I feel the thickness in my throat, just like that. Feel my mouth go dry and my eyes start to fill up.
“I’d do anything to change what happened that night, and to have one of my best friends back.” Swallow hard but keep going. “I’d do anything to go back and somehow save his life. But I can’t and that will killmefor the rest of my life. Since the accident, people keep talking about what I lost that night.” I shake my head. “No. I losthim.”
I look down at Taylor now. She gives me one of those sad smiles of hers. I manage to give her one back.
“But none of us, not one person here, has to lose another kid from Cross Rivers to drugs.” I look around the whole stadium again. “I’m mostly talking to people here not all that much younger than me. If you’re using drugs, you can stop today, and your life will get better immediately. If you have a friend you know is using, do anything you can to get them to stop, because you might be saving their life. And if you know who it is dealing this poison, do the right thing about that and call somebody like my friend Officer Burt Webb, sitting right down there in the front row.”
I point at him and he points back at me.
“In conclusion, I’d just like to say one last thing, and don’t want anybody in this stadium to forget it.”
I look around again, my eyes taking in Briar Crockett one last time, like I’m trying to take a picture.
Then I shake a fist and shout, “This is our fucking town.”
In the very next moment, I hear the sirens, then see Burt Webb jump up and go running past me and past the stage toward the tunnel.
FORTY-SIX
WHEN BURT HAD described to me what had happened to Reggie Piersall, he’d talked about the drill for cops when people “go down” because of a drug overdose, and how frequently cops are the first responders.
Burt Webb has once again taken the lead. A kid has gone down in the parking lot, and he’s going to get there first. Within five minutes, the day has turned into a crime scene with a roped-off perimeter.
Mayor Larson, quickly made aware of what’s happened, orders the cops on crowd control into position, then steps back to the microphone.
“There has been an incident in the parking lot,” Claire Larson says. “Everybody leave from the far entrance to Silas Tucker Field.”
I follow Burt Webb.
“Silas is with Burt,” I hear one cop on the scene perimeter saying to the other as they let me pass.
I can hear another distant siren, but can see Burt Webb already performing CPR on the victim before the ambulance arrives.
Another cop—is the entire Cross Rivers force here?—comes runningwith what looks like some kind of medical kit, and then I can see the syringe in Burt’s hand as he quickly swings it down toward the victim lying on the ground. Must be the same drug he’d administered when he’d managed to save Reggie Piersall.
The ambulance is pulling into the parking lot now. I can see the crew jump out, open the back doors, come out with a flat stretcher fixed with an oxygen setup.
I see them talking to Burt, who is standing now, making way for one of the EMTs. In the tech’s hand are what I recognize as defibrillator pads to get the victim’s heart started before it’s too late.
Burt, being Burt and still trying to help, tries to hand the other EMT the oxygen mask then.
But the EMT gives him a long look, shakes his head, puts a hand to Burt’s shoulder.
I see Burt kneel back down as I try to get closer. He stays where he is for what feels like a long and terrible time. When he slowly gets to his feet, I finally get a look at the victim as the EMTs begin to carefully put the body on the stretcher. See her face. See the long blond hair.
I feel all the air come out of me at once.
Burt walks over to where I’m standing, shows me the driver’s license in his hand.
“Riley Millsap,” he says in a dead voice. “Sixteen.” He pauses and says, “Forever.”
And I say, “I know her.”
FORTY-SEVEN
THE AMBULANCE WITH Riley Millsap’s body inside is gone.
The onlookers, who have come from the stadium to the crime scene, have started to disperse.
