Jennifer couldn’t believe that Monica would put the appearance of her automobile ahead of Conrad’s freedom, but after a minute Monica did pull over, several yards short of where the two men were still standing.
“Borden?” Jennifer asked.
He had exchanged his dirty clothes for a plaid flannel shirt and jeans. Though his face was still covered with dried scratches and he badly needed a shave, he was at least less of a mess than he had been.
“What about Marysue?” he asked. “If you go ahead with what you’re thinking you’ll be leaving her behind. Did you see her car in the lot behind the station?”
Jennifer nodded.
“All right, then she’s still in there.” He slammed a hand in frustration against the back of the seat and shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Jen, but I don’t know what to tell you.”
For several minutes, then, they watched Rumbel. And Jennifer wasn’t surprised that the man hadn’t been able to budge her friend. Conrad was tall and muscular, looking even bigger now in his sheepskin coat, and though he seemed to be speaking softly it was evident by the expression on his face that he was giving the detective no satisfaction at all. And at one point, he shook off the fat man’s grip.
Rumbel took out his cigar and stared at it, stared at Conrad, and shook his head.
“Well?” Monica said impatiently.
“I’m thinking!” Jennifer retorted.
“Well, think fast, Field. If he sees us, we’re dead.”
Suddenly Borden slid across the seat, opened his door, and said to Jennifer, “Get over to the station now and find Marysue.” He lifted a hand in brusque warning when she started to protest. “If we’re gone when you come out, start walking around the corner and down the street. Don’t run. Walk. We’ll pick you up. If Marysue wants her car, tell her to forget it for now. She’ll have to wait.” He climbed out and said to Monica, leaning in her window, “Get ready. You may have a whale of a driving test in a couple of minutes.”
And he was gone, strolling with his hands in his pockets toward Conrad and the detective.
Monica glared at him with her arms folded.
I don’t believe it, Jennifer thought as she strode to the station. What’s bothering her? Can’t she see we need her.
Jennifer took a deep breath and blew it out explosively; she licked her lips, chewed for a second on the inside of her cheek, and told herself it was going to be all right as long as she didn’t panic. Borden knew what he was doing. Monica wouldn’t let them down.
It was going to be all right.
Nothing was going to go wrong.
Jennifer hurried up the stairs of the station and almost barreled into Marysue walking out the front door. Turning back to watch the scene across the street, Jennifer hushed Marysue. “Just look,” she said.
They watched as Borden Overbrook approached the detective from behind. Jennifer could tell when Conrad spotted him because his eyes widened momentarily before his expression went completely blank. Then Borden, after looking over his shoulder, stepped up to Rumbel from the rear and laid a hand on his right arm.
The detective turned and looked quickly at him, yanked the cigar from his mouth, and did nothing when Conrad broke into a run and headed for the car.
Conrad yanked the back door open and slid in, his face damp with perspiration in spite of the cold, and his blond hair tangled from his running.
Overbrook was walking quickly back toward the car; the detective remained where he was, fists at his side.
Jennifer could see Monica’s fingers nervously drumming on the steering wheel, and as soon as Borden opened the door and was in, Monica shot out of the parking space and into the traffic.
Jennifer and Marysue walked swiftly down the stairs and to the curb as Monica was spinning the wheel and making a loud, smoking U-turn. Jennifer knew it wouldn’t take Rumbel long to get to the station, and once he did, it was all going to hit the fan.
Borden must have asked Conrad to slide over and be ready because, as the girls ran toward the car, Conrad opened the door, leaving enough room for them to jump in.
“Go!” Borden said then, slapping Monica’s shoulder. “Head for the school.”
Monica sped down the street and around the next corner, using the back streets to stay away from the main road as long as she could. Twice she ran stop signs, and once she was forced to stomp on the brakes when a pair of children chased a ball into the road. But she didn’t stop.
They all listened as Borden filled the others in on what had happened to him since Conrad had last seen him. Conrad explained that he’d only had ecology that afternoon at Thaler, and since the class wasn’t meeting he hadn’t gone. He’d gone to the park, and out of nowhere Rumbel had accosted him when he was leaving.
“He wanted to know where Lee was. I told him I didn’t have any idea. Then the creep started making noises about taking me in for questioning about some stupid robbery or other, and I got so mad that I told him to call our lawyer and make arrangements for a meeting. He didn’t like that.”
Marysue sat quietly, holding his hand and watching him intently as he told his story. Jennifer looked over and saw that Marysue had been crying—her eyes were slightly red and puffy, and her makeup was smeared where she had wiped her cheeks.
“Are you okay?” she asked her friend.
Marysue nodded but sniffed when Conrad put his arm around her shoulders.
“I am going to sue,” she said then, very slowly, her Virginia accent heavy. “I am going to take every one of them to court and make them pay for what they did. They are not going to get away with this.”
“Did they touch you?” Conrad asked angrily. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
She shook her head, smiling as quickly as she’d been close to tears. Conrad had always been solicitous, more so because he couldn’t believe a girl like Marysue could be interested in a guy like him, a half-breed—his intentionally misused word for the fact that though his hair was blond and he was tall, his features, especially his eyes, were a distinct legacy from his Chinese grandfather. An odd combination, and one that obviously attracted Marysue.
