Chapter 2 - My Mother Told Me To Leave Before I Told Her Anything
Walter shut the range down for twenty minutes.
Not the building.
Just the firing line.
No one complained much after watching a supervisor attack a customer and an empty lane start talking.
I sat in the lobby with an ice pack against my shoulder.
Mason had been taken into an office.
Walter came out carrying two cups of coffee.
“I didn't ask.”
“One's mine.”
“Good.”
He sat opposite me.
“What happened this morning?”
“That’s what I'm trying to determine.”
“Who has access to the lane speakers?”
“Staff.”
“Only?”
“People authorized into the observation room.”
“So somebody was upstairs.”
“Probably.”
“Who?”
Walter looked toward the office.
“Mason has ideas.”
“Apparently.”
He rubbed his jaw.
“You've never been here before?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
I stared.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Had to ask.”
“You also think somebody came in as me.”
“I think somebody used your profile.”
“Why?”
“That is a different question.”
I pulled out my phone.
Three missed calls.
MOM.
I frowned.
I had texted my mother that morning:
Made it to campus. Range evaluation at 10. Call tonight.
Nothing since.
I hadn't told her about Mason.
Or Lane Two.
I called back.
Claire Carter answered immediately.
“Ethan?”
“Yeah.”
“Leave.”
I went still.
“What?”
“Leave the range.”
Walter looked up.
“How do you know I'm still here?”
“You said your evaluation was this morning.”
“So?”
“Just go.”
Something in her voice changed the room.
“Mom.”
“Ethan.”
“What is Mason Reed to you?”
Silence.
Walter stopped drinking coffee.
My mother said:
“Who told you that name?”
“He's the supervisor who shoved me into a wall.”
“What?”
Her fear broke into anger immediately.
“He touched you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m calling—”
“No.”
I stood.
“Answer me.”
Claire went quiet.
I could hear a cabinet closing in our kitchen back home.
Normal sound.
Wrong conversation.
“Mom.”
“What did Mason say?”
“That I failed before I arrived.”
Nothing.
Then:
“Did you go into Lane Two?”
My skin went cold.
Walter heard her through the phone.
His expression changed.
“How do you know about Lane Two?”
Claire stopped.
There.
I stepped away from Walter.
“Mom.”
“I need you to leave.”
“You know this place.”
“Yes.”
“You told me you had never been here.”
“I said I don't like shooting ranges.”
“Not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Who is Mason Reed?”
She took a breath.
“A relative.”
I stared through the lobby glass toward the lanes.
“What relative?”
“Ethan—”
“What relative?”
My mother finally said:
“His father and yours were brothers.”
I felt everything inside me go quiet.
“Mason is my cousin.”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the office where Mason had disappeared.
He had punched me before I touched the gun.
Before I said my last name out loud.
He hadn't been hostile to some stranger.
He knew exactly who I was.
“How long have you known he works here?”
Claire didn't answer.
“Mom.”
“A few years.”
“And you let me book this range.”
“I didn't know this was the place until you sent the address last night.”
“You said nothing.”
“I hoped Mason wouldn't be working.”
I laughed once.
“What does that mean?”
Walter stood slowly.
I said:
“Who is my father?”
Claire's voice hardened.
“You know who your father was.”
Caleb Reed.
A name from three childhood photographs.
A man my mother told me died when I was twelve.
A father I remembered mostly as a smell—coffee and sawdust—and one afternoon at a playground when I was four.
I looked through the glass at Lane Two.
“Was.”
My mother said nothing.
My stomach dropped.
“Mom.”
“Leave the range.”
“Is Caleb Reed dead?”
Silence.
May you like
Then my mother whispered:
“No.”
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