by Sara Hammel
I perked up.
“Justine? Justine!”
Justine had dropped her racket, and Celia was sprinting to get to her, but I was already there. I couldn’t get into position in time so I dove, and when the little girl crumpled, she at least found a soft landing on top of me. It killed my elbow, but I didn’t care.
“What’s wrong?” Celia shouted when she got to us.
I didn’t move, and she knelt and gently maneuvered Justine, who was half on me, half off, until she was lying flat on the ground. Justine started jerking, her eyes open but empty, as if she was not really with us, and Celia put her hand under Justine’s head to stop it from knocking on the court surface. She took stock, quickly realizing there was no one around. We were alone on Court 9. Everyone was at snack time, so no one could see or hear us. Celia looked at me, met my eyes, and told me what to do.
“Chelsea,” she said. “Go get your mom. Go get her. Run as fast as you can. Go!”
And I did. I ran faster than I’d ever run before, my hair blowing behind me, my mind cleared of everything except my task. I made it across the courts in about two seconds flat, but I didn’t run to the lobby toward my mom. Instead, I ran straight back to the pool. Nicholas could save Justine. I knew it. It took me only another few seconds to get there; it was like I was possessed by the soul of a cheetah. I stopped at the plate-glass window in the pool lobby, banging and hopping up and down to get Nicholas’s attention because I couldn’t open that heavy revolving door by myself. It took a few seconds, but Nicholas caught sight of me and looked at me questioningly at first; then panic filled his eyes.
Good old Nicholas. He immediately knew something was wrong. He forced open the revolving door and shouted into the echoey hallway, “What is it? What’s wrong, Chelsea?”
I ran to the mouth of the hallway and when he saw me waiting for him, he gave one quick nod, dashed back through the door, shouted something to Harmony, whipped out the first-aid kit, and joined me in the hallway.
“Where?” Nicholas asked, and he took off after me as I led him to the tennis courts.
“Thank God,” Celia cried when we arrived. She was still cradling Justine’s head, hunched over, like she hadn’t moved an inch since I left them.
Nicholas dropped to the ground, shoeless, his bare knees on the hot court, and assessed Justine’s condition. He brought the ever-present scent of coconut oil with him. “How long has she been seizing?”
I stayed back, giving them room, wishing I could take Justine’s pain away.
“About three minutes,” Celia said, checking her watch. “We need an ambulance.”
“Harmony called 911,” Nicholas said. “In the meantime, the best thing we can do is keep her from hurting herself and let it pass. She’s epileptic?”
“No, no. She’s not.” Celia shook her head, her porcelain complexion looking paler than usual. “Nothing was reported on her health form.”
Justine arched her back, and I thought she’d snap in half. She flung her head down on Celia’s hand. “It seems to be getting worse,” Celia said. “She’s burning up.”
Nicholas, who’d done junior EMS training when he went for his lifeguard certificate, observed, “This seizure may be a symptom of something else.” His jaw was clenched. “Where’s that ambulance?”
It was torture. Then, in another minute, it appeared Justine was getting better. The twitching slowed down. But then, suddenly, she went limp. Celia slipped her hand out from under Justine’s head, massaging her scraped knuckles.
“She’s not breathing,” Nicholas said sharply, gently tilting Justine’s head and commencing CPR. I heard distant sirens as Nicholas kept pumping, breathing, counting. He took a quick break to listen for breath, and we saw her chest heave on its own once, twice, three times. But she was still unconscious. He shook his head. “There’s no time to waste.”
The sirens were getting louder, but we’d still have to wait for the paramedics to navigate through the club and then run across four tennis courts. Nicholas scooped up Justine, held her tight, and took off running in the smoothest gait he could manage. He was superhuman then, taking all forty pounds of that girl out the back way, behind the courts, toward the parking lot, and Celia saw what he was up to and sprinted ahead to hold the net curtain open so he could slip out to meet the paramedics. I stayed out of the way after that. I walked pensively back to the club, praying for Justine. I didn’t even see until I was one court away that everyone was lined up on the patio, having watched the drama unfold. My mom hugged me.
