Like Father Like Son Read online

  “Zoe,” I said, leaning close now. “Who was that I saw?”

  “Huh?” she asked.

  “Someone was standing right here with you a second ago,” I said.

  “Don’t know… what you mean,” she said.

  I looked at Gabe, but he was looking over his shoulder, trying to figure out what was going on.

  “Someone in a long coat,” I started to say, but she cut me off.

  “No!” she said, and tried to sit up again. It was intense, the way she was looking in my eyes now. Not like before.

  “Lie back,” I told her, and made her put her head down again. Then I leaned in close and put my ear where I could hear her.

  She only whispered this time. Her voice was rough, and I could tell she was scared.

  “Whatever you thought you saw, you’re wrong. Okay?”

  I glanced at Gabe, but he just looked confused. I had no idea what was going on, if she was lying for some reason, or if I’d made some kind of mistake about what I thought I saw.

  Except, no. It wasn’t that. I knew what I saw.

  The only other thing I could tell for sure was that Zoe was in a bad way. Not just because she’d been shot. Something else was part of the picture here, and she was desperate not to talk about it.

  Why?

  I had a million things running through my head, but Zoe didn’t need me agitating her right now.

  “Okay?” she said again, like she really needed an answer.

  “Yeah, okay,” I told her. I didn’t feel like I had a choice.

  “Good,” she said, and seemed to ease up just a little bit.

  “Just hang in there,” I said. “Help’s coming. It won’t be long now.”

  “Nah,” she said, and gave me a tiny smile with her eyes closed. “Help’s here. Thanks for looking out for me.”

  “You got it,” I said, and smiled back even though I felt tears burning in the corners of my eyes. I could hear sirens now, coming closer. Lots of sirens, in fact.

  Hopefully, at least one of them was for us.

  “OUT OF THE way, kid!” someone said.

  I didn’t even realize a police officer had gotten there until I was making room for him to take over the compression on Zoe’s arm.

  “The ambulance is here, too!” Cedric yelled out.

  “We got you, Zoe!” Ruby said. “You’re gonna be okay!”

  “Hi, Zoe, I’m Officer Weyland,” the uniformed cop told her. “Can you hear my voice?”

  “Mm-hm,” Zoe said. Her eyes were still closed, and she sounded almost sleepy or something.

  “Okay, good job, sweetheart. I just need you to hang in there another few seconds for me—”

  “I ain’t your sweetheart,” Zoe grunted out, and the cop laughed like she was joking, even though I don’t think she was.

  “That’s the spirit,” he said. “Good job. Just stay with me.”

  “What about your mom?” Ruby asked her. “Where do you think she is?”

  “Don’t know,” Zoe said. “Couldn’t find her. Wasn’t picking up.”

  “Everyone’s being evacuated,” the cop said. “Don’t worry, we’ll track her down. You’ll see her at the hospital.”

  Everything felt like it was rushing by and moving in slow motion at the same time. I watched the EMTs move in, and felt Gabe’s hand pulling on my arm as Officer Weyland started telling us to step back.

  “Can I go with her?” Ruby asked, but the cop shook his head.

  “Family only,” he told us. All we could do was watch as they loaded her into the back of the ambulance.

  “We love you, Zoe!” Ruby shouted after her, but I don’t know if she heard. A second later, they’d closed the doors and Zoe was on her way to the hospital. I didn’t even know which one.

  It was all too much to think about at once. None of this felt real—the gunshot, the chaos in the park, all of it. But mostly, I couldn’t even start to figure out why Zoe had reacted the way she did when I mentioned the person I’d seen. The one who may or may not have been the shooter, but definitely walked away from her after she’d been shot.

  It made no sense. Then again, a lot of crimes seem that way at first. Sometimes, the things that don’t add up are just pieces of a bigger puzzle and you need to find the other pieces before you can start to see the whole picture.

  That’s what I was counting on, anyway.

