “Shit,” Brody said.

  He went inside.

  * * *

  Another reliable piece of intel: Blair’s room really was a mess. It may once have been the over-pink refuge of a spoiled Valley teenager, but had deteriorated since into mayhem—fashionable mayhem, as if an F3 tornado had spiraled through a branch of Nordstrom. There was a suggestion of the rebel inside: posters of Jim Morrison and Che Guevara, an Ayn Rand quote stenciled on her closet door: the question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.

  Brody picked his way across the room, wondering why she hadn’t cleaned up at least some of this shit, given she was expecting a “guest.” But then, maybe such uncharacteristic behavior would arouse suspicion. If this was the case—as opposed to pure laziness—then Blair really had thought of everything.

  “I’m beginning to trust you more and more,” he said under his breath, opening her bedroom door and skulking onto the landing.

  This trust would last another ninety-eight seconds.

  * * *

  A light at the far end of the landing illuminated the double doors to the master bedroom. There was a potted yucca to either side and to the right a framed Warhol-style painting, not of Marilyn Monroe, but of a middle-aged woman with the same teased hair and sultry expression. This, Brody assumed, was Blair’s stepmom, and in that moment he believed everything Blair had said about her to be true.

  He paused on the landing for a second or two, listening to the house, for any whisper of life. He heard a dim, motorized buzzing. The refrigerator, perhaps, or the aquarium. Other than that . . . a perfect stillness. Brody scurried toward the master bedroom. The right door was ajar. He pushed it, tiptoed into darkness, stroked the wall for a light switch.

  Click.

  Brody’s jaw fell two inches and he turned a full circle, awed. The house he shared with Molly and Tyrese would fit twice in here, with enough room left over for dancing. The bed was indeed Alaska, with its mountain range of greige pillows and glacier-white comforter. There were three chandeliers, several animal-skin rugs, a balcony with a hot tub and a Glassy Mountain view.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  This was all so far removed from Brody’s world that it took him a moment to notice the blood splashed across the hardwood floor. He almost stepped in it, in fact, drawing his foot back with a surprised gasp.

  “What the—”

  All thoughts of Blair’s diamonds vacated his mind. His jaw still swaying, Brody followed the blood across the room—its pattern beguilingly signpost-like—and everything inside him turned cold when he rounded the side of the bed and saw the corpse.

  * * *

  It was the woman in the Warhol-style painting, easily recognizable with her teased blond hair and Botox lips. She was slumped in the corner, one arm tucked behind her head, her body twisted at an unnatural angle. Her bathrobe had rucked up to her thighs, which were smeared with blood. There was more blood on the walls and a circular puddle on the hardwood floor. It ran down her arms and drenched her body. She’d been stabbed multiple times. The knife—a big knife—was still lodged in her chest.

  Brody’s legs crumpled. He fell to his knees with a deep moan and stared at the dead woman until an increment of awareness returned. “Oh Jesus. Oh fuck.” It took several weak attempts to get back to his feet but he managed, using the bed for support. “Jesus . . . this isn’t . . . oh shit.”

  What was happening here?

  A memory surfaced, clear and bright. He saw Blair sitting across from him at Rocky T’s—punky, rebellious Blair, with her burning lipstick and dangerous eyes. And then, she said, talking about her precious diamonds, when God finally answers my prayers and strikes Meredith dead, I’ll wear them to her fucking funeral.

  “Blair,” Brody said in a small, cracked voice.

  The voice at the back of his mind was firmer. Time to haul ass, Brody. It jerked him to his senses, as potent as ammonia. I told you she was a loose cannon. Now get the fuck out of here—this isn’t your shit to deal with.

  “Blair,” he said again. He shook his head. Could she really . . . ?

  GET OUT!

  Out. Yes. Right now. To hell with Blair and the diamonds. To hell with his wallet. He floundered backward. His sneaker slipped in Meredith’s blood. “Gah . . . Christ.” He wiped it thoroughly on one of the rugs. He’d seen CSI; leaving a footprint—even a partial footprint, the barest edge of one sneaker—could unfold badly for him.

  Brody loped across the large room, through the double doors, and onto the landing. The staircase curved before him, leading to a lavish entranceway—to a door out of this place. He lunged down five steps before remembering something else that Blair had told him: that the alarm system would be triggered if he went through any doors or broke any glass. It didn’t matter that he’d left no prints
behind; this would still unfold badly if Sunrise Security caught him trying to climb over the front gate.

  He had to go out the same way he came in.

