Every Inferno Page 17

  That was good to hear.

  “What about the bandages?” JJ asked. “Marnie said you had bandages on your right hand right before the fire. I thought maybe that was because you’d gotten a tattoo.”

  Lucas groaned. “If I tell you what really happened, JJ, will you promise you won’t hold it against me? I haven’t told your aunt about this yet, but I do plan to.”

  “I guess,” JJ said hesitantly.

  “I told you I was having a rough time of things then. I… attempted to take my own life.”

  “Wow,” JJ said. “Just… wow.”

  “Yes. It was a terrible time for me. But it led to some good things. I ended up finally getting some counseling, which was what I needed.”

  Neither of them said anything for a few minutes. “What about Aunt Mags?” JJ finally asked. “Are you gonna leave?”

  “I don’t want to,” Lucas said. “But Maggie and I both know that we don’t have much of a possibility for a future. National Geographic has been offering your aunt her gig back whenever she wants it, so the second you go off to college, we’d be toast anyway.”

  “Whoa.” JJ’s eyes widened. “My aunt could get her job back anytime?”

  “Pretty much. They think she has incredible untapped potential. I mean, it’s not as if they wanted her to leave in the first place.”

  Huh. That was interesting.

  “Yup. So we don’t really have a future, anyway. No matter how much I might think of her.”

  They reached JJ’s driveway, and he climbed out of the car. “Thanks for bringing me home,” JJ said.

  “Of course,” said Lucas. “And JJ, I’m sorry you’ve spent the past few weeks probably terrified as hell whenever I was with your aunt. You could have talked to me. I would have gotten the cast taken off just to show you what was really there.”

  JJ shrugged. “Then I probably would have just convinced myself you had the tattoo removed or something.” He shook his head. “I needed to figure it out on my own, ya know?”

  Lucas nodded slowly. “Yeah. I get that, JJ.”

  JJ figured he probably did.

  Chapter 14

  IT WAS a good thing Christmas was only two days later. JJ’s dream was back in full force, and he hadn’t slept through a night since the art show. But when Penny answered the door at Darryl’s house, squealing as soon as she saw her aunt and brother on the other side, JJ forgot all about that.

  “JJ! We get to spend Christmas together!”

  JJ grabbed Penny up in a bear hug, thinking that statement was long overdue.

  David clapped him on the back and said it was great to see him again, and he and Dennis had some pretty decent conversations about the colleges Dennis was applying to. Lucas and Maggie spent most of the day holding hands, occasionally looking at each other all googly-eyed. When everyone opened presents, Penny insisted on curling up next to JJ the entire time. It might have been one of the best days of JJ’s life.

  Until Patrick decided to ruin it.

  Dinner was over, and JJ was sitting in the living room, waiting for Penny to get some art project that she wanted to show him. Patrick stepped into the room and practically growled when he saw JJ. “Are you still here? Don’t you have some other family you can go bug?”

  JJ felt the spring start to coil. “Grow up, Patrick. Penny is my family. And why are you always such an asshole, anyway? It’s not like you still have a reason to be pissed off at me.”

  “Oh yeah?” Patrick charged toward JJ then, and JJ stood up quickly. “You don’t remember what you did to me, Jones?” He pointed to a tiny scar on his left ear. “You sent me to the fucking hospital! You gave me this for life!” He shook his head. “At least Ma had the good sense to kick your ass out after that. But you just keep coming around.”

  JJ set down the soda he was holding. “Yeah? You want us to keep being pissed off about this? You want this to keep going? Well, here’s the thing, Patrick. If most people in this house right now knew what you said to me that day, I’m pretty sure you’re the one who wouldn’t come out looking so good. And right now I’m not sure why I’ve spent all these years not telling them.”

  “Whatever,” Patrick said. “Like they’d believe you anyway.”

  JJ smiled. “Hey, Dennis!” he called. “Come in here a minute.”

  “Dennis won’t believe you,” Patrick said, but JJ heard a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

  “Oh God,” Dennis groaned as he walked into the room. “Are you two going at it again?”

  “Maybe,” said JJ. “But first, Dennis, did Patrick ever tell you what we were fighting about that night your mom kicked me out of the house?”

  Dennis looked back and forth between them. “He said you got mad because he took a toy from you or something?” His eyes stopped on Patrick. “That not true, Pat?”

  “It’s true,” Patrick said hastily.

  “No, it’s not,” said JJ. And cycles and art shows and dreams may have been a little too fresh in his head when he said, “Patrick told me that God wanted my parents to die, and that’s why he had someone set the theater on fire. Patrick told me that my parents must have done something pretty horrible for God to punish them like that.”

  Dennis’s face was white. “Pat, is that true?”

  Patrick seemed to put great effort into rolling his eyes. “Maybe I said something like that. But I was six, dude! I didn’t mean it. I was just pissed off that Mom and Dad kept paying so much attention to JJ. It was like you and I didn’t even exist anymore. Plus, we had that weird church school teacher that year, remember? The one who was always talking about God punishing sinners? I just repeated what she kept saying all the time. It didn’t give JJ the right to beat the crap out of me.”