  We were standing in a tight group now. Ruby and Mateo were holding hands, and Cedric had his arms around Gabe’s and my shoulders. We needed to be strong for Zoe and for each other, too.

  “You kids see anything?” Officer Weyland asked us. He had a little pad and a pen out, like the kind my dad carries to crime scenes. I knew it was Weyland’s job as first responder to start asking questions right away, and that MPD detectives would take over once they got there.

  In the meantime, I had to decide how much to say. We all did. And from the way Gabe kept looking at me, I still couldn’t tell if he’d heard what Zoe had told me. Either way, nobody spoke up.

  “Listen, guys,” the cop said. “I need your help, and I need to know what happened to your friend.”

  “We didn’t see anything,” Gabe said then.

  I didn’t correct him, either. There had to be a reason Zoe was so desperate for me to keep my mouth shut. But what was it? The only thing I knew for sure was that if I spilled the truth now, I couldn’t take it back. And Zoe was the victim here. Not anyone else. She deserved the benefit of the doubt. For all I knew, she was still in some kind of danger.

  “Come on guys, think,” the cop said. “Let’s start with what you were doing when that gunshot went off. Where were each of you?”

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “But are we required to answer your questions?”

  “Pardon?” the cop said.

  “Are we being detained?” I asked. I knew our rights, and I knew that the cop did, too. He could ask everything he wanted, but unless he was taking us into custody, there was nothing in the law that said we had to talk, or even stick around.

  After a long pause and a deep breath, he finally answered me.

  “No,” he said. “You’re not being detained.”

  Meanwhile, Ruby, Gabe, Mateo, and Cedric were all looking at me like this was some game of follow-the-leader and I was at the front of the line. None of them were saying a word.

  “So are we free to go?” I asked. My heart was picking up speed again. I could hear my voice, confident on the outside even though I felt like a bowl of cherry Jell-O on the inside.

  The officer looked me in the eye one more time. And when he looked away, I knew we were in the clear. For now.

  “Go on then,” he said.

  I wasn’t trying to make trouble. It felt more like I was trying to do the same thing he was—protect the victim. And if I was making a huge mistake right now, at least I was going to make it in the name of doing what was right for Zoe.

  Either way, I wasn’t going to forget what I saw, not that it was that much. Just someone wearing a pair of black work boots and a long tan coat. Still, as soon as I had a chance, I intended to get all over this thing.

  And I wasn’t going to stop until I had some answers.

  THE AMBULANCE HAD barely left when my phone rang. I saw my dad’s name on the screen and picked up right away.

  “Dad?”

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Your great-grandmother said you disappeared in the middle of a conversation and that you’re not answering her texts.”

  “I’m okay,” I said. “Well, I mean… actually…”

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Anacostia Park,” I said.

  “What? I just heard on my radio there was a shooting there.”

  “There was. It’s a friend of ours, Dad. Zoe Knight. She got shot in the arm.”

  I heard Dad take a breath. “Is anyone else hurt?”

  “No, sir. I’m with Ruby, Mateo, Gabe, and Cedric. They just took Zoe to the hospital. We weren’t allowed
to go with her. It’s pretty crazy here…”

  I had to stop talking because I was getting this big lump in my throat, like everything that had just happened was pouring down on me at once. I felt one of my friends squeeze my shoulder. It almost hurt, which meant it had to be Cedric.

  “Just sit tight,” Dad told me. “All of you. I’m already on my way. Where in the park are you?”

  “Anacostia Drive and Good Hope Road,” I said.

  “Be right there.”

  The park was emptying out quick. Cops with flashers and neon vests were directing cars out of the area and sending foot traffic toward the Eleventh Street Bridge. I knew an Evidence Response Team would be here soon, but so far, I didn’t see any ERT jackets on the cops who had shown up. This was a big, wide-open space. They were going to need a big team to preserve it, cover it, and investigate it. And while one part of me wished I could stay to observe and ask questions, another part of me couldn’t wait to get out of there. It was hard not to feel a little scared, even now.