“Good girl,” she said. “You’re a hero, you know that? You did everything right. I’m so proud of you.”
My heart swelled with optimism, even as I worried for Justine. But something told me we’d saved her. Celia came back after the ambulance had screeched away with Justine and Nicholas on board. Nicky had refused to let Justine go by herself, leaving Harmony to cover the pool.
We later learned Justine had been felled by an aggressive case of meningitis, and that her life had very possibly been saved by the minutes Nicholas gained for her by carrying her to the ambulance. He was a hero.
I frankly thought he deserved all the congratulations, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He kept saying to everyone, “If Chelsea hadn’t been there … If Chelsea hadn’t come to me for help…” And then he’d shudder at the thought. Everyone loved Justine, and that turned out to be a good day because she survived.
After
Lisa Denessen, who was staffing the front desk on her own while Evie and I kept an eye on her, jabbed her index finger toward the back of the club where my mom had gone with her exercise ball.
“I wouldn’t bother Beth during her workout,” Lisa warned Detective Ashlock.
I’d left Mom only a few minutes ago on the aerobics-floor-slash-basketball-court huffing and puffing away with abs and thigh exercises. Detective Ashlock thanked Lisa and took off to find my mom anyway. Evie and I pretended to be interested in a member walking through the door, but thirty seconds later we fell in behind the detective.
When we got to the aerobics floor, which was directly across from the pool lobby, I could hear my mom’s voice behind the privacy curtain Gene had put up so members could jump around during exercise classes without being watched. This was too easy. Evie and I stood outside the curtain, where Mom and Ashlock couldn’t see us, but we could hear them. I had to admit I had the beginnings of a tight little knot in my tummy that was threatening to grow out of control if I didn’t keep calm. This was my mom, after all, and I was worried sick for her. I happened to know she’d left out some pretty important details in her chats with Ashlock thus far, and I suspected he might catch her out today. He’d show no mercy if he discovered she’d lied to him. Not surprisingly, my mom started off on the defensive.
“I gave you a statement on the day it happened, Detective,” she said. “Why do you feel the need to grill me again?” You had to hand it to my mom. She had some nerve copping a ’tude with such an important guy.
“Perjury is a felony,” Ashlock informed my mother. She started to protest but he broke in and said, “Let me stop you there. Lying by omission is still lying.”
“Fine, put me in jail,” my mom snapped. “But honestly, I assumed Lisa would put everything about what happened in her statement. Certain things aren’t my business.”
“Perhaps,” Ashlock admitted. “But it is my business. And no—I don’t believe Miss Denessen revealed everything she knows in her statement. I think you also left out some details about the night it happened. Call it a gut feeling.”
I felt a sharp pang of fear. Evie sensed it, and put her arm around me. I couldn’t calm myself, though. If anything ever happened to her … If she was taken from me …
I didn’t know anyone who would take someone like me on. Would I be sent to live with strangers again? Strangers who could do anything they wanted to me … again?
Evie whispered, “Your mom is innocent, Chels. That’s what matters. Nothing’s gonna happen t
o her, okay?”
Her words calmed me and reminded me of something very important: Ashlock was smart—he’d figure out soon enough that my mom wouldn’t hurt a fly. I let out a sigh, and with it some tension. My mom was quiet, mulling things over.
“Okay,” Ashlock prodded. “Let’s say you’re sticking by your story: you closed the club the night of the murder and saw nothing unusual. But did you hear anything unusual?”
“Yes,” my mom admitted softly.
It was about time. Evie ruffled my hair and whispered her support directly in my ear: “Don’t worry. She’s not going to get in any trouble. I promise.”
“I was supposed to close up the club,” Mom said, “but three hours before my shift was due to begin, Lisa called and begged me to let her take it, crying about how she needed money. I said no because I could use the paycheck. So I worked the shift. But Lisa stayed around, which was weird because she’d been there the entire day—she’d worked that morning in the fitness room, she’d done her exercise, gone for a swim, the whole nine yards.”
