Chaos Theory (21 page)

Uncle Charlie is in protective custody in exchange for his testimony and cooperation. Surprisingly, Super VP Emily is going with him. She really does love him. Molten Lava is lawyered up; at least that's what Sandy calls it. He's not talking and he's out on bail, which is disgusting. Ink is going down for drug trafficking. The way he tells it, Mrs. F ordered him to involve Julia to meet Uncle Charlie's demands. The creep did target her and get her into drugs.

Uncle Charlie's guilt over what he'd done doesn't ease my anger at him. How could he have arranged for his own niece to be dragged into his mess?

***

It's funny. You can stop a worldwide drug cartel, but not the National Merit Tests. The entire crew sits around me as the tests are handed out. Give up the Stone Age, administrators! Really, fill in the circle answer sheets in this day and age? It's Friday morning and I'm not up to par, because I turned down the happy drugs for pain. Don't want my brain addled. Not today. They're in my pocket to take right after the tests. I look around the room and wonder who is taking uppers in hopes that will help their score. One day you'll have to exchange a urine sample for your answer sheet.

Afterward, Daniel hovers beside me, rushing to open his Mustang's car door for me. “Stop being clingy,” I say.

“What?”

He doesn't know he's doing it. It's bugging the hell out of me. If he doesn't back off, we're going to have another major blow out. Just thinking about it, I give him a nasty look.

Daniel doesn't notice, but Gavin does and winks, climbing in his mom's Prius. Apparently the National Merit Test is worthy of its use. Sam and Sandy climb in with him, leaving me with Daniel. They just assume we're a thing. I don't think we are.

***

The stairs to the Bat Cave are a pain—literally, I should have opted for the elevator. There is one. I've never used it. Since I'm slow man, the others are inside when I squeeze through the bookcases. My crew, plus Gravel Voice and Ponytail, group around a new shiny wall addition.

“What is that?” I ask.

GV says, “That is your new white board. Some campus security guy with a ponytail convinced the head librarian to add it.” Playing game-show model, he reaches out and opens the long rectangular white board unit. Not only is the outside a white board, but it expands to reveal another white board inside with a bottom rail pocket for multi-colored markers, an eraser, and scotch tape. The inside hinged covers are cork boards with stick pins that look like bullets.

“I added the bullet pins. The city police budget coughed up money for the board,” Ponytail says.

Sandy gushes as she checks it over. “And the best part is, it's lockable! I don't have to take it down and put it up all the time.”

GV gives us each a key on a ring with little dangling police shield for the lock. Not a badge, but close.

I say, “A crime board? This is stupid. We only did this to help Daniel. It's over. We don't need a crime board.”

Ponytail hands me my key with a shit-ass grin. “You never know.”

Then Sam pulls out three photographs that he tapes across the top of the white board: Broken Bone Goons One, Two, and Three.

Sandy says, “This time…” Dramatic pause. “It's my turn.”

“Sandy, this isn't a game. People get hurt.” I got hurt and every muscle still aches.

“This will be different!”

My “no,-it-isn't” response doesn't get me anywhere.

Thirty-seven

One week later at four thirty p.m., Daniel, Gavin, and I work our way up the backside of the railroad embankment behind Broken Bone. We pass two police officers hiding under the Sixth Street River Bridge. Two more are under the railroad overpass to the east. Another two wait inside our town's lone unmarked vehicle in the parking lot. Overkill for Goons One, Two, and Three, but GV said they were using it as a training exercise.

Overprotective Daniel overdoes it again, taking my arm as we climb the embankment.

“Stop it, Daniel! Just stop it.” I shake my arm, dislodging his protective one.

In front of us, Gavin slips and grabs a young sapling to keep from sliding back down the hill. He says, “That's Kami-speak for fuck off, Muscle Man.”

Daniel glares and then grabs a small spruce tree to anchor his climb. Gavin just laughs. It's snowing again. Once free of Daniel's help, I scramble up the steep rise from toehold to toehold. My mittens catch on tiny branches and thorns while my feet slip on the snow and ice. I'm ready for winter to be over. What happened at the stable seems like ages ago, but it's only been a couple of weeks.

Breaking over the top and onto the railroad tracks, we squat down in the same spot where I had confronted GV. We watch Sam and Sandy below as the scene unfolds. The pair weaves through skateboarders. Frisbee-pacifier hangs from Brute's mouth as he leans into Sam so the reluctant CI bobbles. Sandy's in charge of this case with Gravel Voice and Ponytail as handlers.

