Page 31 of The Bright Lands

Clark said nothing.

“Why the fuck would Dylan want to quit?” Jamal sniffed. “What’s that even matter now?”

“Right now, Jamal, everything matters.”

The bell rang, a worried hum of voices flooded the hallway. Faces stopped to stare through the door’s window until Clark taped it shut with a sheet of paper.

Jamal said when she sat back down, “All I remember is back, back in June, D said he’s gonna get me more field time this season.”

“Is it possible that Dylan did more than talk about that?” Mayfield asked.

“He wasn’t shouting it.”

“Mr. Staler said that Dylan told you two he was quitting in June, but then the very next day he came around and said he’d changed his mind. Is that true?”

“I don’t know nothing about that.”

“How’s practice going for you, Jamal?” Mayfield asked.

Jamal clenched his hands into fists.

“I imagine you’ll be starting for us on Friday, won’t you?”

“What?”

“That must be exciting.”

“Man, the fuck are you saying?”

Very calmly, Mayfield laid out KT’s most damning allegation. “Mr. Staler told usyouwere the one pushing Dylan to quit the team in the first place. He says you’ve wanted to be a starter for years. He says you finally got Dylan to agree to quit only for him to back out at the last minute and keep playing. KT says you were livid, Jamal. He says—”

“That’s a fucking lie!” Jamal shouted. “Why the fuck would Dylan want to quit?”

Mayfield’s voice never wavered. “You mean to tell me a talented player like yourself wouldn’t want a piece of the spotlight while he had the chance?”

Jamal opened his mouth but no words came. Tears glistened on his cheeks.

“You didn’t want to spend your last year with the team cooling on the bench, did you, Reynolds?” Mayfield toyed with his pen. “You never went to the coast—your story’s got more holes in it than a bum’s shorts.”

“That’s a lie, KT’s telling lies—”

“You asked Dylan if you could tag along on this trip, asked him for a ride, tricked him out into the middle of nowhere where you didn’t think a soul would ever find him.”

“Oh fuck. Oh my fucking God.”

“You dumped the body. You walked home, made your folks promise to say you’d been gone all weekend.”

Jamal started shaking.

“And then all you had to do was tell people that Dylan had run away. No one ever had to be the wiser. It was just dumb luck that body was even found.” The table groaned as Mayfield leaned forward. His voice softened. “Let’s end this now, son. Nice and easy.”

Jamal pressed his hands to his face and tears dripped through his fingers. He let out a low, pained whine.

Clark had misgivings. Mayfield’s theory had plenty of faults, but it had a sort of logic. If Jamal was going to confess to something, he would do it now.

But instead the young man said, through a barrage of sobs, “I’d never hurt D. He was my fucking brother.”

Mayfield pressed Jamal for a few minutes more but could get nothing else out of him. The young man was still shaking when they released him.