The Advocate's Daughter (17 page)

His knees nearly buckling, Sean steadied himself on the counter.

“What? What is it?” Emily said.

Sean remained quiet. He forced in several more slow, deep breaths. “What's Ryan's bike have to do with this?”

“The police found the bike at the school. Ryan's name and number are engraved on the frame. They're looking for witnesses and wanted to know if he was at the school last night and maybe saw something.”

His wife met his stare. She looked gaunt. Her cheeks sunken.

“What did you tell them?” Sean asked.

“You're scaring me, Sean. What's going on?”

“What did you tell them?” he asked, his tone more desperate.

“I said Ryan wasn't at the school last night. I said he was with you.”

 

CHAPTER 42

Sean sat across from his wife at the dining room table. The photographs of Abby were still scattered across its dusty surface. He told her about Chipotle Man. About Ryan hitting the man to protect Sean. And he told her about the visit from Malik Montgomery's lawyer. About Abby's secret e-mail account and vetting research on Senator James. And about the visit to Sussex prison and the connection to the senator. It should have been a full confession, including telling her about his boyhood friend's possible reappearance. But he stopped himself. There was already too much to take in, he justified. He had tried many times over the years to tell her about Japan. There was the time in law school, when she'd caught him researching whether Japan had a statute of limitations for murder. When she asked about the scar on his hand. Or about why he'd had such a bad relationship with his father. He'd always had an excuse not to speak up. And here he was again. But he just couldn't risk causing her more pain. Risk seeing that look in her face—a look that said
I don't know who you are.

Sean rubbed a hand over his face. “You told the officer I was mugged last night?”

“Yes, at the gym. It's near the school, so he really wants to speak with you.”

“Did you mention Ryan? Or his bike?”

“I just said I thought Ryan rode over and brought you a key, but that I didn't know how his bike got to the school.”

Sean's mind played things out. “What if the cop who came today tracks down the kids who saw me last night at the school? Or what if they find out about my fight with Billy Brice? And what if they talk to Ryan's school or the principal or someone connects Brice to Ryan's Facebook messages about the man in red?” They were rhetorical, clipped questions. The sound of desperation.

Emily reached for his hands. “You need to stop,” she said. Her tone was resolved. She took in a deep breath as if to steel herself.

“We need to do three things,” she said after a long silence. There was no doubt here. He didn't know if the lack of hesitation was to convince Sean or herself. But there was something reassuring about the decisiveness. He saw a glimmer of Emily from
Before.

“First,” she said, “you're going to call Cecilia tomorrow morning and get some advice. You tell her that you fought with Billy Brice. You don't mention Ryan. Not even to Cecilia. From this moment forward, Ryan was home.”

“But you told the cop—”

“I was mistaken. Ryan was here, in his room, and I'd thought he was with you. I'm obviously not thinking straight…” She gestured to her disheveled hair and threadbare robe.

“Second,” Emily continued, “we need to talk with Ryan.” At this she revealed a tiny break in the façade. She seemed to be fighting back a sob. “We need to prepare him for the police approaching him with questions. But I don't think we should tell him this guy Brice is dead.”

“But what if he finds out at school? What if—”

“He can't take this right now, Sean.” More firm: “We can't tell him.”

Sean agreed with her that a death on a teenager's conscience was too much to bear. He knew that more than anyone. And something about Emily wanting so desperately to keep the secret to protect Ryan reaffirmed his own decision to keep Japan from her. But he wasn't sure how they could prevent Ryan from finding out.

“What if he sees the news or hears about it? It will be better coming from us,” Sean said.

“He doesn't read the newspaper,” Emily said. “And there are murders all the time in D.C. I don't think the kids notice anything outside their own little worlds.”

“But this one was here, in Bethesda. And it happened at a school.” Sean thought about Chipotle Man's face, how it went blank and he collapsed when Ryan hit him. But when Sean had gone back for the gun, he was breathing. He was alive. Sean had a sinking feeling that the man might still be alive if Sean had called for help.

It was then he realized a way for it to work. Sean had gone back to get the gun while Ryan waited near the woods. He looked at Emily who was massaging her temples. “For tonight I'm okay if we don't tell him,” Sean said. “But this isn't the end of the discussion, Em. For now, if he finds out on his own, we say that when I went back to get the gun, Brice attacked me again and I hit him. I delivered the fatal blow.”

Emily held his gaze for a moment, then nodded. She called for their son, who thundered down the stairs. She told him to listen carefully. She told him about the officer returning the bike. And she told him that it would get his father in trouble if anyone found out about the fight with Chipotle Man. If anyone asked to talk to Ryan about what happened that night, he wasn't there and didn't know anything about any of it. If they pressed him, he was not to say a single word and direct them to his parents.

“If you weren't at the school, there's no reason the police will need to speak with you,” Emily said. “And there's no reason for you to say anything. But if you tell anyone—I mean,
anyone
about what happened—it could have serious consequences for Dad.”

“But why can't we just tell the truth, that I was just helping Dad? The guy's okay and he hit Dad first.”

Emily's lips tightened and she and Sean shared a glance, silently acknowledging that the course they had chosen was contrary to everything they had ever taught their children about morality, about life. Emily put a hand on Ryan's shoulders and fixed her eyes on his.

“Dad and I just need some time to think about this. Dad made a mistake bringing the gun, and the police won't understand. So for now, we need to keep this to ourselves. Can we count on you?”

“Yes,” Ryan said, unenthusiastically.

“I mean it, can we
trust
you?”

“Yes,” he said, this time with conviction. “What about my bike? What do we say?”

“It was stolen. We don't know when. Keep it simple.”

Ryan managed a nod.

