Girl on the Run

by Abigail Johnson

  He meets my eyes dead-on. “Because I was paid to find you. Actually, your mom.”

  I stand so I can look down at him, so I can feel like I’m in control and not like I want to hide under the bed again. “Paid by who?”

  “Emily Abbott.”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Your mom does.”

  “Where is my mom?”

  “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here.”

  I start to hyperventilate on the inside; outside, I lower to a squat in front of him. Up close, his face looks even worse. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Join the club. Why do you think my face looks like this?”

  It looks like he gave the wrong answers. Repeatedly. “Who are you?”

  “I told you. Mal—”

  “No. Who are you? Why were you in that trunk? Why were you searching for me? And who did you tell when you found me?” I lean closer. “Who are you, and who was that guy?”

  He drops his head back against the bed. “It’s a long story.”

  I stand up and retrieve the two snapped ends of the door chain, then drop them in his lap. “Tell it quickly.”

  Not just because we’re on borrowed time, but also because my bravado is nearly exhausted. I won’t be able to keep up this act much longer.

  He eyes the broken chain like it could just as easily have been his body, and looking at his face, I’m inclined to agree. He’s every bit as scared as I am. But none of that matters until he tells me what I need to know.

  “That guy is a bounty hunter who thought he’d let me do the hard work of finding your mom, then swoop in and get me to lead him to her and claim the reward.”

  Cold sweat slicks over my skin. “Keep talking.”

  “Can we maybe get out of here first? I’ll tell you every—” We both turn our heads to the motel door. A light flickers through one of the missing chunks near the lock. It flickers again, and I realize it’s from a person moving back and forth just outside.

  And then we hear them.

  “Get away from there,” a woman says.

  “I think somebody kicked it down,” a man replies, much closer, and the light stabbing into the room shifts again. “Look. See the boot scuff?”

  “Yes, I do, which is why you need to get away from it.”

  “You think somebody is still in there?”

  “I think I don’t care,” she says, her voice growing louder as she draws nearer. “Now are we getting a room or not?”

  “Somebody could be hurt or dead inside….”

  “I’ll tell you what,” she says. “You can either spend your night screwing around with whoever’s in that room, or…”

  There is no missing her implication.

  “Fine, but I’m telling the manager. Maybe he’ll give us a discount.”

  “What do you mean us?” The clack of heels speeds up as she presumably hurries after him.

  I turn back to Malcolm, and it’s like he’s read my mind. “You’ll have to explain a lot more than a broken door if they find me like this.” He shifts his shoulders to reveal his bound wrists.

  He’s right.

  And I can’t explain any of it.

  The police would be called, which was, ironically, what I wanted from the beginning, except Mom said we couldn’t go to the police. I stand and move to one of the front windows to peer through the gap in the curtains and watch the couple heading toward the office.

  Malcolm has maneuvered himself to the other window by the time I turn back. I’m both impressed and alarmed that he was able to get that far while being tied up. And I’m that much more certain I don’t want to cut him free. But if we’re going to get out of here, I don’t have another choice.

  I walk to the bathroom, dig my fingers under the razor-sharp window frame—the one that matches the slice on my hip—and pry one side loose.

  Malcolm presses back into the wall when he sees me coming at him with the sharp piece of metal.

  I kneel down at his side and reach around him. The angle is awkward; his shoulder digs into my chest as I saw through the zip tie around his wrists. “As soon as we’re away from here, you are going to tell me everything.” I can’t back up my words with a threat, because once he’s untied, I won’t have much leverage at all. I move to the bindings on his ankles while he rubs the circulation back into his hands, carefully avoiding the bleeding red rings encircling each wrist.

  “Days,” he says, catching my stare. “I don’t even know how long, but I doubt I would have made it to four if you hadn’t helped me.”

  “And I wouldn’t be running for my life if you hadn’t pointed the way.” I cut through the last tie on his ankles and glare at him. “Save your gratitude.”

