“I put it under your seat.”
Of course he did.
I lurch to the front of the truck, retrieve the shirt, wad it up tighter, and stuff it in the glove box. Wyatt sits on the edge of the tailgate, swinging long legs, oddly graceful for a big guy. I bet it’s something else, watching him play lacrosse. Or bass, which revs my engine even more. His food sits beside him, but he isn’t finishing off his last sandwich, and after three days with him, I know that this is a big deal. He must sense that I’m finally about to crack.
I asked him back there if he trusted me.
He has no reason to, and yet he does.
Now I have to trust him.
“That guy back there, he was a conspiracy theorist. That trailer was full of data on Valor, on me, on banking, on debt. He had maps with stars and circles. The results of our career aptitude tests.” I pull the poorly folded piece of paper—the call to arms—out of my pocket and put it in his big hands, where it looks like a crushed origami crane as he unfolds it gently. “Alistair Meade, or whatever his name was, he knew what was going on. That’s why he was acting so weird. He wanted me to cover the camera so he could talk to me. He was a double agent. Those are his laptops. And if we can get inside them, I bet we can learn a lot about what’s going on with Valor Savings.” I point to the paper. “And now we know when and where these guys are meeting. It’s in two days.”
“That is . . . some deep shit.” Wyatt reads the paper through several times before picking up his chicken sandwich and taking a bite. He scowls, pulls out the pickles, chews, bites, chews, bites, his face screwed up like he’s thinking really hard. After a long slurp on his Coke, he says, “So none of this is a coincidence.”
But it’s not a question. I shake my head.
“The only thing I don’t get is why Valor picked you.”
“I don’t get it either. But there’s more.”
Wyatt swallows and turns toward me, waiting. A small dam breaks inside me.
“Every person on the list meant something. My mom worked for your dad. The second person was dying of the same thing my mom has. Ashley Cannon was my uncle. The lady at the crack house was the mom of an old friend. Kelsey Mackey was like looking into a crystal ball of my ideal future. Tom Morrison’s little girl was like a carbon copy of me as a kid. Everything is related. There’s a pattern. But I don’t know why.”
He puts the grease-spotted paper in my lap. “So maybe these guys will know. We should go to the meeting.”
He finishes his last bite of sandwich and starts in on his fries. I’m pretty sure his brain runs on fast food. But he has a point. This whole time, I felt like I was the only person on earth being forced into a horrific choice and that there was no one to complain to, no one with answers. From what little I can piece together, I’m one of thousands, maybe millions of people—teenagers—in mail trucks with magic GPS machines and stamped Glocks, shaking and puking in the bushes as they walk up strangers’ sidewalks and become bad guys. And there are maybe some other crazy guys in army costumes chasing us on behalf of yet another bank. And then there are people holed up in trailers or basements or apartments with weird antennas and stacks of information, trying to figure out what Valor has planned. And, hopefully, what can be done to stop them.
Belatedly, I notice that Wyatt casually used “we” again. That alone is enough to convince me that I’m not the only person in this fight. And feeling like I’m not alone makes me feel, for the first time, that I can win.
“So you think we can fight them?” I say quietly, but before he can answer, the door to the vet’s office jangles open, and the receptionist walks out, waving at us.
“Y’all come on in,” she shouts. “Matty can’t wait to see you!”
Wyatt’s smiling as big as I am. That damn dog just has a way of getting under your skin. I jump down off the tailgate and jog inside with Wyatt by my side. I wish I had thought to stop somewhere and buy Matty some biscuits or a toy or something, whatever dogs like. I guess half a chicken sandwich will have to do.
We burst in the door, and there’s a frazzled-looking lady in a sweatshirt and yoga pants sitting in the waiting room, holding a crying kid. The woman is shaking and panting, her makeup dripping down her face with tears and snot. She looks like she’s being hunted. And considering what’s going on, maybe she is.
“Don’t worry, honey,” she says, rubbing the kid’s back. “The doctor’s going to fix Coco right up.”
