Girl on the Run

by Abigail Johnson

  But there’s nowhere to go. Not even a conveniently unlocked garage.

  I’ve been looking.

  “Okay, I did my part,” I say—pant, really. “Where’s my mom?”

  Malcolm laughs at my bad joke. “Get me a computer.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Anything else?” He doesn’t laugh this time. “How much farther can you walk?”

  “Not far.” The weariness in his voice tells me he’s overestimating even that. “It’s like fire, every step, but sharp.” His hand drifts to the hem of his shirt but then moves away, as though he doesn’t want to see the skin underneath. Or he already knows how bad it is.

  “Malcolm,” I say softly, my gaze forcibly lifting from his side to his face. “Maybe you should—”

  But he’s shaking his head, cutting off my offer before I can even make it. “I promised we’d find your mom. I owe you that much. I’ll be all right till then.”

  My stomach clenches. If he hadn’t added those last two words, I’d have let myself believe him. But every second I force him to run or jump off roofs, or even stand, puts him at more risk. For all I know, his cracked ribs have fully broken—that is, if they weren’t broken before. Maybe the hairline fractures have split wide and cut his insides and he’s bleeding internally. I blanch at the thought.

  Turning my head, I look for the closest house with a car in its driveway and lights on inside and head straight toward it. He’s not fine. But he will be.

  “What are you…Where are you going?”

  “To get you help. You need to go to the hospital, Malcolm. We both know that.”

  “Wait.” He takes a lurching step after me. “Will you wait!” The sudden strength in his voice stops me, and he straightens more than I thought he could. “You still need me.”

  “Not if you’re hurt. Not if helping me hurts you more.” The rain is so torrential now that my mouth fills with water every time I open it to speak. “And you don’t owe me anything anymore. I’m not holding a weapon or forcing you. You don’t even know me.” I try to laugh. “I can’t help you with the money, but I won’t say anything about you to anyone, okay? You can go. No hard feelings. I can figure the rest out on my own. I don’t know how, but I will.”

  Malcolm’s eyes narrow, his brows drawing closer together. “Are you done?”

  I frown. “If you’re ready to let me get you to a hospital I am.”

  He licks his lips. His glare intensifies.

  “Is that your guy way of saying yes without having to say so?”

  “You are a piece of work. You know that?”

  For a moment, his words hurt more than all the aches and throbs in my body combined. I don’t understand why he’s so angry. I’m giving him exactly what he wanted back at the motel. This is his out. “Why are you acting like I’m the bad guy all of a sudden?” I say. “I’m trying to do the right thing!”

  “No, you’re not,” he says. “You’re trying to do the thing you think makes you look strong. It doesn’t. I’m not about to keel over here, okay? My ribs hurt like a mother, and I’m tired, I’m cold, I’m hungry. I’m all the things you are, so stop trying to ditch me when we both know you don’t have any idea where to go next.”

  “Oh, and you do?”

  “Yeah, actually. I do.”

  My eyes narrow. I don’t know him well enough to tell if he’s bluffing. But why would he?

  “This is not me lying to you,” he says, brows smoothing as his voice adopts a less hostile tone. “This is me telling you as soon as we didn’t have to focus all our attention on getting out of that place, okay?”

  I’m soaked through and shivering again, but it’s his words that set my teeth chattering. I can’t take another bomb right now. I just can’t.

  “Never looked into Derek before. I didn’t think he mattered. Honestly, the first news story about him that I even watched was that one with you at the motel. But after the sonogram, I had this nagging thought in my mind, like I was forgetting something, overlooking it, you know, because it wasn’t important before.”

  “Malcolm.” I need him to just say it.

  “When we split up at Silver Living, I was late meeting you because I had to check, make sure I was wrong. I wasn’t.” His lungs visibly inflate and deflate, but the only sign of discomfort is a small twitch in his cheek. “The night Derek died, it wasn’t just him and his parents having dinner when your mom showed up. His wife was there too. His very pregnant wife.”