This afternoon we received the official police entrapment PowerPoint presentation about how a CI can't entrap suspects. Basically, it means that Sandy can do and say this; she can't do this or that. No one wants the final conviction to fall apart. We have them for Daniel's assault, but Sandy insists we add drug-trafficking to the list. She's right. These goons should be held accountable for dealing.

Sandy heads for Goon Leader and Sam waits, digging his hands into his coat pockets. She has orders
not
to head into the nearby woods, but it's still dangerous. She's never to be out of sight of her watchers.

Sandy's wearing a wire. I asked her if the tape itched, but she stuck out her tongue and told me to mind my own business as she scratched at it. Below, she's chatting up the three goons. On the sidelines, Sam shifts his weight a lot and Brute pulls on his leash, dragging them closer, inch by inch.

Ponytail warned me this would be hard—sitting here doing nothing. It is. Innocent bodies; unintended consequences.

It's cold up on this hill. I pull my parka up around my head and neck. It's still got that Walmart-new smell, though buying it felt like a lifetime ago. Out of earshot, Daniel is partway down the embankment so he can charge down if Sandy gets in trouble. The police kinda took him under their wing after he knocked DEA Rugby on his ass. Sandy and the three goons leave the skate park's concrete cover. She's laughing and smiling at the goons. She really is a natural liar. Or, to be kinder, I should say actor.

Sandy swipes her nose in her best movie
Sting
impersonation. Things go ape-shit in some weird, but controlled, pattern. Police units move in. Daniel races at an impossible breakneck speed down the steep embankment, easing into the confusion with a predator's natural grace.

***

Only the police and DEA know about our two successful busts. News of what we did is spreading from police department to police department. Our white board is official. I have no idea what we're going to do with it, but something will come up. There's a good chance that Ponytail and GV will call for help on something that a high school student can do that they can't.

The
Chicago Sun-Times
published Sam's e-articles on Julia's drug ring, but to protect him and us, he's not named. The bulk of the subsequent cartel arrests were in Chicago, so it was a natural fit. Even unnamed, Sam is in big-time with the newspaper.

During our downtime, Sandy got the role of Juliet in
R & J
; she loves it. Gavin is deeper than ever into hacking, and it's more than just the campus police using him now, but he won't say who else is. On strange unexpected occasions he'll lay a sexy move on me. I let my hormones enjoy it. Daniel hasn't kissed me again. He just watches me, grins a lot, and continues to bash me senseless in MA class. It's like he has a secret he knows about me that I don't.

The Dear Locker letters are a point of contention. Sandy wants to keep it going, thinking it will feed us cases. I want to shut it down. It's too scary. That girl with the pink stationary's almost-suicide is too scary. Then again, we saved her life. Isn't that proof-positive we should continue?

***

On a Saturday morning two months later and just before spring break, my footsteps echo in the school hallway like a funeral home. I lean against my locker, feel the weight of what it holds, but don't try to open it—not yet. Then Daniel's tall, strong body fills the hallway as he walks toward me. We continue to argue about his being overprotective. He's backed off, but not far. Can I accept him there? It won't be easy. I like my space and don't share well. Dr. Bartlett says she can help me with that. Dad wants her to help me see people as people and not so much as a bunch of data sets. He says it's going to cause me trouble in my relationships, but Ponytail sees people as data, too, and he seems to be okay with that. Of course, he's single…

I say, “Hi.” The word echoes in the quiet hallway.

“Hi.” He looks at the locker I'm leaning against. “So this is it. The final chapter.”

“Yeah. It's going to be boring for you, but…”

“Hey, I'm here. What should I do?”

“Just keep quiet and be here, you know?”

“Yeah.”

I take a deep breath and open the locker. Thud. Sage. Thud. Sweet Honeysuckle. Thud. Grandma. I pause to listen. No clinker. That's a letdown. After everything that's happened, the locker can at least mark it with two or three at once, but it is, after all, just a locker filled with junk. It doesn't have the clues to the universe's mysteries.

I bring out my camera from my backpack. The smartphone's memory is getting full, and I'm not trusting this to the Cloud. I don't want to start this, and then have to stop. It's too important.

Pulling out my research notebook and a pen, I hand them to Daniel. “I'm going to take everything out one item at a time. You write down the order as it comes out, and I'll photograph it.”

“Okay.”