“Why dat guy shoot her?” the kid asks between sniffles, a big green snot bubble in his nose. “Why dat mailman shoot the doggie and Miss Carla? She is my neighbor. She is not a bad guy.”
“I don’t know, honey,” the woman says, rocking him back and forth, her voice breaking into a sob. “I don’t know.”
I look at Wyatt quickly, worry written across my face. Now we know without a doubt that it’s true. That other shootings are happening all over the place, even in the same town. That there are more people with Valor-issued guns. And that normal, thus-far-uninvolved people are starting to take notice.
“Here she is!” the receptionist calls, leading Matty through the door on a worn-out lead. She’s got one of those horrible neck cone things around her face and a big dressing on her neck, but she’s wagging, and her whole body is rippling with happiness. I feel the same way. I drop into a squat and wrap my arms carefully around her.
“How you doing, Matty?” I ask. “You feeling better, girl?”
She wags and wiggles and whines, trying to lick my face, but the cone won’t let her. I put my hand in there, and she just slobbers all over it with meaty dog breath. I don’t care. I’ve got my dog back. Wyatt squats on her other side and scratches above her tail, and she makes a funny face and licks her own nose. They even sponged all the blood off her, and she smells like baby powder.
Dr. Godfrey comes out and says, “She’s doing great. It should heal up without a problem. And y’all can keep that lead, if you want. Just give her soft dog food for a while, or wet her kibble until it’s mushy. Chewing will make her a little sore.” She squats beside us, patting the top of the dog’s silky head. “Matty’s one of the best patients we’ve ever had. Y’all take good care of her, you hear? Lots of gunshot wounds this week, for some reason.”
“We will,” I say, and I hope it’s true.
Maybe we can lock her in the camper part of the truck to keep her from jumping out and getting in trouble. Then again, I hope neither of my last two assignments will end in a gunfight.
Wyatt grabs four big cans of expensive dog food and hands over his credit card again, just as grimly and secretively as the first time. I think about saying something, but he saved Matty, so I don’t. The receptionist gives us some paperwork about how to take care of Matty’s wound, and I decide that if everything turns out okay, I’m going to pick up a book on dogs and some nice treats for her. As we walk out the door, Dr. Godfrey kneels in front of the frazzled woman and her kid, saying, “How did you say Coco got shot again? This is our third gunshot this week. Did you call the police?”
I pause in the doorway to help Matty out.
“We called,” the lady says, voice shaking and puzzled, “but no one answered. Just a weird recording from the bank. How can no one be at 911? Where are the police? My neighbor—they just shot her and drove away. They left her body. It’s in the street. No police. No . . . I just . . .” She wails and doubles over.
I nod to myself as the door shuts behind me. That’s all I needed to hear. And I can’t listen anymore.
Together, we lift Matty into the truck bed and scoot in with her to finish our food. My appetite is back, but I feed Matty as much of my sandwich and fries as she wants to eat. They said to give her soft food, and I guess this is soft enough. Wyatt finishes up the other two milk shakes while I suck up the crunchy candy cane dregs at the bottom of mine.
We take our time, talking to Matty,
petting her, letting her slurp all up and down our hands and arms until we’re both slick with chicken-crumb slobber. She’s so happy to see us; it’s almost like she’s forgotten that she got shot yesterday. After a few moments, the air in the truck gets pretty thick with the fact that we’re not talking about what to do now. We’ve got our dog. We’ve eaten. We either have to go to the next assignment or find someplace to rest. There’s no more red clock on the dash, but I can feel the seconds ticking down in my heart.
“Your call,” Wyatt says, as if he can read my mind.
I take a deep breath and swallow a ball of air. The milk shake wobbles in my stomach. I’ve never been big on procrastinating, and it’s not like it’s going to be any easier to do this tomorrow. And, worst of all, I bet Valor can still find us as long as I have that bugged button. We have to end it. Now.
“Let’s go back to Amber’s house.”
