The sense of relief Wendy felt when she saw Emily get out of the deputy’s patrol car was written all over her face. She’d only been waiting about fifteen minutes, but it must have felt like an agonizing eternity. The deputy sped off and Emily put the license plates back on the truck.
“You wanna drive,” Wendy offered.
“No. You’re doing fine. Let’s just get my father home.”
On the ride home, Wendy wanted to know every detail of the encounter she had just missed. Emily tried in vain to change the subject.
“Who were those guys?”
“I didn’t ask, and you don’t want to know.”
“You were just making up that stuff about them planning to kill the deputy and me, right?”
Emily was stone faced. Wendy started shaking.
“Look, can’t we just talk about the prom?” Emily asked.
That was a clear signal to Wendy to let it drop.
“Okay. It won’t be as much fun if you’re not there, you know.”
“The last date I went on with Danny didn’t end very well.”
“Oh, do tell,” she pried. “What happened?”
“Not what you think.”
“What then? Was he too grabby?” Emily laughed. “Not grabby enough, then?”
“No, nothing like that. In a word, mercenaries.”
“Let me get this straight, Em. Anyone else goes out and they’re mainly worried about whether to kiss on the first date. But you, you’re watching out of the corner of your eye the whole time for mercenaries?”
“That’s my life in a nutshell,” she replied, with the slightest wistful edge in her voice.
This was really a serious question for her. She was running every risk, after all, living on her own out in the open while her family was in hiding, in order to have a normal life, to go to proms and do all that kind of stuff. But anytime ordinary life beckoned she held back, afraid for her friends’ safety.
“I meant it last night. I wouldn’t go with anyone else. I just don’t know if I can risk going at all.”
“What are you gonna say to Danny?”
“I wish I didn’t have to say anything. Does he really have to ask?”
It was too late to call Michael by the time she finally got home, even though Emily desperately wanted to talk over the day’s events with him. It would have to wait until tomorrow evening.
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Chapter 10
Test Results
The next day, Monday, was overshadowed by Dr. Tarleton’s message. It was probably harmless, but Emily couldn’t help exploring the darkest corners of her imagination. She left for school early on the dirt bike to avoid an uncomfortable conversation with Danny. He would have to take the bus this morning. There would be time to talk with him later.
It was early enough to swing by the postal store to check her mailbox. She hadn’t been in several days. There were two rather official looking letters, one from the university in Charlottesville informing her that she had been accepted into the College of Arts and Sciences. They were offering her a scholarship that would cover tuition and a small stipend for living expenses. The fact they so obviously wanted her to come was pleasantly flattering, even though the financial offer meant nothing, given her circumstances.
The second letter was from the Naval Academy, with more guarded information. It invited her to Annapolis to meet with the Director of Admissions and his staff on Friday afternoon, but only made vague remarks about her application being under consideration. She didn’t know for certain, but this seemed a little outside of ordinary procedures.
When she pulled into the high school parking lot, Wendy was just arriving. She hurried to catch up to her on the front steps.
“Wendy, about what happened yesterday,” she began.
“I know, mum’s the word. Another one of our little secrets.”
“It’s just that those people probably don’t know where we live. But if it becomes the talk of the school, and then the town, they’ll figure it out pretty quickly.”
“Okay, okay. I get it.”
In morning PE, it was hard not to notice the quandary Melanie found herself in. She obviously had to tell Amanda about Wayne sooner or later. There was no way the news would be well received. Perhaps even more perplexing was the problem posed by Emily herself. As one of Wayne’s closest friends, Melanie was going to have to craft some sort of relationship with her. But that was going to entail saying something about the pictures Amanda took that day in the locker room. She sat with Amanda and her friends at lunch, obviously not ready to come out yet.
At Wayne’s table, the talk was all about the prom. Who was going with whom, what they were going to wear, to limo or not, plans for afterwards, and so on.
“She’s keeping it secret? What, is she ashamed of you or something?” Wendy asked, pointedly.
“Probably doesn’t want to be seen with so many short people,” Billy observed.
“Amanda’s not any taller than we are.”
“C’mon, guys,” Wayne pleaded. “Cut her a little slack, okay? Isn’t that like our motto: slack for slackers?”
“I’d be happier with slack for posers,” Emily proposed.
From where she sat, she could see Amanda’s table. Melanie wasn’t paying any attention to the conversation over there. She looked down at her tray disinterestedly, and occasionally cast a furtive glance in Wayne’s direction.
Danny fidgeted quietly with his lunch this whole time. The weight of his unasked question hung in the air. Everyone felt it, and scrupulously avoided any remarks that might put him on the spot. The entire conversation was torturing him. He could keep quiet only so long.
“You doing anything after school, Em,” he asked, tentatively.
“I’ve got a doctor’s appointment,” she said without thinking, until she noticed Wendy staring at her significantly. “Uhh… but if you don’t mind sitting in her waiting room for a few minutes, I’m free after that.”
“Great,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”
“We’re on the bike today. And we’ll have to avoid the sheriff, ‘cuz I only brought the one helmet.”
