Deliver Her: A Novel

by Patricia Perry Donovan

  Carl rubbed his head, wincing when he made contact with the bump. There were definitely aspects of this impetuous young teen he hadn’t seen during the ride up, a generous and compassionate side. Why she would lie to Mia was perplexing. Then again, Alex was sixteen, her brain years from full development.

  Suddenly, the faint whine of a siren interrupted Carl’s thoughts.

  Iris leaned over the steering wheel. “Folks, am I seeing things?”

  ALEX

  “Colebrook, coming up in about fifteen miles,” the bus driver bellowed.

  Inside the overheated bus, condensation clouded Alex’s window. She traced a large heart, animating its exterior with lines, like legs on a caterpillar. Very Keith Haring, she thought, sitting back to admire her work.

  See, Mia? You’re not the only artist in the world.

  Angered, she wiped out the entire image with her arm. To think she had put her faith in the spoiled painter with the amazing studio, who, judging from the aromatic cloud that engulfed Alex, wasn’t above partaking in some serious ganja herself.

  The girl’s gray eyes had glittered with suspicion (or something else) while she grilled Alex at the door. Once Mia determined she wasn’t an ax murderer, she let Alex into the most amazing art studio ever—all glass walls and smooth wood, a sick wood-burning stove, a pair of easels with some seriously good paintings on them, not that Alex really knew anything about art.

  Alex wriggled on the bus seat. In hindsight, lying to Mia hadn’t been cool. She hated when her friends did that to her. But Mia deserved it for double-crossing her, especially after Alex had sat on the floor in front of that stove and poured her heart out.

  Mia had nodded sympathetically the entire time, giving Alex dry clothes and tea and granola—even handing her a folded twenty for bus fare, then offering to drive her to the bus depot.

  She should have suspected something when she saw that Mia’s friend’s house had a name: Hope Haven. Where Alex came from, only rich people out near the country club gave their houses fancy names. There was nothing fancy about Hope Haven. She and Mia had slipped inside without even knocking. (“I spend a lot of time here,” Mia had said at Alex’s questioning stare.)

  The bus’s heat was making her sleepy. She curled up on the seat, feeling mostly satisfied with herself and with all of her actions today, and hoping Cass was, too. After all the drama, she was more than ready to be on her own for a while.

  Funny, Alex mused, being on her own was kind of what her mother had been suggesting all along.

  She must have dozed off, because when she next opened her eyes, the bus had slowed. Colebrook, she thought giddily, gathering her bag and preparing to move to the front of the bus so she would be the first to exit. That’s when the grumbling of her fellow passengers began to register.

  “Sorry, folks,” the driver said. “Unscheduled stop. Nothing I can do about it.”

  Alex rubbed at her fogged window, seeing nothing but darkness. Sleet still drummed the bus roof. Would the weather mess with her plans again? The bus wheezed to a halt, and the driver threw the lever to open the door. Who could possibly be boarding the bus in the middle of nowhere? Alex wondered.

  A second later, her question was answered when a uniformed officer stepped aboard, his bulky frame filling the aisle, his park ranger hat grazing the bus ceiling.

  “Evening, everyone. Sorry to disturb your journey.” The trooper rested his hands on his belt like a cowboy. “Everyone take your seats, please. This won’t take long, if everybody cooperates.”

  MEG

  In the passenger seat, Jacob fought sleep, his chin bobbing toward his chest until the last second when he would jerk his head back and shake it. He finally lost the battle as they crossed the border into New Hampshire, his uneven snores now punctuating the silent ride. Meg’s phone slipped off his lap onto the seat.

  Whatever he’d taken that morning must be wearing off, she thought, sliding her phone closer and wondering what a drug test would turn up in Jacob’s system. Would the results match what he’d admitted to?

  She wished she had jotted down the texts Carl had relayed to her. One had been to Shana, obviously; the other to Evan, most likely. It saddened Meg but didn’t surprise her that Alex reached out to them and not to her parents during her brief window with a phone at the bus depot. Certainly if Alex had reached out to Melissa, Meg would know by now.

