Mrs. Robinson nodded, and Fiona turned and slammed into me hard, arms wrapped around my waist as she pressed her face into my chest.
Would I have paint on my T-shirt? Of course. Was it more important than comforting a thirteen-year-old girl who was overwhelmed that the brother she adored had finally spoken to her after a year of silence? Absolutely not.
“Oh man,” I griped at her. “You know your hair’s still wet.”
Her giggling was muffled, since she was still using my chest like a pillow.
“How did I get stuck doing this by myself?” Creese whined from across the room.
“I’m coming,” I yelled back, and Fiona let me go and crashed into her father next. He got extra squeezing, and paint and snot on his sweater, along with tears.
“I’ll see you guys in an hour,” I told the Robinsons. “If you need me before our regular Monday session, you have my number.”
Mrs. Robinson had to hug me, I got a handshake from Mr. Robinson, and then I bolted back over to Creese and his dog, Riley, who was, as far as I could tell, the sweetest Doberman pinscher on the planet. Though, if someone she didn’t know came into the room, that person would see a different side of the ninety-pound good girl.
I got right back to work with the long-handled roller, the twin of the one he was using.
After a few minutes of us working in companiable silence, he turned to look at me. “Will you come see me get my brown belt?”
One of the things I had suggested was some form of self-defense to help him feel not so vulnerable out in the world. I was a Tae Kwon Do guy myself, but he had taken to karate. Robert Shimizu, who owned the dojo in town, had first given him private lessons and then insisted that he join in with others. Once Creese realized no one was watching him, all the students much too focused on their sensei, he relaxed, and his progress increased as rapidly as his confidence.
“Of course,” I assured him. “Tell me when.”
“Okay,” he affirmed, but it was soft, and I could barely hear him.
“What?” I prodded, because he had to use his voice. When he was with Barnum, he and Kurt were forced to be quiet at all times. I made him speak up now, and I had watched him find his own volume again, especially in karate class.
“I said okay,” he repeated, his voice strong, not faltering, which was a huge difference from just three short weeks ago.
“God, don’t yell at me,” I complained with a wink to let him know I was being a wiseass. “And get outta my way.” I shoulder-checked him gently away from the paint tray.
He made a noise of disgust. “You’re too slow, old man.”
I scoffed. “In your dreams.”
“It’s ’cause you’re old.”
“Old my ass,” I snapped at him.
We went back to painting, and when we reached one of the doors that had to be painted by brush around the frame, he said something I didn’t catch.
“I missed that,” I informed him.
“I said…I think I wanna talk to Detective Turner.”
“Oh yeah?” I took a breath, unsure what to say but deciding the only way to know was to ask. “About what happened to Kurt?”
“Yeah,” he whispered.
“You sure?”
He nodded. “I just—it’s not what everybody thinks, and they’re gonna be mad and tell me I’m lying or brainwashed or—but I swear, it’s the truth.”
Eighteen months ago Creese and his best friend, Kurt, both sixteen, had ditched school, borrowed Kurt’s mother’s car, and driven to Citrus Heights to spend the day seeing movies at a multiplex. What they didn’t know was that Edison Barnum was at the theater as well, looking for his next victim. He’d been an internist at one time, but his license had been revoked for a number of offenses, the least of which was performing unneeded out-patient surgery. He liked cutting people open, and not being a doctor anymore had not curbed his desire. That day, Barnum had injected Kurt with a syringe full of haloperidol in the bathroom of the movie theater, which rendered him unconscious, and had taken the boy out the back, telling workers his son was sick, and was at his car, ready to drive away, when Creese showed up, screaming at the man to let his friend go. Those facts were indisputable, as a video released by the Citrus Heights Police Department, along with the Amber Alert, had gone viral in hours after the two boys were reported missing by their parents. Creese had been labeled a hero, trying in vain to stop the man, who had ended up putting him in a sleeper hold and throwing him in the trunk of his car along with Kurt.
Three weeks later, Kurt had plummeted to his death, having been pushed from the roof of a warehouse down near the trainyard. Creese had run after Barnum pushed Kurt, and luckily, when he slammed the door to the roof, the old, rusted lock broke off and Barnum was trapped. Unless he wanted to jump off the side of the building, he wasn’t going anywhere. The police found him there. They found Creese sitting beside his dead friend on the pavement below.