“Tomorrow you're going to school like any other day. We need to show the world we're getting back to our routine. That means no more secret outings with your father.” Her gaze flicked to Sean, then back to Ryan. “And not one mention of Chipotle Man. As far as you're concerned, he never existed. He's an urban legend you'd heard about in the halls at school, the man in red.”

Sean: “And what do you do if the police approach you and want to talk?”

“I say I want to call my parents who are lawyers.”

“Exactly. I'm sorry to put this burden on you, son.”

Ryan nodded, seeming no worse for the wear. Sean imagined that for Ryan, there was something exciting about it all, something satisfying about him having to clean up after Sean for a change.

Emily kissed her son on the forehead. She offered to make him dinner, but he said he wasn't hungry and he went up to bed.

Sean gave his wife an admiring once-over. He could swear that her face had more color and her eyes more light than just an hour ago. After another long silence, he said, “You said there were three things we need to do.” Her eyes met his. “What's the third thing?”

Emily walked to the living room and peered out the window. “As soon as the reporters are gone, we're going to go find the metal pole that Ryan used on Billy Brice.”

 

CHAPTER 43

Sean and Emily pushed through the branches and brush in the woods that bordered Bethesda–Chevy Chase High School. The moon broke through gaps in the canopy of trees like white laser beams. Emily guided their way with the flashlight app on her iPhone, clicking it off periodically when she heard a car on the street nearby or rustling in the trees. The ground was soft, a mix of twigs and leaves. It was hardly a perfect grid search, but they tried to methodically work their way across the area.

They stepped carefully, their eyes sweeping across the terrain searching for the rod of steel that Ryan used to protect his father.

“What if we don't—”

“Shhh.”
Emily held a finger to her lips. “Did you hear that?” she whispered. She wore her black workout pants and jacket. Sean likewise wore all black—Adidas running pants and matching shirt. If anyone came upon them, they were two joggers looking for their lost dog.

Sean stood motionless, listening. At three in the morning all was still but for the whoosh of the wind. But then, the crack of a branch.

“A deer?” he whispered.

“There,” Emily said, pointing. Sean caught a shadow darting between the trees. Maybe a neighbor investigating? A cop? Or, God forbid, had a reporter followed them? But they had been careful to make a show of turning out all the lights at bedtime and had waited for the news van to leave before slipping out of the house and jogging to the school.

Another snap. Someone was running toward them. Sean gripped Emily's hand and they ran. Drooping branches lashed their faces and arms as they darted through the brush. They could hear someone trampling behind, pushing through, stems snapping. They ran until they reached the street. They raced through a small business complex and crouched behind a white work van parked in the lot. They were breathing raggedly, but both managed to keep quiet. Emily cupped a hand over her mouth as a dark mass emerged. They watched as the figure, face shrouded by shadows from a distant streetlight, walked deliberatively toward them. A man. He had something in his right hand. He held it close, almost touching his thigh as he walked.

The ring of a phone slashed through the quiet. Em made the slightest gasp and clutched Sean's arm. The man put his phone to his ear and said something Sean couldn't hear. The guy turned back toward the school and disappeared into the darkness.

 

CHAPTER 44

On January 20, 2009, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. swore in Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States. As Obama placed his hand on the Lincoln Bible and echoed the oath of office recited by the chief, something unusual happened: the chief justice accidently left out a word, a mistake repeated by Obama. To avoid the crazies saying that Obama wasn't
really
the president, everyone decided that the chief should administer the oath a second time. So, the next day, the chief ventured over to the White House and they did it all again. A do-over.

Why Sean awoke that morning thinking of the Roberts-Obama oath debacle was beyond him, but he assumed it was because events had inspired a do-over of his own oath—to protect his son. As a teen, he had sworn to uphold the law, to be a better person, to
not
be like his own father. But here he was covering up a homicide all in the name of protecting Ryan. He was momentarily back in his living room thirty years ago, his father pacing nervously, chain smoking.
You will tell no one. Ever. This is about more than just you, Sean.
History was repeating itself.

He and Emily had stayed awake talking until sunrise. It was as much a strategy session as a debate over how they should proceed. After the scare of being chased, they'd discussed sending the boys to stay with her parents, but Emily insisted that they would not flee their home. To protect Ryan they needed to show the world that things were returning to schedule. If someone was determined to hurt the kids, she said, there was nothing they could do about it anyway. Sean was troubled by the fatalism, Emily's sense that the safety of their children was outside of their control, but he decided not to fight it. School was probably the safest place for the boys anyway. And nothing suggested they were in any danger. For all they knew, the guy who chased them last night was a police officer patrolling the area or an overzealous member of the neighborhood watch, spooked by a recent murder in their community.

Most of their deliberations that night focused on whether Sean should turn himself in and plead self-defense in the murder of Billy Brice. He said he should do it; she'd have none of it. She wouldn't put the boys through worrying about whether their father would be taken away from them too. This was about more than just Sean, she said. In the twilight before he'd fallen asleep, he'd realized that right and wrong were not so clear anymore. Equally unclear, his indictment of his father for keeping quiet about the storekeeper.

He reached across the bed for Emily, but she was gone, her pillow bunched, her side of the bed no longer warm. He went downstairs—his joints cracking, muscles still aching from his encounters with Brice and his goons—and found Emily standing at their opened front door waiting for Jack to finish tying his shoes. Jack already had abandoned any proper bow and was stuffing the white laces into the sides of his Chuck Taylors.

“Daddy!” Jack called out when he noticed Sean watching them.

“Morning, big guy. Mommy taking you to the bus stop?”

Emily nodded. Routine, she had said last night. They had to return to their routine.

“There's coffee made,” she said. “I've got to face all the sad looks sooner or later, so I thought I'd take bus duty today. I also called Jack's teacher. She said I could volunteer in his class this afternoon to see how he's adjusting to being back.”