  Brody bounded up the stairs and back onto the landing. He took a single step toward Blair’s room, then froze when he heard that buzzing sound again. He’d thought before that it had come from downstairs—the refrigerator, perhaps, or the aquarium—but no, it was closer than that, and smaller.

  It sounded like a cell phone vibrating on a flat surface, or like the motorized zoom on a digital . . .

  “Camera,” Brody groaned.

  It was positioned in the right-hand corner, focused on the staircase and doors to the master bedroom. Brody hadn’t noticed it before because of the angle of the wall.

  “What the fuck?” Here was something else—along with the corpse in the bedroom—that Blair had failed to mention.

  That sly bitch, he thought, and on the back of this a single word that jumped on his brain like a fat kid on a trampoline. FRAMED . . . FRAMED . . . FRAMED . . .

  The camera buzzed again. A small but serious red light blinked on one side. Its blank eye stared at Brody, full of accusation.

  He had no strength in his legs but ran anyway.

  * * *

  Blair’s window was still open and he all but dived through it. He hit the pool house roof on his shoulder, rolled twice, and fell to the stamped concrete below. With his only stroke of good fortune that evening, he landed like a cat, feetfirst.

  Around the pool, across the broad lawn, thunder in his mind and booming through his limbs. He didn’t stop running until he hit the chain-link fence. It catapulted him backward and he landed on his ass with a grunt. Slowly, crying now, he regained his feet and jumped at the fence, made it over in a mad, trembling scramble.

  “What the fuck?” He’d whimpered this—and variations thereof—since he noticed the surveillance camera. “What the fuuuuck? What the actual fuck?”

  Thin branches whipped and snagged at him as he crashed through the woodland, swinging his arms like machetes. He collided with trees, stumbled over roots, fell numerous times. Blood leaked from a shallow cut on his neck and his left glove was torn, hanging from his wrist by a strip of fabric. He got lost twice and had the presence of mind to use the Google Maps app on his phone. Eventually he wavered from the tree line and onto Poplar Common, bedraggled and breathless.

  Ornate lights swept across the common, illuminating paved walkways dotted with people. Brody stuck to the shadows, brushing burs and leaves from his clothes as he moved. He climbed the wall and dropped onto Cardinal Street, then briskly walked the two blocks to where he’d parked his car.

  His heart pounded. Tears dripped from his eyes.

  What the fuck?

  He got behind the wheel, worked the key into the ignition, but didn’t crank it. He was in no condition to drive. Not yet. A short, tight scream ripped from his chest. He knotted his hands into fists and cried until his head was empty.

  It was 9:27, according to the clock in the dashboard. For the next ten minutes, Brody tried to think through the situation. Should he go to the police? Would they believe him, a street kid from Rebel Point, who’d robbed a convenience store less than a week ago? Or would they believe Blair, whose mom had known Nancy Reagan, and who was clearly from good stock?

  Would not going to the police make him look more guilty?

  There were answers, he was sure of it. But they defied him, at least for now. His mind whirred hopelessly. It was like a computer that kept shutting down every time he issued a command.

  “Help me,” he cried.

  9:33. His cell phone rang. He snatched it out of his pocket and saw Blair’s number on the screen. A searing rage flared inside him. He clenched the device so tightly the casing cracked.

  You bitch. You goddamn—

  Brody pushed the green answer button and lifted the phone to his ear.

  “Blair,” he growled. He wanted to scream but his throat seized.

  Nothing for a moment. He heard her breathing—imagined her sitting somewhere, her stupid fucking boots propped on the arm of a chair or on a table, a dirty smile tilting one side of her mouth. And then she spoke. Her voice was like battery acid.

  “Heya, Bro,” she said.

  Chapter Five

  Brody drove home with his mind slowly returning, like daybreak in a forest, gradually uncovering the dewy understory and the shapes of leaves, but predominantly illuminating the trees—so many tall and twisted trees—that he would have to navigate. They’d always been there, of course, but now they were deeper, denser, more uncertain.

  And now there were wolves. Hungry . . . predatory. They had his scent. They were coming.

  He ran a red light on Musgrove Road—pure absentmindedness—and his heart skipped at least five beats, but there were no cops in sight. All the Rebel Point cruisers would be nosing around Tank Hill, his neighborhood, where he was headed. But they weren’t looking for him.

  I’ve got some good news, some bad news, and some real bad news.

  Tyrese’s car was parked in their driveway, but positioned so that Brody couldn’t pull in behind it. There was space for two if they went bumper-to-bumper. Tyrese was already reclaiming his turf, and that was fine. Brody didn’t need until October tenth. He and Molly would be out before Jimmy Kimmel had finished his opening monologue.

