Page 55 of Gone Tonight
The shriek of the kettle a couple of minutes later causes me to flinch, even though I’ve been anticipating the noise. I fill up my mug and inhale the fragrant steam, then carry it into the living room and set it down on a coaster on the coffee table.
I check the location of Catherine’s phone, and once I confirm she is still at work, I walk over to the front door and engage the chainlock. No one else has a key to our place, other than the landlord, who isn’t permitted to enter without advance notice. But I can’t allow even a minuscule risk of anyone surprising me during the next hour.
I’m about to do the thing I’ve been dreading not just all night but for the past four years.
The one streaming channel we subscribe to offers reruns of a true-crime program. I watch a lot of those kinds of shows because you never know when something you learn might come in handy.
But there was one episode I couldn’t bear to watch.
It’s the segment about Coach’s murder. It first aired four years ago, on the twentieth anniversary of the crime.
I can’t afford to ignore it any longer.
I got rid of Coach Franklin’s watch many years ago, but I swear I still hear it sometimes, like when I catch the clacking of a train moving down the tracks or notice someone rhythmically tapping their foot:tick-tock, tick-tock.
It’s a warning. My time is almost up.
I use the remote control to bring up the program. I’m too agitated to sit, so I stand in front of the TV.
The first minute or so is an introduction. Eerie music plays while credits appear on the screen, along with sepia photographs. There’s one I’ve never seen of James at around the age I knew him—nineteen. The background is blurred, so I can’t identify where the picture was taken. Then my school picture from junior year slowly appears next to James’s. In it, I’m smiling, and my waist-length hair is draped over one shoulder. Our photos drop off the screen and are replaced by several of Coach, including one of him standing in front of the Poms team while our squad posed in pyramid formation. I’m at the end of the middle row, and a red circle is drawn around my head so viewers can identify me.
My gut clenches so tight it’s painful, but I force myself to keep watching.
It’s only going to get worse.
The host begins in a deep, somber voice. “Ava Morales was a juniorat Oak Hill High in Towson, Maryland—a good student, pretty and vivacious, from a family with deep ties to the community. James Bates was several years older, with a far more mysterious—and unsettling—background.”
More photographs appear—one of our school sealed off with yellow police tape and several from Coach’s funeral—as the host describes the crime scene and interviews the lead detective from the case.
I recoil a moment later when a familiar face pops onto the screen. It’s Brittany. She must have had plastic surgery. Her lips were never that full when she was young. She looks almost exactly like her mother.Apple from the tree,I think, remembering the line I’d written in my journal.
The host lobs her a question—“Can you tell us about Ava Morales?”—and Brittany is off and running, talking about how we’d been besties since we were seven, and how she was present the night I met James at the restaurant where he worked.
“I knew something was wrong with him right away,” Brittany confides. “All of us girls thought so.”
“But not Ava?” prompts the host.
Brittany shakes her head vigorously, her big gold hoop earrings smacking her rosy cheeks. “I guess being in love can make people stupid.”
My hands curl into fists. They don’t relax until Brittany’s vapid face is off the screen.
James’s mother declined to be interviewed, the host somberly reports. So did my father and Timmy.
I begin to pace, keeping my eyes fixed on the screen. I know what is coming next. I read about it during one of my online searches long ago. It was a good thing the library had a little trash can by the computer station because I didn’t make it to the bathroom in time to throw up.
“James Bates’s stepfather could not be interviewed.” A meaningful pause. “He was beaten to death six months before the Oak Hill High murder.”
A photograph of James’s stepfather appears on the screen. He was a medium-sized man with blond hair and a hard line for a mouth. “Troy Ganske was attacked with a blunt object one night as he worked alone in his garage, changing the tire on his car. Authorities suspect the murder weapon was a lug nut wrench found next to the body, but no one was ever charged in the crime.”
Then: “The weapon was wiped clean of fingerprints.”
I begin to hyperventilate. I blindly fumble for the pause button on the remote control.
My instincts are screaming at me to run, like I have so many times before.
I pinch the inside of my wrist as hard as I can. The sharp burst of pain distracts me enough to interrupt the surge of panic.
“We’re safe.” I say the words aloud.