  I leave him to get to his feet by himself and round up whatever looks potentially useful from the supplies strewn across the floor. I repack my backpack with the rest of the protein bars and as many of the first-aid supplies as I can carry. I’m not taking any grocery bags; I need both my hands free.

  I grab my makeshift knife, crafted from the edge of the bathroom window, and make sure Malcolm sees me tuck it into the waistband of my jeans.

  He limps toward the door, and I can’t help wondering if he’s playing up his injury so that I’ll lower my guard. But he could be dragging himself across the floor with one arm, and I’d still bring the weapon with me.

  I make a show of keeping my hand on it and nod my chin for Malcolm to precede me outside.

  Malcolm’s progress is slow once we’re outside—too slow. I move to his left side, keeping the edge of the window-frame knife tucked on the outside and farthest from his grip, and sling his arm around my shoulder.

  I decide he’s not playing up how hurt he is. There is a fine sheen of sweat along his brow, and his lips draw tighter together with each step.

  I tug his hoodie up over his head, hoping it’ll provide enough shadow for his face in case anyone approaches. And I lean in close, trying to look like any other couple—albeit a drunk and staggering one—wrapped around each other and heading for our room. The performance is a pathetic one, but it doesn’t raise an eyebrow from anyone we pass.

  I spare a glance behind my shoulder once we’re a few rooms away, and see three people exit from the main office: two men and a woman in very high heels. I don’t need to see them point to the room we’d left behind to know who they are.

  I’m grateful beyond words that Mom checked in without me. The manager won’t look twice at Malcolm and me, or if he does, he won’t connect us to the room with the busted-down door some twenty feet behind us. Still, I try to increase our speed, despite the very clear protests from the back of Malcolm’s throat.

  We finally round the corner of the motel and take a few more steps to the back. I help lower Malcolm to a sitting position against the wall, rather than drag him along with me any farther.

  “I’m going to make sure they don’t come looking this way. But don’t try to run,” I tell him. “I’m fast, and I will catch you. And then I’ll be mad that you made me chase you.”

  I don’t even recognize the words I’m saying, and my low, flat voice is starting to freak me out. I’m not particularly fast and I’m certainly not violent, and yet I must be doing a decent job of faking both those things, because Malcolm doesn’t argue.

  “Where am I gonna go?” He lifts one arm to gesture at the tree line nearby. No sign of civilization.

  He doesn’t look like he plans to willingly move anytime soon, but I know I’d run when given the chance, so I glance back at him every few seconds as I peer around the front of the motel. After several minutes, the three people emerge from our room and retrace their steps to the office.

  When the couple reappears again, the man is swinging a room key around his index finger. The manager isn’t far behind them, carrying a
toolbox in one hand and a hammer in the other. He looks distinctly unhappy but also resigned.

  I let my head drop against the side of the building in relief that he doesn’t appear to have called the police. I pull the broken cell from my pocket; even I can tell it’s beyond repair. My breath catches as I’m reminded again that this is the longest I’ve ever gone without talking to Mom. Why hasn’t she come back? Why did she leave me alone with nothing but a crappy cell phone?

  Something horrible must have happened to keep her from calling me. And even if she tries now, she won’t reach me. The broken cell phone mocks me with its shattered screen, and it’s only Malcolm’s presence that keeps panic from closing in.

  I don’t want to go back to him, to tether any part of my future to his.

  But now he’s my only link to Mom.

  Turning, I face Malcolm with an expression as dead as I feel. He hasn’t moved. He isn’t even watching me.

  His eyes flutter open at the crunching gravel under my feet as I approach. “Are they still looking?”

  “You don’t get to ask me questions,” I say. “The only reason you aren’t still gagged in that motel room is because you have information I need.”

  He scowls at me, but I keep my face blank.

  “Fine,” he says. “You gonna interrogate me here, next to a dumpster?”

