We Know

The driver was more slender. He laughed. "I'm afraid you misunderstood. We weren't threatening your mother. We don't want to involve her in this. I'm sure you don't either." His voice-the one I'd just heard on the phone.

He pulled out from the curb. I was too terrified to ask where we were going. They listened to the radio. Small talk about college hoops. Slim had a girl on the side who was turning into a hassle.

We headed toward downtown. I was certain I was going to be shot and dumped under a freeway. I finally worked up the nerve to speak. "I don't know anything. I didn't see anything. I swear to God."

The big guy said, "Radio sucks out here, huh?" and twisted the dial.

We pulled up in front of an imposing, almost futuristic gray building with endless floors, bulges, and tiny windows. Slim said, "Out."

But there were no interior door handles. Slim came around, tugged me onto the sidewalk. A big sign read METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER. I knew from Frank that it was a federal facility. My legs sagged under me, and the big guy grabbed my arm and helped me inside. At the guard console, Slim removed some folded papers from his jacket pocket and handed them across. "We have signed clearance."

The guard nodded. The way he nodded-deferentially-put a fresh charge into my anxiety.

He waved us through, and then we were in an elevator, then moving down a dark corridor past men shuffling in leg cuffs. They booked me, printed me, and put me in an interrogation room. I sat in the chair, trying not to cry. They circled me.

Slim's footsteps tapped the concrete. Paused. "We know."

I swallowed dryly. "You know what?"

"What happened to Frank Durant." He came back into view, using a thumbnail to pick at his teeth. "You killed him."

I couldn't get out any words.

"Unless…" The big guy turned the other chair around and sat on it backwards. "Unless you stop trying to upset your mother. You see, Frank was killed by a burglar. That's the story. And if he wasn't, then he was killed by you." He slung a pistol, encased in a crime-scene evidence bag, over the chair back. Frank's Glock, still covered in blood. I hadn't seen him carrying the gun; it had appeared magically. "Your prints."

Slim was leaning against the far wall. "Can you imagine? After all Frank did for you. Took you in. Treated you like his own."

Tears ran down my face. Hot. My voice came out hoarse. "I would never have."

"Then I guess that burglar whacked him."

Slim jerked his head. They both got up and walked out. Leaving me there.

I waited what seemed like a long time.

They came back in and led me out. Down a concrete corridor with sweating walls. We came up on a giant rolling door built of bars. Beyond, a general holding tank. Sinewy men with pale skin and tattoos doing pull-ups. Mexicans bickering over smokes. Bandannas tied over perspiring ebony skulls. I had never felt smaller. I had never felt younger.

The big guy put his hand on one of the door's bars. "Want a night to think it over?"

I shook my head, wiped my nose.

They steered me through the concrete maze and down to the street. In the back of the sedan, I cried a bit but tried not to make noise. We weren't driving back to Glendale. We were driving to LAX. Slim pulled over at Terminal One. The big guy handed me a torn piece of paper, then dialed the car phone and stretched it back to me.

"Read," he said.

My throat was closing up, but I fought it open. Callie's answering-machine greeting finished, and after the beep I read from the slip of paper, "I know

I'm responsible for Frank's death. I can't figure out how to face you every day. I'm sorry. I hope you'll forgive me."

The worst part was, they'd gotten it right.

The big guy flipped an envelope into my lap. Filled with thousands of dollars in traveler's checks. I felt my last ray of hope extinguish. I thought about the financial-aid package waiting for me at UCLA. I thought about the baseball team. The attention I might get. The opportunities.

He said, "You don't talk about this to anyone. Ever. Or we'll know. And we'll know who you talked to also. We won't be nearly as accommodating next go-round. To you or her. Bear that in mind."

I said, "I will."

"You stay gone. A good long time. Understand?"

I nodded.

"If they require guardian clearance for you to buy a ticket"-he pointed at a phone number that had been written on the envelope flap-"you're two days shy of your eighteenth birthday. Forty-eight hours."

I had forgotten.

He knuckled his broad nose, and it made a faint popping sound. "By the time they declare you a missing person, you'll be an adult. Able to uphold your commitments."

So that's what I was now. A missing person.

My stomach roiling, I got out, clutching the envelope. Cars honked, cops ticketed, people hugged one another good-bye. In a stunned haze, I stepped into the terminal, and the glass doors whistled shut behind me.

Chapter 11