Samantha Huggins rested on her knees beside him, her eyes scattered between Jamie and the mess he embedded in the carpet.
“Oh, Jamie. The blood. And a gun? What have you done?”
His heart slowed. He never saw her dressed like this, wearing only an oversized, dark blue t-shirt. She wasn’t the little girl who used to beg that he play dolls with her. She filled out well beyond even the freshman who he once thought would be the solution to his virginity. She became tall and lanky, like him. More important, she was his savior.
“They killed him,” he whispered. “They killed him, Sammie.”
“What? Who?”
“Iggy Horne. They shot him.”
“The deputy? He’s …?”
“Dead. I was there, Sammie. It was … you won’t believe me. Hell, I don’t. It was Rand Paulus. Ms. Bidwell. They did it. Wanted to kill me too, but I ran. I shot at them, but I was scared. I am royally screwed.”
Jamie rambled, recounting every detail from the moment Ignatius interrupted his burglary, to his adventures in the river, at the Gas n’ Grab, with the smartly-dressed woman who followed him around being no help whatsoever, to the flour mill. He didn’t look Sammie in the eyes. Rather, he shifted his eyes around her room, taking in the shelves of antique dolls, the canopy bed overloaded with pink ruffles and stuffed animals. He smelled cinnamon potpourri. This bedroom hadn’t changed in the years since he was last allowed in: soft and comfortable, how a home should be.
“Hold on,” she said. “You tried to rob Jack’s?”
Jamie didn’t realize he was sobbing until he looked through the veil of tears into Sammie’s stunned, disbelieving eyes. He knew the look – she tilted her head ever so slightly, her right eye squinting. Sammie possessed a keen sense for Jamie’s tall tales, of which he’d sprouted many. She caressed him as if calming a small child.
“Jamie, have you been sleepwalking again?”
A single mocking laugh broke through his anger. “You kidding? Look at me, Sammie. It’s not like those other times.” He held up the gun. “How you think I got hold of this?”
He took to sleepwalking through town since his parents died. Jamie confided to Sammie last summer at her father’s lake house.
“Jamie, everything you’ve told me ... don’t you see how it’s crazy?”
Jamie seethed. “You think I took Ben’s gun and shot myself then made up some loony story so I wouldn’t come off like a total dumbass?”
“I wanna believe you, Jamie. I do. But … the Queen Bee? Really? Ms. Bidwell?” She looked away for an instant. “And there’s something else. You have blood stains, but I don’t see where you’re bleeding. Look.”
Jamie swept his right hand over his side, across his belly, front to back, fully expecting his fingers to land in the holes. He found nothing odd, looked down and saw no wounds.
“No way.” He twisted about and posed for the mirror, feeling himself all over in a desperate search for bullet holes. “They were there, Sammie. I crossed the river and I stopped to look. I was bleeding. See? Look at all this blood. See? See?”
He was talking to the mirror, staring through the glass at her reflection, watching her disbelief turn into something deeper – the frightened look of a girl locked in a room with a nutcase wearing a hockey mask. He rested his head against the mirror. Jamie never considered that he’d just gone through the mother of all sleepwalking adventures.
Sammie tried to touch him, but Jamie recoiled. “You don’t have a shirt. Maybe you walked into some briars. Maybe the cuts are small and it’s hard to see through all the stains. Doesn’t that make sense?”
“I took off my shirt at the river. I told you. You think briars caused all this goddamn blood?”
“Fine, Jamie. Look, this gun scares me. Put it down on the dresser. I’ll get a first aid kit and clean the blood. Maybe we’ll find the injury.”
Sammie disappeared into the bathroom. Jamie was speechless. After all he went through, he would’ve expected her to be as panicked as he, turning off the bedroom light and racing to find her dad in case bad men were outside. Jamie couldn’t fathom how calm and rational she was. Was this the Sammie who threw a conniption fit when her dad suggested she find other friends because Jamie was “a poor influence?”
“Please, Sammie. Go wake up your dad. I know I’m not his favorite dude right now …”
She emerged from the bathroom carrying a towel, a first aid kit and a pair of soaked wash cloths. “No, you’re not. That new window cost him four hundred dollars. Here.” She handed him the wash cloths, which were drenched in warm water and soap. “Let’s clean you up.”
“So when did you become Florence Nightingale?”
“I have many talents. My whole life doesn’t revolve around you.”
He wanted to ask, “Since when?” However, he bit his tongue. They stopped cleaning for a few awkward seconds but didn’t make eye contact.
“Some good news,” she said without looking up. “No bullet holes, or holes or scratches of any kind that I can see. I can’t explain the blood.”
The girl was steady as a rock. He wanted to believe her, to put all his hope into another sleepwalking fiasco. He looked around again, and his eyes widened. He glanced at his watch.
“Sammie, why are you up so late? It’s almost three in the morning.”
She shrugged. “Reading. Sometimes
