Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

I can barely speak. “I guess there’s a part of him that thinks I instigated the situation.”
    He scrubs a hand over his jaw. “You know it wasn’t your fault, don’t you?”
    “I know that. I do. It’s just that … Jacob and I used to be so close. This destroyed our relationship.”
    “Will he cover for you?”
    “I don’t know. Probably.”
    “If he helped dump the body, he’s guilty, too,” Tomasetti points out. “If you need leverage…”
    I want to tell him it won’t come to that. I suspect we both know I’d do it if I had to. I have that survivor mentality. Sometimes I honestly don’t know if that’s good or bad. “I hate this.”
    “What about your sister?” he asks.
    “I think she’ll cooperate.”
    We fall silent again and I sense the presence of fear in the room, a dark specter skimming cold fingertips across the back of my neck. “I’m scared,” I say.
    “I know.” After a moment, he scoots his chair back and rises. “Get the shotgun.”
    The word echoes, like some depraved statement uttered in the presence of children. “It can’t be traced. A lot of Amish have shotguns. For hunting.”
    “I’d feel better if you didn’t have possession of that particular shotgun. Go get it.”
    I don’t move. “I’d rather you not get involved.”
    “I think I can handle ditching a weapon.”
    “Tomasetti, for God’s sake. You’re a state agent. Your past … If someone sees you—”
    “It’s late. It’s dark. I’m parked in the goddamn alley.” He looks toward the window. “Bring me the damn shotgun.”
    I want to protect him from this, I realize. If word ever gets out that he helped me cover up a crime, my career wouldn’t be the only one that goes down the drain. But I need his help, and it’s that desperation that sends me to the bedroom closet where I retrieve the shotgun and carry it back to the kitchen. “It’s unloaded.”
    He checks anyway. “Do you have any shells?”
    I shake my head. “Where are you going to put it?”
    He doesn’t answer.
    I’ve never considered myself an emotional woman. I’m relatively even-keel and not prone to crying jags. But I feel one coming on now, the tears hot and pressing at the backs of my eyes. If the situation wasn’t so serious, I might have laughed at the absurdity of what we were about to do. That the most profound act of selflessness and kindness ever shown to me by a man I love involves a shotgun.
    *   *   *
    I dream of Mattie and the past, a tangled account of true events that are twisted and dark now because I see them through the eyes of the adult I’ve become. It’s the summer of our sixteenth year and we’ve just begun our rumspringas. We’re drunk on youth and innocence and the exciting new freedom bestowed us.
    Amish girls are generally not granted the same level of freedom as boys for the simple reason that the Amish are a patriarchic society, a cultural foible as set in stone as our garb. But the teenaged mind is a determined thing and, despite our inexperience, Mattie and I were quick studies in all the ways of deception, especially when it came to our parents.
    That afternoon we’re lying in the sun on the grassy bank of Painters Creek. We’ve spread a couple of threadbare bath towels we stole from my mamm ’s laundry basket on the ground. Earlier in the day, we’d met at Walmart and spent two hours in the dressing room, driving the attendant crazy and enjoying every minute of it. We walked away with the perfect swimsuits, identical sunglasses, and the sense that it was money well spent.
    “I wish we could do this every day.” Mattie sits up and lights a cigarette, her third in the last hour.
    It’s not yet noon and we’re sharing a can of Budweiser and smoking Marlboros. Mattie calls them “cowboy killers,” which I think is hilarious. It’s the most perfect day of the summer so far.
    “Let’s do it again tomorrow,” I say, reveling in the feel of the hot sun against my bare skin.
    I light a cigarette and gaze at the creek twenty feet away. The water is murky and deep here. A big cottonwood tree grows at a forty-five-degree angle at the water’s edge. Someone looped a rope around one of the branches that extends over the water. The vegetation at the base of the trunk has been compressed by the dozens of bare feet from teens swinging out over the water to drop into the murky depths. Secretly, we’re hoping some boys will show up and catch us in our bathing suits.
    “I wish