Page 142 of Things We Left Behind

I just needed the right opportunity.

I thought of going to Lucian’s friends Knox and Nash Morgan for help. But I didn’t know how much they knew about Lucian’s situation, and they were boys. They were more likely to go off half-­cocked and screw up everything. It made sense to keep it to myself.

What I needed was irrefutable proof of Ansel Rollins’s villain status. To sixteen-­year-­old me, that meant video. After double checking that Virginia was a single-­party consent jurisdiction when it came to recording conversations, I squirreled away my parents’ camcorder under my bed along with a mini tape recorder I borrowed from my friend Sherry.

Every night, I stayed up late, sprawled on the window seat with my window open wide, listening.

Waiting with a sick mix of anticipation and dread churning in my stomach.

I dropped the book I’d been ignoring onto the cushion and shot my legs up in the air above me. My toenails were purple, and both pinkies had already chipped. I’d painted them the day before Lucian got arrested, and since then, everything else had seemed so frivolous.

This wasn’t how the summer before my junior year was supposed to go. I was supposed to be looking forward to the summer softball league that was starting in a week. The one where I was going to get scouted by one of my dream colleges. I was supposed to be accepting invitations to Third Base and making out. Maybe even losing my virginity. I was supposed to be convincing Lucian that it was safe for him to go out into the world and live his life.

Instead, I’d been the one to ruin any chance at that future.

I sat up and peered morosely out the window. The look on his face when he’d seen me standing there as he was led tothe police cruiser, when he realized I’d done the one thing he’d made me promise not to…

I’d begged to be allowed to visit him at the county jail. Dad had diplomatically told me it wasn’t a good idea, but I knew by the shifty look behind his glasses that Lucian didn’t want to see me. Because it was my fault he was there in the first place. Because I’d broken that trust.

I heard the chirp of tires, the squeal of brakes, and I popped up onto my knees. Mr. Rollins’s pickup came to an abrupt stop in the driveway. He’d parked crooked, and he stumbled when he got out from behind the wheel. He slammed the door, but it bounced open again without his notice.

I scrambled off the window seat and dove for the box under my bed. I stuffed the camera and the recorder in an NPR tote bag, shoved my feet in a pair of sneakers, and let myself out into the hall. I held my breath as I tiptoed to the stairs, ears straining for any noises coming from my parents’ room on the opposite side of the house.

They were going to be so pissed. I’d be grounded until I was thirty. But the end justified the means. If I could show the police department irrefutable proof that put Mr. Rollins behind bars and freed Lucian, it would all be worth it.

I detoured into my dad’s office and grabbed the cordless phone off his desk. I wasn’t sure if the signal would reach from next door, but I could at least run and dial 911 if necessary. Phone secured in the tote bag with the rest of my equipment, I unlocked the front door and slipped out into the night.

I stumbled twice in my haste, my heart pounding louder the closer I got.

There were lights on, upstairs and down.

“Please be downstairs,” I murmured to myself, wincing when I realized I was actually hoping that a woman was about to be attacked. I felt sick to my stomach as I stayed low and made my way up to the front window.

This was going to work. Ithadto work.

I heard voices, one soft and pleading, one raised. A shadowpassed by the glass, and I ducked low in the overgrown flower bed. Something with thorns bit into my forearm. Every twig snap, every breath, every beat of my heart sounded like it was amplified.

There was a dull thud inside and an angry muttering. Carefully, I reached into the bag and produced the recorder. I didn’t know if it was sensitive enough to pick up what was going on inside, but it was worth a try. I hit Record and placed it on the skinny window ledge.

I hauled out the camera, took off the lens cap, and fired it up.

With a shaky breath, I stood up in the flower bed and peered through the camera lens.

They were in the kitchen, Mr. Rollins prowling back and forth. “I told you I expect dinner on the table when I get home,” he barked loud enough for me to hear.

“It’s almost midnight, asshole,” I muttered under my breath.

I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Rollins in a nightgown as she scurried past the kitchen door, shoulders hunched.

He caught her by the elbow and slapped the plate out of her hand with a crash.

A dog barked next door, one of Mrs. and Mr. Clemson’s Saint Bernards, scaring the heck out of me.

Mr. and Mrs. Rollins disappeared from view, and I used the opportunity to pull out the cordless phone. But there was no dial tone. I was too far away from the base.

He was shouting again inside, but I couldn’t see anything. Shit. I needed to get a better view. Camera still rolling, I looped the bag over my shoulder and took off running around the side of the house. In the dark, I banged my hip off the rusty grill. But that pain was nothing compared to what Ansel Rollins was inflicting right now, I reminded myself.

I limped around into the backyard to the rickety, rotting deck off the back of the house, and there, through the sliding glass door, I saw them. He backhanded her across the face hardenough that I gasped. His brutal grip on her arm kept Mrs. Rollins from folding to the floor.