The Fixes (36 page)
Authors: Owen Matthews
. . . and that's when Haley comes back.
(Okay, so there's
one
cop-out.)
It turns out Haley doesn't drown when Jordan knocks her off the Sundancer. She splashes around for a while, and she inhales a lot of seawater. She pretty well
thinks
she's going to drown.
But she doesn't.
She washes up on one of those western islands, clutching a piece of driftwood like the girl in
Titanic
. A couple kayakers find her a day or two later, soaking wet and shivering and clinging to life.
(But still alive.)
The kayakers call the coast guard, and the coast guard brings her back to the city, where they throw her in a hospital bed and nurse her back to life.
It takes a while.
And then when Haley's feeling better, she turns on the TV in her hospital room, and there's Eric's face on the news, and Haley hears the whole story.
And she decides she can't let Eric take
all
the blame.
Haley's reemergence does a wonderful job of
un-fucking
Eric.
For one thing, Haley is alive, so that's one less murder charge on Eric's rap sheet. And Haley is more than willing to tell Dawson and Richards that it was Jordan who knocked her overboard, Jordan who tried to kill her. She tells the detectives that Eric was just as surprised as she was.
Further, Haley gets Eric off the hook for Mike McDougall's murder, tooâ
Haley tells Dawson and Richards about the conversation in the Sundancer, how Jordan bragged about killing the special effects guy. She tells Dawson and Richards how she and Eric and Paige were all together at Jordan's house while Jordan was killing McDougall, how Jordan did it all on his own.
And Dawson and Richards grudgingly accept this, especially after someone at Cap Marina tells them he remembers Jordan coming back on the Sundancer by himself that morning, no sign of pretty girls or, like, Eric.
So, boom, that's Haley and Mike wiped from Eric's list of charges. That just leaves, let me see,
, plus the Côte d'Azur bomb, plus, well, the Room spree, and maybe even that trashy magazine office Haley broke into way back on page 101.
That's a long list of charges.
That's a lot to answer for.
(I hate to say it, but Eric's still fucked.)
Liam knows a lawyer, a Legal Aid guy named Rob. He agrees to take Eric's case as a favor.
Lawyer Rob manages to get Eric charged as a minor. He gets themurder charges downgraded to aiding and abetting, on account of how Eric was in the lobby of the St. Regis when it actually happened.
The bombing, though, is pretty tough to dispute. Ditto the Room spree. Lawyer Rob can't do much but ask for a plea deal. The prosecution obliges, but they still come back with jail time.
“You'll be in a juvenile detention facility until you turn eighteen,” Lawyer Rob tells Eric. “After that, they'll move you to an adult prison, minimum security. Give them three years with good behavior and you're out.”
Three years.
Adult prison.
(So much for law school.)
(On the plus side, the Connelly name is really,
really
tarnished.
 And you can imagine how Eric's dad feels about that.)
“So, I guess I'll never be president,” Eric tells Liam.
They're sitting in the visiting room at the juvenile detention facility. The dramatic stuff is over. Haley caught a three-year sentence (she'll make parole in twelve months) and Paige is under house arrest (twelve months, three years' probation, five hundred hours of community service).
(I told you rich kids get off easy.)
Right now, Eric's trying to get used to prison life. Trying to toughen up in junior jail before the big move to the big house.
(I mean, it's minimum security, but still.)
His dad hasn't visited. His mom has come, twiceâ
(she had to sneak out on Eric's dad to do it).
(She cried both times.)
(Eric didn't tell her about Maggie Swenson.
Or Roger Dodger.)
(He figures his mom doesn't need to hear it right now.)
But Liam keeps coming back. He's come four or five times now. And Eric doesn't ask why, because he's afraid Liam will stop, and Liam's visits, really, are the only thing that keep him sane.
“Who wants to be president, anyway?” Liam says. “Did you see what it did to Obama? Dude aged, like, thirty years by the end of his second term.”
Eric laughs, despite himself.
“I just don't know what I'm going to do instead,” he says. “I spent my whole life thinking I would just follow in my dad's footsteps. Now I'm, like, a convict.”
“Not for long,” Liam says. “You'll still be young when you get out.”
“Yeah, and then what? All I ever planned for was law school and political office. I never considered other options. I don't even know where to start.”
“You could come back to the health center. We could always use more help.”
Eric makes a face. “What, giving needles to junkies?” He catches himself. “Sorry.”
Liam laughs. “Think it over. It might not be so bad.” He shrugs. “It would be nice to see you again, anyway. When you're, you know, outside.”
Eric looks around the visiting room. Looks at Liam.
(Eric can see how Jordan would have liked him.)
“I mean, yeah,” he says. “I mean, I would really like that.”
