Several minutes ticked by in an electrical silence. At least it felt electrical to Allie, whose nerves had reverted to their new normal: paranoid high alert.
“Why do you live like this?” she asked Jasmine after a time. “Why not stay at the group home?”
“Let’s not make this about me, okay? I came out here to tell you I’d leave tonight if it was me. Don’t tell Victor you’re going. Don’t get caught leaving. Leave everything he gave you and get as far away as you can as fast as you can. Now that I’ve said that, it’s up to you. I warned you. I did all I could.”
With that Jasmine rose and disappeared into the bedroom again, leaving Allie even more alone. If such a thing were possible.
Over the next three or four hours, Allie rose from the couch and headed for the door more than half a dozen times.
Once she even opened it.
The blackness of the city night forced her back again.
Which was worse? To walk out to Ventura Boulevard alone? Hitchhike somewhere? Or wait for a bus? To where? And did they even run at this hour? Allie had never taken a bus, and had no way to know. Then she realized she had no money for a bus, so it didn’t matter.
Or she could walk. With cars buzzing by, which they would, even in the middle of the night. What if one of them saw her all alone and stopped?
Allie took a step back inside and shut the door.
No one was even awake now. Maybe nothing would happen until morning. But by then she feared she might fall asleep. So something could happen before she even knew Victor was awake.
You don’t say no to him. You just don’t.
Allie sat on the couch again, her mind a frightening blank. A moment later it filled with an option. Her only one, really. She just hadn’t seen it before. She didn’t even feel as though she had reached out for it. It had just let itself in.
She would go out into this dark world, once again, with nothing but the clothes on her back. And she would find a place to hide. Someplace not far away. Maybe right in this neighborhood. She would crouch down behind someone’s hedge, or find a gardening shed. Or maybe there would be an all-night restaurant on the boulevard, and she could sit there in the company of someone—anyone—until dawn.
Yes. That was it.
She would clear this place, just barely, then secure a position until the dangerous night had moved on. And then . . . Allie had no idea. She had no plan for the morning, other than to turn herself in. Which she probably would. But she had to survive until that moment arrived.
Allie launched herself off the couch and tiptoed to the front door. She opened it carefully, silently, then stepped out into the overgrown yard. She heard a car door slam. It seemed to be parked between the spot where Allie stood and the gate she needed to reach. Maybe one of “the girls” coming home from “work”?
Would they tell Victor if they saw her leaving?
Allie dropped her head and bolted for the gate, all surging adrenaline and not much solid thinking. A second or two later a hand grabbed her wrist and wrenched her to a halt. A big hand.
Allie looked up. Her eyes had not adjusted to the darkness, and there was only just so much detail she could make out. But this was not one of the girls. This was a mountain of a man. The kind of man you see playing defensive football, or working as a bouncer in a club. And he had Allie in his grasp.
He twisted her arm around behind her back, turned her toward the house again, and marched her to the front door. He knocked loudly. Pounded, really. With the flat side of his fist.
Allie lost her ability to breathe. Her heart couldn’t decide whether to beat too much or too little. It hammered in her chest so hard she feared it might break, explode. Then it missed a beat or even two, leaving a sickening void in the middle of her body that felt like dying.
A terrifying pause. Then a light came on inside the house.
Victor opened the door, his face muddied by sleep. His hair looked disheveled, not perfectly slicked back, and he wore a haze of light beard. The light in the living room haloed him from behind. Allie couldn’t see the look in his eyes, but just his gaze in her direction made her heart skip beats again.
The big man who held Allie spoke in a deep bass.
“This the one you called about?”
“The very one,” Victor said. “Where’d you find her?”
“On her way out.”
Victor made tsk noises with his tongue. Three of them. It made Allie feel like a trapped animal. Like the prey of a wild cat who likes to play with his terrified catch before . . . Allie didn’t want to carry the analogy any further than that.
“You’ll have your hands full with this one,” Victor said.
“Makes no difference to my situation. I drive her up there, I hand her over. I don’t care. She won’t get away from me.”
He reached out a hand to Victor. The hand that was not holding Allie’s arm wrenched behind her back. In that big hand, in the spill of light from the living room, Allie saw a small manila envelope. Thick with something.
“You can count it,” the giant said. “I won’t take offense.”
“That’s okay. You work for Lassen; I trust you.”
Victor grabbed the envelope from the giant hand and swung the door shut. Hard. The slam made Allie jump.
She felt herself turned again, and marched toward the giant’s car. The pain caught up with her in that moment. It hurt. The position of her arm was painful. Apparently she had been too preoccupied with fear to notice.
The giant opened the back door of his dark sedan and pushed hard. Allie fell across the backseat, hitting her head on the opposite window. She sat up just as the door was slammed shut behind her. As the giant began to walk around to the driver’s side front, Allie seized the brief opportunity.
She tried the door. It was locked. She tried to lift the lock. Fast, desperate. Over and over. It wouldn’t budge.