Wyatt nods, his mouth quirking up in a smile. “You’re the bravest girl I ever met; you know that?”
“I’m not brave,” I say, blushing a little. “I just don’t like waiting around for things to suck. Let’s get this shit over with, hide the bug in a mailbox, and take a nap. She has to take the deal. I’ll make her take it.”
I don’t say it, but mentally I add, Max, too.
We hop down and climb into the front seats, leaving Matty in the enclosed truck bed, and I open the back window so I can pet her while Wyatt drives. I don’t need to see where we’re going. I can sense each turn, each stop. I know my way to Amber’s house. I know the layout inside, the way the fridge door never shuts all the way unless you bump it, although I guess they probably have a new fridge by now. My name is written on the concrete blocks of her basement wall behind the door, AMBER + PATSY BFF. Unless she erased it. But our friendship didn’t end that way. She moved beyond me, destroyed me, forgot about me. I’m the one who still feels petty and spiteful. She probably doesn’t even know I exist, just like I had forgotten all about Ann Filbert until I stumbled past her picture. We grow past people and just leave them behind without a second thought. Money is the kind of debt that everyone talks about, but friendship is a debt that’s taken for granted until it’s lost.
For just a split second, I let myself look at this assignment as the ultimate revenge on Amber Lane. But then I realize that that’s the sort of thought that makes God want to smite formerly nice girls with lightning and boils, so I grit my teeth and will myself to believe that she’s just another name on the list that burned up in the back of the mail truck. I have to convince her to take the deal.
My eyes are stubbornly closed, but I know when we’re in front of her house. I can feel it in my bones. Wyatt stops the truck but leaves it running, as we always do. I gently pull my arm out of the window and away from Matty as Wyatt ducks below my knees to hand me my shirt. I turn away to slip it on, arms as heavy as the concrete block I used to rig the mail truck’s gas pedal. Wyatt’s hand wraps my fingers around the gun. Matty grumbles in her sleep, and I get out of the truck with a sigh and tuck the bloodstained edges of my shirt into my jeans. If Amber’s home, she’ll probably take one look at me and decide she was right to cut me off. Dirty, wearing dorky clothes and a stained hat, driving a beat-up truck, working for a place as dumb as the post office.
Will she even be home? She should be in school. But Dr. Ken Belcher should have been at work too, and every door I’ve come to has had the right person waiting behind it.
I pat the rumpled card and the signature machine in the shirt pocket. The gun’s heavy weight against my back has become a comfort. Wyatt comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me, kissing me on the cheek.
“Good luck,” he whispers in my ear, and I turn my head to whisper, “Thank you.”
He sits in the front seat of the running truck, one arm back to pet Matty. I’m so not ready to do this, but I want it to be over with. I don’t even feel for my missing necklace this time, and with a sinking heart, I realize I haven’t said my prayers in a few days. I haven’t asked for forgiveness.
Heavy with dread, I walk up the familiar sidewalk where we used to draw hopscotch boards with chalk. We found a baby bird out here once, fallen from its nest high up in a maple, and we were home alone because we were in fifth grade and our parents all had to work, so we smashed up worms and tried to feed the bird with Amber’s mom’s eyebrow tweezers. It died before any grown-ups could come home and tell us what to do, and we cried for hours and had a funeral for it. The bird’s tiny headstone is probably still in Amber’s backyard, along with the other memorial rocks we painted for random fish, a wild lizard, and her pet bunny, Patches.
Everything looks the exact same, except for the fact that there’s no chalk on the concrete. Same trees, just a little higher. Her house is nicer and bigger than mine, and her dad always takes care of the yard. The house itself is the same tan it’s always been, with the same dark green shutters and the same fancy white wood blinds that my mom always sighed over like they were made of diamonds. There’s a lemon-yellow VW Bug in the driveway that I recognize from school, and my heart pounds as I realize that—big coincidence!—Amber is home too.
I try to pull out her Valor card and fumble everything in my hands. The signature machine, her card, Max’s card—they all fall to the ground.