  “You might have a half sister,” Malcolm says.

  A sister. A sister. I repeat the words in my head over and over again. We’re standing in the middle of someone’s lawn, and I might have a sister.

  I lift my gaze to his. I don’t know how he can tell that there’s anything more than rain on my face, but he moves toward me, and slowly, like he knows I might not welcome the gesture but he’s offering it anyway, Malcolm hugs me.

  I sink into him, my arms coming up to clutch his shoulders, and I notch my head beneath his chin.

  A sister.

  And Mom knew. She was there. She would have seen Derek’s wife that night at the Abbott estate, even if she somehow didn’t know before. I want to believe she didn’t know Derek was married, but I can’t make things true just by wanting them to be. Mom might have entered willingly into an affair with a married man who had a pregnant wife. I can’t imagine her doing something like that now, but nearly twenty years ago? If she did that…

  I jerk away from Malcolm and the comforting warmth of his body, of him. Whatever else she did, whatever lies she felt she had to tell, whatever things she kept from me, she isn’t now, then, or ever capable of killing anyone.

  That is the one truth I don’t have to wish into existence.

  Malcolm looks at me so long I think he’s going to start chipping away at the fragile footing I’ve found.

  “Laura,” Malcolm says while I make a poor attempt at trying to compose myself. “That’s Derek’s widow. She lives here in Pennsylvania. I didn’t have a lot of time, but as far as I could tell, she never gave a single interview—TV, newspaper—nothing. I had to dig to find a current address, because the woman doesn’t want to be found almost as much as your mom.”

  “But you did find it?”

  Malcolm gives me a “Come on” look, like the question is almost an insult.

  “Then we’ve got to get to her,” I say. “If she was there that night, then she knows everything. Maybe that’s why she shunned the press. Maybe the Abbotts paid her off, or maybe…” Different scenarios tumble in my brain, and several spill from my lips before Malcolm quiets me when his fingers reach for mine.

  “I looked for her because…I honestly I don’t know why. Maybe so you could know. But, Katelyn…” His hand slips higher to fully envelop mine. He squeezes, once. “You can’t go see her. You get that, right? Your mom is wanted for killing her husband. I’m not saying your mom did it,” he adds as my eyes flare. “Just that she’s been the primary—the only—suspect for almost two decades.”

  I tug my hand free. “I know that.” I say it so quietly that the sound barely travels over the pouring rain.

  “She doesn’t even know you exist. I mean no one did or your mom would have been a lot easier to find, but you’re still…” He trails off. “Your grandfather, the sonogram, the ring? It all fits. I believe you are Derek’s daughter, and if you are, then you’re proof that Laura’s husband cheated on her. The second you tell her that…it’s not going to be good.”

  “Then I won’t tell her unless I have to.” My arms wrap around my midsection at the gut-twisting reminder of my mom’s lies. “I don’t know what I’ll tell her,” I add, forestalling the question I see in Malcolm’s eyes. “I’ll come up with something, but I still have to go.”

  She might react violently if I tell her who I am—who I might be—or even call the p
olice. She might break down on her porch in a sobbing mess, and my first meeting with the girl who could be my sister might be over the broken mess of her mother.

  Grace. That’s her name, Malcolm tells me. The pull to meet her is just as strong as the one wanting to hear Laura’s side. Possibly even stronger.

  Maybe Malcolm knows me better than I accused him of earlier, because no other protests leave his lips. Instead, he says, “Mrs. Laura Boyer lives with her new family, including Grace—though I couldn’t even find a picture of her—in a house not far from the Abbotts’, in Elkins Park. I don’t know how long we were unconscious, but it can’t have been that long.” Malcolm glances around. “I mean, this looks like the same area Silver Living is in, maybe even still Cheltenham. Which means we’re probably only twenty or thirty minutes away.”

  I give him a smile. It’s a little shaky, but he returns it.

  “Guess it’s your turn again,” he says. “How are we getting there? And just so you know, I’m not hiding any more cash in my other shoe.”