“That fat slob just kept asking me questions about you and Lee. Over and over again. Like I was married to you. I tried to tell him I wasn’t your mother, but he just—” She inhaled slowly. “He just kept coming at me. Then all of a sudden, he stopped. Just like that.”
“He was talking about me?” Conrad said in astonishment. “You mean they honestly think I had something to do with those robberies too? I thought Rumbel was just harassing me.”
Borden turned and exchanged a worried glance with Jennifer, but had no opportunity to say anything.
Monica was now speeding up the slope toward Thaler. The valley had slipped away. The two-lane highway was soon enclosed by a high wall of trees, falling away down the hill on one side and climbing Ballad Hill on the other. The sun was nearly gone behind the far peaks, and shadows ranged across the blacktop.
The wind came up briefly.
There were no stars yet.
“It’s no coincidence,” Jennifer said, answering her own earlier speculation. “Conrad, Marysue, Lee. And then Dramon calls me in to threaten me. So far the only one who hasn’t been harassed is Monica.”
“Good for me,” the girl grumbled. “They must be going in alphabetical order or something.”
Jennifer didn’t hear her. She was thinking that she didn’t know who had called Monica that morning. Maybe they shouldn’t trust the girl. Her head started to swim. To confront her, or not? And then suddenly she remembered that no one had tried to get in touch with Lee, to let him know what was going on. There hadn’t been time. It had all happened so swiftly, and she promised herself to call him the moment she was able to get to a telephone.
The brick wall of Thaler suddenly appeared through the trees.
She felt abruptly uneasy. And as Monica started to make the turn between the pillars, Borden grabbed her arm and told her to
stop.
“Oh—great,” Marysue said.
There, along the top arch of the drive, were two patrol cars, and a policeman was standing in front of the Student Union, talking with Peter Dramon.
Eleven
THEY KNEW THE COPS WEREN’T THERE FOR THEM because there hadn’t been time for Rumbel to raise the alarm. Also, they hadn’t been passed on the only road from Staines. But they were spooked anyway, and Borden ordered Monica to swing around and drive off past the school. She didn’t slow until the brick wall was replaced by thick forestland. Then they continued down the sloping road. She waited until the school had curved out of sight behind her, then waited for another mile before pulling off onto the shoulder.
With the engine turned off there was a great, empty silence no one seemed able to fill.
“Well, we have them right where we want them,” Monica said, breaking the quiet. “All we have to do is get them to chase us, and we can lead them right to the bad guys.” Her short laugh was bitter. “Wonderful.”
Borden shook his head and climbed out of the car, shivering in the shadows that stretched across the road. The others soon joined him, huddling together and staring unseeing up and down the hill, at the trees, everywhere but at one another.
Overbrook, his hands in his pockets and his arms clamped tightly to his sides, walked a few paces up the road and back again. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “Monica’s idea is what Jen has wanted to do all along.”
Conrad, his arm protectively around Marysue, looked puzzled until he was filled in on Jennifer’s idea. For a moment he looked shocked, but when it passed he looked behind him into the woods and grunted. “We don’t have much to lose, when you think about it.”
“Oh, we don’t?” Monica said. “Really? Well, how about this, Mr. Chang—if we go ahead with this madness and we do get those cops to chase us into the woods, and we do manage to keep away from them long enough to get them wherever we’re supposed to lead them, what happens if the aliens have moved on? What happens if they’re not there?”
She waved an angry hand to keep anyone from answering.
“I’ll tell you what happens. We get arrested, that’s what. We get arrested, and they call our parents. We get expelled even though we’re not guilty, we don’t graduate, and you can kiss every diploma from here to the end of our lives goodbye. That’s what happens.”
And she stalked off up the road, kicking at stones, swiping at the air, and not looking back when Marysue called her name.
“What’s gotten into her?” Marysue wanted to know. “I would have thought she’d think it was a good idea.”
“Not when she thought it through to the consequences,” Borden said as he watched her pick up a rock and throw it into the trees as hard as she could. “I think she didn’t believe it would come to this.”
“But she has a point about the aliens moving off,” Conrad said reluctantly.
“Yeah. I know.”
“Then we can’t wait around here, can we?” Jennifer told them. “We have to go to the Witch’s Eye right now and see if the aliens are still there.” When they looked at her as if she’d suggested a quick trip to the moon and back, she shrugged. “We don’t have a choice, do we?”
Monica stomped back down the road and heaved herself into the front seat without saying a word.
The drive to the lake was made in silence.
Monica followed Overbrook’s terse instructions to the barely visible trail off the road. It wasn’t much wider than the car, and if she hadn’t been told it was there she would have driven right past it.
Swearing but not balking, she pulled the car onto it and winced every time a low-hanging branch or shrub scraped against the sides and the roof. Shortly afterward, they saw two huge boulders, and the trees fell away beyond them to form a clearing. Left and right were two ramshackle cabins, and directly ahead was a small body of water, part of its surface covered with colonies of green algae.