“Shit on a biscuit.”
I bend over, feeling like a monumental idiot. I also realize, as I squat and feel a tug in my britches, that it’s going to be hard to pull a gun out from under my tucked-in shirt, so I untuck the back. Who cares if she thinks I’m a dorky slob? Not like she’s going to tell anybody this time. Because either she’s going to die, or she’s going to accept a job she’ll never be able to finish and won’t want to talk about anyway. If there’s one thing I know about Amber, it’s that as nasty and snobby as she seems socially, there’s not a killer bone in her body. Hurt things just break her heart, and she couldn’t shoot an ax murderer any more than she would let herself be seen in public wearing Kmart jeans. I’ve always felt like there was some reason behind what she did to me. I’m pretty sure she felt bad even as she broke my heart.
I take a deep breath and step onto her porch, right next to the boot scraper that no one ever uses. It’s shaped like a hedgehog, and we used to play all sorts of games with it. Now it’s looking at me reproachfully, so I spin it around with my foot before I knock on the door. Ringing a doorbell just feels so . . . impersonal.
Inside, slippers slap on parquet floors. I hold up the signature machine and card and smile brightly at the exact moment that I know Amber is looking through the peephole. In the silence, I imagine her scowling, tossing the dark waves of her hair, wondering why the reject has shown up to plague her, terrified that I’ll actually say out loud what a selfish bitch she is for leaving me in the dust as soon as she could.
The dead bolt unlocks, and the door opens inward. There she is, prettier and snottier than ever in expensive-looking yoga pants, a school spirit tee, and Minnie Mouse slippers.
“Hey.” She says it like a challenge.
“Hi,” I say. “Are you Amber Lane?”
“Are you retarded? You know who I am.”
I wince. “Look, I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “Is that for my dad?”
“Yeah. Just sign here.”
I hand her the signature machine, and if she notices my hands shaking, she doesn’t say anything as she signs her name in perky cursive. I click accept.
“Thanks,” I say, but she doesn’t say anything back, and she’s looking anywhere except at my face. She’s gotten really good at being a snob.
She holds out her hand expectantly, and I find that I’ve completely forgotten my speech. I have to read it from the card.
“Amber Lane, you owe Valor Savings Bank the sum of $21,502.03. Can you pay this sum in full?”
“Are you dicking around with me or wh
at?” she says.
“Definitely not.”
“I don’t owe anyone anything.”
I glare at her, and she has the good taste to look away.
“Look, you either pay up, agree to work for Valor, or . . .”
“Are you threatening me?”
For a moment, I just stare at her. “Yes.”
Her mouth drops open. “What?”
“I’m threatening you.”
“Are you trying to get me back for dropping you?” she says, voice sharp and loud, like we have an audience in the cafeteria. “Is this some kind of stupid prank? Why are you even out of school? Who told you I was skipping? Did you come here to confront me or get revenge or something?”
“Jesus, Am. Do you ever listen to yourself? Like, at all?”
She rolls her eyes and makes an affronted sound. I guess she’s forgotten what it’s like to have someone who knows you call you on your bullshit. That’s probably why she’s tried so hard to avoid me for the past four years.
I clear my throat and read straight from the card, hoping she’ll get the picture and not be such a bitch.
“By Valor Congressional Order number 7B, your account is past due and hereby declared in default. Due to your failure to remit all owed monies and per your signature just witnessed and accepted, you are given two choices. You may either sign your loyalty over to Valor Savings as an indentured collections agent for a period of five days or forfeit your life. Please choose.”
She gives a snide little laugh and speaks in the overly sweet voice bullies use right before they throw you in a locker. “Okay, that’s hilarious. Either I have to give you all this money I don’t have and didn’t spend, or I have to work with you at a bank? Um, no thanks. How do you come up with this stuff?”
“You weren’t listening, Am. There’s a third option,” I say, licking my lips nervously while hers glitter with lip gloss. “Pay, work . . . or die.”