“When did she leave?”
Mom paused. I imagined her looking at the floor. “That’s just it,” she said. “I’m not sure Lisa ever left that night.”
Ashlock cleared his throat, probably to stall at this bombshell, but I wasn’t surprised. A lot of us now believed Lisa was still hiding something.
My mom continued. “Lisa had stayed at the club that night, even though I was on front desk duty and she had nothing to do. You know … it was dead summer. The place is like a tomb once the after-work crowd leaves.”
“And what time is that?”
“About nine,” she said. “I started my rounds about ten thirty. The receipts and all that junk was done, and the place was quiet. So I headed back to the front desk so I could lock the doors right at eleven.”
“But…”
“But,” she said, her voice growing softer, “when I walked back through the lobby, I heard yelling in the women’s locker room. I hadn’t seen anyone around, yet there were two voices in there. Whoever it was, was angry, and—it wasn’t like I was eavesdropping or anything—it was so quiet in the club that I could hear most of it.”
“Who was arguing in there, Beth?” Pause.
“I can’t be sure, but it sounded like Lisa and … Annabel.” My mom took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “They were screaming at each other. Annabel was angry, saying things like, ‘It’s you, I knew it was you.’ That kind of stuff. Then Lisa called her something horrible, and Annabel threatened to tell everyone about whatever Lisa had done, and to get her fired. Then Lisa said something like, ‘If you don’t want to believe me, that’s your problem. You’re a phony and everyone around here knows it.’”
I cringed. I hated to think Annabel had to hear those words only hours before she died. Shame on Lisa.
“Do you know what the fight was about?”
Mom replied, “I don’t know what started it, but Lisa was talking about Annabel stealing every boy she ever liked … Patrick … Goran … even Nicky, which of course is ridiculous.” She sighed and seemed to measure her words carefully for once. “I knew Lisa didn’t like Annabel,” she said slowly, “but they’re teenage girls. Competition comes with the territory. Lisa’s had a hard time in life. Things came easily to Annabel.”
“I’m not happy about you leaving this out of your statement. You’ve cost us valuable time,” Ashlock said sternly.
“I’m sorry about that,” Mom admitted. “It’s just that a part of me thought I’d imagined it. Like I said before, I didn’t see Annabel come into the club that night, and I even checked the membership card records, but she hadn’t swiped her card that day. Only Lisa was still around. She has her own key, so I knew she’d let herself out. The pool was pitch-dark when I left, and I never heard anyone go out there.”
At that point things got even worse. “It bothers me that you were one of the last people to be around this girl when she was alive, and then you lied about it. We might have to take another hard look at your movements,” Ashlock finished ominously.
My eyes widened. Evie turned to me and whispered soothingly, “It’s okay. Detective Ashlock is only covering his bases.”
When she smiled reassuringly, I almost felt better. But my emotions had been yo-yoing and I was scared again. A trickle of cold fear had been building up inside me, and I was starting to shake now. I was strong; oh, I could handle so much. But I got overwhelmed sometimes, and when someone messed with my mom it got to me. The club’s maintenance man, Roberto, walked by us and waved, a bunch of tools clanging on his tool belt. Then I saw a white rope slung over his shoulder. That did it. I had to get away, and I took off running as fast as I could. Evie didn’t even try to stop me, and instead went straight to my mom, pushing aside the privacy curtain as I took off.
“Beth! Beth, hurry. Something’s wrong with Chelsea. Hurry—”
In the distance I heard the grown-ups’ footsteps clunking after me and yells of What? What happened? Wait, Chelsea!
But I was already gone.
* * *
I guess one of them had called the reception desk after I took off, because when I made it to the front of the club, Gene was there to catch me. He was one of the only people at the club who knew my entire story, according to my mom. As much as the police had revealed to my mom, anyway. He was squatting, his arms open, his eyes tired, as they always were these days.
