The police were telling everyone to move away from the building for their own safety and to let the firefighters do their job. I worked my way around them feeling more awful by the second. I told myself it was a good thing it was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. At least many of the residents were at work, most of the children still in school, but I didn’t feel any better about it. What had we done?
I walked down Franklin, past the looky-loos. Running now would only make me appear suspect. The wind was at my back, pushing me along as though complicit in my escape. By the time I reached the car, I was alone on the street. I unlocked the door and slid inside. My heart was pounding. What was I thinking? I’d only wanted to help Travis investigate Ryan’s death. He’d been so devastated by it. But in retrospect, I was guilty of a major lapse in judgment. Although no damage was done by the conjured fire, a lot of people were suffering fear and anxiety. Children would have nightmares. I’d failed to consider the wider ramifications of my actions. And I had no one but myself to blame for it. I’d pulled the wool over my own eyes.
Minutes later Travis opened the car door and slid beneath the steering wheel, interrupting my mental lashing. He held up Ryan’s thumb drive. “Mission accomplished.” There was no joy in his words, only relief.
I couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm. “We should never have done this. Did you see the faces of the people who ran out of the building? Did you hear the kids crying?”
“I know,” he said evenly. “I did some second guessing about it too. But it was the best way for me to get the disk. It could be the single most important clue to finding Ryan’s killer.”
“The ME released his report?” I couldn’t believe he hadn’t told me right away.
“No, but the more I thought about how he clawed at his throat, I’m sure he choked to death.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded. That thought had certainly crossed my mind as well. But there were too many unanswered questions for me to buy into his certainty and I didn’t want to argue the point. Besides, he was entitled to his theory, until it was proven right or wrong.
“One thing I know for certain,” I said hoping to end the discussion on neutral ground, “Ryan couldn’t have asked for a more devoted friend.”
Travis didn’t say anything for a minute and when he did, his words were heavy with emotion. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. Ryan wasn’t just a friend, he was my brother.”
Chapter 7
“I don’t understand,” I said. Travis had never mentioned a brother. When he’d talked about his childhood and his family, it was always his mom, dad, and him. Plus Ryan’s last name was Cutler, not Anderson.
Travis was staring straight ahead through the windshield. “It’s complicated.”
“If you don’t want to go into it now, that’s okay,” I said, though my Nancy Drew alter ego was kicking me in the shins.
He turned to me. “I’ve been avoiding the subject, because I’m not exactly the good guy in this story.”
So that was the reason he’d avoided telling me about it until now. I put my hand over his on the console between us. “It can’t be harder than it was for me to admit that I’m not your typical girl next door and that my family has more in common with the Addams Family than The Brady Bunch.”
“Yeah, and remember how well I took that news.”
“I promise not to run,” I said. “In fact I dare you to scare me off.”
His mouth curved up in a rueful smile. “Well, when you put it that way, how can a guy resist?”
“C’mon, give it your best shot.”
“Okay, here’s the unvarnished story.” He looked down at our joined hands as if it was easier not to face me. “Up until my freshman year in high school, I was a happy, slightly spoiled only child in a middle-class household. Ryan was a freshman in the same high school. We had a lot of classes together, but we ran in different circles. Never clicked as friends. There was this silent kind of rivalry between us that I don’t think either of us signed up for. I bested him academically; he beat me out for quarterback. Stupid high school crap. One afternoon he’s called out of class and he doesn’t come back. We’re all wondering what kind of trouble he’s in. Was he suspended? Expelled? That night my mom tells me his parents died in a car crash. One minute Ryan has a family and the next he’s all alone.”
“No siblings?” He shook his head. “No grandparents or aunts and uncles?”
“Nope, not a one. So Ryan winds up in the foster system. Enter my mom, social worker extraordinaire with friends in all the right positions to bend a few rules and overlook a few others. She knew the Cutlers casually from school functions and was heartsick about Ryan’s circumstances. The next thing I know, we’re his foster family.”
“Did your mom run it by you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I guess she had to run it by my father though, get him to sign some papers and be approved.”
“Wow” was all I could think to say.
“Yeah,” he said wryly. “Mom is a steamroller when she has a cause.”
“I take it the transition wasn’t easy for you.”
“To be fair, it was harder on Ryan. But that wisdom was a long time coming. I felt like my home, my whole life had been invaded. I tried to be cool about sharing my room, my parents, my world, but most of the time I know it came across as grudging.”
“You were fourteen for goodness sake. I don’t know if there could have been a worse time for that to happen. For both of you. How did he handle it?”
“He was stoic. I never saw him cry. Made me think he didn’t even appreciate what my family was doing for him. What I was giving up for him. My mother tried to help me understand. She said he was numb. When pain is too difficult to bear, the psyche copes by repressing the emotions. ‘What about my pain?’ I asked her. ‘What about what I’ve lost?’ It took me years to recognize how selfish and crappy that was.”
“So at some point your parents adopted Ryan?”
“Fast forward to May of our junior year—May tenth to be exact. The day is etched into my mind. They told him they wanted to adopt him, make him their son in the eyes of the law. It was like lighting the fuse to his emotions. He blew up, said he didn’t want any part of it. He was proud of the name Cutler and it had been left to him to see that it survived.”
“He could have hyphenated the names.”
“My mom told him that. She said he didn’t even have to change his name. He thanked my folks for everything they’d done for him, but he’d had wonderful parents too and he refused to think of anyone else in that way. I could tell my mom was disappointed, but she said she understood. To me it was the final insult. Which made no sense, because I’d been against the idea until he turned them down.
Anyway, Ryan and I muddled through the last years of high school, living as separately as we could under the same roof. I knew it saddened my parents, but I didn’t care. The whole damn thing was their fault to begin with.” Travis paused to look up at me. “Ready to run yet?”
“Not even close,” I said softly, not wanting to interrupt the flow of his words.
“Man, I couldn’t wait to go off to college and be done with him. My grades got me a free ride to Duke. He was offered a football scholarship to Penn State. Distance didn’t make our hearts grow fonder. I dreaded