Trust Me by Melinda Metz - Fingerprints - 3 Page A

rush.
    “Okay,” Marcus answered. “Do you think… would it be okay if I asked you again sometime? I had fun at Sliders.”
    Rae squeezed her eyes shut against the image of Anthony’s face. Of course, it didn’t help this time, either. “I had fun, too. But I have to go. Bye.” She hung up without answering his question.
    Anthony saw the pothole, but he didn’t slow down. He pushed down on the accelerator and went over it with a bone-jarring thump-thump. The thumps seemed to say murder.
    I should have asked Rae how he did it. Did he get up close, use a knife, get sprayed with the blood? Or did he have
    a semiautomatic and just coat the room, hitting whoever was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place?
    It doesn’t matter. It’s just… crap. I don’t even know the guy, Anthony thought. He was in my life a total of what? A
    couple hundred minutes out of seventeen years. He means nothing to me. He-
    He’s my father. The answer came clear and strong. And true. He’s in my blood. He’s part of me, a part I can’t rip out
    even if I slash a chunk out of my heart or my brain.
    Anthony came up to the street he needed to take to his house. He passed it by again. He wasn’t readyto go home.
    He wasn’t ready to do anything except drive. Drive and drive and drive. That at least took a fragment of his attention.
    If he stopped, all he’d be thinking about was his father, and that would make his head spew like a friggin’ volcano.
    He hit the accelerator and made it most of the way across the street before the yellow light went red. He didn’t want to stop. Couldn’t stop.
    The next light was a solid red when he reached it, so Anthony took a right without lifting his foot off the gas. He got a honk from the guy he ended up tailgat-ing. “Screw you,” he muttered.
    He heard a little cough from the Hyundai’s engine and shot a glance at the gas gauge. The red line was riding below the E. “Screw you, too, you freakin’ car.” The 7-Eleven where Nunan worked was only a couple of blocks away. If he could just get there, he could pump in enough gas toThe engine coughed again. Anthony jerked the wheel from side to side, weaving the car back and forth in his lane.
    Sometimes that would slosh enough gas from the sides of the tank over the hole to get a car at least a little farther down the road.
    But not this time. The engine died. Right there in the middle of the street. Anthony switched on the flashers, put the car in neutral, got out, and-steering with one hand-managed to shove the Hyundai overto the side of the road. He yanked the keys out of the ignition, then slammed the door so hard, the frame shimmied.
    All you have to do is get over to Nunan’s. He’ll have a gas can he can loan you, Anthony told himself. He kicked the closest tire as he passed the car. “Piece of crap. Mom should have traded it in a long time ago. She-”
    My father is a murderer.
    The thought shoved everything else out of his brain. Questions pounded through him as he started walking, questions hard as stones thrown at his head. Knife? Gun? Up close? Man? Woman? With a family? Planned or did the robbery get out of hand? Did his father… did he like it? Did it give him some kind of rush? Had he killed before but not gotten caught?
    Anthony started to run. If he could just get to the 7-Eleven, there’d be someone to talk to. Maybe that would stop the questions or at least turn down the volume on them. He turned the corner, spotted the big red-and-green sign, and kept his eyes locked on it, putting on even more speed. Mur-der-er, the rhythm of his feet on the cement said.
    Mur-der-er, the beat of his heart agreed.
    He swung into the parking lot and forced himself to slow down. He wasn’t going to go running insidelike a freakin’
    maniac. Anthony shoved his hands through his hair, pulled in a couple of deep breaths, and sauntered through the door.
    Nunan looked up when he heard the electronic doorbell. “Fascinelli. What’s up?