completely fucking over.”
I got down on the floor next to her, putting my arms around her and holding her as tight as I could.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “We’re going to sort this out. We’re going to sort it all out.”
Knowing, even as I said the words, how unlikely that was. This was no fender bender. This wasn’t getting arrested for drinking underage. This wasn’t something we’d be able to smooth over in a hurry.
“If somebody did get shot, are you saying it was Stuart?” I asked between her sobs. “Did you get the sense that there was somebody else there? Someone else who could have fired a gun? And is it possible Stuart had a second gun? That he gave one to you and held on to another one for himself?”
“He—I’m pretty sure—he had just the one. He went back to the car to get it. I … I called for Stuart and he didn’t say anything. I think … I think I actually screamed for him. But then I thought I could still hear something moving around, and I put my hands over my eyes for a second, screamed again, I was totally freaking out, and I felt someone run by me, or I heard someone running … I don’t know. It was dark in the house. He told me not to turn on any lights, so no one would know we were there. I think I got bumped. If Stuart was okay, wouldn’t he have answered me? Maybe—maybe what I heard was a dog or something running through the house. He said the people there had pets, so they didn’t have those, you know, those things in the house that can tell if you’re there.”
“Motion sensors.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you hear a dog? Was there any barking?”
“No, I didn’t hear anything like that.”
“Okay. Grace, where did this happen?”
“A house.”
“Where’s this house?”
“I don’t know.” She took several deep breaths. “I mean, I sort of know, but I don’t exactly know. Not far from the gas station. I wasn’t running that long.”
Ten minutes, she said. Could be a radius of half a mile to a mile or so around that location.
“So it wasn’t Stuart’s house?”
She shook her head. “No. It was some house that he said was on the list.”
“What list?”
“He didn’t say. Just a list where they kept track of things. It might have been a list his dad had.”
“What’s his dad do?”
Grace sniffed and shook her head. “I don’t know, just stuff. But Stuart knew the people who lived in the house were away and figured if he could get into the house, he could get the keys and take the car for a drive.”
“Jesus,” I said. I seemed to be saying that a lot.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. It was really stupid. I’m so sorry. I know this is it for me. My life’s finished. What’s Mom going to say when she finds out? She’ll probably kill herself. After she kills me.”
“Grace, listen to me. Is it possible you didn’t actually shoot him? Did you see him get shot? What did you see?”
“I don’t know. I heard the shot, but I didn’t really see anything.”
“Were you pointing the gun? Were you holding it up, or was it down at your side?”
“I think—I don’t think I was pointing it. Stuart told me not to put my finger on the trigger, but then when I started to follow him, I kind of moved it in my hand because it was heavy and I might have got my finger on it. Maybe it went off when it was pointed down, and the bullet bounced or something.”
“Tell me again, where did this gun come from?”
“It was in the glove compartment.”
“He keeps a gun in his car?”
“It’s not his car. It belongs to his dad. It’s really old.”
“Is it possible his father’s a cop or something?”
Grace shook her head. “He’s definitely not a cop.” I had the sense she knew more than she was saying about Stuart’s father. “And it was just a dumpy old car, not a police car or anything. It was huge.”
“Okay, so Stuart got the gun from the glove compartment. Why did he want to