Page 16 of Come Find Me
I mentally roll my eyes. “I know.”
He’s getting frustrated, and Joe is fidgeting beside me.
“We need you to confirm it, Kennedy. The timing. On the stand. It’s important. You have to confirm it.”
“I’m sure I meant it back when I said it—isn’t that good enough? I can’t exactly remembernow.It was over six months ago.” Just barely. Almost six months, to the day. “Doyouremember what time you got home six months ago?”
He sighs and twists in his chair, leaning for his briefcase, and I’m momentarily hopeful that this interview is over. But it turns out he was only rummaging through his bag, because he pulls out a small recording device.
“What’s this?” Joe asks, sitting straighter.
Joe seems to understand something I don’t, and a sliver of panic works its way through me, from his body language.
Crooked Tie presses a small button with a thick finger. “Sometimes this helps, to listen. To remember,” he says, not looking directly at either of us.
Joe holds out a hand as if to stop him, but it just hovers there, unsure.
A small, robotic voice speaks first, in stilted syllables:December fourth. One-eighteena.m.
I sit straight, my shoulders rigid. And then Joe’s hand comes down over the device, hitting the button. “Is this really necessary?”
I’m not breathing. There’s not enough oxygen in the room.
Crooked Tie frowns at both of us. “If she can’t remember, then yes, it is.”
He presses the button again, and this time, Joe doesn’t stop it. Suddenly it’s a woman’s voice and not a robot. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
The room is silent except for the sound of breathing on the tape. Until suddenly, it’s my voice, filling the room. “Something happened. Something terrible.”
And I’m there again, at the shadow house—
“Ma’am? Can you tell me your name and location?”
More breathing, until I speak again, ignoring her question. “Something happened in the hallway…”
“Miss? Are you in immediate danger?”
“He’s gone. I saw him. He’s gone.”
“Stay on the line. We’ve got officers out to your location right now.”
Suddenly, the sound of Joe’s chair scratching against the floor cuts through the static of the recording as we wait for someone to speak. The wait is infinite, then and now.
Eventually, the doorbell will ring, and the woman on the line will instruct me to open the front door. I won’t look as I follow her orders.
Joe hits the button again, and the room falls to silence.
“You know what,” Joe says, “I don’t think now’s the best time after all. Why don’t you wait for me in the hall while we finish up here, Kenny.” Which is something he called me when I was much younger. Much, much younger.
Still, I take the gift I am presented with. He gives me a few dollars, tells me to get myself something from the vending machine we saw on the way in, and to get him a soda, too.Something with caffeine, for the love of all that is holy,is what he actually says.
The door shuts behind me, and the hall feels overexposed, fluorescent-lit.
A man in uniform passes by and nods in my direction. I trail my fingers against the grooves in the wall as I make my way back to the vending machine at the entrance, near the double front doors.
I stare at the options. Paper and aluminum and chemicals. My reflection in the glass. The buzzing of the light inside. Another crack in the glass at the upper right-hand corner. I get two Cokes, and I wait outside.
—
