Silent Alarm Read Online Free PDF Page B

land.
    â€œHe seemed a little depressed,” I say, my throat filled with static.
    â€œWas that unusual for him?” Rogers inquires, pen poised above his little white pad.
    â€œNot really.” I look up to find both detectives watching me carefully. “I mean, Luke could sometimes get into a mood, but so can everyone. If you’re asking me if I thought that he would bring a gun to school and mow down fifteen of our classmates, I had no clue.”
    Anger wells up inside me. I know they’re wondering the same thing I am—how could I have not known? How could I have lived one room away from him for the past seventeen years and not even thought once that something was so wrong? So utterly unfixable?
    The detectives exchange a look between them but say nothing in response.
    â€œHad Luke ever talked to you about buying a gun?”
    (—the long barrel looming over me, Luke’s face, his cocoa-colored eyes reflected in mine. “Hey,” he said, as if everything was normal. “Hey,” he said, like he was about to ask if I wanted to go and get ice cream the way we’d done countless times since I was small. He hated chocolate, but loved whipped cream. Rainbow sprinkles. These are the things I remember about my brother. This is what is left to me—)
    I cannot speak. I stare ahead dumbly and listen to the rustle of people lining our front walk through the windows, curtains drawn like a veil.
    â€œDid Luke know how to shoot?” Detective Rogers tries again, his tone slow and pointed, as if I have brain damage. I wonder if he’s asked my parents these same exact questions, the words hitting their mark like so many sharp knives.
    â€œYeah,” I manage to say, clearing my throat. “My dad taught him a few summers ago on one of their trips. I think it was at some shooting range, but you’ll have to ask him. I think he’s upstairs . . .” My eyes drift toward the ceiling. I imagine my mother and father at night, each moored on their own side of the mattress, the distance between them growing even wider, a chasm splitting the bed in two.
    â€œDid Luke ever talk to you about buying a gun or wanting to purchase a weapon of any kind?”
    â€œNo.” My voice comes out in a squeak, and I stare at the wallpaper behind their heads, the flowers and leaves twining together, green and beige.
    â€œDo you need a break, Alys?” Marino asks, his tone not unkind, careful, this time, to say my name correctly. He leans forward, places his pad down on the coffee table between us. “We can stop for a minute if you like.”
    Stop for a minute. I want everything to stop for a minute. Longer, even.
    â€œNo, I’m okay.” I look over at Marino, my eyes snapping back into focus, and take a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
    â€œDid you and Luke have a good relationship?”
    (—I remember Luke’s broad back as he dove into the lake the summer I was nine. “C’mon, slowpoke! I’ll catch you.” The slap of cold water against my legs, my brother’s hands holding me up like a buoy. Weightless. “Is this swimming or drowning?” I ask, quizzical and silly, spitting water from my mouth in a fountain. Luke’s face is serious, contemplative, as he considers the question, his head cocked to the side, droplets of water glistening on his forehead.
    â€œWhich do you want it to be, Alys?”—)
    The room spins. It dawns on me that there is a very real possibility I will spew the two bites of toast I’ve managed to swallow all over my mother’s Oriental rug. I imagine the detective’s shocked expressions, my vomit, messy and stinking of rottenness, cracking their professional poker faces, and I almost want it to happen. There was a darkness in him even then, on that perfect summer day, pulsing somewhere below the surface, waiting to emerge.
    â€œAlys.” Rogers jumps in this time.