  I take a deep breath, letting my cheeks puff out when I release it, then turn on my heel. Mom did this, which means I can too. Taking Malcolm’s hand, I lead us straight to the front door of the house I was intent on approaching earlier.

  “Wait, wait. I thought—”

  “Don’t say a word,” I tell him as I ring the bell.

  * * *

  A petite sandy-haired woman with glasses perched low on her nose and a sudoku book folded up under one arm answers the door. “Yes? Can I help— Oh my! Oh my goodness,” she says, taking in our beaten drowned-rat appearance.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you, but my boyfriend and I were in a car accident, and both our phones were broken. We’ve been walking for”—I turn to Malcolm—“I don’t know how long. Miles maybe?” He starts to open his mouth, but I turn back to her. “Would it be too much trouble if we came in so I could call my mom? We were driving down from college to surprise my little brother for his birthday, and I’m sure my mom is worried sick by now.” I add a well-timed sneeze just to cinch the performance, and suddenly the woman—Mrs. Goodwin, she tells us—is clucking her tongue and ushering us inside to warm up by the fire.

  Once we’ve assured her that our injuries are only superficial, she brings us towels to dry off and even offers us some of her kids’ old clothes to wear while she tosses ours in the dryer. (Michael, Anne-Marie, and Kristen—all grown and with families of their own.)

  After handing her our wet clothes, Malcolm and I meet in the Jack and Jill bathroom adjoining the separate bedrooms she showed us upstairs.

  “Nice lady,” he says.

  I agree, already dreaming about the hot tea and food she promised us.

  “Can you…?” He gestures at his wet shirt as his mouth tightens. He doesn’t like being so reliant on my help, and I don’t like feeling responsible for him needing it, as least partially.

  Instead of lifting his shirt, though, I bend down and open the cabinet under the sink, heart lifting when I find a well-stocked first-aid kit. We’ll be able to tape Malcolm’s ribs this time. That’ll have to help.

  I turn us around so our backs are to the mirror before inching his shirt up. I don’t trust my face to remain impassive if he looks worse than before.

  I wince as his torso is revealed.

  Worse. Much worse. My raging appetite vanishes.

  “Nothing’s sticking out.” There’s something about the way Malcolm says it that makes me think he’s surprised.

  I worry my lip until he grabs the tape and slaps it in my hand. “Forget it. We are doing this. Now am I taping myself or not?”

  I don’t really know how to tape ribs, but I do my best, and Malcolm takes a testing breath when I’m done and says it feels a little better. But then, we’ve already raided the medicine cabinet and helped ourselves to some leftover painkillers.

  “So what now?” Malcolm says after we’re both dressed. “You know you can’t call anyone you’re close to. By now, they’re being watched. Their phones might even be tapped.”

  I nod, thinking about Aiden. And Carmel and Regina and everyone else from the café where I work. Worked, I mentally correct myself. I’ve missed enough shifts by now that I’ve definitely been fired, though our neighbor Mr. Guillory probably still has no idea that Mom and I are the reason his car ended up in that Walgreens parking lot. More names and faces push themselves forward in my mind, and each one takes a swipe at my heart.

  I have people that I miss, a life that I miss.

  And I can’t go back to any of them.

  “I’ve got a plan,” I say, hoping Malcolm doesn’t notice that my voice has gone tight.

  He doesn’t. He’s too busy fiddling with the collar on the pistachio-green polo shirt Mrs. Goodwin gave him. “What kind of grown man lets his mom still write his name on his tag?”

  “No way,” I say, glad for the distraction.

  Malcolm turns around and squats a little so I can confirm that, yep, MICHAEL is written there in dark-blue Sharpie. I smother a laugh.

  “Just be glad she didn’t have three daughters.” I didn’t spot any names in the tags of the clothes she gave me—jeans and a chunky cable-knit sweater in ballet pink—but everything is a bit snug.

  “Okay up there?” Mrs. Goodwin calls from the stairs.

  Darting back to my room, I tell her we’ll be right there.