The dome light came on, causing Allie to wince. The big man was in the driver’s seat now, looking back over his shoulder at her. As her eyes adjusted to the sudden, almost violent light, she was able to see his features clearly. His hair was buzzed so short it practically did not exist, his nose wide and misshapen. His thick, short neck was hardly a neck at all. More of a slope to broad shoulders. He smiled at her, exposing a row of white but crooked teeth.
“Child safety locks,” he said in that cartoonishly deep bass. “Wouldn’t want your child getting away.”
Then he started the engine, shifted the car into gear, and drove.
A thought flashed through Allie’s head, a sort of wordless emotional version of “I want my mommy.” But it was too late for all that now.
“Can you at least tell me where you’re taking me?”
Allie’s voice sounded breathy to her own ears. She had been struggling for the better part of an hour to catch her breath, but the grinding fear kept snatching it away again.
For a time he didn’t answer.
They had driven well out of the San Fernando Valley. Allie could see the ocean in the dark, a faint crescent of moon setting at the black horizon. It was beautiful, except to the extent that nothing was beautiful, because nothing possibly could be. Not at a time like this.
They might have been driving through Camarillo or Oxnard, or it might have been Ventura. In the darkness and panic, it was hard to tell.
He met her eyes in the rearview mirror, his face revealed in the faint glow of the dashboard lights.
“San Francisco,” he said.
Which didn’t answer the question. Not really. Allie hadn’t meant to ask where, exactly. Not geographically where. “To what?” would have been more relevant, but Allie didn’t ask that question. She wasn’t ready to know.
She watched the moon set over the Pacific and thought about a teacher—Mr. Callahan, her English and creative writing teacher—who taught her the Mark Twain quote “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” They’d had a class discussion about problems, about how
they’re mostly perceived problems. Borrowed trouble. Usually the brain wandered into the future until it identified a potential problem and seized on it. By the time that future came to pass, though, circumstances would change and the problem would never materialize. Mr. Callahan had said it was rare for most people to have a genuine problem in the moment—literally, unavoidably happening.
She would have to tell him about this. If she survived.
The adrenaline had been with her too long. She felt exhausted, her nerves jangled nearly to the point of collapse.
A thought came into her mind. Suddenly. Almost as if from outside her.
Don’t just sit there. Try. Try to save yourself. Try anything.
“Do you have kids?” she asked him.
He met her eyes again in the mirror. Narrowed his own, his eyebrows squeezing downward.
“No.”
Allie waited, but he said no more.
“Don’t you ever feel . . . sympathy for girls like me?”
“Sympathy?”
Almost as though he didn’t understand the word.
“Don’t you feel sorry for the girls you take up to San Francisco? I mean, I’ve never been so scared in my life. This is absolutely the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’ve had some pretty terrible things happen lately. Doesn’t that make you feel anything at all? How can you not feel sorry for someone who didn’t do anything wrong and who’s so terrified? And you have the power to change it.”
A long silence. She could see part of his face, including his eyes, in the mirror. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was watching the road. She tried to see something in those eyes, some evidence that he was thinking about what she’d asked. Or, better yet, feeling. But his face looked slack and blank.
“You talk too much,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t do it anymore.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
They drove on. Allie watched the slightest hint of dawn form over the hills to the east. The sky turned a lighter color, fading the stars. Morning was coming. The same morning Allie had thought would bring safety.
It was far too late for such an extravagant hope.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Allie said.
They had just passed the ridiculously ornate Madonna Inn, and a freeway sign a few miles back had announced that the next few exits would be San Luis Obispo. Allie did have to go to the bathroom, but she could have held it. But still she had a mind to save herself. She was not yet beyond trying.
“I wasn’t born yesterday,” he said.
Allie didn’t speak for a time.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do if you won’t stop.”
“Hold it.”
“I can’t hold it all the way to San Francisco. That’s hours from here.”
“Try. We don’t stop.”
“Okay. But I just want you to know, I won’t be able to hold it much longer. I’m really thinking of you. And your car. This car has these really nice leather seats. And what a mess it would be to clean that up. It’ll go all down behind the seats. And the smell! But it’s your car. I was just trying to save you all that trouble.”
“I told you not to talk so much.”
Allie shut her mouth, firmly. Suddenly. She decided her best bet might be to keep it shut. The last thing she wanted was to make him angry.
Less than a minute later he swerved suddenly onto an off-ramp, as if it had been a spontaneous last-minute decision. He made a right onto a city street that was signed Route 1, and drove for a few blocks until several gas stations came into view in the early morning light.
“Here’s how it’s gonna be,” he said. “We’re gonna find a place with the bathrooms on the outside. Not in the store. I’m gonna park close to ’em. Real close. Blocking it right off. We’re gonna wait till there’s nobody around for you to run to. If you try to run inside the store, or out into the street, I’ll be on you in a heartbeat. If somebody sees me put you back in the car, so be it. I’m a good actor. I’ll tell ’em you’re my kid, and you’re a runaway, and I’d do anything to get you home safe this time. If you try something, you’ll lose. And after you lose, you’ll be one sorry little girl. Sorrier than you’ve ever been in your very short life so far. Got that?”
