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“Ms. Jones, we will discuss this after you have finished giving your report to the police.”

“Ms. Jones,” the officer said. His voice just a touch louder than Principal Sykes. “Would you be able to identify the other student if you saw her again?”

I nodded. “But you’ll see her on the video.”

“We have what we need for now. We’re going to need your contact information in case we have more questions.”

Sue and I provided them.

He looked over at Principal Sykes. “Principal Sykes, I’m surprised that a woman who likes to enforce her school policy so strictly, would not be enforcing the drug laws of this county just as diligently.”

Sue looked over at me with big eyes. I tried not to laugh.

The officer continued. “I’d like to talk to you and your vice principal about the drugs you found, and any other illegal substances that you have found that you have failed to report to the proper authorities. We will have to go over every one of your reports to determine if they needed to be brought to our attention.”

“Of course. I’ll get him to come to my office.”

I took a quick peek over at my principal and could practically see the steam rising from the top of her head. I turned to look at Sue.

“Mrs. Rankin, thank you for your quick thinking today,” Principal Sykes said. “It’s appreciated. Ms. Marlowe, I will need to speak to you after school today. Please return to your classes and don’t discuss what happened.”

We both nodded, as she picked up the telephone on her desk. We hustled out of her office.

As soon as we were past her secretary and out in the hall, Sue started talking.

“This is bullshit. The old battle axe is going to start gunning for you, and I’m not going to let her.”

“Sue, keep your head down. You know how she is. Hopefully, this will blow over. Once the cops see that video, she won’t have a leg to stand on.”

“Like Senator Thompson will ever let that video be seen. This could turn ugly, Marlowe.”

“Let’s just take this one day at a time. You and I both know you can’t afford to lose this job, not with Steve out of work. Don’t do anything to jeopardize it. I can hold my own. If I can’t, I’ll move on to another school. And if push comes to shove, I’ll move on to another district.”

The alarm rang, indicating the end of class. Kids started pouring out of their classrooms.

Sue got close to me and whispered in my ear. “I will not let you hang out to dry.”

I laughed. “I’m going to be fine. I promise. Just promise me that you’ll keep your head down, all right?”

I waited until she nodded. Then I felt a tiny little bit of relief.

2

I looked at the picture of Brady and Grady, taped to the dash of my truck. One was sitting in a red wagon wearing a cowboy hat. The other was pulling the wagon, wearing red cowboy boots.

I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I was a twin. That my real name was Brady Beaumont and I’d been kidnapped by Arthur Beaumont when I was almost four-years-old. I’d looked at the newspaper files and Arthur Beaumont was the spitting image of Ronald Davies. So, even though I’d been kidnapped, I was still stuck claiming that son-of-a-bitch as my father. That really sucked.

Considering the fact that he hadn’t one paternal instinct in the world, why in the fuck had he taken me? I mean, he couldn’t put me to use on the fishing boat up in Alaska until I was ten. Of course he did have me cleaning the poor excuse of a house when I was five, and cooking for him when I was seven. At least I could do that when I wasn’t resting up from some beating or another.

It got better when I started working on his fishing boat. The guys didn’t like it when I was beat up, and they told him so. When five men came at dad at once to make their opinion known, Dad cut it out.

So instead of growing up in Tennessee with a mother and a brother, there was me at ten years old starting on my dad’s skiff, and all those cold weeks we would spend out on the Bering Sea during crabbing season. Dad would pilot his skiff like he was Captain fucking Ahab, and me, Kenny, Lucky, Barry, Ed and Shil would take all the shit he could hand out as we’d bait the eight-hundred-pound crab traps and toss them over the side of the boat, praying that we’d get a good haul of King Crabs. Not just so the five guys would get paid, but so Ronald Davies wouldn’t lose his shit.

I don’t know how many prayers were said on that boat as the winch would pull up a trap, but I bet between the six of us, we prayed more than they did at St. Michaels down in Dillingham.

When crabbing season was over, he’d drop me off at Aunt Meg’s every so often. She home-schooled my younger cousins. I remember badgering my aunt to tell me stories about my mom, but Aunt Meg was tightlipped. The two times I asked Dad about my mom, Dad lost his shit. Losing his shit was Dad’s first gear position. Second gear was torches and pitchforks, third gear was grizzly bear mean and abusive.

As for fourth gear, you just prayed you could outrun him and hide.