“Chelsea,” he sang. “Chelsea. Stop. It’s okay. Slow down…”
But I was crafty and I was quick. I slipped past him, turned around, and ran again through the lobby. I wasn’t sure where I was going to end up, but I needed some space. It took Gene a second to get his age-fifty-something legs going, but I heard him—and a few others—behind me when I was halfway back to the aerobics court. I had a head start, but I knew I was running on borrowed time. Everyone turned their heads as I ran through the lunch area and through the pool lobby. I wanted to hide. So I ran past the basketball-court-slash-aerobics-floor and into the weight room.
A couple of guys appeared startled at my racing into the room as they lifted their dumbbells, I guess because I came out of nowhere. A second later Gene, my mom, Ashlock, Roberto, and Evie—in that order—blew in. I was sitting on the floor breathing heavily and looking around at everyone. I felt nauseated and pretty freaked out.
My mom came and knelt next to me. At that moment, I almost didn’t remember how I got there. She tucked a curl behind her ear and said, “He doesn’t have the rope anymore, Chelsea. See? Look at Roberto.”
Roberto was a little shaky, and he tried to smile. “It’s gone. See? Gone.” He added, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I must go back to work.” He strode off as fast as he could.
My mom helped me up, and together we walked out of the weight room. When we were standing in the pool lobby, she fixed her gaze on Gene, Evie, and Ashlock, who had been silent. “It’s the rope,” she said quietly. “She saw the rope and it—she’s having a bad day. That’s all. She’ll be okay.”
I guess the men took that to mean they should leave us be, so Ashlock and Gene walked off, whispering and gesturing. Evie sat down next to my mom and let us have our moment, but she wasn’t gonna leave me. I felt better with her there, and with my mom cuddling me. It wasn’t only the rope that upset me, like she thought. It was my mom’s role in this Annabel thing—I had this feeling of doom growing in the back of my mind, and I couldn’t snuff it out. It was also the physical pain that was nagging at me. Some old injuries had been acting up, and I was finding it harder than usual to run and play, but I didn’t want my mom to know—she’d force me to slow the heck down or, worse, get a sitter and make me stay home when she went to work.
Mom let go of me for a moment and took my best friend by the shoulders. It was only then I saw Evie had been crying. “This has nothing to do with you, you understand me?” Mom said to Evie. “There’s nothing you could have done. You know what happened to Chelsea when she was younger. Somet
imes it gets to be too much for her. She has things called triggers, and that rope was one of them. Okay? It’s not your fault.”
Evie nodded, tears rolling down her face. I wasn’t the only one who’d felt the threat, and I had to remember that. Evie and I couldn’t lose each other. That wouldn’t be acceptable.
Later, I overheard Gene telling my mom that maybe it was time for me to go back to “that woman.” Puh-leeze. My mom had promised to get me professional help along with medical attention when she adopted me, and she’d stuck to her word. But after three sessions she put a stop to it. She said I always came home totally hyper after seeing this lady, who my mom called “a loony-tunes nut job.” All the rich St. Claire families swore by this woman, whose name escapes me now. In the end my mom said her method of “tough love” was baloney. “We’re doing fine on our own,” she said. “We’ll get through this together, Chelsea.”
And we were getting through it, even if we had to roll over a few bumps in the road along the way.
Before
As it turned out, my mom was a genius. Based on her sage advice, I had let Evie stew in her own juices for a while, trying once every day to coax her out of the stinky back room before finally leaving her to her misery when she didn’t respond. Each day, her eyes stayed on me for another second longer as I left.
I was worried the day would never come, but one evening Evie finally reached her breaking point. Tad Chadwick had been on her case, this time with Goran in earshot. On top of everything else, Evie had to go without dinner again. Lucky had started dating someone, a bank teller he’d met while cashing his paycheck, and he was seeing her tonight. Which meant Evie was stuck at the club until the date was over. I was there when he broke the news just before camp ended for the day.
“But, Dad, if I stay here, what am I supposed to do for dinner?” Evie said, her face falling. I really didn’t think her angst was only about the food, though.