  I don’t want to. I want to get as far away from the motel as quickly as possible. But I want answers more. Fighting the trembling in my voice, I say, “Why are you searching for my mother?”

  He licks his lips. “Look, maybe we should get out of here first.”

  He’s stalling, or trying to, but not knowing is definitely worse than whatever he’s not saying. I know my mom. Her “mistake” can’t be as awful as the dread that’s slowly devouring me. When I don’t move, he sighs.

  “Does the name Derek Abbott mean anything to you?”

  I shake my head.

  “His mother, Emily Abbott, is the one searching for your mom. The police could devote time and resources for only so long. After her husband passed away, Mrs. Abbott committed her fortune to funding a private manhunt—and she offered a reward to whoever locates and apprehends your mom.”

  A breeze kicks up, icy and stinging. It slaps against my face and pierces needles through my clothes. Denial catches in my throat when he says the words I’ll never forget.

  “She’s wanted in the death of Derek Abbott.”

  “No.” The word breaks off from my mouth. “That’s not possible.” I take a step backward, then another; Malcolm doesn’t move. I want him to make a grab for me, to do something that exposes the lie I know he’s just told me, but he doesn’t.

  “All parents have secrets,” Malcolm says with a shrug. “Mine did.”

  “But my mom doesn’t!” Not big ones, I amend to myself. “She would never—”

  “Lie to you your entire life, abandon you in a motel, tell you next to nothing about what’s happening? Why do you think she changed her name?”

  “What?” I suck in a scrambled breath.

  “So you didn’t know that either. Awesome.” He shakes his head back and forth before looking at me again and sighing. “Melissa Reed doesn’t exist. Her real name is Tiffany Jablonski.”

  Something scuttles across my brain. Tiffany. I had a doll named Tiffany. Mom gave her to me when I was little. I remember she had dark-brown yarn hair. “Tiffany.” When I say it out loud, it doesn’t feel like my mom’s name, not like Melissa does. “That can’t be right.” My brain is screaming at me. None of this makes sense, least of all that she killed someone. I think about the mistake Mom mentioned. Killing someone isn’t a mistake.

  “Are you sure?” Malcolm says, “ ’Cause I’ve seen the police report. Derek’s autopsy—”

  “Stop!” I say, my voice veering dangerously close to a shout. “You don’t know anything. Not about me, and not about my mom. I don’t know who Derek Abbott was or what my mom has to do with him, but she didn’t kill anyone.” There’s a kind of calm that comes over me from just saying these words out loud. “What I do know is that you were with the man who came after me and that you had a picture in your pocket that used to hang in our stairway.”

  He lowers his gaze, and I can’t tell if it’s shame or merely a facade. Whichever it is, he stares straight at me again when he starts talking. “I took it when I was in your house on Friday night.”

  My gut twists at his admission. The last time I was in our house, I was teasing my mom about an awful first date and worrying that she’d figure out I’d snuck Aiden into my room.

  Aiden doesn’t even know what happened to me. Or what could still happen to me.

  My gaze darts over Malcolm, his hoodie and jeans. I’d cut him loose without checking all his pockets. “Do you have a phone?”

  “Sure,” he says. “That guy wanted to make sure I could call for help in case it got too stuffy in the trunk.”

  I ignore his sarcasm and draw his attention back to the weapon I’m holding. “Get back against the wall.”

  “Go ahead and search me.” He stands and tries to spread his arms but only gets the left one halfway up, hissing a breath through his teeth. “Don’t get too cozy with my left side, though, yeah?”

  There’s nothing to do but get it over with. A phone could be the least potentially dangerous item in his possession. I place my makeshift knife on the ledge of the dumpster in case I need to grab for it; then I step up next him. “If you try—”

  “You’ll hurt me real bad. I remember your last threat. Hurry up and cop a feel so I can sit down.” He shifts more of his weight against the wall and watches me.

