At the Edge by Norah McClintock

Author:Norah McClintock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group

“T

he guy got off,” James said. “He got off. And you know what? When the verdict came in, when they said not guilty, the guy turned and looked right at me. He looked like he wanted to kill me. He came up to me after it was all over—I was really scared. He said because of me, he’d lost his little girl. He said he was going to get me for that.”

“What did he mean?”

James shook his head. “I don’t know. My dad told me not to listen to him. He took me out of there. But the guy called our house. He said he was going to get me. I had nightmares about him every night.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

“My parents took the verdict hard. My mom said it wasn’t my fault, but that didn’t stop her from crying and crying. My dad didn’t say anything. If my mom or I ever mentioned Greg, he got up and left the room. And school?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t stand to go there anymore. I felt like everyone was staring at me, everyone was saying, ‘That’s the guy who screwed up and let his brother’s killer go free.’”

“I’m sure nobody really thought that.”

“I should have told them that I wasn’t confused. I should have said I knew exactly who killed my brother—I would have recognized him anywhere. He was sitting right there in that courtroom. It was him. We moved after that. We all just wanted to get away. But it didn’t help. Six months after we left, my mom died.”

Oh.

“It was what they call a ‘single-vehicle accident,’” James said. “It happened on a hill near our new house. She smashed into a pole. Car was totaled. The cops said she must have been going 35 miles an hour when she hit that pole. They said there were no skid marks—it looked like she didn’t even try to stop.”

I felt sick for him. I thought about the so-called accident he and his father had been in. That had happened a year ago—almost exactly two years after James’s mother had died, according to his dad. Mr. Derrick had said that he was in the car with James—the way he’d said it, it was obvious that James had been driving. Had James been so filled with guilt that he had tried to end it all? I remembered the scars on his body. I couldn’t begin to imagine how he must have felt as tragedy piled up on tragedy. It seemed like far too much for one person to bear.

“Why did you move back here, James?”

“My dad wanted to come back. He thought it would help. And after everything he’d been through ...”

After everything he’d been through?

“I didn’t want to come,” James said. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with this place or with anyone who knew me. I didn’t want to be that kid again—the one who had let his brother’s killer walk free. So ... I changed my name,” he said.

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