Danny was beaming at the thought. Everyone else just looked relieved.
Lunch was just ending and the whole room funneled toward two sets of double doors opening onto the main hallway. Wendy tugged on Emily’s sleeve to get her to lag behind. She tipped her head toward Melanie, across the room, who was very casually making her way over to Wayne’s side of the crush. They were like two trees towering over the crowd of kids. As she passed him, she touched his shoulder with an air of the surreptitious, and let it linger a moment before finding Amanda and heading out through the doors.
After the last bell, Emily stood under the front portico to wait for Danny. His last class was English, which meant he would be coming from the far end of the building. She sat on the railing at the top of the steps to wait. From that vantage she could see the whole parking lot. Melanie and Amanda were off to one side having what looked to be an intense conversation. Wendy, Billy and Wayne were walking through the lot to the bus line, laughing and talking as they went.
Some sort of commotion flared up at the faculty end of the lot. Miss Park was standing with a man in dark glasses who yelled and gesticulated furiously. Emily’s attention was fully engaged. Billy and Wayne had noticed, too, and were moving in that direction. When he grabbed her arm, she yelped in pain, and then everyone in front of the school was looking. Emily slid off the railing and started walking toward them, too.
The man raised his right hand as if to strike her. She turned away in anticipation. Before he could move his arm, Wayne crashed into him shoulder first, knocking him back through the parked cars. Billy and Wendy tried to pull Miss Park away, but she resisted. Wayne turned to look at their noise just as the man lunged at him with a knife no one had noticed before. Wendy shrieked a warning and Wayne turned just as the knife stuck into the left side of his chest, just bel
ow the collarbone.
Emily was now running as fast as she could, with Melanie right behind her crying out “Oh my God!” Wayne gathered himself in time to deliver a short, hard punch to his assailant’s chest, driving him to the pavement a few feet away. Then Melanie was there, pulling him out of harm’s way.
“Take him inside to the nurse. Call 911,” Emily barked out as she took up a position between them and the man on the ground.
“Let me go,” Miss Park shrieked at Billy and Wendy.
A dark van pulled up along the outside curb of the parking lot and two men in dark clothes got out. The man on the ground had by now gathered himself and surged up at Emily, knife in hand. In the narrow space between the parked cars she slid back from the lunging blade, then stepped forward, seizing his hand from above with both of hers. When she pulled his wrist up sharply, a loud crack was audible and he howled in pain. She kicked him hard in the center of his chest, twisted him around by his broken wrist, slashed his hip with the blade she wouldn’t let him drop, then forced him to stab himself in the ass. She released his wrist as she stepped down on the back of his calf forcing him to his knees. A quick strike with the base of her palm to his ear and he fell to the ground with a groan.
As soon as her foot struck his chest, she knew there was something false about the entire scene. She glared over her shoulder at Miss Park. Wendy was stunned by what she saw in Emily’s face at that moment. She let go of Miss Park and the two of them just stood staring.
One of the two men from the van moved to pull the man on the ground back to the van. But the second man tried to grab Emily. It was all beginning to feel irritatingly familiar. She blocked his outstretched right arm, entwining hers over, under and around his, effectively twisting him around. She kicked through the side of his right knee. It cracked with a sickening sound. As he crumpled to the ground she bounced his head off the side of one of the parked cars. He slid to the ground barely conscious. She turned her back on him. Other things now claimed her attention.
“Let’s go find Wayne.”
“Em, shouldn’t we do something about these men?” Wendy asked. “You know, for when the cops get here?”
“Forget about them. Miss Park can keep an eye on ‘em, if she wants,” she said with a dark look in her eye.
“Who were those guys,” Wendy asked, as they hurried back into the school.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Whaddya mean it doesn’t matter?”
“The whole thing was a setup. Let’s ask Wayne what he thinks.”
Wendy was dumbfounded. What could Wayne know about anything? They found him in the nurse’s office. She had just finished wrapping his wound, which didn’t look as grave as at first. Reassuringly, she said the EMT’s would be there any moment. Melanie sat on a chair next to the gurney holding his hand. She had obviously been crying a few minutes earlier, but was breathing easier now.
“Hey big guy, how’re you holding up?”
“I’m okay, Em. Did you settle that guy?”
“They’re done.”
“Wait, there were more of ‘em? I thought it was just Miss Park’s boyfriend, or whatever he is.”
“Yeah, her supposedly abusive boyfriend. You knew he was all wrong after you hit him, didn’t you?”
“He had on some kind of padded shell, you know, like body armor under his jacket. So probably not a domestic dispute, huh?”
“Nope. It was a set up,” Emily said, clearly disgusted.
“What the hell is going on,” Melanie asked, suddenly feeling rather disoriented.
“Miss Park had to know, right?” Wendy suggested tentatively.
Danny poked his head into the room. He’d missed the events in the parking lot and only just figured out where they all were.
“Hey, Wayne, what the hell happened, man?” he asked.
“Just another day at the office,” he said with a chuckle.
“Hi, Melanie. You gonna take care of the big guy?”