  When her own phone finally lit up with a text, Meg grabbed it. She rested it on the wheel and attempted to read it, swaying into the empty left lane in the process. The motion roused Jacob.

  “Hey, what . . . ?” He grabbed the phone.

  “There’s a message. Read it to me.”

  “Hold on. It’s from Shana.” He read haltingly:

  OMG. ALEX TEXTED ME. SO SCARED. DON’T KNOW WHAT SHE MEANS.

  “How could Shana not know about Happy Corner?” Jacob asked once he finished reading. “They were all friends.”

  “Obviously not as close as we thought. This was clearly Alex and Cass’s thing. Tell her she doesn’t need to worry.”

  As Jacob texted a reply to Shana, Meg thought again of her daughter’s second text. “Jacob, what was it Alex said to Evan again?”

  “Something about not being able to help him anymore.”

  Meg rubbed her lower lip. “You know, hearing that one again, it sounds kind of final.”

  “It’s not, Meg. It’s actually good. She’s just trying to shake this guy once and for all.”

  “I hope so.”

  Meg shifted into the right lane for the White Mountains turnoff, thinking of her daughter alone on a bus, wishing she could be as certain as Carl Alden and Jacob that Alex was within their reach.

  CARL

  The siren’s wail grew louder. As the gap narrowed between their car and the cluster of taillights up ahead, Carl made out a bus parked on the shoulder, a clutch of SUVs angled beside it. Strategically placed flares framed the coach; its interior glowed softly, silhouetting some standing passengers.

  “Do you see Alex?” Iris asked as she pulled over.

  “What if she’s not on it?” Mia asked.

  Carl jumped out and jogged to the coach, its silver exterior slick with sleet. Before he reached the bus, Mia had caught up with him, matching his long strides.

  ALEX

  At the sight of the trooper, Alex crouched down in front of her seat, pulling her bag with her, jackhammers reactivated and pounding double time. It’s not fair. They couldn’t do this to her now, not after she’d come this far, not when she was so close to Rainmaker she could taste it.

  “Just a quick search, folks. Stay right where you are. Appreciate your cooperation.”

  The trooper’s voice was closer now. Shit. Squeezed into the small space, Alex wished it were possible to crawl under the seats to the front of the bus, then sneak off. But the footrest dug into her shin in this position, blocking any access. Squatting, she pulled the hood of Mia’s sweatshirt over her head to disguise herself and inched closer to the aisle, leaning out just far enough to glimpse the trooper’s regulation boots—massive, like monsters’ hooves—a few seats away before scooting back again and throwing herself into her seat, curled toward the window and feigning sleep.

  Around her, disgruntled passengers continued their complaining.

  “How long’s this going to take?” a man called out. “We already left Lincoln late.”

  “Relax, folks. We’ll have you on your way in no time.”

  “They must be looking for that missing girl,” a woman said. (The stinky salad one?)

  “I heard she just walked away from those poor people,” a man answered.

  Alex’s jaw dropped in indignation. WTF? I did not, she mouthed to the bus’s steamy window. It took everything she had not to jump up and defend herself to her fellow passengers—to describe the slam of the moose, the sight of the unresponsive driver’s head slumped over the pearl moon of air bag, the deadweight of Mom Haircut’s arm dropping onto Alex’s knee l
ike a zombie’s. What would they do if they woke up next to a woman with a lap full of glass, sleet pouring in through a jagged, gaping hole in their roof?

  She doubted any of them would have had the presence of mind to grab Cass’s scarf as she had. Alex was certain Cass was watching over her. It was the only explanation for the car door that miraculously opened in spite of the child locks, and for everything that came after as Alex crawled around the muddy ground behind the car paralyzed with fear, inhaling the faint odor of smoke, practically sobbing when she finally felt the bumpy Braille of tire tracks, following the path on all fours to the bottom of the hill, Cass’s scarf trailing on the ground and nearly tripping her in the process.

  After a few tries, Alex had given up on scaling the hill. It would serve her parents right if they discovered her frozen body in the woods, she thought, slipping to the bottom of the slope. That would be cosmic retribution.

