Page 50 of By the Book

“Can I come out?” the woman asked.

“Slowly,” my dad said. “And I want to see your hands.”

The hands emerged first. Then the rest of her. (Oh, and you could totally tell Colleen had a theater background—she couldn’t resist twiddling her fingers.) She looked like a wreck—her hair flat, her eyes baggy, dressed in oversized sweats that looked oldenough to have featured in a Suzanne Somers workout video. But there was no mistaking her.

“Where is she?” Colleen asked. “Is she gone?” She slumped against the wall, hand to her, uh, bosom. “She’s insane. She locked me in there, and she’s totally insane. She was going tokillme!”

And then she started to cry.

“Who?” I asked.

Colleen glared at me—probably not thrilled with having her performance interrupted—but, like a real star, she seized the moment and exclaimed, “Wanda!”

None of us said anything.

And then my mom asked, “Who’s Wanda?”

That one seemed to throw Colleen for a loop.

As much as I was enjoying this performance ofI’m Innocent: You Have to Believe Me(starring Colleen whatever-her-name), it was kind of a relief when my phone buzzed. It waslessof a relief when I saw Bobby’s name on the screen.

“Uh, hi,” I said.

He must have heard the guilt in my voice, because the extra beat of silence told me Bobby was filling in a lot of blanks.

“Before you get mad,” I said, “I need to tell you it wasn’t my fault. And I can explain. But mostly, it wasn’t my fault.”

I’d known Bobby for over a year. And I knew one of the core things that defined Bobby was that he hated feeling out of control. And so, his silence was worse than any amount of shouting or guilt-tripping or anger. There was nothing but his labored breathing as he fought to rein himself in.

“Bobby, I’m sorry—”

“They found George Chin,” he said over me, the words curt and flat. “He’s dead.”

Chapter 12

We were at the sheriff’s station for hours: hard wooden chairs, the smell of economy-price floor cleaner, fluorescent lights that felt like the beginning of a migraine.

Bobby wasn’t there.

Bobby was out. Working.

Which was worse, somehow, because waiting to see him, to talk to him, to apologize, meant being suspended in an eternal moment of anxiety. My heart couldn’t seem to slow down. I felt dizzy. My thoughts made big, swooping loops—everything I’d done wrong, all the ways I’d screwed up, imagined snatches of me trying to explain and Bobby’s hurt and disappointment.

Everyone seemed to feel the tension. Salk smiled at me, but he couldn’t meet my gaze as he walked around the station, doing whatever he was doing. Paperwork, it seemed like. So much paperwork. And when Jaklin Ruiz, who was on dispatch, took her break, she patted me on my shoulder like I was sitting on death row. Which, maybe I was. Even my parents were subdued—my dad hadn’t even protested when they’d taken his guns.

“Mr. Dane.”

Sheriff Acosta’s summons jarred me out of my daze. She looked like she always did: composed, professional, and with zero tolerance for, uh, guff. She was a stocky woman with warm brown skin and a little scar near her hairline that most of the time you couldn’t see unless you knew it was there. Because, for example, you’d been in a number of conversations with her—loud, expressive conversations—and you’d found it difficult, at various times, to look her in the eye. She motioned for me to follow her into an interview room, so I did.

It was bare. It was utilitarian. The ballast in the light overhead made me feel like I was grinding my teeth. When the sheriff pulled out her chair, the legs screeched across the linoleum. She didn’t say anything for what felt like a long time.

“Are you going to arrest us?” I asked.

In a surprisingly dry voice, the sheriff said, “Why would I arrest you? Your parents heard someone calling for help.”

I had no words. Zero words. And then, somehow, I managed to say, “Hold on, that actually works?”

Sheriff Acosta didn’t roll her eyes, but it looked like it was sheer force of will. “Since you’ve been helping with this investigation, I wanted to let you know that we’re going to arrest Joan Wilkinson for the mayor’s murder.”

---