But there was that old saying: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That’s all he was doing. Getting even.
After all, he wasn’t the one who had started this.
Bishop turned to him and stopped walking. “I need to know what you’re going to do,” he said.
Bishop looked so lost, standing there with his big arms and legs as if he didn’t know how to work them.
“I’m going to keep playing,” Dodge said quietly. “We’re almost done. But not quite. Not yet.”
Bishop exhaled loudly, as though Dodge had just punched him in the stomach, even though he must have been expecting it. And Dodge suddenly knew how he could make Bishop feel better, how he could do something good for a change, and how he could make sure that Ray lost.
“I can keep Heather safe,” Dodge said. Bishop stared at him. “I can make sure she doesn’t go up against Ray. I’ll make sure she doesn’t get hurt. Deal?”
Bishop watched him for several long minutes. Dodge could tell he was struggling with something; he probably didn’t trust Dodge completely. Dodge couldn’t blame him.
“What do I have to do?” Bishop said.
Dodge felt a weight lift from his chest. One step closer. Everything was slotting into place.
“A car,” he said. “I need to borrow a car.”
Dodge had been worried Heather wouldn’t listen to him. After all, he was the one who’d told her all deals were off, no splits. But when he asked her to meet him at Dot’s, she agreed. It was ten p.m.—the only time the diner was ever empty, in between the dinner rush and the late-night crowd, when couples blasted from the bar next door came in for pancakes and coffee to sober them up.
He explained what he needed her to do. She’d ordered a coffee, made it light with cream. Now she stared at him mid-sip. She set her cup back down.
“You’re asking me to lose?” she said.
“Keep your voice down,” Dodge said. His mom had worked the early shift and was probably out with Bill Kelly—they were practically goddamn inseparable at this point—but he knew everyone else in Dot’s. Including Ricky, who he could see every time the kitchen door opened and closed, grinning and waving at him like an idiot. Dodge had to admit the kid was pretty nice. He’d already sent out a free grilled cheese and some mozzarella sticks.
“Look, you don’t want to go up against Ray, do you? The kid’s a beast.” Dodge felt a tightening in his throat. He thought about why he was doing this—thought about Dayna wheeled home for the first time, Dayna falling out of bed in the night and crying for help, unable to climb back into bed. Dayna wheeling around, hopped up on pain meds, practically comatose. And even though she’d seemed better and happier lately—hopeful, even—he, Dodge, would never forget. “He’ll knock you off the road, Heather. You’ll end up losing anyway.”
She made a face but said nothing. He could tell she was thinking about it.
“If we play it my way, you still win,” he said, leaning over the table, tacky from years of accumulated grease. “We split the money. And nobody gets hurt.” Except for Ray.
She was quiet for a minute. Her hair was swept back into a ponytail, and she was flushed from a summer outside. All her freckles had kind of merged into a tan. She looked pretty. He wished he could tell her that he thought she was great. That he was sorry they had never been closer.
That he had fallen for her best friend, and had messed it up.
But none of that mattered now.
“Why?” she asked finally, turning back to him. Her eyes were clear, gray-green, like an ocean reflecting the sky. “Why do you want it so bad? It’s not even the money, is it? It’s about the win. It’s about beating Ray.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dodge said a little roughly. The kitchen doors swung open again and there was Ricky, his cook’s whites streaked with marinara sauce and grease, grinning and giving him the thumbs-up. Jesus. Did Ricky think he was on a date? He turned his attention back to Heather. “Listen. I promised Bishop I would—”
“What’s Bishop got to do with it?” she asked sharply, cutting him off.
“Everything,” Dodge said. He drained his Coke glass of ice, enjoying the burn on his tongue. “He wants you to be safe.”
Heather looked away again. “How do I know I can trust you?” she said finally.
“That’s the thing about trust.” He crunched an ice cube between his teeth. “You don’t know.”
She stared at him for a long second. “All right,” she said finally. “I’ll do it.”
Outside, at the edge of the parking lot, the trees were dancing in the wind. Some of the leaves had already begun to turn. Gold ate up their edges. Others were splotched with red, as though diseased. Less than three weeks until Labor Day and the official end of summer. And only a week until the final showdown. After saying good-bye to Heather, Dodge didn’t go home straightaway, but spent some time walking the streets.
He smoked two cigarettes, not because he wanted them, but because he was enjoying the dark and the quiet and the cool wind, the smells of autumn coming: a clean smell, a wood smell, like a house newly swept and sprayed down. He wondered whether the tiger was still loose. It must be; he hadn’t heard anything about its capture. He half hoped he would see it, and half feared he would.
All in all, the conversation with Heather had gone easier than he’d expected. He was so close.
Rigging the explosion, he knew, would be the hard part.
MONDAY, AUGUST 22
heather
IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE TIGERS’ ESCAPE, HEATHER was so anxious she couldn’t sleep. She kept expecting Krista to show up with some court order, demanding that Lily return home. Or, even worse, for the cops or the ASPCA to show up and haul Anne off to jail. What would she do then?
But as more days passed, she relaxed. Maybe Krista realized she was happier with her daughters out of the house. That she wasn’t meant to be a mother. All the things Heather had heard her say a million times. And although the cops floated in and out, still trying to locate the second tiger, still patrolling Anne’s property, and the ASPCA showed up to verify the conditions of the other animals and make sure they were all legal, Anne wasn’t clapped in handcuffs and dragged away, as Heather had feared.
Heather knew, deep down, that her situation at Anne’s was temporary. She couldn’t stay here forever. In the fall, Lily had to go back to school. Anne was floating them, paying for them, but how long would that last? Heather had to get a job, pay Anne back, do something. She just kept clinging to the hope that Panic would fix it: that with the money she earned, even if she had to split it with Dodge, she could rent a room from Anne or get her own space with Lily.
The longer she stayed away from Fresh Pines, the more certain she became: she would never, ever go back there. She belonged here, or somewhere like it—somewhere with space, where no neighbors were crawling up your butt all the time and there was no shouting, no sounds of bottles breaking and people blasting music all night. Somewhere with animals and big trees and that fresh smell of hay and poop that somehow wasn’t unpleasant. It was amazing how much she loved making the rounds, cleaning out the chicken coop and brushing the horses down and even sweeping the stalls.
It was amazing, too, how good it felt to be wanted somewhere. Because Heather believed, now, what Anne had said to her. Anne cared. Maybe even loved her, a little bit.
Which changed everything.
Three days until the final challenge. Now that Heather knew how it would go down—that she would only be called on to lose in the first round of Joust, to Dodge—she felt incredibly relieved. First thing she was going to do with the money was buy Lily a new bike, which she’d been eyeing when they took a trip to Target the other day.