It was the first direct threat from him, and it caused Allie’s heart to beat erratically again. Too strong, then skipping beats.
“Got it.”
He pulled into a deserted station. Drove as close as he could get to the ladies’ room door without jumping a wheel up onto a curb. Unfortunately, the restrooms were located around the back of the place. Utterly out of view of the street. That was a bad break, and Allie knew it.
She felt her hopes sickeningly contract. Wither. All but die.
He cut the engine. Got out. Came to the back door of the car and unlocked it with his key. Swung it wide.
Allie felt the fresh air hit her face. The freedom of the real world. Life was going on all around her. Other people were having average mornings.
He took hold of her arm and dragged her three steps from the car to the ladies’ room door, which he held open. He peered inside, as if to assure himself there was no window. No other exit. He stopped her before she stepped inside, his voice a deep growl in her ear.
“I’ll be inches from this door. Inches. And don’t lock it.”
He gave her a strong push and closed the ladies’ room door behind her.
With shaking hands, Allie used the toilet and washed up at the sink. She really did need to, especially now, when a flurry of activity was about to happen. For better or for worse, even if it resulted in the beating of a lifetime. Even if she didn’t survive. She had to try. She couldn’t just step back into the car and let him drive her to a life of utter, demoralizing slavery.
This might be her last chance.
She heard a bumping on the door, and jumped.
“Just a reminder,” he said. “That I’m . . . Right. Here.”
Allie walked to the door and touched it. It was encased in sheet metal. Heavy and huge. Probably because it opened onto the outside, and the gas station people didn’t want anyone breaking into it to sleep at night. Homeless people slept in gas station bathrooms, if they could. Allie had heard this somewhere. She couldn’t remember where. But she understood now. It made sense, suddenly, that so little shelter and comfort could seem appealing.
Maybe she should stay in here. Lock the door in spite of his directions. Wait it out.
No. He was a good actor. He’d tell the gas station mini-mart clerk that his runaway daughter was locked in the bathroom. Get the guy to open the door.
Allie felt the walls of her life close in around her.
She was going to try something. She had to try.
She heard his fingers tapping a rhythm on the other side of the door.
“Right. Here,” he said.
Good. He was right there. Right in the trajectory of this heavy, metal-encased door. Allie pulled back a step, holding the door handle, and threw all her weight, every ounce of her energy, into sending the door flying open. She felt it hit him. Heard an oof sound come from him. Then the door swung freely again, until it hit his legs where they lay on the concrete.
She burst out through the open space, her breath coming in ragged gasps. He was down. Down on his back, blood streaming from his nose. She had hit him cleanly in the face with that heavy door. Maybe even broken his nose. And there was a split on his forehead that was bleeding heavily, so he hopefully had a concussion.
Good.
She jumped over him.
She winced, expecting him to grab for her ankle. He didn’t. Or he missed. She didn’t know which one. Only that she was across him, and free.
She ran.
She sprinted around the station to the street, desperately looking back over her shoulder. Expecting him to be up, on his feet. Right there, gaining ground. Ready to grab her.
He wasn’t there. Not yet. Somehow he mu
st still have been down.
She ran past the mini-mart door, craning her neck to look inside. But she could see no one behind the counter. She couldn’t take a chance on that.
She looked behind her again. Still no giant.
She bolted for the street.
Traffic was light to nonexistent as Allie ran out into the middle of this business route section of Highway 1, desperately holding out her thumb.
The only car she could see coming was a shabby older white van with some kind of writing on the side. As it pulled closer, Allie could see an old woman behind the wheel, and, on the dashboard, a curled and sleeping cat.
This odd pair of travelers was looking like her one and only chance.
PART THREE
BEA
Chapter Seventeen
Kids Today—All Phone Scammers and Carjackers
“No!” Bea said out loud to the inside of the empty van. “No, no, no. I don’t pick up hitchhikers. I don’t know you, and it’s not safe.”
The girl was a good half block down, standing in the middle of the traffic lane. Bea was speaking in a normal tone of voice with the windows rolled up tight. So it was a set of comments made to herself, not so much to the hitchhiker in question. Which might explain why it had that nice forceful tone, like something she’d say in one of her imaginary confrontations. Bea hadn’t experienced one of those flights of fancy since leaving home. Life was changing. She was braver on the outside these days.
The girl looked impossibly young to be standing out in the road by herself. Like a child. A little girl. Which probably meant she was halfway through high school. The older Bea got the younger these kids appeared.
This one . . . there was something wrong with her. She couldn’t hold still. The closer Bea drove to her, the more she could see the child’s unnatural agitation. The girl was jumping around. Looking over her shoulder. Waving the arm that held out the offending thumb—the one that presumed Bea’s precious van could be hailed like a taxicab. Waving it wildly, as though Bea would somehow not notice it without all the theatrics.
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