by D'Ann Burrow
I wasn’t going to be needing that tux after all.
3
Rule #83 - Never answer the door after midnight
August 20
11:53 PM
* * *
“I’ll see you at six?”
“So…early.”
“That’s what you get for being class vice president. Be there at six.”
Like I’d even wanted to be vice president. The whole running-for-office thing was Ellie’s idea in the first place. The only reason I’d agreed to it all was because she’d insisted that she needed a running mate. I’d never dreamed I’d actually win. But I guess it came with the territory of being her best friend. Serving the teachers a welcome-back-to-school breakfast two weeks before the term actually started hadn’t been part of the deal.
I tossed my phone on the nightstand, knowing that pleading with her would do no good. The conversation was over as far as she was concerned. I’m sure she was drumming her perfectly polished fingernails on her lilac bedspread while staring at the clock. Midnight was fast approaching, and she couldn’t have circles under her eyes, marring her porcelain-white complexion. She’d be there at six, and I needed to be ready. Or I’d be dealing with the wrath of my red-haired best friend.
My eyes were drawn to my script lying on the floor next to my bed. Part of me knew I should have been memorizing, but a larger part knew that if I picked it up right now, it would be an instant sleep-aid. Honestly, that wasn’t such a bad idea right now.
Bad idea. That whole play was a bad idea. I still couldn’t figure out why we were doing an independent piece. Just because Reggie’s nephew wanted our community theater to debut his new work didn’t mean everyone in the performance company had to pay the price. We didn’t have to be off book until next week. I still had a little time. I’d work the lines tomorrow. Maybe I could even get Ellie to run lines with me.
After making me meet her at the school by six, she owed me.
I yawned and stretched, glaring at the navy blue skirt and white starched blouse hanging from the glass knob on the top drawer of my dresser. Tomorrow morning, I’d be back in my uniform, serving muffins to the Sisters before guiding last minute enrollees around Holy Cross. I’d much rather be back at my tower, watching the waves roll onto the shore as the sky lightened from milky gray to faint gold. But being away for one morning wasn’t too bad. And being class vice president looked good on college applications.
“Kennedy.” Footsteps pounded on the stairs. “Kennedy!” There were two raps at my bedroom door before my father barged into my room. Pack.”
“What?” I sat up on the bed and pulled my knees to my chest. No need to pretend like I’d been even trying to sleep. He could see the phone flashing with an incoming message.
“You heard me. Where’s your suitcase?”
“In my closet. Just like always.”
“Here it is.” I don’t think he was really listening to me. He had that crazed leaving-on-a-mission-look in his eyes. “Get moving. I already called Loretta to tell her you’re on your way.”
“Don’t you think you should have warned me? Besides, I don’t have time to go.”
“Make time.”
“But I have to be at school tomorrow. I have a student council thing. You’re the one who thought it would be a good idea. Now you want me to bail on Ellie?”
I’d lost him. His next words weren’t directed to me. Instead, his earpiece lit to show he was on a phone call. He pointed emphatically at the suitcases as he walked from the room.
No. Ellie was going to kill me. No questions asked. No one bailed on her. At least no one no-showed for an event when she was in charge, not if that girl wanted to stay in good standing at Holy Cross.
This couldn’t be happening. I was only going to miss one day of work, not several. And going to Loretta’s just wasn’t an option. I had enough friends around here. I could manage for a few days.
“But, Dad…” I chased him into the hallway.
The look he shot me made me forget the rest of my plea. He strode away from me, holding a finger firmly against his earpiece. “Sorry, sir. Yes, sir. I’m on the line now. My apologies for the noise. I walked into a room where the radio was playing. I can hear you now.”
So I’d been dismissed as a noise on the radio. Why wasn’t I surprised?
He continued, his voice growing grave. “Yes. I’ve already printed them off. What are we dealing with here?”
