girl’s mouth opened. Charlie couldn’t hear the words, but the cop obviously did.
“Did you hear that fucking bitch!” the cop screamed. “Let her do it or get the fuck out of my way!”
“Please,” Mrs. Pinkman whispered. Charlie had almost forgotten about the woman. The principal’s wife had her head in her hands, her eyes covered so she didn’t have to see. “Please stop.”
“Kelly.” Huck’s voice was calm. He reached his hand over his shoulder, palm up. “Kelly, give me the gun, sweetheart. You don’t have to do this.” He waited a few seconds, then said, “Kelly. Look at me.”
Slowly, the girl looked up. Her mouth was slack. Her eyes were glassy.
“Front hallway! Front hallway!” Another cop rushed past Charlie. He went down on one knee, sliding across the floor, two-handing his Glock and screaming, “Put it down!”
“Please, God,” Mrs. Pinkman sobbed into her hands. “Forgive this sin.”
“Kelly,” Huck said. “Hand me the gun. Nobody else has to get hurt.”
“Down!” the second cop boomed. Hysteria pitched his voice up too high. Charlie could see his finger tense on the trigger. “Get down on the ground!”
“Kelly.” Huck made his voice firm, like an angry parent. “I’m not asking anymore. Give me the gun right now.” He shook his open hand in the air for emphasis. “I mean it.”
Kelly Wilson began to nod. Charlie watched the teenager’s eyes gradually come back into focus as Huck’s words started to penetrate. Someone was telling her what to do, showing her a way out of this. Her shoulders relaxed. Her mouth closed. She blinked several times. Charlie intrinsically understood what the girl was going through. Time had stopped, and then someone, somehow, had found a key to wind it back up again.
Slowly, Kelly moved to put the revolver in Huck’s hand.
The cop pulled the trigger anyway.
Charlie watched Huck’s left shoulder jerk as the bullet ripped through his arm. His nostrils flared. His lips parted for breath. Blood wicked into the fibers of his shirt like a red iris. Still, he held onto the revolver that Kelly had placed in his hand.
Someone whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
“I’m all right,” Huck told the cop who had shot him. “You can holster your weapon, okay?”
The cop’s hands shook so hard that he could barely hold onto his gun.
Huck said, “Officer Rodgers, holster your weapon and take this revolver.”
Charlie felt rather than saw a swarm of police officers run past her. The air billowed around them like the cartoon swirls that came out of clouds, nothing more than thin, curved lines that indicated movement.
Then a paramedic was holding tightly to Charlie’s arm. Then someone was shining a flashlight into her eyes, asking if she was hurt, if she was in shock, if she wanted to go to the hospital.
“No,” Mrs. Pinkman said. Another paramedic was checking her for injuries. Her red shirt was soaked with blood. “Please. I’m fine.”
No one was checking on Mr. Pinkman.
No one was checking on the little girl.
Charlie looked down at her hands. The bones inside the tips of her fingers were vibrating. The sensation slowly spread until she felt like she was standing an inch outside of her body, that every breath was a reverberation of another breath that she had previously taken.
Mrs. Pinkman cupped her hand to Charlie’s cheek. She used her thumb to wipe away tears. Pain was etched into the deep wrinkles lining the woman’s face. With anyone else, Charlie would’ve pulled away, but she leaned into Mrs. Pinkman’s warmth.
They had been here before.
Twenty-eight years ago, Mrs. Pinkman was Miss Heller, living with her parents two miles away from the farmhouse. She was the one who’d answered the tentative knock at her door and found thirteen-year-old Charlie standing on the front porch, covered in sweat, streaked with blood, asking if they had any ice cream.
That was what people focused on when they told the story—not that Gamma had been murdered or that Sam had been buried alive, but that Charlie had eaten two bowls of ice cream before she’d told Miss Heller that something bad had happened.
“Charlotte.” Huck grabbed her shoulder. She watched his mouth move as he repeated the name that wasn’t her name anymore. His tie was undone. She saw the red splotches dotting the white bandage around his arm.
“Charlotte.” He shook her again. “You need to call your dad. Now.”
Charlie looked up, looked around. Time had moved on without her. Mrs. Pinkman was gone. The paramedics had disappeared. The only thing that remained the same was the bodies. They were still there, just a few feet away. Mr. Pinkman with his tie over his shoulder. The little girl with her pink jacket that was stained with blood.
“Call him,” Huck said.
Charlie fumbled for the phone in her back pocket. He was right. Rusty would be worried. She needed to let him know that she was okay.
Huck said, “Tell him to bring the newspapers, the chief of police, whoever he can get down here.” He looked away. “I can’t stop them on my own.”
Charlie felt a tightness in her chest, her body telling her that she was trapped inside something dangerous. She followed Huck’s gaze down the hallway.
He wasn’t worried about Charlie.
He was worried about Kelly Wilson.
The teenager was face down on the floor, both arms handcuffed tightly behind her back. She was petite, no more than Charlie’s size, but she was pinned down the same as if she were a violent con. One cop had his knee pressed into her back, another kneeled on her legs and yet another was grinding the sole of his boot into the side of the girl’s face.
These actions alone could be seen through the wide lens of admissible restraint, but that’s not why Huck had told her to call Rusty. Five more cops stood in a circle around the girl. She hadn’t heard them before but she could hear them clearly now. They were screaming, cursing, waving their arms around. Charlie knew some of these men, recognized them from high school or the courtroom or both. The expressions on their faces were all painted in the same shade of rage. They were furious about the deaths, livid about their own feelings of helplessness. This was their town. Their school. They had children who were students here, teachers, friends.
One of the cops punched a locker so hard that the hinge broke on the metal door. Others kept clenching and unclenching their hands. A few walked back and forth across the short length of the hall like animals in a cage. Maybe they were animals. One wrong word could spark a kick, then a punch, then batons would be pulled, guns would be drawn, and they would set upon Kelly Wilson like jackals.