  “You guys okay?” I asked everyone after I hung up.

  “That was insane,” Cedric said. “Poor Zoe.”

  “I’ve never seen a real gunshot wound before,” Mateo said.

  “Me, neither,” Ruby and Cedric both said.

  It was true for me, too, but I noticed Gabe didn’t say anything at all. Something told me this wasn’t his first time.

  A minute later, I heard Dad shouting from close by. “Ali!” I looked over and saw him coming to a stop on the side of Anacostia Drive. He had a red flasher rolling on the roof, which is how he’d gotten past the roadblocks at either end of the park. “All of you kids! Get in!” he shouted.

  I jumped in front. Ruby, Cedric, and Mateo squeezed into the back. And Gabe, who’s even smaller than me, got in the way back.

  “Thank God the rest of you are okay,” Dad said. “Who’s this friend of yours, Zoe?”

  “Zoe Knight,” Ruby said.

  “Her mom is Dee-Cee Knight,” I said.

  “The Dee-Cee Knight?” Dad asked. I knew he was a fan. He and my stepmom, Bree, had even gone to see her a few times at Twins Jazz, one of the last great spots for music on U Street. That’s the part of the city that used to be called Black Broadway. And Zoe’s mom’s shows always sold out there.

  “She was supposed to play the festival this afternoon,” Ruby said. “That’s what we were all doing there. I’m even writing a report about her for school. Zoe was going to introduce us and everything.”

  “I thought that’s what you were doing today,” Dad said to me. “Working on your report, at Cedric’s.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I’d lied about it to Nana Mama, and now Dad knew about it, too. I didn’t even have a topic for this paper yet, even though it was going to be a third of my social studies grade. But that seemed like the least of my worries right now.

  “Do you know where they took Zoe?” I asked instead.

  “Howard,” Dad answered. That meant Howard University Hospital, up in Northwest DC. But we weren’t going that far. All of us lived in the Capitol Hill section of Southeast, and Dad was taking everyone straight home, including me. At least he didn’t keep the heat on about my lie.

  “Detective Cross, do you know if she’s going to be okay?” Gabe asked.

  “I’m sorry, kids. I don’t know anything yet,” Dad told us. “You said she was hit in the arm?”

  “In her wrist, I think,” Mateo said.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Hopefully there won’t be any broken bones,” Dad said. “But it sounds like it could have been worse.”

  “Could have been a lot worse,” Cedric said. “Like… well…”

  He never finished that sentence. I don’t think anyone wanted to think about it.

  As for me, I was wrestling all over again with what to say. Or more like what not to say. It was one thing to keep my mouth shut with some cop I didn’t know. It was a whole other thing with my dad, like sitting on the world’s most uncomfortable secret.

  But still, I’d made a promise to Zoe. So I made a deal with myself, right there. I’d sit on this for twenty-four hours, period. No more. If I could get to Zoe before then, maybe I could get a clue about what the heck this was all about. And if not, then I’d come clean.

  It didn’t make me feel any better, but it was something, anyway.

  “Ali?” Dad said.

  “Huh?” When I looked up, I realized I’d stopped listening to everyone and gotten lost in my thoughts. It happens all the time, to be honest.

  Dad was pointing at the back of my hand. “There’s some napkins in the glove compartment. You want to wipe that off?”

  I looked down and saw a bunch of little dots, running up from my hand to my elbow. There was more on my shirt, too. I don’t know how I’d missed it before, but as soon as I realized I was looking at Zoe’s blood, my whole insides heaved.

  “I’m going to be sick!” I said.

  Dad started to pull over but I was already rolling down the window. A second later, I was blowing a whole afternoon’s worth of junk food all over the Eleventh Street Bridge. Like that day hadn’t been bad enough already.

  But at least it meant there weren’t any more questions on the way home.

  DAD DROPPED EVERYONE else off first, then took me to our house on Fifth Street. When we pulled up in front, Nana Mama was there on the stoop. For all I knew, she’d been standing like that for an hour, waiting to see me.

