Page 7 of I Will Ruin You

Billy, shaking his head, raised a silencing palm.

“...was met at the door by one or more of the teachers, who engaged Mr. LeDrew in conversation long enough, police say, to somehow talk him out of setting off an explosive device he had strapped to his chest. But when he started walking away from the school, the device detonated, killing the man and injuring...”

“Yeah, don’t think I knew that guy. Probably a few years behind me. What’s he look like to you? Twenty? Twenty-two?”

“Crawly thing at the bottom said he was twenty-one.”

“So, I’m four years older, I’d’ve just missed him. He’d have been some pimply-faced pipsqueak coming in as I was leaving. Over there? Bottom shelf? My yearbooks. Grab ’em.”

Stuart put down his beer, went to the shelf, located the books, and pulled one out. “Which year?”

“Bring them all. He might be—oh shit, whaddya know.”

Billy’s eyes were back on the TV. It was a long shot of several school staff members milling around near the main doors, talking with police officials. Clearly this was as close as the news crew was allowed to get.

“...from here we can see teachers and administrators from Lodge High, including some of the staff we believe stood up to the bomber and persuaded him not to come into the school.”

There was a close-up shot of a cluster of staff members, one wearing a bloodied sport jacket, bandages applied to his neck and forehead.

“Him,” Billy said, pointing at the screen. “That son of a bitch.”

Stuart, now sitting cross-legged on the floor, leafing through the pages of one of the yearbooks, hunting for the man who’d blown himself up, said, “What? Who?” He looked at the television.

“Would’ve thought they’d have gotten rid of him by now. I couldn’t have been the only one.”

The reporter was on camera again, wrapping up the report, and then the newscast went to weather.

“What are you talking about?”

“The guy. Remember me telling you about when I was on the wrestling team?”

It was no surprise to Stuart that Billy might have some wrestling in his past. How many times had his so-called friend put him in a headlock and driven his knuckles into the top of his skull? That could really fucking hurt.

“Maybe,” Stuart said. “Tell me again.”

“He’s the fucking fondler,” he said, pointing at the screen, although the scene of people out front of the school was over.

Stuart started turning the yearbook pages more quickly. “God, everybody looks like a dweeb.” He scanned a page, turned it, scanned another. “Okay, sports teams. Football, hockey... here we go, wrestling.”

“Don’t even know if I got my picture took. Wasn’t on the team long.”

“What was his name?”

“Dick Grabber,” Billy said.

“No, seriously, what— Hang on, I found his picture.”

Billy was slowly shaking his head from side to side, looking at the television as though the news item were still running, while Stuart studied the yearbook photo.

“So now he’s all over the news like a big fucking hero.” He looked at Stuart and grinned. “I could sure set them straight on that.”

Three

Richard

It’s a bit like a sixth sense, I suppose. Knowing you’re being watched without actually seeing who’s doing the watching. That was the feeling in the minutes before I woke up on Friday morning. Something was there. Some kind of presence. Taking me in, checking me out.

I opened my eyes. I was right. Only inches from my face was a nose that belonged to my seven-year-old daughter, Rachel. The other half of the bed was empty. Bonnie’d probably already been up an hour, slipped out without waking me. I’d slept in the last three mornings because it had taken me so long to finally nod off, and even when I finally did, I kept waking up after seeing bits and pieces of Mark LeDrew flying through the air.