Page 23 of Run with Me

I wokeup at two in the morning. The room was dark, and John was sleeping beside me. My body ached in every spot. Feeling like a zombie, I left the bed and looked out the window where the full moon illuminated the night. I put on my sunflower dress and button up sweater, then went outside.

Despite the lunar brightness, the night feltdark.

I feltdark.

Dark and empty.

I buttoned up my sweater and walked down the middle of Main Street. The deceivingly peaceful night led me straight to the Bistro. When I reached it, I realized that I’d known since the moment I opened my eyes that I’d end uphere.

The lights were still on. I stood there for what felt like hours, though it was probably minutes, watching through the window as Mateo and his cousin drank shot after shot of tequila. Ben was already passed out at the bar. I wished I had a gun. I would have pulled the trigger on all three ofthem.

End of a barrel, right to the temple.

Ben had done this. He’d killed Mikey. I didn’t know how or why, but I knew that hehad.

Bastardo!

A soft noise drew my attention to the side of the building. It must have been a cat. They populated the town as much as the new wave of babies being born. Poor little things, to be brought into this awful world. I walked around to the back and saw that Fate had left the door there open, and so I strolledin.

The Cortez family seemed to be in good spirits, to be drinking that late, but then again, they were always drunk. A guard sat by the door where I’d seen the men count their money earlier in the day, but he was passedout.

And that’s when the idea for the first part of my plan formed. I gently twisted the doorknob. It was locked. I pulled a pin out of my bun and stuck it in the keyhole. It turned over a few times. At the sound of the low click of the lock giving in, I felt a spark of invincibility light in my chest. The Cortez family wasn’t the only danger in town — not anymore.

One by one, I carried the heavy bags out of that room to the back of the Bistro, and no one was the wiser. Twenty minutes later, under the moon’s watchful glow, I was staring at twelve duffle bags, all filled with cash: around fifty million, I presumed. I then waited for Fate to guide me further. When a light switched off in my parents’ chapel just outside of town, I knew what to do. A bulb must have goneout.

It took three hours, back and forth, to carry all the bags. No one saw me, and no one was the wiser as minute by minute, the satisfaction of my first ounce of revenge soothed my broken heart. When I was done, I picked one small tomato on the way back and left it in the middle of the robbedroom.

Next was Ben’s house, about a five-minute stroll away. The lights were out, and of course I knew he wasn’t there because he was passed out at the Bistro. His parents lived a hundred feet or so to the back and his cousins even further than that, each one in a mansion grander than thenext.

I gently pushed the door open. As expected, it wasn’t locked. Nobody would dare to enter his house. Well, I was done being a nobody.

I grabbed the first bottle of liquor I could find and emptied it on the couch. Another bottle found its way to the curtains and the carpet before I flicked a match and watched its light spread across the house. Then I walked outside.

When I was a safe distance away, I turned around for one last time. The sight of the blaze was beautiful. It was exactly the kind of celebration I needed to venerate my son’s shortlife.

I hurried home, undressed, showered, put on one of my nicer dresses and sat in the corner of the darkened kitchen, looking at the glow in the distance out the window. The sun was beginning to rise as well. Mikey’s monkey rested against my chest. My thumb was stained with ink from the fountain pen I had used upstairs. I wanted to say goodbye, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get the words out of my throat when I said goodbye to John, so I wrote them down. I took a sip from the glass of water I was holding when John walkedin.

“Anna, I’ve been looking for you. Where wereyou?”

“I went to the garden in the back. It feels peaceful now, doesn’t it? I feel a little bettertoo.”

“Are you sure?” He looked me over, skepticism lurking in his voice.

I nodded.

“Why are you wearing a sweater? It’s hot outside.”

Yet since letting go of my son’s body earlier in the day, all I felt were chills.

“I… I was cold. John, I have a small problem.” I saw my hand shake, the water in the half-empty glass vibrating back and forth, and so I set it aside.

“There was a fire, Anna.”

John was wrong. There was way more than a fire. There was also a matter of fifty million dollars that had been stolen. Ben could rebuild, but he’d never get that money back, and if someone came looking for him because of it, all the better. Maybe he’d leave Pace once and forall.

“I know, John, I did it. I burned down that house.”

“Oh, my God, Anna! Honey, I know you’re hurt and in pain, but… Anna… if they ever find out… We have to make sure they don’t.”

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