  “I’m going to run over to the hospital,” Dad said. “You go take a shower. Maybe lie down for a little while. Whatever you have to do. We’ll talk more later.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. I felt kind of weak and shaky, like I’d run all the way home instead of getting a ride.

  “Hey,” Dad said, and I looked over. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, not about what happened to Zoe. But me? Yeah, I’m okay.”

  Still, Dad put the car in park and cut the engine.

  “What are you doing? I thought you were going to the hospital,” I said.

  “That can wait,” he said. “You’re my priority right now. And Zoe wasn’t the only one to take a hit today. This happened to all of you.”

  It was getting more uncomfortable by the second. The more time I spent with Dad right now, the more time I was going to spend not telling him what I probably should have been saying all along—that I might have actually seen the shooter.

  “Seriously, Dad,” I went on. “I know I should be freaked out, but the thing I’m thinking about the most is Zoe. So if you’re asking me what I need right now? That’s what it is. I need to know how she’s doing. Please?”

  Dad looked at me for another long stretch. And just when I felt like I was about to cave and start blabbing, he nodded.

  “All right,” he said, starting up the car again. “You’re the boss, but only for now. We’ll talk later, got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Thank you, Dad.”

  “And hey, Ali?”

  “Yeah?”

  He grabbed me hard, and pulled me close. “I love you, son. You’re my blood, and don’t ever forget that.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I love you, too.” The words got kind of mushed up against Dad’s chest, but I think he got the idea.

  After that, I went up the stoop and straight into another long hug, this time from Nana. She’s got some old lady core strength, I’ll tell you that much, and she squeezed me like she wasn’t ever letting go.

  “Oh my, oh my, oh my,” she said. “You must have been so scared.”

  “I’m sorry I lied about where I was, Nana,” I said. “It’s just that…”

  “Shhh. That’s nothing we have to talk about today,” she said. My sister, Jannie, was there now, too, hugging both of us. Mr. Arnold across the street was staring hard out his window, but I didn’t care.

  “Ali? Are you okay?” Jannie asked.
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  “I’m okay,” I said. It seemed like the easiest answer, even if it wasn’t completely true.

  Then Nana stood back and gave me a look, up and down. “How about you go get washed up?” she said. “Then come down for dinner later. Or I’ll bring you a plate, if you like.”

  The last thing on my mind was food, but Nana was right about the first part. I needed to wash off before anything else happened. And then I needed to find some time to myself, so I could start sorting through all the questions jangling around inside my head.

  Because that’s all I had right now—way too many questions. And not nearly enough answers.

  WHEN I GOT out of the shower, there was a group text waiting for me.

  RUBY: Can you guys get together right now? Usual spot?

  GABE: Already there.

  CEDRIC: Give me two seconds.

  I texted back to everyone while I headed downstairs to the basement.

  ALI: Be right there.

  I knew Nana Mama was around somewhere, and it wasn’t going to fly to just walk past her without some kind of excuse. So I put my phone to my ear and started talking.

  “Hello?” I said, as I passed the empty living room and went up the hall toward the kitchen. I could see Nana now, sitting at the table.

  “Hey, man,” I said to nobody on the other end. “How’s it going?”

  Nana looked up from her crossword puzzle and smiled at me as I passed through. I smiled back and held up a finger to say just a second.

  “Yeah,” I said into the phone. “I might have it downstairs. Let me check.”

  Then while Nana went back to her puzzle, I opened the basement door, started down, and closed the door behind me. I pocketed my phone now that I was in the clear.

  Thirty seconds later, I had my headset on and I was logging in to my PS4. I opened a new game of Outpost, clicked through the welcome screen, and fast-traveled to our usual meeting spot, which was Gabe’s base station. We each had a home base of our own inside the game, but Gabe was like some kind of Outpost genius. His place was by far the sweetest crib I’d ever seen anyone build. He even had some tunes going when I got there. I could hear Drake playing over my headset, along with my friends’ voices.