The doorbell rang, and I scurried into the hallway to look over the half-wall. Three of my father’s co-workers rushed into the house, each clutching a messenger bag and wearing a worried expression.
Sonya, my father’s assistant, was the first inside. Even from this distance, her suit screamed freshly pressed. The white, starched collar stood crisply against her jacket that was somewhere between black and navy. She must have asked something about me because my father frowned and pointed at me standing at the top of the landing.
She turned on her heel and jogged up the stairs. With each approaching step, I could see her suit more clearly. Not a single wrinkle. Despite the lateness of the hour, she hadn’t just grabbed whatever she’d been wearing to work that day. She’d selected a freshly dry-cleaned outfit from her closet.
Unless her clothes simply knew better than to wrinkle. Sonya could be scary.
Even at this time of night, her auburn hair was pulled tightly back in a bun. Did the woman ever relax? She bustled past me and surveyed my room. The luggage sat untouched on my bed, the black and white print standing out starkly against brightly patterned bedspread. “I was told you were packing.”
“My father doesn’t understand. I can’t leave. I have things to do tomorrow.” I stood in the doorway, protesting the intrusion.
“Cancel them.” Her vaguely Eastern European accent made the words sound clipped and threatening as she spoke. She unzipped the luggage with an authoritative tug, glancing around the room, and gave a loud, frustrated sigh. She turned away from me and headed for the far side of my room. “Move it. You’re not an infant.”
I stayed put on my bed. No one—not even Sonya—ordered me around in my bedroom.
She wasn’t playing my game. She shot me a glare that made me suspect she was probably pretty pleased with pre-Cold War-era types of discipline and then crossed the room, muttering to herself in Russian. The door to my closet opened before I realized exactly what she’d planned to do. “Which clothes do you want?”
“Get out of my closet.”
“Well then, you do it.”
Ignoring her last comment, I pushed my closet door closed. “I’m not leaving. I’m old enough to stay here for a few nights. Maggie stays here all day anyway. I’ve done it before.”
“We don’t have time for this. Your father told you to pack. So you should be packing.” Sonya paused and put her hand on her hip. No wonder she didn’t have children. She pursed her lips as loud voices from downstairs carried into the room. “This is different.”
“Why?”
She conspicuously ignored me.
“If you don’t want me to pack for you, fine. But if you want it over the next few weeks, make sure it’s in those bags. You have ten minutes.” Her eyes scanned me one final time. “And get dressed while you’re at it.”
Ten minutes?
Wait.
Had she just said weeks? Weeks?
I definitely wasn’t going to be gone for weeks. School started in two weeks. No way was I missing my senior year. I’d walk back here before I allowed that to happen.
“Did you just say weeks?”
My question hung in the air. She wasn’t listening to me anymore.
Raised voices filtered in my direction. The meeting seemed to have leaked out of my father’s office and into the open foyer down below my room. I’d never seen so many people in my house. Not even the one year my mom tried to host a family Christmas party.
Now it looked like there was some kind of special agent convention downstairs.
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“Are you sure? From the files, it appears he typically contacts the family by now. We could be dealing with a copycat. This might not even be our guy.”
“I desperately hope not, sir.”
Their voices were hushed as they’d moved their conversation into my father’s office, but it didn’t make any difference. In his current focused state, he’d forgotten to turn on the music to drown out the information exchange from carrying through the vents in our almost-ancient house.
Of course, turning on the music had always been my mother’s job. And she wasn’t here anymore.
“Was he seen with her?”
“Not that we’re aware of, sir.”
“Is there any kind of record of contact between them?”
“Yes, sir. Texts. Instant messaging. Same as all the others.”
“They’ve been communicating for six weeks, sir.”
So many sirs.
I was used to hurried trips and being left out of the information loop. I’d go to bed, and my father would still be working in his office. When I woke up, he was just gone. No goodbyes. No explanations. That was just the way our family worked.
