Eric walked along the rear bumpers, and nobody was sitting in the cars, except for a couple in the middle car, making out in the driver’s seat. He kept going and turned right around the shop, walking the rightmost side of the upside-down U, and the only occupied car was a minivan full of kids, eating frozen yogurt while they watched a DVD glowing from the back of the seats. Eric turned and looked inside the shop. Families and teenagers milled around inside, and the store was brightly lit. Max wasn’t inside, but there were three shop girls behind the counter and a fourth at the cash register, in tie-dyed long aprons over SWIRLED PEACE T-shirts and jeans. One was a redhead. It had to be Renée.
Eric found himself opening the door to the shop. Stainless-steel self-service frozen yogurt machines gleamed in an area to the right, next to stacked bowls and cups, and except for the cashier, the employees circulated among the crowd, helping customers work the self-serve fro-yo machines. Eric zeroed in on Renée, who fit Max’s description of her: a petite young girl with a moptop of short dark red curls pulled back from her face with a skinny pink ribbon. She was naturally pretty, with a fresh-faced charm, blue eyes, and an easy smile. She must have felt Eric’s eyes on her, because she turned to him and made her way over.
“Do you need help, sir?” Renée asked, cocking her head.
“Uh, yes.” Eric tried to get his act together. If he looked up “boundary violation” in the dictionary, there would be a picture of him talking to Renée. He spotted the gold necklace around her neck, the one Max liked.
“You haven’t been here before, have you?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I figured, because new people get intimidated on their first time. The prices are by weight, and it’s all self-serve.” Renée gestured to the lineup of machines, each with a double spout, labeled Vanilla, Belgian Chocolate, Banana, and Blueberry. “Which flavor would you like? You can mix two of them, we call that the Swirl-Away, and you can even mix three, which is called the Swirlwind Romance. Four flavors is the Tilt-A-Swirl.” Renée rolled her eyes in a goofy way. “The manager makes us say that. He thinks it’s really funny.”
“It is, kind of.” Eric could see why Max had a crush on her because she was so warm and relaxed, and it must have put the boy at ease.
“So what flavor would you like? And do you want a large, medium, or small?”
“Medium, vanilla.” Eric was thinking of Hannah, who loved vanilla ice cream and could make distinctions between Ben & Jerry’s, Haagen-Dazs, and Turkey Hill.
“You want me just to do it for you?” Renée took a medium cup from the stack. “We’re not that busy.”
“Thanks, yes, I appreciate it.” Eric took a flyer. “You look familiar to me. I drop my daughter off at PerfectScore and I think I’ve seen you there with your mother.”
“I go there! They’re the best!” Renée held the cup under the spout, grabbed the lever, and twisted it up and over.
“I think they have a few different tutors, but she gets tutored by a guy named Max.”
“So do I!” Renée grinned as she twisted the yogurt dispenser, his Styrofoam dish in hand. “He’s so smart. He’s, like, a genius!”
“That’s what my daughter says, too. She likes him.”
“I like him, too. He’s shy and super-nerdy, but he’s a nice guy.”
Eric felt reassured to think that Renée liked Max, then realized that was probably inappropriate. It struck him that maybe it was countertransference, after all. “What days do you go to tutoring?”
“Wednesday and Saturday.”
“Oh, so you haven’t seen him today?”
“No.” Renée turned the cup as frozen yogurt coiled inside. “What’s your daughter’s name?”
“Hannah,” Eric blurted out, because he was a terrible liar.
“Where does she go to school? I go to Sacred Heart.”
“She goes to public school.” Eric wanted a story Renée couldn’t verify.
“Sweet! You want toppings, don’t you? Follow me, sir.” Renée led him to the toppings case, where there stood another employee, a tall young African-American woman with bright blue hair and a nose ring. Renée waved her down happily. “Trix, incoming!”
“Cool!” Trixie smiled.
Renée turned to Eric. “Sir, this is Trixie and she’s in charge of toppings. She goes to PerfectScore too, but she doesn’t have Max.”
