Girl on the Run

by Abigail Johnson

  No car. Hopefully, that means the owner is out driving it and not inside the house, calling 911 because he or she just saw two people breaking into their garage.

  I tow Malcolm toward the back, past neatly stacked boxes and carefully stored furniture. It’s the tidiest garage I’ve ever seen, and a pang of guilt hits me that we’ve broken into a place the owner takes such obvious pride in. I move a few boxes so we can sit, and when Malcolm drops onto one, I linger in front of him. “You okay?”

  “I took a bunch of painkillers in the car, and they’re starting to kick in. I just need to sit for a minute.”

  He sits for longer than a minute, eyes fixed on a box marked PAUL’S ROOM in thick black marker, the kind that squeaks when you use it. I love that kind.

  “We should have taken turns in the bathroom,” I say. “That way one of us would have noticed the clerk growing twitchy.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” he says.

  “We lost the car.”

  It goes without saying that neither of us is going to suggest heading back toward the cop to get it. By now, he’s searched our bags, found our bloody clothes, and drawn whatever conclusions about them that he’s going to. Will he call out a search for us? I have no idea, and I don’t want to voice the question in case Malcolm does. Besides, he silently answers my unspoken question by growing visibly more agitated with every passing second. He starts darting his eyes all over the place and bouncing his knee incessantly.

  “This is a bad idea,” he says, and then looks at me. “We could both get caught. You get that, right?”

  The box dips as I take a seat next to him. “That’s true whether we go to my grandfather or not.” More so after our run-in with the cop. The latest in my list of crimes. I’m supposed to be helping my mom and prove she’s innocent, yet I was with her when we stole two cars and now I’m fleeing the police and breaking and entering, all while preparing to sneak past security in a retirement home.

  “Yeah,” Malcolm says, “but this is parking on the tracks and running toward the oncoming train when we should be sprinting like hell to get away from it.”

  Brushing the dark strands from my forehead, I prod the skin around the cut, and red smears my fingers. Unlike the time I saw my own blood in the Walgreens parking lot with Mom, my stomach doesn’t violently empty itself on the spot. I don’t know if I should consider that progress or proof that I’ll never find my way back to the me I was before all this started.

  I see a few towels folded on a shelf and take one. I’m now officially a thief, but I can’t risk using my clean-if-slightly-sweaty shirt on the cut, and I definitely can’t risk blood trickling down my face when we try and slip into the retirement home unnoticed. Malcolm doesn’t have any open wounds, but I pass him the towel anyway and he uses it to mop the sweat off his face. “That’s actually wrong,” I say. “Statistically, your survival odds are better if you run toward the train, next to the tracks. When the train hits, it’ll explode all the wreckage forward, likely impaling anything in front of it.”

  Malcolm wearily hands me back the towel, now stained with our sweat and blood. “Yeah, well, this is on the tracks.”

  “So you’d rather run blind? Forever?” Just saying those words makes my muscles cramp. I can’t imagine living the rest of my life with these unanswered questions. Malcolm has much less at stake than I do, but hiding from the truth and being afraid like this every day until I die isn’t a life I want to live, no matter what the risk.

  “I’d rather not end up in another trunk.”

  “Me neither. And this is how we do that. Get information, track down my mom, and find out what really happened so we can run in the right direction. Now come on. What’s the plan to get me in without getting caught?”

  “Silver Living—that’s the retirement facility where your grandfather lives—is about a mile from here. We can walk.”

  He’d said we were close when we stopped at the gas station, but I hadn’t realized we were that close. Something like excitement tingles inside me. Other than my mom, I’ve never met another member of my family before. “Okay. That’s good,” I say. Because I had no idea how we’d get another car if we were still miles and miles away. Although even as the thought passes through my mind, the answer chases right after it: I’d get a car any way I had to.

  “And then what?”

  I’d worried that Malcolm was lying about needing only a few minutes to rest, but the color is already coming back to his cheeks and his breathing is steadying.

  “There are security cameras in every hallway, and we need a passcode and a key to enter each floor.” He says this all dispassionately, but I feel my stomach clenching with every obstacle he lists.

  “But you’re a hacker. Can’t you, you know, bypass all that?”

  The look he gives me makes me feel utterly and completely stupid.

  “I need access to a computer. There’s probably an empty office somewhere inside, but it’ll be locked.”

  I nod and nod again, like I’m calmly following along and not trying to keep the bile from crawling up my throat. “So we’ll have to get someone’s keys.”

  “Yeah,” Malcolm says, but not like I came up with a solution, like I just exchanged one problem for another.

  Keys. Mom got two sets of keys the night we ran. One by conning our neighbor, and the second by means unknown. I’m feverishly wishing now that she’d explained exactly what she did inside the store that led to her leaving it with a stranger’s keys in her hand.

  “I need to be the one to get the keys,” I say.

  “What—why?”