My father, Evan Thatcher, had a Very Important Job. When I was thirteen years old, I begged him to go to Parent Week at Milliard Preparatory School for Girls. At a school where everyone’s parents were rich, powerful, and politically connected, it was a chance to show off. When Mrs. Trout handed me the page showing the time and day my father could come, she’d had an odd look on her face. She’d told me that she’d understand if my father couldn’t make it.
What was she talking about? Of course he could come. Parent Day was tradition in seventh grade.
I gave my father the note, and he adjusted his tie and looked down at me, shaking his head.
“Kennedy, you know I can’t do that.” The corner of his lip drew up in a smile as he pulled his dark glasses down to the tip of his nose. “If I tell your class what I do for a living, I’d have to kill them.”
He hadn’t been joking.
Just like he wasn’t joking now. I could tell from the noise from downstairs that something big was happening. Someone was missing. Someone was always missing. And the agency needed my father. Typical.
But that shouldn’t mean that I had to leave. Even with mom being gone now, I could manage on my own.
The noises downstairs grew louder. People I didn’t know yelled back and forth across the makeshift office outside my father’s actual office. Papers shuffled. The printer ran nonstop. Luggage wheels bounced over the entry tile. High heels clomped back up the stairs. My time was running out.
I needed air. I needed a minute to breathe. I needed a place my father’s co-workers wouldn’t find me.
I ducked into the one place I was guaranteed privacy. The door to the bathroom closed just as I heard Sonya call into my room. Apparently she needed a status update. That was going to have to wait for a second. Or maybe an hour. If I stayed in here long enough, they might forget I was here.
Yeah, like that would happen in a house filled with special agents.
I turned on the faucet and let the water pool in my cupped hands. When I splashed water on my cheeks, I was half-hoping I’d wake up and realize these last few minutes had been a dream.
“Hiding in the bathroom, I see.” Sonya’s voice penetrated my sanctuary. She wasn’t trying to pretend to be friendly any longer. She’d moved into lecture mode. Not what I needed to hear right now. “I hope you like my selections. You have exactly two minutes. We’re on a tight schedule.”
The alarm chirped downstairs.
“I’m coming.”
I stepped from the bathroom just in time to see her heft my suitcase into the hallway. My favorite hoodie was still folded over the back of the chair where I’d left it. And Mr. Toad was tucked into my blankets.
Suddenly thinking much more clearly, I walked to her, jerking the handle of my rolling bag from her grasp. I swept through my room, grabbing anything I could think I might possibly want over the next few days. “You missed some stuff.”
Hoodie.
Mr. Toad.
Deodorant.
For someone who was a personal assistant, she wasn’t too careful about the smaller details. I ran to my desk, sliding the middle drawer open. My fingers closed around the turquoise notebook, and I tossed it into my backpack with relief.
Downstairs, my father’s luggage was on the move again. Its thunking over the tile indicated he wasn’t traveling lightly.
“We’re moving out.” A young, dark skinned man I’d never met before jogged up to meet Sonya. I couldn’t place his accent. It might have been French or from someplace where he’d once spoken French. Or Italian. Or maybe German.
The man’s words spurred her into action. No more stalling. With an almost frightening swiftness, she stepped into my room, checked to make certain my bag was zipped, picked it up and left. I kind of figured I was supposed to follow her.
Lights flicked off through the downstairs as my feet hit each stair. My stomach did a funny flip-flop, and I had the feeling that if I didn’t keep up, I could get locked inside and left behind.
It was almost worth trying.
Until I saw my father. He zeroed in on me, studying my movements with an edge I’d never really seen before. In this one moment, I was his target.
“Drake’s driving you to the airport. Leave your car here.” He turned, following close behind Sonya. That was it. No goodbye. No words of reassurance. Nothing.
“Dad.”
He kept walking.
“Dad.”
He was engrossed in whatever the guy on his left was pointing at on his phone.