“Oh, hi,” Eric said, surprised, though he shouldn’t have been. PerfectScore was only five minutes away, and it made sense that local girls worked here.
Renée continued, “Trix, we were just talking about Max and how smart he is.” She turned to Eric. “We don’t think the tutor she has is as good he is.”
Trixie stuck out her lower lip. “Totally, my tutor’s all about the practice tests, but I can do the practice tests myself. Max is way better. He teaches Renée tricks, like, for the problems.”
“That’s what my daughter says,” Eric said, before anybody asked him any more questions.
“Okay, well, I’ll leave you to it,” Renée said, waving a hand airily.
“Thanks,” Eric said, as she went to help other customers.
Trixie smiled at him. “Sir, you can choose as many toppings as you like, and the price list is there on the wall.”
Eric chose strawberries and M&Ms, also Hannah’s favorite, paid almost seven dollars, left the shop, and walked to the car, his head wheeling around to see if Max were here. So far, it didn’t look like he was, and Eric went back to his car, chirped it unlocked, got inside, and ate the yogurt while he considered his next move. Max hadn’t come yet, but he could still show up. Eric had nothing else to go on, no other idea where Max could be, and just like Max, nothing was waiting for him at home. He ate his yogurt absently, and his gaze fell on the parking lots of the other stores on this side of the street: a Walgreens, a drive-through Dunkin’ Donuts, and a Hill’s Seafood. Max could be in any one of those lots, waiting for Renée to get off work. In fact, it was probably likelier that Max was in one of those lots because it would be easier to go unnoticed.
Eric decided to wait it out, until eleven o’clock. The cars came and went, minivans and pickups, newer models and old, and as darkness fell completely, it was impossible to keep track or to discern anybody sitting in the cars, waiting. He felt increasingly worried, wondering where Max could be. He sensed it would shake out closer to eleven o’clock. He would have to bide his time.
He replayed his conversation with Max, then with Marie. She had been worse than Eric had imagined, and it was easy to understand how Max’s life would fall apart now that his grandmother was gone. Eric could help Max if he could get to him before it was too late, and it made him sick to think that all he could do was sit in a car and wait, but it was his only bet.
Eric picked up his phone, thumbed to the Internet, and typed in white pages. He went to the site, plugged in Renée Bevilacqua and Berwyn, and a short list of addresses popped onto the tiny screen. None of the listings was under the name Renée, which he had expected, but there were plenty of Bevilacquas and the site listed their ages: they all were men or women aged forty-five and up. One of them had to be Renée’s mother or father, and Eric skimmed the addresses to see which were the closest, since they would be the likelier. There were three Bevilacquas that were possible candidates: Trianon Lane, Sunflower Road, and Gristmill Road. So he wouldn’t be able to tell where he was going until Renée left.
The dashboard clock went from 8:30, to 9:30, to 10:30, and Eric put his phone away and focused complete attention on the store. The crowd of teenagers had thinned, and only a few customers were in the store. Renée was wiping down the countertops, Trixie scooping the toppings into white tubs, and the cashier taking money from the drawer and stuffing it into a cloth bag with a zipper.
Eric could count on one hand the cars in the parking lot, and most of those were in the back, probably the employees’ cars. He scanned the Walgreens and the Dunkin’ Donuts lots, but he didn’t see Max anywhere. In
time, the lights of the Swirled Peace went off, and the girls left the shop, chattering and laughing. Eric shifted up in his seat, coming to alertness. Renée was easy to spot because of her red hair, and he watched as she hugged the other girls good-bye and walked toward the back of the parking lot. The leftmost car was a cobalt blue Honda Fit, and Renée made a beeline for it. In a few moments, the Honda’s engine started, the headlights went on, and the Honda zipped forward.
Eric looked around to see if any headlights came to life in any of the parking lots, but no dice. He turned his head away as Renée steered toward the exit of the parking lot, and as she passed behind Eric’s car, she was yapping on the phone, pressed to her ear. She barely braked at the exit before entering traffic on Barrett Street, then she turned left, and Eric still didn’t see anyone else around that seemed to be in pursuit. Traffic was light, the day winding down, and Renée sped to the traffic signal, which was red.
