“What?”
“I really hate the song ‘Come on, Eileen.’”
Robin sang the words softly. “At this moment, you mean everything...”
“Do that again and you’re fired.”
“You fire me, you’ll be the only one here old enough to remember that song.” Robin took a tentative sip. The coffee was cooler now, but she could hardly taste it. Her tongue was still numb from the burn. She remembered being a kid, her favorite meal of grilled cheese and tomato soup, Mom dropping an ice cube into the soup,So you won’t get hurt. Robin took another sip, that reporter’s voice in her head again. Quentin Garrison.Ask your mother about April Cooper.What was he talking about? Why had he called her?
Eileen tapped at her keyboard. “Your column is officially live.”
“Great.”
“Enthusiasm is not your strong suit today.”
“Eileen?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever heard of the Inland Empire Killers?”
“Wow. Non sequitur.”
“Have you?”
“Umm... Wait... Oh, yeah. From the ’70s, right?”
“I don’t know,” Robin said. “I’m asking you.”
“I think there was a Lifetime movie about those murders.” She went back to the keyboard.
“You looking it up?”
Eileen nodded. “Here we go.” She turned the monitor around and Robin stared at the screen—two picture-perfect young actors in tight jeans and clean T-shirts, pasted-on scowls. A dark-haired boy in a blood-spattered shirt and a blond girl with bee-stung lips and hot pants. Both teens held shotguns, and Robin knew them. She knew those faces... “Movie of the Week actually,” Eileen said. “We didn’t have Lifetime in my house. I remember thinking the girl who played April Cooper had pretty hair.”
Robin stared at the picture, remembering. “April Cooper.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That was the girl killer’s name. The boy was named Gabriel and the actor who played him was not all that cute. I remember thinking she could do way better. Maybe that was the point, I don’t know. Of course, the women in those old TV movies were always hotter than the guys...”
“I... I saw that... that show.” Though the truth was, she had only seen part of it. The beginning. She’d been seven years old. Maybe eight. Curled up on her living room rug, eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream, the announcer’s voice, low and rumbling and important. “Coming up next,The Inland Empire Killers: ’Til Death Do Us Part.” Her mother was in the kitchen, her father on the couch behind her. The announcer said, “What drove Gabriel LeRoy and April Cooper to murder a dozen people in cold blood?” The way he’d said the names. The way he’d said the word.Murder.It was thrilling. On the screen, the boy and girl, standing next to each other, guns aimed straight in front of them spitting bullets and fire and Robin watching, transfixed.Murder.
Is this too scary for you?
No, Daddy. I want to watch.
And then Robin’s mother had swept into the room, yanking the remote out of her hand, shutting off the TV like someone else’s mean mother, a different person, a stranger.Mitchell, what the hell are you doing?Mom, who had never sworn before, at least not in front of Robin. Mom, whotsk-tskedat her father if he let adamnslip out.
Mommy, please can I watch?
Go to your room right now.
But... Daddy said I could.
Go to your room and stay there. No TV for the rest of the night.
All these years later, it had stuck in her mind—the announcer’svoice, the teens on the TV screen, the blaze of their shotguns, that very same blaze as in her mother’s eyes. The shock she’d felt. The fear. Robin had never seen Mom that angry, not before then or since. Even her father had seemed confused. The way he’d looked at her, something shifting in his eyes.Calm down, Renee. You’re frightening your daughter.
Robin looked at Eileen. “Your parents let you watch that?”