“Hi, Danny. Yeah, I’ll keep him out of any more trouble at least.” She was relieved finally to be included in the conversation.
“C’mon, Danny. You still coming with me,” Emily asked. Her other errands now seemed to take on a new significance. “Melanie, thanks for looking after him. It was good you were right there,” she added with a smile.
“You’re leaving?” Wendy asked incredulously.
“There’s nothing more to do here.”
“What about the police. They may have questions.”
“What good can they do now?” Emily replied, not about to brook any delay. “Danny, you coming or staying?”
“Is your life usually this eventful?” Melanie whispered in Wayne’s ear as they left.
It was a short ride over to Goshen. She’d never had Danny with her on the bike before. His arms felt good holding on to her, as the wind whipped all around them. She made him wear the helmet, and she wore a large pair of “fashion” sunglasses Wendy gave her. The wind wearied her eyes, but, all in all, she was happy with the arrangement.
Dr. Tarleton’s office occupied the end unit in a little strip mall on the far side of town. The smoke plume could be seen from a few blocks away. A fire truck took up most of the front parking lot, one last hose still directed at the front door. But the fire seemed mainly to be out. Sheriff’s cars blocked the street as they pulled up. She had questions, but didn’t want to approach the deputies. Danny recognized one of the firemen resting on the back of the truck as a friend of his dad.
“Hey, Uncle Bill.”
“Danny? What are you up to?”
“Just running an errand with a friend,” he said gesturing to Emily a few feet away.
Introductions were in order. The guys on the truck looked her up and down. They evidently approved.
“That’s the doctor’s office, isn’t it,” she asked innocently. “What happened?”
“Don’t know yet. Gas leak, chemicals, electrical, it’ll be a day or two before they know for sure. Whatever it was, I don’t think it was an accident. The place looked like it had been trashed before it burned.”
“Anybody hurt?” she pressed on, trying to preserve the illusion of a merely casual interest.
“There was a body. Burned pretty bad,” he said glumly.
“Was it the doctor?”
“Don’t know. A woman, I think, but unrecognizable.”
Emily turned away just as one of the deputies came to warn them off.
“C’mon, Danny. I’ll take you home.”
~~~~~~~
On the ride back to Warm Springs bewilderment overtook Danny. Events were swirling around Emily, and he couldn’t quite get his bearings. He’d been working up the courage to ask her to the prom for the last few weeks. Something always seemed to come up to get in his way, and this afternoon was no different. He was weighing the probabilities as they pulled up in front of his house.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Em, and this probably isn’t the best moment,” he said, trying to work his way around to it.
“Probably not,” she said. “But I’ve put you off for so long, you might as well just blunder ahead with it.”
Danny cleared his throat and looked very resolutely at his shoes. He shuffled from side to side. Finally he raised his watery eyes to her and started stammering out unintelligible syllables. She smiled at him.
“Something about the prom, then,” she offered, trying to help him out.
“Yeah. You knew, then?” he sighed. She nodded. “So what do you think, you want to go with me?”
“Well, who the hell else would I go with,” she said cheerily. “It’s just that I’m kinda worried, you know?”
“About what? It’s just a dance.”
“What if there’s an incident like today at the prom. People could get hurt.”
“You mean like our last date?”
“Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”
“So, then it’s no?”
“Why do
n’t you let me think about it for a little while. But don’t worry. I’m not waiting for a better offer.”
Danny was mollified by this conversation. At least he didn’t have to worry about how to ask her anymore. And he had to admit she had a point. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed by the suspense that he still labored under. It would be hard to explain it to his mom, who was daily probing him on this point. Obviously he couldn’t go into all the details with her. This was going to take some finesse.
Emily went off to find a public computer terminal. Whatever else might happen, she needed to speak with Michael, and her mom.
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Chapter 11
The Big News
“Stuff is definitely happening there. Two incidents in two days,” Michael said into the phone. “Are you okay?”
“You know me. I can take care of myself. I think I’m gonna have to tell my mom about some of it, though. I hope it doesn’t freak her out.”
“You say the teacher’s name is Park? Hanna Park?”
“Yeah. She just started a few weeks ago. She’s been nice to me. But now I wonder if she was too nice.”
“I don’t recognize the name. I’ll make some inquiries. She looks Asian, you say?”
“Yeah, except for the blonde hair.”
“Just a guess, but she may be part of a North Korean hit squad. It’d be strange for them not to conceal it better, but Park could simply be a Korean name.” Michael thought for a moment. “If I’m right about that, you may have bought us a little time today. A couple of broken limbs could put a substantial crimp in their operation, since they don’t have the resources to replace those guys right away.”
“What about the fire at my doctor’s office?”
“That’s more worrisome, I think. The attack at the school may just have been to see how easy it’d be to grab you. But the doctor’s office sounds like someone’s hunting you in a more systematic way. It may not be the same team”
“I think I need to talk to my mom now, Michael.”
“One last thing, some welcome news, I hope. We’ll be home in Charlottesville late on Friday. Ethan and Jesse will be in place on Wednesday. Stay safe until then.”
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