Song of the Fireflies

Chapter Twenty-Two

Elias

“Elias Kline’s car was found abandoned on Luther Road near the Charlotte County fire station last evening. He and Brayelle Bates are wanted for questioning in the death of Jana McIntyre, whose body was found near the Ocoee River in Georgia last month. Authorities believe…”

I let the rest of what the reporter was saying fade into the back of my mind somewhere.

Everyone simultaneously turned and looked at Bray and me, wide-eyed and as speechless as we were. I felt Bray’s fingernails digging into my hand, and I could feel her heartbeat pounding through my palm. Or maybe it was mine.

“It was an accident,” Bray blurted out.

“Holy shit, you’re wanted for murder?” Jen said. She was turned around fully on the couch facing us, her knees pressed into the cushions. I couldn’t tell whether or not she was disturbed by it or fascinated.

“Questioning, not murder,” Tate corrected her.

“I knew it,” Caleb said, smirking. “I mean I didn’t really think that was it. It was a joke. Damn. But a deal’s a deal.” He held out his hand to Tate sitting next to him. “Pay up, bro.”

“Subtract it from what you’re going to owe me after we get to Corpus Christi.” Tate never took his eyes off us. “What happened?” he asked, looking straight at me.

“Just what Bray said. It was an accident.”

“If it was an accident, why’d you run?” Caleb asked.

Bray burst into tears. I pulled her into my arms.

“We ran because we didn’t think anyone would believe us,” I said, holding Bray’s head in my hand, pressed against my chest. “It was self-defense. But the girl stumbled back too far, tripped, and fell over the edge.”

“The edge of what?” Adam asked. He looked far more nervous than anyone, his mouth partially agape, the whites of his eyes beginning to show.

“A cliff. Overlooking the river. It was an accident.”

Tate got off the couch and came toward me. Bray continued to sob into my shirt.

“What the hell are you gonna do, man?” He looked truly concerned and not at all accusing or put off, as I expected them all to be. Maybe he understood more than I knew, having to deal with his own issues with Caleb. “Seriously. I’m not going to judge you, but shit, man, you know they’ll catch you.” I saw him glance over at Bray. He knew this was all about her. He looked back at me. Sympathetically. I wondered what he was really thinking, but then thought it better that I didn’t know. Because I had a pretty good idea and I didn’t like it.

“We don’t know yet,” I answered.

Bray couldn’t take anymore. She broke away from me and ran back into the office and closed herself inside. I started to go after her, but I needed to deal with Tate and everyone else first.

I looked at Tate.

“Better cut them loose,” Caleb warned from behind. “We’ve got enough shit to deal with.”

Tate looked back. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said reproachfully. “We’ve got enough to deal with because of the shit you got us into. I love you, little brother, but you’re the last person in this room to be talkin’.”

I really appreciated Tate for that.

“I hate to say this,” Tate went on, looking at me again, “but Caleb’s not too far off the mark.”

“I know,” I said. “And I don’t expect you to keep us around anymore. If it was me, I know I wouldn’t.”

“So then what are you going to do?” Jen asked.

“Well, they definitely can’t stay here,” Adam said, looking more nervous every time my eyes passed over him. “And I’m sorry, but the sooner you two leave the better. I’m not trying to be a dick, but—”

I put up my hand. “No, Adam, you’re right. No hard feelings.”

I looked around at everyone else. “But I just hope you all believe that it was an accident. We could never do anything like that on purpose, not even out of anger.”

“You keep saying ‘we,’ ” Jen said. She got off the couch and stood next to Tate.

I nodded. “Yeah, uhh—”

“They were both there,” Tate stepped in. I saw a warning look hidden in his eyes. He was covering for me, and I was surprised by this. “It was Bray’s accident, but Elias saw it happen, so he’s calling it ‘their’ accident. I’d do the same thing.” He shrugged.

I thanked him with a private look.

“You knew about this?” Jen asked.

“No,” Tate said. “It was just a wild guess.” Then he said looking back at me, “Am I right?”

I nodded.

“Look,” Tate went on. “I would help you get back, but all of my extra cash flow is going to the Caleb Fuck-Up Fund—”

I shook my head at him, waving a hand in front of me in refusal. “No, I wouldn’t take your money anyway. You’ve done enough already by letting us hang around the past couple of weeks. I have money in the bank and I intend to pay you back every dime. I’ve just been afraid to access my account.” I inhaled a deep breath and glanced at the floor in thought for a moment. “Bray and I were going to figure out what to do within the next three days and then, whether we came up with anything or not, we were going to go back to Georgia.”

“What could you possibly do other than just turn yourself in?” Jen asked.

It was a fair question.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t. Maybe I’ll call my father and see about getting a good lawyer. I just… don’t know.” And it was the truest thing I had said in days. Sure, I could go back to Georgia and say I witnessed the accident, but any other ideas continued to elude me, and it seemed as if they always would. But the part of me that wanted to do everything in my power to help Bray wouldn’t let me believe that. So I stuck to my three-day rule. I thought that maybe by some miraculous chance a better idea would fall into my lap and blindside me out of nowhere. Not likely, but possible.

Tate reached into Jen’s purse on the side table nearby and took out a pack of cigarettes. He tapped the end of the pack with his finger, and a cigarette shot out the open end. He had it between his lips and lit seconds later. He smoked too much.