  “Because you look like you were in a fight.” He’s sweated off most of the makeup we used to conceal his cuts and bruises, and the towel has taken care of the rest. “Besides, you have to sneak into the office. Division of labor.”

  He rubs a hand over his face. “Do you actually know how to pick a pocket?”

  “No, but I’ll figure it out.” I’m not giving myself another option.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say to the janitor who I just deliberately bumped into as he was exiting an office. “I’m supposed to be visiting with my grandmother, and I keep getting turned around.” I add a tremor to my voice, and it isn’t hard at all to call up a little moisture to my eyes, thinking about meeting my actual grandfather for the first time. “It’ll break her heart if she thinks I didn’t come.” I shift around him so that he has to turn his back to the office door. “They told me she was having dinner, but I can’t seem to find the dining hall. Could you show me?”

  It takes everything I have not to stare at the door I need him to forget about locking. He has kind eyes, and I heard him whistling while cleaning the office. Surely he’s the type to offer help to a visibly upset girl….Come on, come on.

  “I get lost all the time,” he says with a wink, placing his keys atop his cart and offering me an elbow. “Let’s go find that grandma of yours.”

  I glance over my shoulder as we round the corner, and see Malcolm grab the keys from the abandoned cart before sliding inside the office. A second later, the blinds all close, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding.

  “Don’t you worry,” the janitor says. “Your grandma won’t care if you’re a few minutes late.”

  I make an excuse about needing to run to the bathroom once we get within sight of the dining hall. Then my hands go sweaty and I worry that I’ve overplayed my part when the janitor offers to pop inside and let my grandmother know I’m coming, if I point her out.

  “That’s so sweet, but I’ve already kept you too long. But thank you!” I dart into the bathroom before he can say anything else. I lean against the door as soon as it closes and wait until I hear the squeak of his sneakers retreating on the linoleum floor before slipping back out.

  Malcolm said he needed only a couple minutes to hack into the C
CTV footage and locate my grandfather. “They use Hikvision cameras,” he said by way of explanation when I was skeptical about how much time he’d need. “A few years ago, a backdoor command line of code that granted admin level was discovered and exploited by hackers all over the world. Silver Living never bothered to update the firmware when the company released a patch, so, yeah, two minutes, tops.”

  He was so confident that I fully expected him to be waiting for me in the stairway we’d designated before splitting up, one ankle crossed over the other and leaning against the wall.

  He wasn’t.

  Another minute passes.

  Then another.

  I’d made sure to keep the janitor away for a full five minutes by asking inane questions about every room we passed.

  Five minutes plus two more at least. Probably closer to ten.

  Maybe Malcolm oversold his skills.

  Maybe the janitor returned, found Malcolm in the office, and called security.

  Maybe Malcolm took the first opportunity he had to run and left me here alone without any idea how to find my grandfather.

  Maybe he’s already halfway down the street by now.

  I chew the nails that haven’t had a chance to grow since the last time I was left waiting for someone who never came back.

  A door opens a couple floors above me, and a loud female voice floods the stairwell.

  “That’s what I said. But you know that old fool—he’d sooner bite me than smile. So I told him, ‘Fine, George. I’ll get you a comb for the one strand of hair you have left on your head.’ So I go get him one and bring it back. And he takes one look at it, then at me, and says, ‘Woman, why on God’s green earth do I need a comb? You can see I’m bald as an eagle.’ ”

  Another woman, one with a higher voice, laughs in response.

  I press against the wall, trying to make myself as small and silent as possible. My heart beats faster, and even though a jittery pulse might help me sell my story again if those women come all the way down the stairs, the lie won’t matter if Malcolm isn’t there to tell me where to go once they’re gone. I can’t go up to the front desk and ask which room my grandfather is in. I can’t even give the name of someone else on his floor, because I don’t know anyone else.

  And what if he did make it out of the office only to run into the bounty hunter or someone on Mrs. Abbott’s payroll? Malcolm said they’d probably beefed up the surveillance after spotting Mom at the cemetery nearby—since, as far as they knew, her only other relative lived here.

  I press a fist against my stomach, willing the acid to stop splashing around inside so I can think.

  Think.

  Think.

  I leap a good foot off the floor when the door beside me swings open and Malcolm rushes in, panting.

  “We have a problem.”

  I stop worrying about the two women above us who are still chatting without seeming to even notice the hushed conversation between Malcolm and me.

  “What exactly is the Memory Care Ward?” I ask. But I know, and what’s left of my fingernails stab into my palms as my fists clench.

  “He has dementia. Stage six, according to his chart. Once I found out where he was, I dug up his records. That’s what took me so long.” Malcolm takes in my fists and the way I’m biting my lip. He swallows, starts to reach out a hand to my arm, then rethinks the gesture. “He might not be able to tell you anything. You get that, right? There’s only seven stages, so the odds—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say, rounding on him and dimly registering the fact that my voice has raised enough for the woman above us to break off midsentence. When I reach for Malcolm’s arm, I don’t hesitate or second-guess the impulse. “He’s the only one who knew her, who saw her and talked to her that day. There must be a reason he thinks she’s innocent, and I need—” My voice cracks.