  Dennis shook his head. “JJ was six too. And yeah, I think it kind of did give him the right. JJ, why didn’t you ever say anything? Maybe if Ma knew that was why you guys fought, she would have let you stay.”

  JJ shrugged. “Patrick didn’t say anything, so neither did I. I always said I wouldn’t tell until he did.”

  “You are one stubborn shit, JJ,” Dennis told him. “Patrick, I can’t believe you. You just let JJ get kicked out after that?”

  “He beat me up!” Patrick cried.

  “Whatever. You know I’m telling Ma about this, right?”

  “I don’t care,” Patrick mumbled, but JJ saw his body slump as he said it.

  “You know what? Don’t,” JJ said.

  “Excuse me?” Dennis responded as he and Patrick turned to look at JJ at the same time.

  “Your mom and I are finally getting along, and I get to see Penny almost as much as I want right now. And it’s Christmas. So let’s just have Christmas. And maybe Patrick here can stop growling every time I walk into a room in your house, and we’ll call it even.”

  Dennis looked surprised, but all he said was “Patrick?”

  Patrick crossed his arms. “I’ll try, I guess.”

  Then Penny came running back in with her art project, and it really was an excellent day. The only downside was that McKinley was spending it with his family.

  Even that was okay, though, because JJ went over to his place after the celebrations at Darryl’s were finished.

  JJ thought he did okay not making a total ass out of himself in front of McKinley’s relatives. After the meeting-the-family obligations were out of the way, he and McKinley sat next to each other on the floor against McKinley’s bed, listening to some album McKinley had found called Alternative X-Mas. It was pretty good. Especially R.E.M.’s “Deck the Halls.”

  “I’m glad you got to spend Christmas with Penny this year,” McKinley said.

  JJ smiled into his hot chocolate. “It was awesome. First time I’ve felt really good on Christmas Day in years.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “You mean there’s one left you haven’t asked me?”

  “Eff you. Seriously, can I?”

  JJ was pretty proud that he could say, “Of cour
se.”

  “Everyone says you refuse to dress out for gym class. Why?”

  JJ listened for a moment to the music swirling around him and considered that. He leaned into McKinley. “I have all these scars all over the backs of my legs,” he said. “I don’t want people to see ’em, you know? And I don’t want to wear sweatpants, because then people will start asking all kinds of questions that I won’t want to answer.”

  McKinley just nodded at that and rested his head on top of JJ’s for a second. “Thanks for telling me,” he finally said.

  “Now I get to ask you a question,” JJ said. “How the hell did you know about my Finch stories?”

  “Oh… that.” McKinley grinned. “Mrs. Lyle isn’t the greatest at keeping secrets. She let it slip one day when we were talking after class. Said she thought you were going to be a great novelist one day. That made me want to get to know you better… so when you showed up at the library that day and needed my help, I had the perfect opportunity.”

  “Blackmailer.”

  “Proud of it, too.”

  It was another few long minutes before McKinley said, “Merry Christmas, JJ.”

  A broad grin spread across JJ’s face. “Merry Christmas, McKinley.”

  That evening was the first time JJ let anyone see all of his scars.

  THREE NIGHTS later, JJ closed the door and watched McKinley back out of the driveway before he started the short walk up to his house. The AA meeting had been good. He was going to get a sponsor soon, which he was looking forward to. It would be nice to have someone to bug besides McKinley whenever the spring started to coil and JJ started to feel twitchy. And then he and McKinley had gone to a movie where a bunch of people had blown crap up for two hours. Overall, a good night.

  JJ reached his front porch and saw something strange: a note pinned to his door. It was strange for a few reasons. For one, Maggie always just texted him when she needed to get a message to him. For another, Maggie had been gone all day photographing a wedding in Burlington, and she shouldn’t have been home yet.

  JJ pulled the note from the door.

  JJ-

  Come to the graveyard behind the Methodist Church. Come alone if you want to know who set the Bijou fire. DO NOT CALL THE POLICE OR TELL ANYONE WHERE YOU’RE GOING or you’ll never know.

  -A friend

  JJ scanned the dark yard around him, not surprised when he didn’t see anyone there. It was after nine o’clock, which meant the majority of his sleepy neighborhood was dark.

  McKinley’s car was already gone, and JJ was grateful for that.

  He stared at the note for a minute, and he thought about cycles, and Maggie and McKinley, and Dr. Ben asking him how much his own life was worth.

  And then he thought about the dream, and the faceless man who still kept appearing, night after night.

  He turned and started walking toward the graveyard.

  THE METHODIST church wasn’t far, and within twenty minutes JJ was standing under the lights from the back of the churchyard, wishing he’d brought a flashlight. And a hat. A cold December wind had picked up and was swirling snow off the ground and around the spot where JJ stood.

  The gate to the graveyard was locked, and JJ wasn’t sure what he should do about that. Wait for someone? Jump the fence? It was a small fence, that was for sure. It wouldn’t be hard for anyone to jump.

  JJ was studying the gate, trying to figure out if there was some way to open it and wishing again that he’d had the foresight to bring a flashlight, when a voice behind him said, “Don’t scream.” Then JJ felt something hard and metallic press against his temple.