Eric turned on his ignition, reversed out of the space, and took off after her, trailing her at a safe distance.
A guardian angel to the guardian angel.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Eric followed Renée down Barrett Road, which was a well-lit main drag, two lanes going both ways with traffic lights at regular intervals. He stayed a car length away, traveling behind a burgundy Cadillac that tailgated her, but its driver was a smoker, leaving his hand with the cigarette outside the car. Eric eliminated him because Max didn’t smoke.
The traffic cruised forward after the light, nobody in a hurry except for Renée. The Cadillac took a right onto one of the side streets, so Eric lost his buffer car and he moved up directly behind Renée. Her driving made it a job to keep up with her in a way that wasn’t obvious, but Eric figured she was probably talking on the phone, oblivious to the fact that she was being followed.
Eric kept a sharp eye on the traffic. Renée’s aggressive driving served his purpose because after five blocks or so, it flushed out the only two other cars that stayed with her; one was an older black Toyota sedan, and the other was a blue VW Cabriolet. Eric could tell from their silhouettes that both drivers were short men, but either could have been Max. He didn’t want to get close enough to risk being seen by either of them and he didn’t have to, if he just bided his time.
Eric trailed them all, watching them jockey for position, the three cars like moving pieces of the same puzzle as they traveled. He kept in mind the potential Bevilacqua addresses as they sped eastward; he eliminated Trianon Lane because that was to the right, so only Sunflower Road and Gristmill Road were left. Renée zoomed forward, and an orange Horizon Plumbing van joined the mix, giving Eric some temporary cover from the black Toyota, which was getting dangerously parallel to him in the slow lane. He shifted his gaze underneath his cap to see if Max was driving the Toyota, but the Horizon van accelerated at the last moment, pushing the Toyota forward and ruining Eric’s view.
The van turned off after a few blocks, but the black Toyota and the VW Cabriolet stayed, and suddenly Renée put on her left blinker, turning unpredictably onto Wheatfield Drive, another main drag running south. Both the Toyota and VW signaled left and turned onto Wheatfield after her, and Eric had to brake to let the VW into the turn lane ahead of him, catching a glimpse of the driver in shadowy profile.
The driver looked like Max, and Eric felt the start of recognition, but he couldn’t be sure. He followed the traffic with renewed determination, turning left onto Wheatfield. He’d traveled these roads before and realized that Sunflower Road wasn’t in this direction. That left only Gristmill Road, but he wasn’t familiar with it, in any event, and there was always the possibility that he’d picked the wrong Bevilacqua address.
He fed the car gas as Renée accelerated and narrowed his focus to the VW. It was a younger person’s type of car, and though he hadn’t figured Max for the convertible type, the boy could’ve bought it used. Renée’s car, the Toyota, and the VW barreled down Wheatfield, which was also two lanes both ways, with side streets off of both sides.
Eric switched into the slow lane to keep everyone in his view. The terrain changed, the trees taller and leafier, the houses set farther back, and the streetlights fewer and farther between. There were some traffic lights, and Eric kept an eye on the VW as it stayed slightly behind Renée’s car next to the Toyota. Wheatfield Drive wound left and right, and slower cars joined the trio but dropped off, and the VW stayed with Renée’s car. Eric bet that the driver was Max.
He felt his heart beat faster as Renée put on her right blinker, switched into the right lane, and slowed just enough to make a right turn. Renée turned into a side street, but the black Toyota kept going on Wheatfield, leaving only the VW. Eric held his breath as he watched the VW put on its right blinker, switching to the right lane, and turn right after Renée. It had to be Max.
Eric shifted forward in his seat. He turned left behind the VW and spotted the street name, Harvest Road. Harvest was a quiet residential street with no traffic lights, and the three cars traveled in the darkness together in a line—Renée first, the VW, then Eric. Renée decelerated only slightly but suddenly the VW slowed considerably, which Eric realized would be just what Max would do if they were approaching Renée’s house.