“Shit, Tate,” Adam argued from the side. “Not in the house.”

“Oh, sorry, man,” Tate said and started to head to the back door just a few feet away that led out onto the porch. He drew his head back, indicating for me to follow, then he said to Jen, “Baby, get your stuff ready. I don’t want you to miss your plane.”

I left the den and went outside with Tate. “Where’s Jen going?” I asked.

“I got her a plane ticket back to Miami,” he said, and took a long pull from his cigarette. He sat against the concrete porch railing. “She starts a new job in two days. But she didn’t want to go with me to Texas, anyway. And I wouldn’t have let her.”

I figured that must have been why he didn’t leave early this morning like he had planned: he wanted to wait until after she got on her plane.

“Why don’t you just tell Caleb to leave what drugs he has left on him here so you two can fly to Texas? Corpus Christi is a long drive.”

Tate flicked his ashes over the porch. He was slow to answer, which made me think there was more to it.

“I guess since you’re not exactly a threat to Caleb anymore, you being in more shit than even he’s in, then it’s OK I tell you that he’s still on parole and isn’t supposed to leave Florida. He could go right back to prison if they ever found out he was in Virginia. It’s the main reason why we’ve been driving everywhere.”

“Geez, what did he do?”

“Sentenced to five years for rape. Only served two, and he’s on a five-year parole.”

I blinked. “He raped a girl?” I couldn’t believe it. Caleb was a dick, sure, but I never would’ve taken him for the type.

Tate shook his head. “My brother didn’t rape that girl. And before you think I’m just backing him because he’s my brother, I know he isn’t like that, and I know for a fact he didn’t do it. That bitch fessed up to someone my sister, Everly, knows. She admitted that she’d lied just to get back at Caleb.” He shook his head and ground his teeth together behind his tightly clamped jaw. “Caleb told me everything. He was going through a bad breakup with his girlfriend, Cera. He got shitfaced one night, met this girl at a party, one thing led to another, and he fucked her. Well, Caleb felt like shit the next day for sleeping with her. He loved Cera. So, when he told this girl it was just a one-time thing, apparently she didn’t like that much. My brother was loyal to Cera.” He pointed at me as if to underline what he’d just said. “That might not seem like him, loyal, but he loved her. He was going to marry her. Anyway, that bitch got pissed off because he wouldn’t acknowledge they were ‘together’ ”—he quoted with his fingers—“so she cried rape. Claimed she regretted it after the alcohol wore off, but by then she was too afraid to tell the truth because then charges could be pressed against her.” He hopped up on top of the concrete railing and let his legs dangle over the side.

“Did you report what you overheard?”

“Fuck yeah I did, right after I confronted her myself—it was the one time I really wanted to punch a girl,” Tate said as smoke streamed out of his nostrils. “I told Caleb’s lawyer and the police, and I tried to get that now ex-friend of my sister’s to stand up in court and tell everyone what she was told, but she denied it.” Tate shook his head, smiling disappointedly, as if to this day he still couldn’t believe it. “Long story short, Caleb was sentenced and served some of his time. His girlfriend of five years left him, and that was the end of Caleb’s life. Wearing a bright fucking rape badge on your chest is pretty much a life ender, even if you didn’t really do it. After that, Caleb wasn’t the same anymore. He got out of prison and he was changed. I didn’t even know him anymore. I still don’t. When I look in his eyes I don’t see my little brother anymore, and I don’t think I ever will.”

I thought about Bray then, about the possibility of her going to prison. “You think the time in prison made him that way?” I asked.

“Nah,” Tate said, wrinkling his nose. “He wasn’t in prison that long. I think it was a combination of everything. Losing Cera. Being convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Facing a bunch of asshats when he got out. Some people did everything short of stoning him to death in the street. He lost his job and a lot of his friends because they all believed he was a rapist. Shit like that can really mess with a person’s head.”

I leaned my back against the concrete beam and crossed my arms. All I could picture was Bray, dressed in an orange suit. And after hearing about what Caleb went through, I became even more hell-bent on keeping her out of prison when I thought I couldn’t possibly be any more determined than I already was. Suddenly, I was terrified for her. The system failed Caleb Roth. I knew, with every fiber of my being, that it was just as likely to fail Bray.

She was right all along. She was right to be afraid. She was wrong to run, but her fears were absolutely justified.

“Go ahead and come with us to Texas,” Tate said. “Use the ride there and back to figure out what you two are gonna do.” He pointed at me briefly. “But my advice, if you want it, you need to talk that girl into turning herself in.”

I was confused, and I know I must’ve looked that way. After what Caleb went through unnecessarily, I thought Tate would know Bray would probably go through the same thing.

“She thinks it’s too late for that,” I said. “And I can’t say I disagree with her.”

“Maybe so,” he said, “but that’s some serious shit right there. You kill somebody, accidental or not, it’s not something that’ll ever get swept under the rug. The longer you run, the harder they’ll hunt you down, and the more you make yourself look guilty as hell.”

“Yeah, I know. Trust me, I know. I’ve thought about nothing but that since we left Georgia.”

Jen pushed the back door open, her eyes, wide with worry, framed by her long, cascading blonde hair. “Elias, I think you need to get in there with your girlfriend. She locked herself in the bathroom.”

Fearing the worst, and knowing what Bray was capable of, I rushed past Jen and ran back into the house.