  I tilt my head. “Is this fun for you? Some kind of game? We had to flee my house that night, and we barely got away before people broke in—including you. Now, my mom is gone and whoever did that to your face is hunting me.” I step closer. “Make your jokes. Go ahead.”

  He’s silent after that.

  I don’t look at his face as I slip my hands into his pockets, front and back, then pat down his legs and around his ankles. I check the rest of his clothing too, but I find nothing except the wallet I came across earlier.

  He tugs his hoodie back into place when I’m done. “You’re right, it’s not a game. I’m happy to be out of my trunk, though, and now I’d like to be very far away from this motel.”

  So would I, except I have no idea where to go or how to get there. And I’m tired. So tired that I could almost forget how scared I am.

  “Where did your friend go?”

  Malcolm’s swollen eye twitches and I feel a flicker of pity, but I quickly shake it off.

  “Okay, that’s the first thing we need to get straight. That guy back there?” He points over his shoulder. “We don’t work together. The first time I saw him was when he came busting down my door and proceeded to kick the crap out of me and toss me into the trunk of my own car when I wouldn’t answer his questions fast enough.”

  “Any why would he do that if you’re so innocent?”

  Malcolm leans back against the wall and slowly sits. “I never said I was innocent, but I’m just the computer guy. I never hurt anybody, and I took this job with the understanding that no one else would get hurt.”

  I scowled. “Except me and my mom, you mean.”

  “No.” He straightens so suddenly that he winces. “Look, no one even knew you existed until a few days ago. The cops have been looking for your mom for nearly two decades. Most people thought she was dead until she showed up at Derek’s grave.”

  My entire body threatens to go limp with relief. “Then you’ve got the wrong person. You don’t know her, but she barely lets me out of her sight, even to go to school. I always know where she is, and the only grave she’s ever visited is the one we’ve been to together: my dad’s. You’ve got the wrong person.”

>   Malcolm doesn’t try to argue; if anything, he looks sorry for me. “Two months ago, your mom didn’t take a little road trip to Pennsylvania? Maybe you went with her but she slipped away for an hour or two?”

  I open my mouth to deny it, but the words get stuck. We did go to Pennsylvania after our hiking trip at the end of summer. Mom’s in love with this pie stand in Perkasie, a little town about thirty miles north of Philadelphia, whose name literally means “where hickory nuts were cracked.” We make the drive every few months, staying the weekend in various B&Bs, and it’s about the only time that Mom lets me go off on my own without first giving her a detailed itinerary of where I’ll be at every moment of the day. I get a few hours to myself to do a little shopping, soak up the sun if the weather is nice, or even go ice-skating if it’s during the winter. But Mom is always in our room with a book, waiting for me, when I get back. She would have told me if she went somewhere. I would have known.

  My mouth closes.

  “The police had a theory. They said Derek’s death was a crime of passion, and because of that, his killer might feel safe enough to visit his grave after several years,” Malcolm says. “They monitored the cemetery at first but eventually moved on. Then this year, Mrs. Abbott hired a private investigator, and he interviewed the staff. They confirmed that no one apart from family ever visits Derek’s grave, but that a woman has been visiting the grave beside his every few months for a decade.”

  A decade. My brain scrambles to try and remember how long we’d been going to Perkasie. Can it have been ten years? Is that why all our frequent moves have never taken us away from the East Coast? So Mom could stay within driving distance of Derek’s grave?

  Malcolm continues, softer this time, and his words feel like spiders on my skin.

  “The investigator set up a motion-activated camera near the grave, and he got a hit two months ago when the woman visited. She stayed for an hour, and right before she left, she reached out her hand to brush Derek’s tombstone. He got a picture of her face when she left, and I was hired to try and match it with a photo online to locate her. I set up my facial-recognition program and eventually got a hit when the picture of the two of you was uploaded to the dating site. It was the same woman from the cemetery. Your mom is Tiffany Jablonski.”