“Dad! For God’s sake, listen to me!” He stopped, and I almost passed out. “I can stay here. I have a job. I have the play. I don’t need to leave. Go do your thing. Just leave me alone.”
“Not this time. I’ll have Sonya notify everyone you’ll be out.” His speech carried a dismissive briskness. “Just a few days. You’ll be home before you know it.”
Drake held the door of the black town car open and nodded to signal I was supposed to get inside. Suddenly exhausted, I didn’t fight it. I slid into the leather seat and latched the seatbelt. Shifting in the seat, I turned to study the house. Light came from the doorbell, but other than that, the house was completely and totally dark.
Empty.
Vacant.
Just like my father’s promises.
4
Rule #39 – If you drink a ginger ale, your plane won’t crash
August 21
6:03 A.M.
Somewhere over New Mexico
* * *
“Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we’re going to have a bit of a bumpy ride ahead. Please take your seats and fasten your seatbelts.” The voice over the plane’s intercom was smooth and calm, but it didn’t fool me. The flight attendants left the beverage service half-finished in their haste to get back to their seats and latch their lap belts—a definite bad sign.
I shifted forward in my seat to get a clear view out the window. Lightning flashed purple through the anvil-shaped cloud tops. As if on cue, the plane bounced on an invisible pothole in the sky.
Across the aisle, a little girl’s face whitened to match her knuckles as she gripped her mother’s arm. “Momma?”
“Shh.” The young woman barely looked up from her magazine. Absently patting the back of the girl’s hand, she smiled. “Just like driving down a bumpy road. We’ll be fine.”
Of course they’d be fine. I followed the rules. Drinking ginger ale on the flight meant the plane wouldn’t crash. Just like when I was 8 and flying to Honolulu in a plane having engine trouble. Mom poured my glass full to the brim, promising that as soon as I finished my drink, all the scary stuff would be over. And she was right.
The plane pitched violently to the right, spilling my drink over my knuckles and onto the velvet journal I’d placed on the tray table. I quickly reached for a napkin and dabbed a
t the wetness before it left a sticky spot.
I hated turbulence. Three-foot swells coming in off the ocean—not a problem. Opening night in front of a sold-out house—easy. But one bump too many when I was in the air, and I was ready to jump out of the plane. Too bad I hadn’t packed a parachute.
I clutched the toddler-sized cup with its golden liquid as if it held the cure to cancer and took a sip as the clouds surrounding the plane flashed green.
I drank a larger mouthful. And another. I tipped the cup back and downed the entire drink in one gulp. As if on cue, the illuminated seatbelt sign turned off, and the occupants of the cabin gave a collective sigh of relief.
If only everything else in my life followed the rules.
9:15 a.m.
Waffles and More
Terrell, Texas
* * *
I leaned over the sink and splashed water onto my face. Ellie would cringe that I used soap and not product, but I didn’t really want to do a whole facial regimen as truckers squeezed past in the bathroom designed for three but realistically only had room for one.
After flying for four hours, Aunt Loretta swept me almost immediately into her car and got on the road. I was lucky I’d taken time to pee before walking to the baggage claim.
I couldn’t complain, though. I’m not sure why whoever booked my flight didn’t book it through Tyler. Loretta must have gotten on the road about the same time I got on the plane—a quarter past way too early.
I dried my face off with a rough brown paper towel and prepared to walk back into the dining area of the hole-in-the-wall diner. At least it was almost cool in the bathroom. The air conditioner stood a chance of defeating the already impressive August-in-Texas heat in this confined space. Not so much in the restaurant…or Loretta’s car.
I’d forgotten about the Texas heat. We had hot days in San Diego, but it wasn’t the same. Each too-warm breeze carried a hint of salty air that promised the potential of relief. That’s not how it worked in Texas. As I’d stepped through the automatic doors at the airport, I was reminded of just how hot it could be at 8 a.m. What little breeze I felt was laced with the smell of diesel and someone who seriously needed to consider investing in stronger deodorant.
