All for One by Ryne Douglas Pearson Page B

crackled beneath the girls’ feet as they walked beneath the bare, gangling limbs of a maple tree. Elena stopped very near the trunk and faced PJ, looking beyond at the guys. “I didn’t tell. I know they want to know.”
    “You’re right,” PJ said. “They do. But I’m asking about you.”
    “I’m trying.”
    “That’s all right,” PJ reassured her. “Everything is going all right. No one’s in trouble. Just like we figured.”
    Elena watched a group of giggling third graders pass, and said, “My mom’s going to pick me up out front. It would be better if you didn’t walk all the way out with me.”
    PJ nodded. “I understand. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “Yeah, tomorrow.” Elena’s eyes fled before she turned away. A minute later she was funneling through the main gate, and PJ had been joined under the tree.
    “She didn’t tell,” PJ said when her friends came alongside.
    “She says,” Jeff doubted coldly.
    “So help me, Bernstein,” PJ threatened, spinning toward Jeff. What she saw just beyond his cocky facade quashed any further recrimination. The others noticed PJ’s abrupt retreat into silence and turned.
    “Good afternoon,” Dooley said.
    Five distrustful glares were the only return greeting.
    Leave us alone , Joey silently urged, letting his stare now command the man who had come unwelcome into their world. He wanted so much to actually say the words, to tell this man all that he could tell him, to explain all that he knew he could explain. But that was not possible. He could say nothing. This man was their enemy. Silence was their friend.
    “We’ve gotta go,” Joey said, and showed the detective his back. PJ followed, then Jeff and Michael together. Bryce was the last to leave, backing away, unable to take his eyes off the man.
    “Bryce, c’mon,” Michael called to him. The class treasurer spun and ran toward his friend.
    Dooley stood quiet beneath the maple and listened to the wind wheeze through its naked limbs. He matched the tune, whistling as he walked toward the main office. When he got there Mrs. Nelson had a box waiting for him. It was brimming with files.

Nine
    Thunkin’ pain, Dooley told himself as he tapped two aspirin into his palm and washed the tablets down with a swallow of water. That’s what his mother would have called it. The cause sat next to him on the small couch, a lopsided stack of files leaning toward him like a tawny cornice, threatening to avalanche against his left leg. He’d read through each at least three times, and the last one, which topped the mound and might as well have been stamped ‘Account Closed’, maybe five, or maybe six. He’d stopped counting.
    Dooley opened it gently where it lay once more, peeling the manila cover back slowly to reveal the face of Guy Edmond, the image captured in his school photo taken just weeks ago. Dooley stared at it, at Guy’s living face, his screaming crack of a smile, his Cimmerian eyes, the camera flash caught in their blackness like bolts of lightning.
    The aspirin sizzled in his stomach.
    Dooley let the file folder close. He put a pair of fingers to his left temple and kneaded circles into the flesh. His eyes were leaden and his neck hummed with a constant ache that dripped annoyingly from his head with each beat of his heart. A faucet suddenly leaking to the metronome rhythm in his chest, spitting liquid pain that sparked as it hissed off muscles pulled taut and nerves that smoldered.
    Dooley pushed the files into their box on the floor and sat back into the cushions. When he blinked, his eyes only reluctantly opened again. Sleep begged his company.
    He might have succumbed to its call had he not heard the tap of narrow heels on his porch, the latch turning, and the same cadence moving back toward the kitchen.
    “Hello, Karen.”
    The footsteps ceased briefly, then began again, slowly now, coming toward the den.
    Dooley moved not an inch as his ex came into view, though his eyes worked in their