So, that's that. Eric settles into life as a convict, and it's harder and easier than he ever imagined. He reads a lot, and he lifts weights and he attends classes and tries to figure out what he'll do when he's out.
The days pass, and it's lonely and scary and rough, but Liam keeps coming, even after Eric moves to, you know,
real
prison.
And then a year passes, and it's not Liam waiting for Eric in the visitors' booth, and it's not his mom, either.
It's Paige.
She looks different. She's cut her long hair short, and dyed the blond dark. And Eric can tell by her expression that he looks pretty different too.
“So, here we are,” she says when the (inevitably awkward) first moments are over. “A couple of regular criminals, huh?”
Eric nods. Regular criminals.
“Of course, we did save the whole town from a terrorist attack,” Paige says, smiling wryly. “So maybe we're kind of heroes, too, just a little?”
“I killed Jordan,” Eric says. “Does that make me a hero?”
Paige shrugs. “It was him or the whole town. Him or
me
. And I know . . .” She pauses. “I know it couldn't have been easy, but you did it anyway.”
“Yeah,” Eric says. “I thought I loved him.”
Paige doesn't say anything to this, not for a while. She just looks down at her free hand for a long time, on the other side of the glass.
“He was a psychopath,” she says softly. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah, but that doesn't make me feel any better.”
Paige straightens. “Anyway, I didn't come here to talk about Jordan.”
“No?”
“No,” Paige says, and she's kind of smiling again. “You promised me a real apology that night, and you never came through.
“I'm here to collect,” she says.
Eric blinks. He can feel Paige watching him, and the guards, and he knows their time is almost up. And he
is
sorry. For a lot. He just can't figure out where to start.
“I'm sorry I was such a shitty friend,” he tells Paige. “I'm sorry I bailed on you junior year and never told you why I broke up with you.”
Paige raises an eyebrow.
“I'm sorry I never actually broke up with you at all,” Eric says. “I'm sorry I couldn't just talk to you. I'm sorry it took the freaking
Suicide Pack
to make us actually talk to each other again.
“I'm sorry about the Suicide Pack,” Eric says. “I'm sorry I encouraged you to run a Fix on, and I'm sorry I didn't have your back when you wanted to do the right thing when he died.
“I'm sorry I took Jordan's side over yours.
“I'm sorry,” Eric says.
And he is.
About everything.
Well, practically everything.
“I'm not sorry I met Jordan,” Eric says.
Paige's face darkens a little bit. She starts to say something. But Eric continues anyway.
“I'm not sorry I met Jordan, and I'm not sorry I joined the Pack,” he says. “I'm not sorry about the Fix we ran on The Room, because you were right, fuck those guys for putting spikes down where homeless people try to sleep.”
Now Paige smiles again, a little.
“I'm not sorry I let Jordan drag me out of my stupid internship that day, and I'm not sorry we burned down his car. I'm sorry I didn't make a confession that night, but I'm
not
sorry I was there to hear yours. I'm sorry I didn't do more to help.”
Eric takes a breath.
“Basically,” he says, “I'm sorry for everything shitty that I did, up to and including the crimes I've been convicted for. I'm not sorry about the Jordan and the Pack stuff becauseâ” (Cue the sappy stuff.) “This is going to sound cheesy, but I don't think we'd be talking right now, and, like, I want to be friends again and I hope you come back.”
He exhales.
(Requisite monologue complete.)
Paige is quiet for a while.
She doesn't say anything, and Eric wonders what she's thinking.
Finally, she smiles, and just as the guard's coming over to tell them their time is up, Paige stands and puts her hand on the glass.
“Apology accepted,” she says. “See you next week.”
And that's pretty much the end of the Suicide Pack.
First and foremost, I'm indebted to my agent, Stacia Decker, for her wise and patient counsel. This book was a bear at times, and I would have gone nuts without a sounding board, advocate, confidante, and friend. I'm a lucky guy to have a superagent who fills all those roles and then some.
Kristen Pettit's editorial input played a vital role in shepherding this book from its nebulous beginnings to the finished product you hold in your hand. And I'm grateful to (the indispensable) Elizabeth Lynch and Jennifer Klonsky at HarperCollins, and to Catherine Knowles at HarperCollins Canada for her publicity efforts north of the border.
I'm particularly grateful to the copyeditors who worked slavishly over this manuscript and who saved me from ruin on countless occasions. If you ever happen to meet a copyeditor, hug them.
To my partner, Shannon Kyla, I'm sorry for what I said when I was hangry. Thank you for your faith in me, for inspiring me, and for sticking with me through the darkest hours. I love you.
Thanks, finally and always, to my family. Dad, Mom, Terry and Andrew, Laura and Phil: I don't want to get sappy, but you guys are the best. I couldn't have done thisâany of itâwithout you.