  Brody parked on the road and went inside. His front door key still worked, so there was that.

  “Sup?” Tyrese asked without looking at him. He was watching Thursday Night Football, one hand wrapped around the remote control, the other dipped inside a bucket of KFC.

  Brody ignored him. He shuffled through to the bedroom he shared with Molly. She was on her side of the curtain. He heard the unsteady clomp of her crutches across the floor, then the creak of the bedsprings. He stood for a moment, mopping tears from his eyes with his sweatshirt.

  “Brody? That you?”

  He took a jittery breath, fanned at his damp eyelashes with one hand. “Yeah, it’s . . . it’s me.”

  She heard it in his voice, of course, in those few brief, broken words. His anguish. His pain. The bedsprings creaked again. The curtain skated open and Molly was there. Without another word, she pulled him into her arms. Brody was straighter than her, his muscles were more firmly developed, but in that instant—as in so many other ways—she was the stronger of the two. She closed herself around him, her arms crossed behind his back, and held him like she’d never let go.

  He cried onto her shoulder.

  “Brody,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  Beat feet, Bro. Out of town. Out of state. Nowhere is too far.

  “Moll,” he managed between sobs. “I’m in so much trouble. And I think you might be, too.”

  * * *

  The call had lasted almost seven minutes, according to the readout on his phone. In that brief time, Brody went from being utterly directionless to having his immediate future determined.

  “Heya, Bro.”

  She said it just once but he heard it dozens of times. It dripped onto his brain—drip-drip-drip—and trickled into all the important grooves and crevices. The air inside his car turned acrid. He struggled to breathe.

  “What did you do?” he managed at last.

  “What I needed to,” Blair replied. Her voice was remarkably controlled for someone who’d just knifed her stepmom to death. “Meredith was a gold-digging bitch, and my dad was blind to it.”

  “Jesus Christ, I know what you did.” Brody’s vision tripled. He blinked rapidly but it didn’t help. “I mean, what did you do to me?”

  “It’s nothing personal, Brody. You dropped your wallet at my feet. I saw an opportunity and took it.”

  “You took it? You just fucking—”

  “You’re a high school dropout with no future. They used to send guys like you to Vietnam. To fucking die.” She shrugged. Brody couldn’t see this, of course, but he sensed it. She shrugged those wealthy, trouble-free sho
ulders. “You’ve taken the fall for the greater good. You’re a sacrificial lamb.”

  “A sacrificial . . .” Brody gasped and spluttered. He had to thump his chest to get talking again. “You won’t get away with this. I’ll fight you every step of the way. I’ll fucking bury you.”

  “Your public defender against the best lawyers in South Carolina. Good luck with that.”

  “You dumb bitch,” Brody snarled. “I’ve got your calls logged on my phone. Your number. Times and dates. That proves—”

  “It doesn’t prove shit, Brody. I’ve been using a burner, which I’ll destroy after this call.” Blair spoke with such unnerving confidence that Brody didn’t doubt her for a second. “I’ve spent so much time planning this, putting the pieces into place . . . do you honestly think I’d be stupid enough to call you on my cell phone?”

  No, he didn’t. He recalled her sharpness when they’d met at Rocky T’s, and thinking that he’d have to handle her carefully. But he hadn’t, and he’d been cut. Deeply.

  There was something else, though . . .

  “We were seen together,” he said, unable to keep the desperation from his voice. “At Rocky T’s. Jesus, you turned heads. Everyone saw you.”

  “Half-drunk assholes.”

  “The bartender wasn’t drunk.”

  “Okay, but what did she see? You talking to some punk chick with purple hair.” Blair made a sound, almost a giggle, mostly an exasperated sigh, as if she couldn’t believe Brody’s gullibility. “I don’t usually look like that, you silly boy. I was incognito.”

  “I’ll find something,” Brody vowed, and then it came to him. He snapped his fingers. “Shit, yeah. Time of death. It won’t match the timestamp on the surveillance footage.”

  “It’ll be close enough,” Blair responded coolly.

  “I’ll also take a lie detector test,” Brody said. “I’ll insist.”

  “Go for it. I’ve heard polygraph testing is only sixty-five percent accurate. At best.”

  “I’ll make sure you take one, too.”

  Now she did giggle. A maddening sound. “Oh, Brody, I admire your spirit, but you’ve got nothing on me. If you squawk, it’ll be your word against mine. And who’s going to believe you? You’re just a dirtbag from Rebel Point.”