Eric braked, shifting up in the seat. He’d never tried to intercept anybody in a car, but it couldn’t be that difficult. Renée had put on her right blinker, and he was sensing they were getting closer to Gristmill Road, especially given the Wheatfield/Harvest motif of the street names. Eric flashed his high beams, signaling to get Max’s attention, but the VW didn’t speed up or slow down.
Harvest Road curved sharply to the left, and Renée zoomed ahead, turning left off of Harvest without her blinker. Max slowed, but instead of following Renée, put on his right blinker and braked to a stop, confusing Eric, who braked as well. In the next moment, the VW turned right into a driveway of one of the houses, #212 Harvest.
Eric groaned, watching as the VW’s ignition went off and its lights out. He’d been wrong. The driver couldn’t have been Max. It was somebody who lived here, and unless Eric stepped on it, he was going to lose Renée. He accelerated, taking the first left that Renée had taken and catching a glimpse of the street sign, Gristmill Road. Her red taillights glowed at the end of the street, and he slowed, braking when he realized that the beginning of Gristmill looked like a regular road, but ended in a large cul-de-sac.
Eric pulled over to the curb on the right. He put the car in park and watched as Renée zoomed into the driveway of a large house in the middle of the cul-de-sac, then her engine and taillights went off. So Renée lived on Gristmill Road, but Max hadn’t followed her home. Eric switched off the ignition so his engine noise didn’t draw attention. He exhaled, puzzled.
He realized that maybe he was jumping the gun. There was still a chance that Max was on his way and he knew where Renée lived. Max could be on his way, right now, just to make sure that Renée was home safely. Either that, or the boy was somewhere out there, doing away with himself.
Abruptly, Eric’s car filled with light from the headlights of a car that was turning onto Gristmill Road. The headlights finished their turning arc, straightened out, and headed down Gristmill Road. The car was a dark coupe, and Eric tugged the brim of his cap down as the coupe drove by, but he spotted a male driver. Eric waited to see if it was Max, and since it was a cul-de-sac, Max would probably drive forward, follow the cul-de-sac to check Renée’s car, then drive out again. Eric would be able to stop him at the bottleneck. It was perfect.
Eric watched the dark coupe drive slowly down Harvest Road, enter the cul-de-sac, drive along its curb, and exit the cul-de-sac, driving toward Eric in the opposite direction. Eric shifted up in his seat, in anticipation. If the driver was Max, he would come eye-to-eye with Max, and the boy wouldn’t be able to avoid him.
Suddenly, the coupe switched on its high beams, temporarily blinding him, and braked beside Eric’s car, so that the driver was only a foot away. Eric looked over to
see that it wasn’t Max, but a middle-aged man, his eyes narrowed behind his horn-rimmed glasses.
“Excuse me, pal,” said the driver, sternly. “I live on this cul-de-sac. I know my neighbors. You’re not one of them. What are you doing here?”
“Oh, sorry.” Eric reached for his cell phone and held it up. “I just got a text and I pulled over to answer it.”
“Why were you on the street in the first place?”
“I didn’t realize it was a cul-de-sac. I was on Harvest when I got the text and I turned onto the street, but I didn’t know it dead-ended. I must have missed the sign.”
“Oh, okay.” The driver eased back in his seat. “You didn’t miss the sign, there isn’t one. Most people around here know this is a cul-de-sac, but if you’re not familiar, I can see how you could make that mistake. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat, pal. These are the days of ‘when you see something, say something.’”
“Understood, completely.”
“I’m not saying you’re a terrorist or anything. I mean, obviously, you’re not a terrorist.”
“No, of course not. I’ll be on my way. The text can wait.” Eric started the engine and put the car in gear.
“Good. We have an active town watch here, and sooner or later, somebody’s going to call the cops.”
“Of course, good night now.” Eric hit the gas, cruised slowly forward, and turned around in the cul-de-sac, glancing over at Renée’s house, which was a large brick Château type, with the lights on downstairs. He steered to the exit of the cul-de-sac and waved good-bye to the coupe driver, who flashed him a thumbs-up.
Eric didn’t exhale until he reached the top of the street.
Every Fifteen Minutes Page 18
