Tweaked by Katherine Holubitsky Read Free Book Online

were clocked going one hundred and forty-seven!” Steve repeats when I tell him. “I got up to one hundred and thirty once. But one hundred and forty-seven, that would take a lot of nerve. Weren’t you scared you’d wipe out?”
    â€œI didn’t have time to think about it. Those idiots were right on our tail.”
    Bobby is slumped back in an easy chair, spinning a drumstick. “What’s it like being interrogated? Do the cops really put the screws to you the way they do on TV ?”
    â€œI don’t know how other people are treated, but it wasn’t as bad as all that,” says Jack. He grimaces. “They weren’t as tough as my dad was, that’s for sure. I’m notallowed to drive his car for at least a month, and then it will be reviewed.”
    â€œBut Gordie was driving,” Steve points out.
    â€œYeah, which I told both my parents. They didn’t seem to care. I was with him, so I must have been a part of it. I must have goaded him on or something.”
    â€œSorry,” I say.
    â€œAh, it’s not you’re fault. It’s your doped-out brother’s.”
    There is nothing to deny, and nobody disagrees.
    â€œHey, did they throw you in the tank?” Steve asks. “I mean, while you were waiting for your parents to get there. Did you have to share a cell with a load of thugs?”
    â€œWe were speeding.” I drop a disc in the CD player. “We weren’t suspected terrorists. Let’s drop it, okay? I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” I press Play.
    Chase doesn’t say anything about what happened until I am alone with him the next day. “See why you’ve got to help me?” he gripes. “I told you—they’ll kill me if they don’t get paid.”
    Instead of apologizing for Jack and me almost being run off the road, for the police hassling me and Dad coming down on me, he makes it sound like it’s a problem I brought on myself.
    â€œYou know what? This is
your
problem, not mine.”
    â€œCome on, Gordie. Just this one time, please? You know they don’t fool around. If they don’t kill me, they’ll hurt me. Think what that would do to Mom.”
    â€œDon’t you use that on me.”
    â€œOkay, okay. But I can’t do anything until they’re off my back.”
    â€œI’m still thinking about it.”
    Chase has been home for nearly two weeks. Payment to Ratchet is a week overdue. Mom and Dad are urging him to do something: enroll in school or apply for a job—anything. It will help build his confidence, they tell him. But more importantly, it will look good when his preliminary hearing comes up. That’s the procedure used to decide if there’s enough evidence to go to trial. I really don’t know how much more evidence is needed, considering he’d been caught red-handed with the broken bottle in his hand and Richard Cross lying at his feet. But it could be months before the lawyers have all the paperwork figured out.
    The one thing I do have to give Chase credit for is staying clean for two weeks. Even if it is the fear factor of being mutilated by his dealers, it’s worked. But I’m also not naïve enough to believe it will continue. I’ve seen what has happened in the past and I’ve heard the statistics. A drug cop who spoke at school told us meth-amphetamine users have less than an eight-percent chance of recovering. Those are pretty poor odds forsomeone like Chase, who has no interest in cleaning up; even if he did, he has no perseverance. He’s demonstrated that many times over the past year.
    The first time Chase was picked up at a meth house and ordered to go to rehab, he was out in thirty days. When he came home he was right back at it within twelve hours. He’d told my parents he’d needed to borrow the car to pick up a few things.
    â€œLike what?” Dad asked. There was no doubt by his