I pull out an empty garbage bag from my pocket. It still looks and feels like intestines. And then, just like before, I can't seem to force my hand into the locker.

Daniel whispers, “As long as it takes, Kami. I'm here.”

That more than anything helps. The first thing out of the locker is Ponytail's mug. Daniel laughs and, after I take my photo of him holding it, he puts it into a large black garbage bag. Marbles roll out, and he records those and puts them into the plastic baggie I brought for them. We note and photograph everything—layer by layer. And each layer gets harder and harder to work on. By the time we get to the stuff in the bottom, I'm stressed and scared. I want to cry. We aren't laughing anymore about the stuff we pull out. Daniel instinctively knows to back off.

Toward the bottom is the program from the fall
West Side Story
production. Sandy's Maria had been awesome. Was that a chaos butterfly's wings flapping? Where would all that talent take her?

There's a napkin Sam scribbled a story idea on. Was that a butterfly's wings flapping?

Under that is the fall charity dance flyer. There's a napkin and a dried corsage from kiss-Sally-and-run creep before we broke up. There are leftover streamers from Homecoming when I'd helped TP the football players' homes. There's a flyer from the Take Back the Night protest on campus. Every year the pep band marches through the neighborhood around the college.

And under that…

I can't stop the tears. They aren't neat or pretty tears—they're ugly and gross. Daniel grabs his backpack. He has a Kleenex box stuffed in there. He hands 'em to me. They look like the ones Mom keeps at home. Moms know everything.

I reach for the small yellow envelope, but can't take it out. I almost slam the locker shut, but I don't. The envelope is on the metal bottom, all alone and surrounded by a bunch of control marbles. Sweet honeysuckle and earthy sage drifts out, surrounding me. How can it still be so strong after all this time?

I say, “I can't do this.”

Daniel whispers, “Then we won't.”

Sitting on the ground in front of my locker, I pull my knees up to my chin and wrap my arms around them. The small envelope lies inches from my toes. I don't want it. I don't want to open it and read it. There's a lot of “I's” in death.

I swipe at my nose and the waterfall of tears. “EB was my grandma's. Did I tell you that?”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“She had cancer. Lots of chemo and radiation treatments so she couldn't drive by herself. Most times, I took her in EB. Mom could have, but it was Grandma-and-me time.” I look at Daniel. “Remember the retired librarian who showed you the Bat Cave? Before you left for North Carolina?”

He nods.

“That was Grandma. She told me about that secret place between treatment barfs.”

I rest my head on my knees, and rock back and forth, wishing Grandma was holding me. Grandma's scents of sweet honeysuckle and earthy sage cling to the thin envelope. The good-time memories with Grandma rarely come—only the ugly times. The times I held the spit bowl, or cleaned up when she didn't make it to the bathroom, or when she cried. The times I cried—so many tears that there'd been none left for her funeral.

“I was with Grandma when she died. All those awful cancer treatments and she has a stupid heart attack. It was so wrong!” I lock my eyes on that letter, and then give in, laying my head against Daniel's chest. His breathing is fast and shallow, sharing my pain.

“I was alone with her. She signed a DNR, a do not resuscitate order. No one was supposed to do anything to keep her alive. I didn't care. I reached for my phone to call 911. Grandma couldn't catch her breath, but she got her hand on mine, keeping me from calling.”

Oh God, that memory hurt so much!

“She had incredible hands—smooth and soft, but strong. Her nails were always perfect. And her fingers…they were long, elegant fingers.” I look at mine and see for the first time that they look like hers.

“She wanted to go, so I let her. I held her. It was ugly and it was horrible, but it was beautiful too. How strange is that?”

“Remember telling me about finding Julia's body? On some unconscious level, I think I knew that all along. Why else was I fixated on your problems and so fast? We were both alone after someone we loved died. We were two chaos strands seeking commonality.”

His head is over mine and I shift my face between his warm neck and chest, breathing in his smell—pine and Irish Spring soap. I can feel the pulse in his neck. Maybe I can hear it. Cradled in his arms, I reach out and pick up the letter Grandma left for me on her nightstand. The letter she told me not to open until she was gone. I clutch it to my chest and bawl like a baby.

All fall, I hid from this letter, burying it under piles of junk, while I tried to find the right place for it in my universe. It is time. I open her letter and know that this letter is a brief moment that can change my future. I think about a butterfly beating gossamer wings—a tiny increment of everyday life, a tiny moment of chaos that changes lives forever.