The Becoming of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions Book 1)

SO, WHERE IS IT WE’RE going?”

“All in good time, mate,” Jamie said, mocking his accent as he gestures for Goose to follow him. Then to me, “It’ll be fine, old chap. I’ll take care of everything.”

I do not love the idea of Jamie mind-fucking my friend for the day, especially not on this ill-conceived excursion, but having Goose along for part of it might present an excuse for me to get on alone for the rest of it. I was the only one who saw what the boy saw. I could use that, perhaps, to pawn Goose off on someone else. And Jamie seems quite happy to oblige.

And so the five of us find ourselves standing on the corner of Myrtle Avenue staring at a brownstone down the street that looks as if it’s been dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. The front steps are cracked and buckling, and the door, which appears to have once been red, seems rotted through.

Goose looks bored. “What are we doing here, again?”

“Exploring Brooklyn real estate,” Jamie says. “I’m not sure I want to live in the loft after all.”

Mara and I exchange a look. Real or not real?

“And you are obviously a man of great wealth and taste,” Jamie says in his normal voice, “So I invited you along.”

Goose shrugs. He’ll go along with most anything—one of his finer qualities. “What are we waiting for, then?

For the ambulance in front of one of the houses to leave, the house I suspect we’ve come to visit.

“Which house is it?” Goose asks.

Everyone looks at me, but Jamie’s the one who speaks. “Two-thirteen. But we’re waiting till the ambulance leaves.”

Goosey looks rather put out. “That’s absurd,” he says, and starts walking in the direction of the house.

Daniel says to Jamie, “Shouldn’t you . . . do something?”

“Goose. Stop,” Jamie calls out—mind-fuck voice, this time. No response, no reaction. Possibly didn’t hear him? He’s quite a ways off. When I catch up with him, Goose is already at the ambulance, which is closing its doors.

“Good day, fine gentlewoman,” Goose says to the EMT about to get into the ambulance’s passenger seat. “May I ask what happened over here?”

“Nothing I can tell you about,” she says, tightening her straw blond ponytail. “Run along, boys,” she says to us, shooing Goose away from her door.

The driver checks the rearview mirror. “Good to go.”

“Have a lovely day, then,” Goose says. “Excellent work.” The EMT rolls her eyes as the ambulance drives off.

Mara, Daniel, and Jamie, however, are looking anxious, annoyed, frustrated in turn.

“What?” Goose asks.

“Nothing,” I say, warning the others off. “They’re just paranoid.”

“ ’Bout what?” Goose is genuinely innocent—he has no idea what we’re doing here. Which should’ve been fine, as Jamie’s supposed to be handling this, but since he isn’t handling it, and I’m not sure why and can’t very well ask at the moment . . .

“Notice the two police cars parked down the street?” I say to Goose. “Some of us here have had a few run-ins with the law.”

“Oh, who hasn’t, really?” Goose says, clapping my shoulder. “When we were boys . . .”

Before Goose can finish his sentence, Mara ascends the steps and knocks on the door, silencing everyone. Then directs a glare my way.

So we’re doing this.

Instead of an answer, however, the door to the garden apartment opens, and a moon-faced, doughy man pokes his pale, balding head out and examines us.

“Can I help you?” the man asks, his voice a bit scrapey.

The boy’s father, perhaps? I was expecting . . . I suppose I’m not sure what I was expecting. The man looks rather . . . like a paedophile, really. He has this soft, moony, harmless look about him, and yet. His button-down shirt is tight around the middle, and he has the sort of worn-out, drawn, put-upon appearance, as if he’s been a prisoner of war but doesn’t quite remember the experience and would be embarrassed if anyone mentioned it.

The man squints at us. “You’re like them, aren’t you?”

I can feel everyone exchanging very tense glances as Goose asks, “Like whom?”

“Kid who died this morning. And the rest. All gone now.” He breaks into a ridiculous, there’s-something-not-quite-right-with-me smile.

Christ. Everyone’s adrenaline’s in overdrive—I try and quiet my mind enough to dissolve the noise into meaning. I can hear every heartbeat on the block, but ours are the loudest, the most frantic.

“Sir,” I begin without actually knowing what I’m going to say, “I’m not sure what you mean. We came to visit someone—”

The door creaks open. Waiting at the threshold is The Boy Who Watched.

“Rolly, I’ll take it from here,” he says.

And like that, moon-faced Rolly retreats into his apartment like a snail into its shell, and the boy’s blue, unblinking eyes find mine. “Come on in,” he says with a smile. Mara steps past me, through the doorway.

If I could go back to one moment in my life and undo it, that would be the one.