I’d simply have to leave them there and hope that Mom didn’t come into the kitchen. Then I’d set my alarm for a couple of hours from now, and put them back in the closet after she went to sleep.
I stepped into the living room. “She said she won’t forget. I’m going to bed now.”
Mom looked over at me. “Good night.”
I hesitated for just a moment, hoping she’d return her attention to the television. She didn’t. She kept looking at me. I couldn’t keep standing there like an idiot, so I’d have to walk across the living room toward the stairs. This was problematic, since my leg was still killing me and I wasn’t sure I could do it without limping.
I tried to harness my inner ballerina and walk with grace.
“You okay?” Mom asked.
“Why?”
“You’re walking funny.”
“I banged my leg on the counter. I was trying not to wake you up, so I didn’t turn the light on in the kitchen.”
“Do you want me to take a look?”
“Nah, it’s fine.”
Mom got up off the couch. “I’ll get you an ice pack.”
“It’s totally fine. I won’t be able to sleep if I have an ice pack on it. It doesn’t hurt at all.”
“You sure?”
“Yep. I love you. Good night.” I resumed walking, praying that she wouldn’t decide that I was incapable of making my own decisions about leg care and get an ice pack anyway.
I walked upstairs, grimacing with each step. I went into my bedroom, shut the door, and took off my pants. My leg was swelling up pretty badly. Great. Maybe I would ice it down, after Mom went to bed.
I got undressed the rest of the way, shut off the light, and climbed into bed.
I kept screwing things up. But I had to go over there, right? What if Mr. Martin had kidnapped Dominick, and I didn’t find out until tomorrow morning? How could I have lived with myself knowing that I could’ve done something to save him?
I couldn’t sleep, of course, so I lay in bed until I heard Mom shut off the television. I waited exactly fifteen minutes after that, then snuck back downstairs and put the boots and jacket back into the closet. I put the knife back in the drawer. I got an ice pack out of the freezer and took it back to my bedroom. I left it on my leg until it was no longer cold, and it seemed to help quite a bit. Finally, I fell asleep.
The next morning, Dominick was found dead.
16
It wasn’t clear how Dominick met his fate, but kids all over school were talking about the boy who’d frozen to death on Halloween night. There was no evidence of foul play. He’d been found in a neighbor’s backyard, along the route Dominick might have followed if he’d been taking a shortcut to get back to his own house.
His footprints were the only set—nobody had been with him. The footprints stopped a few yards away from his body, replaced by a thick track, as if he’d begun to crawl.
One of the friends who’d been trick-or-treating with him mentioned that Dominick had complained that he wasn’t feeling well. Apparently he’d been much sicker than simply having a bellyache from too much candy.
There was absolutely no evidence that it had anything to do with Mr. Martin. It was a tragedy that would haunt our area for a long time, but it wasn’t the work of a serial killer.
As we stood by her locker, I told Tina everything that had happened.
“I get why you went over there,” she said. “But you have to promise me you won’t do it again. Not by yourself.”
“I’m not taking you with me.”
“Okay, but I can wait nearby. A lot could’ve happened in an hour. You could’ve been long-dead before anybody showed up to save you.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I just didn’t have a choice.”
“Do you think he’ll try anything?”
I shrugged. “He was acting crazy last night, but hopefully he’s calmed down. He knows that I’m not going to let him get away with anything. He tried to pretend that he doesn’t care if I go to the police, but that can’t possibly be true. I think he’ll be on his best behavior.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’ll move away. Why would he even want to live here anymore? If I had somebody like me pounding on my door late at night accusing me of that kind of stuff, I’d move someplace else.”
“That would be great if he just left,” said Tina. “Maybe we can figure out a way to make that happen.”
“Of course, we’d be sending him to a new place with a whole new pool of victims. It might be better for him to stick around here so I can keep an eye on him.”
Tina sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. My dad really liked you, by the way.”
“Really? He didn’t say, ‘My God, what a complete loser! How could you possibly be attracted to somebody who’s never going to amount to anything? He’s gross! He’s totally gross!’?”
“Nope, he sure didn’t.”
“Cool.”
“He knows that I have flawless taste.”
I smiled, but the smile quickly faded. “I think last night reset the whole thing with Mr. Martin. We have to assume that he’s paying close attention to me again. So I guess we’re back to saying that we shouldn’t be seen together outside of school.”
“I didn’t realize we’d changed that, outside of Halloween costumes.”
“We hadn’t. But I was going to bring up the idea.”
The first bell rang and we hurried off to class. This would’ve been an agonizingly long day even under good circumstances, simply because it was hard to get back into the vibe of education the day after Halloween. The death of Dominick, even