  So it could only have been Cass who yanked Alex back to her miserable reality, willing her to try again, to inch her butt up the hill, who inspired Alex to loop her scarf around the metal barrier, the shiny wrap a pomegranate kiss against infinite gray.

  Had her fellow bus passengers been present in that frosted landscape, they might have understood how it had wounded Alex’s soul to part with her best friend’s scarf, to leave it billowing in the wind, despite the higher purpose it now served.

  They would not have questioned the decision Alex made at that moment—when she glanced back at the violet marker one final time—to fulfill the promise she and Cass had made the day they struck the Annie set. Despite her vow after losing Cass, Alex had taken all the events of today as signs Cass wanted her to continue on the journey alone. From that point on, every slippery step along the Kancamagus, every choice made over the course of the day, moved her closer to Happy Corner.

  Cass would have been proud, Alex thought, head pressed against the bus window.

  The trooper’s boots sounded about a seat away now. Alex took another deep breath, wishing she could inhale herself into invisibility, pulling the sweatshirt hood farther over her face.

  Up front, the bus door wheezed open again.

  The monster feet stopped in their tracks. “Sir, please stay back. No one is authorized to come aboard. Young lady, that means you, too.” The boots clomped toward the front of the bus.

  Alex strained to listen.

  “We have this under control, sir. I need to ask you to wait outside.”

  Alex thanked the universe for the interference, which gave her time to consider other options. If she could somehow make it outside, she could slip into one of the giant luggage bins below and still get to Colebrook.

  Clomp, clomp, clomp. The monster boots marched down the aisle again, now double time as another pair of feet joined the trooper’s. In spite of her fear, Alex’s curiosity got the better of her. Still curled in a ball, she shifted in her seat, peeking out the tiniest, tiniest bit to see the boots, sounding so close now Alex thought she could reach out and touch them.

  That is, if Alex had wanted anything to do with the brown work boots she’d spent most of the day trying to escape—boots now so scuffed and filthy they barely resembled the polished pair that showed up unannounced in her Riverport bedroom this morning.

  She might have convinced herself they belonged to another disgruntled passenger, were it not for the gratingly familiar voice booming above her head:

  “With all due respect, Mendham, Alex Carmody was my responsibility. I’d like to be the one to find her.”

  REUNION

  ALEX

  Fists balled, Alex watched the bus to Colebrook ease back onto the highway without her, driving away with her dream. She blew out her lower lip in frustration. Was this her destiny, to be forever in this man’s backseat, the ritual click of child locks her soundtrack? There had been a moment when she thought she might finally be free of Camo Man, when the troopers refused to let him take her. But then he started waving that paper he had, and all the adults got on the phone. The next thing Alex knew, she was back in the car with him. Evidently her parents were cool (cool!) with Camo Man taking her overnight.

  Worse, now that her captor was a passenger, he was free to twist around and interrogate Alex for the entire ride. Right now, she didn’t feel like talking to anybody—not to him, to her parents and definitely not to two-faced Mia, her backseat companion for this leg of her joyride. She shifted to face the window.

  “I was so worried, Alex,” Mia said. “Why did you leave? I wanted to help.”

  Help me right into a homeless shelter, Alex thought to herself. She didn’t answer.

  At the next traffic light, they rounded a jug handle and dropped back onto Route 3 South, every mile marker putting more distance between Alex and Happy Corner. She squeezed her eyes tight against the disappointment, wishing she’d just stayed in Camo Man’s backseat after the accident and perished from hypothermia.

  I’m so sorry, Cass. I tried. I really tried. She’d been that close. Mia, the guardian angel Cass placed in her path, turned out to have a set of horns buried in her black curls. To be fair, Cass was fairly new at navigating from beyond; in her place, Alex might also have been fooled. But to have bared her soul to Mia in the studio only to have the girl turn on her? It cut Alex deeply.

  “You’re fucked up, Mia. You know that?” she said, breaking her silence. “Did you get some sick thrill from tricking me?” Alex fought an urge to lean over and shove Mia.

  Mia’s eyes rounded. “I wasn’t trying to trick you. I just thought Ellen would be a good person to talk to about your plan.”