  Tea is steaming invitingly from two matching floral mugs when we get downstairs, alongside two heaping bowls of chili. My mouth instantly floods with saliva, and it’s all I can do not to fall on the food like…like someone who hasn’t eaten anything except a protein bar in the past three days.

  “Mrs. Goodwin, that smells delicious.”

  She blushes. “It was my husband’s favorite, God rest his soul. I gave you a lot since you both looked hungry. Phone’s right there on the counter.”

  I take a step toward the phone, only to stop in the act of lifting the receiver to my ear, making sure Mrs. Goodwin sees me hesitate and bite my lip. “I can’t believe I’m this stupid,” I say. “My mom just got a new number. It was in my phone, but I don’t have it memorized.” I turn my worried gaze to Malcolm. “Do you know anyone’s number?”

  His eyes darting to Mrs. Goodwin before returning to me, Malcolm says between bites, “No?” There’s a hint of a question in his voice, but Mrs. Goodwin doesn’t seem to pick up on it.

  Abandoning the phone, I drop forlornly into the chair beside him and glance at our host. “I bet Michael, Anne-Marie, and Kristen all know their friends’ and families’ numbers by heart.”

  “Ha” is Mrs. Goodwin’s answer. “Michael loses his phone constantly. He wouldn’t remember his own name if I didn’t write it in his clothes. Kristen and Anne-Marie are little better.” From across the table, she reaches out to pat my hand. “Is your parents’ house far? I’d be happy to drop you off after you eat and warm up.”

  Malcolm seizes my knee under the table and I grin.

  “That would be wonderful, Mrs. Goodwin. The address is…”

  Mrs. Goodwin leans across the front seat to hug me when we pull up in front of Laura’s house. “Now you promise to call me after you get settled and celebrate your brother’s birthday.”

  “I promise.” She smells like the cinnamon she sprinkled in our tea, and I let myself breathe in the comforting scent. “And we’ll get these clothes back to you too.”

  “Keep them. I’ve been meaning to donate them anyway. But come by and have tea with me again sometime.” She glances to the backseat. “You too, Malcolm,” she adds.

  I tell her we’re going to let ourselves in through the back door, to make sure she won’t idle out front waiting to see us safely inside. Huddled together under the umbrella Mrs. Goodwin forced into our hands before she let us out of the car, we dart around the side of the house and watch her
drive off.

  Malcolm’s squeezes an arm around my waist. “Still want to do this?”

  No, I want to stare after the kind woman who gave me a sweater and fed me chili. I don’t want to think about the woman whose life I’m about to destroy the second I ring her doorbell. But I nod.

  There’s no darting this time as we return to the front of the house and make our way up the brick walkway. The house is a three-story colonial, with white siding, crisp black shutters, and a trio of dormer windows extending from the pitched roof. The lawn is impeccably landscaped, with seasonal purple daisies, pink chrysanthemums, and golden false sunflowers on either side of the columned porch. It’s a beautiful, lovingly kept home, though nowhere near as large or lavish as what I remember from the video of the Abbott estate, the home she likely would have one day lived in if Derek hadn’t died.

  Is she bitter about the loss of circumstances as well as the loss of her husband?

  The front door is glossy black, and I don’t want to lift my hand to knock on it.

  But my sister could be inside.

  Or her mother.

  Or no one.

  “You want me to…?” Malcolm gestures at the door.

  My headshake is tight and slight. I have to be strong now.

  I knock.

  She’s wearing a cardigan sweater when she opens the door, and it’s the same soft shade of pink as I’m wearing. Her hair is long and dark blond, with subtle honey highlights, and somehow it’s not frizzy, despite the rain. Her makeup is equally understated, and there isn’t a hint of a wrinkle in her lightly tanned forehead.

  She’s not frozen, though. Her features undergo a remarkable transformation after her cautiously polite greeting. One moment, she’s looking at me with an untroubled expression lifting her delicately arched brows, and the next she’s recoiling as all the blood drains from her face.