  Odds were pretty good that it was a gun.

  “WHO ARE you?” Those were the first words JJ was able to get out of his mouth, and they felt pretty strangled. In his defense, he’d just been forced at gunpoint to hop a fence and march through a graveyard. Anybody in that position probably would sound a little strange.

  “That’s not important,” the gun owner said. But it sounded like a woman.

  “Oh. Um, where are you taking me?” In the near-complete darkness of the graveyard, it was hard to see where the gun owner, who was holding his right arm, was directing him. And it was a little strange that she seemed to know exactly where she was going, despite the fact that there was only a sliver of moonlight guiding them.

  She stopped walking. “You’ll find out right now,” she told him, and brought him to a standstill in front of a grave.

  She kept the gun trained on JJ as she moved around to stand in front of him, next to the grave. It was hard to make out her features in the dark, but JJ thought she looked almost tiny, short and without much weight on her. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said in a low voice.

  That seemed counterintuitive to her actions, but JJ didn’t say anything.

  “See, I heard you the other night,” she told him. “At the restaurant. The art show. Talking to your friend. I heard you talking about the fire, and how you were looking for a man with a tattoo. I heard you say the benefit was your idea. You said you needed to catch the person who set the Bijou on fire. And I knew it was finally time to tell someone. I knew I was finally ready.”

  For the first time since that gun had pressed against JJ’s skull, it wasn’t the only thing he could think about. “It’s you? You’re the arsonist? But I thought it was… a man….”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t me. It was my brother.”

  She gestured at the gravestone behind her, and JJ thought he probably would be sick. In the thick darkness he could barely make out the words ERIC POORCHESTER, 1985-2003.

  “Did he die in the fire?” Now JJ was pretty sure his voice was actually croaking.

  “Yeah,” the gun owner whispered, taking her eyes off JJ momentarily to touch the gravestone, almost affectionately. “They found his remains in Theater Three.”

  Instantly JJ was suspicious. “How can you be sure he was the arsonist, then? Whoever set the fire in Theater Three left.” That much he knew for sure.

  She sighed and shook her head. “I didn’t know for sure it was him, not right away. But eventually I figured it out. I paint, and all my turpentine went missing that day. I still don’t know how he ended up back in Theater Three. In all the chaos, he must have gone back in to die there. But I do know, absolutely, without a doubt, that Eric set that fire.”

  The gun shook a little in her hand, but JJ knew he was going to ask his next question no matter what that gun did.

  “Do you know why?”

  She kept the gun trained on JJ as she spoke. “Our mother had been killed in a barn fire a few years earlier. She was a hired hand at a farm up the road from our place. The owners were trying to get the insurance money for burning it down, and she got caught in the blaze. The owner only got twenty years in prison.” She paused. “He’s out now. Good behavior.

  “So I knew he was angry, because Eric was always very angry. But I never knew he was capable of something like that. Then the fire happened, and I wondered. Then I realized my turpentine was missing, and I knew.”

  The gun was still there, but JJ couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Why didn’t you ever say anything? You could have saved so many people so much pain.”

  She shook her head again, and the gun shook along with it. “Don’t you understand? I thought you would understand! The man who set the barn fire. His wife went to the movies that day. She was at the movies.” Even in the deep darkness around him, JJ thought he could see her eyes water. “And Eric was still my brother. I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t let anyone know what he’d become.”

  She made a strangled sound before she went on. “I don’t know what went wrong for him, exactly,” she said. “Or why it went wrong for him and not me. But I know that there are some people you love so much that you protect them even when you shouldn’t. You believe in them even when you shouldn’t.”

  JJ saw Maggie in his mind’s eye. And Dr. Ben.

  “You know,” JJ said slowly, �
��You didn’t have to get a gun to bring me out here and talk to me. All you had to do was tell me you knew who set that fire. You can put that down.”

  “No.” She shook her head rapidly. “Then there would have been police, and news reporters, and other people, and I wouldn’t be able to do what I need to do at the end of this.” She did something to the gun, making it click loudly, and JJ realized that Dr. Ben had been right: no matter how much JJ had wanted to know what happened to his parents, finding the answer wasn’t going to be worth dying. Not with McKinley ready to go to more AA meetings with him. Not with Penny excited to read with him at the library next week. Not with Maggie and Dr. Ben believing in him even when they shouldn’t.

  JJ wished he’d realized earlier just how right Dr. Ben was. “Why me?” JJ demanded. “Why just me? There were so many people in the theater that day.”

  “Because you cared, JJ. Because you cared enough to hold a whole party looking for the person who did this to your family. And because of what you said in that restaurant. You said something about how you could never break the cycle. That’s what convinced me it was time for this. I knew then what I had to do.” She shook her head. “JJ, the cycle has to stop. It has to end. You have to end it.”

  JJ closed his eyes and tried to think about how at least he’d be seeing his parents again soon. “Will you at least tell me your name?” he asked.

  There was a strangled laugh. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Cara,” she told him. “My name is Cara.”

  “Cara,” said JJ. “Cara, you’re not really going to do this, are you?”