  “You sold me out.” Alex withdrew to her side of the car. “I told you how badly I needed to go. You’re a liar.”

  “I’m a liar? How about you, Miss I Got Lost in the Woods Hiking?”

  Alex stared out the window.

  “How could you not tell me about the accident? About those people trapped in the car?”

  Alex twirled her braid double time. “I told the guys in the truck. They called in the accident. They were sending help. I heard them.”

  “That is true, Mia,” Camo Man said.

  “Why are you defending her? She left you there. That was so not cool.”

  “I don’t need anyone to defend me,” Alex said. “I know what I did.”

  “Yeah, and so do a million other people. Pretty much the entire state of New Hampshire was looking for you, and you forgot to tell me? No wonder your parents hired him.” Mia jerked her thumb toward the front seat.

  “That’s so not fair. My mom has this crazy idea I’m some kind of pillhead, but I’m not.” She faced Mia. “And what about you? You’re not so innocent. Your precious studio reeked this afternoon. What was it? Sweet Trainwreck? Purple Haze?” Alex reveled in the death look Mia’s mother shot her over the seat.

  “You know what? I’m sorry I ever let you in.” Mia crossed her arms.

  “Mia, that’s enough. She’s just a child,” Iris said.

  Child? Alex’s skin prickled at the word. Would a child have made it this far by herself today, in these conditions?

  “Well, somebody should tell ‘the child’ what happened, Mom.” Mia pulled herself toward Carl’s headrest. “Go ahead, Mr. Alden. Tell her about your partner.”

  He stared straight ahead. “Now’s not the time.”

  Alex sat up. “The time for what? Tell me.”

  “That woman in the car with you had to have surgery,” Mia said, facing her. “She could have died, Alex. Maybe if you’d done something besides tying a ribbon around a tree like some lame seventies song, she’d be in better shape.”

  “I did do something. I told those guys the second I got in the truck. They swore—”

  “It’s all right, Alex,” Camo Man said. He cleared his throat.

  Was he going to cry? Of course, he must have had his own horrible moment of seeing his partner injured, just as Alex had. “How is she?”

  “She’s resting and getting her strength back after
the surgery,” he continued. “Her mother and little girl will be up tomorrow.”

  Jamie. Alex’s heart tightened at the recollection of the fatherless little girl from Murphy’s wallet, with her bright blue glasses, hair falling over the puppy in her lap. What if the absolute worst happened and Mom Haircut did die? Jamie was practically a baby, only a little older than Jack. Alex scrunched her eyes against the image of her brother beside an imagined hospital bed, their mom pale and bandaged and wrapped in a tangle of tubes, lines on the monitor beside her going horizontal. Alex would never, ever want Jack to go through that.

  Was this her fault? Could she have done more? She couldn’t bear the weight of another horrendous tragedy. Alex rewound the scene, freeze-framing the moose’s drunken lurch, the dead drop of Mom Haircut’s arm onto her lap. From nowhere, Alex heard herself sob. “I didn’t want to leave them there. You don’t know what it was like.”

  “I’m sure it was terrifying,” said Camo Man, reaching over the seat to pat her arm. Alex noticed a nasty, swollen bruise over his eye.

  “I thought I was going to die. How could this be happening again?” The images whirled and spun, like she’d applied the dream feature in iMovie. Only now it wasn’t Mom Haircut’s hand in her lap but Cass’s finger in her face, not Camo Man slumped over the wheel but Logan, Shana whimpering beside him. Another sob escaped.

  “What does she mean, ‘again’?” Mia’s voice sounded far away. It was joined by the even more distant sound of a phone ringing. It had to be her parents again. She couldn’t talk then. Or now.

  “Alex, it’s your family.”

  “I told you. I can’t. Tell my mom I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your mom, Alex.” Camo Man held the phone over the seat. “It’s your brother. Jack wants to talk to you.”

  MEG

  With the possible exceptions of her children’s wondrous births, nothing eclipsed the joy that had filled Meg when Jacob turned to her, eyes brimming, to say Alex was safe. At once, she was whole again. Somehow she’d managed to ease his truck into the shoulder and take her phone from him, its surface slick with his tears, making Carl say the words again.