Witch’s Eye.
Now reflecting only the darkening sky, it rippled as the night’s first wind blew slowly across it.
At Overbrook’s direction, Monica stopped the car just before the boulders. Then they climbed out and again stood close together, moving toward the clearing.
“I don’t suppose anyone thought to bring a flashlight,” Conrad said as he looked into the woods.
The light was failing swiftly, and Jennifer felt as if she were peering through a thin black veil. She closed her jacket to the neck and put her hands in her pockets, wishing there could at least be a moon to give them something to see by. But there was only the faint glow of the clouds as the sun set behind them, and an even fainter reflection in the water.
Jennifer looked at Conrad and Marysue and wished Lee were with her. She was strong, but she didn’t want to be alone, not then.
Besides, she thought, this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. They were going to have a plan, step by step, all aspects of the problem covered and readied.
The way they were proceeding now was like running full tilt into a dark room—having no idea of what was in there, not knowing if anything had been changed while they were gone.
They could make it safely to the other side, or they could trip and break their necks.
“Well, I’m tired of standing around here freezing,” Monica said. “If one of you will show me the way, I’ll scout the Indian camp and bring back a scalp.”
She made no attempt to hide the disgust in her voice, but no one rose to the bait. Borden Overbrook suggested that they not all go, because if they were spotted someone had to be left to get away and bring help. The discussion that followed was conducted in whispers, harsh and rapid. They finally concluded that Borden was still too weak to do any running; he argued but was overruled.
Conrad said he’d go, shaking his head when Marysue instantly volunteered to go with him. “Two will make enough noise,” he told her gently. “Three, and we’ll sound like an army.”
“I don’t like it, Zucco,” Beauford told him.
“I’m not so crazy about it myself,” he admitted. “But there it is, Richmond.”
And before Monica lost her temper again at what she obviously thought was their stalling, he took her elbow and led her quickly away, bending his head to talk to her as they moved off to the right, past the cabin and onto a trail Pauline Klopher had shown them a few days before.
Marysue walked slowly back to the car.
Borden shivered and politely refused Jennifer’s offer of her coat. “I’d split the seams, but thanks anyway. I think Marysue has the right idea. We should wait in the car. It’ll be warmer, and we’ll be able to see anyone coming along the trail.”
The windows were down.
Jennifer heard an owl, heard the wind rattling the branches of the mostly bare trees, heard water slapping against a rock on the lake’s shore.
She also heard Marysue in the backseat, trying valiantly not to let them know she was crying.
It was full dark.
As if in answer to Jennifer’s prayer, the clouds began to shred, and silver light began to filter into the clearing.
“Skeleton key,” Borden said, and Jennifer jumped.
“What’s that?” Marysue asked, invisible in the darkness in the back.
He told her about Pauline’s notes. As Jennifer’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw his profile—pensive, almost sad.
“While you and Monica were getting me the food and clothes,” he said to her, “I figured out what she was talking about on those papers.” He took a slow breath and shook his head. “I still find it hard to believe, you know. But—the skeleton key is what the aliens need to transform it all. Remember those plants we saw, what Zucco—what an odd nickname, don’t you think?—said about them, that it looked as if they hadn’t been burned but withered?”
Jennifer nodded, and Marysue shifted until her forearms were resting on the back of the seat and her chin was propped up on her wrist.
“Genetic
engineering,” he continued. “It’s what they’re doing. Instead of plants giving off oxygen, our friends from Alpha Centauri, or wherever, want them to give off something else. But to do that, they have to find the genetic key for every different species they need to alter. The skeleton key is something that would alter them all, whether they’re dealing with redwoods or plankton.”
Jennifer closed her eyes for a moment, trying to imagine how it could be done and knowing she couldn’t because it was well over her head. “The notes,” she said then. “Did Mrs. Klopher know if they—”
“Succeeded?” Borden shrugged. “She could only make an educated guess.”
“So what did she guess?” asked Marysue.
“Almost.”
“No!” Marysue whispered.
Jennifer closed her eyes briefly, knowing that the chill spreading along her spine had nothing to do with the weather outside.
“It’s a nitrogen-based atmosphere,” Borden went on, seemingly oblivious to the effect he was having on the girls. “That means the preliminary changes could be made without our knowing it. Until it was too late.”
“You mean,” Marysue said, “we could breathe that stuff?”
“No. We couldn’t. If they find what they’re looking for, and they start the changes, we’ll never know what hit us. It would be like—it would be like walking down the street and strangling to death without anyone touching you.”
Jennifer straightened. That, she thought, is why the aliens are so active now. They may not have the key yet, but they are close enough to feel confident. Which explained why Dramon had openly confronted her, and why she and her friends were being harassed—the aliens wanted them out of the way. And it was still better for them to do it through the law—and especially through a cop who hated kids—than through outright murder.
That will come when they’re finished.
“Tonight,” she said aloud.
Marysue looked at her. “What?”
“Tonight,” she repeated. “If we do this right, with Borden on our side, we can end it tonight.”
Skeleton Key Page 7