  “Okay,” Malcolm says. “Okay, then we’ll try.”

  I could kiss him when he tells me that. I settle for hugging him and saying a thank-you that gets muffled in his shirt. When his arms come up around me, the memory of standing with Aiden as I tried to hurry him out my window jolts through me. At the time, I’d thought Aiden was brave, if slightly reckless, for taking precious seconds to hug me and even darting back to steal that last kiss. True, he’d been risking my mom’s considerable wrath, but nothing more.

  Malcolm snuck into Silver Living with me knowing full well what might happen if we were caught. And even now that we’ve just learned it might all be for nothing, he said okay when I insisted we go find my grandfather anyway.

  He didn’t have to do that.

  I can feel his heartbeat. It’s fast, and he’s twitchy, scared, I realize, but still helping me.

  I pull away, because if I can feel his heart, then he can feel mine. Whatever happens with my grandfather—and I’m still fiercely holding on to hope—if there’s some way I can help Malcolm without betraying Mom, I vow right then that I’ll find it.

  * * *

  Malcolm went above and beyond during those few minutes he spent in that office. Not only did he locate my grandfather’s room and get the passcode to his floor, but he looped the camera footage in the hall outside. It doesn’t matter who is monitoring the feed; they won’t see anything as Malcolm pushes the door open for me and we step inside.

  I see him right away, and it makes my breath catch and my chin quiver, because from the light pouring through the window he’s sitting in front of, I can see that I look a little like him: it’s the shape of our eyes, the slope of our noses. I want to laugh and cry and rush at him all at once. The only reason I don’t is because he stares at me without any hint of recognition.

  “Mr. Jablonski?”

  His bushy gray brows pinch together. “I don’t want to go to crafts, and I don’t want to eat any more of that awful slop they serve in the cafeteria.”

  “Oh, no, we don’t work here.” I take a step toward him, and when he doesn’t seem concerned by my proximity, I take another. “My name is Katelyn. Can I?” I gesture at the empty chair beside the lounger he’s sitting in, and he gives me a gruff nod.

  “And what does he want?” my grandfather asks, eyeing Malcolm.

  “He’s a friend of mine who gave me a ride. Um, Mr. Jablonski?” I wait for his narrowed gaze to leave Malcolm and return to me. I try not to be discouraged by the fact that it stays narrowed. “I was hoping to talk to you about your daughter.”

  “I don’t have a daughter.”

  “But you do.” I lean forward to snag the framed photo of Mom that I spot on his dresser. “See?” It’s maybe the only personalized item in the entire room. I angle it toward him, and I can’t stop myself from running a finger over Mom’s smiling face. This is the photo they should have used in the news story. My mom can’t be more than twelve in the picture, and she’s sitting in the grass with a pair of sunglasses pushed back to flash a grin at the camera.

  She looks happy.

  She looks like my mom.

  The frame is jerked from my hands. “Where is she? Where’s Tiffany?”

  “I-I don’t know. I was hoping maybe you’d talked to her.”

  “Tiffany!” he yells. “Get in here right now!”

  “No, no. She’s not here. She had to go away—do you remember? It was a long time ago.”

  “Tiffany!” he calls again.

  I cast Malcolm a panicked glance.

  “Your daughter isn’t here right now,” Malcolm says in a low, calm voice. “But maybe we can help find her for you.”

  “Did you take her?” He surges to his feet, and there’s the sound of shattering glass as the photo falls to the floor. “Where’s my little girl?”

  “No one took her,” I say. “She left.” I reach for his hand, bending low to grab the photo in the same movement. “She was accused of killing Derek A
bbott.”

  “She never killed anyone.”

  My heart leaps as his gaze, seemingly clear for the first time, settles on mine.

  “How do you know that?” I straighten up.

  “She’s just a little girl, my Tiffany.” He pulls his hand free from my suddenly limp grip and takes the photo back. He knocks the remaining glass shards free with a knuckle and smiles at the picture. “Her mama was young too. Too young to look after Tiffany, so she brought her to me. What was I supposed to know about raising a little girl?” He shakes his head. “But she was so smart, and she didn’t need anyone to raise her. Raised herself really.” His smile slips. “I should have been better. I should have understood.” Using his stubby fingers, he pries one corner of the picture free, then lifts the whole thing out. “I’d do it differently now. I wouldn’t get so mad. Wouldn’t yell at her and that boy.” He angles the frame toward me and the dark, blurry image he’s just revealed.

  I don’t understand what I’m seeing at first, the white hazy image and the matte-black background. Then I register the words printed in the corner.

  It’s a sonogram dated the week Derek died.

  “She was pregnant.” I whisper the words—not to anyone in particular, but Malcolm is suddenly right at my shoulder and staring, unblinking, at the image. “Was that in any of the news stories?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head without looking away from the tiny little shape of the baby my mom carried before me.