by Gayle Roper
“They said no rough stuff.” Braves Cap Guy looked uncertain.
“So what?” Anorak Man said. “I’m in charge here, and I say we don’t have a choice. We have to protect ourselves.”
We were all quiet for a few minutes. I was too frightened to be thinking about much of anything, but I was as sure as I could be that they were considering ways to dispose of me.
“Gimme the gun!” Anorak Man said to Braves Cap Guy. His voice was so abrupt I jumped. He sneered at my fear as he held out his hand.
Braves Cap Guy hesitated.
“Give me the gun!” Anorak Man repeated through clenched teeth.
I’d have given him my gun if I had one. There was something incredibly commanding in a nasty, evil way about this man.
“But it’s mine,” Braves Cap Guy whined.
Anorak Man just stared, one eyebrow slightly raised above his glasses. If I could learn his trick of domination, I could teach senior high, even junior high, any day.
Reluctantly Braves Cap Guy held out the gun.
Anorak Man took it casually and held it, safety still off, at his side. “Now back our car to the door so we can empty this stuff fast,” he ordered. “Then we’ll take care of her.”
As I stood with heart pounding and knees knocking, Braves Cap Guy, hat back in position, turned their car and opened the trunk. Casually he pulled out a tire iron, walked down three garages to the light and broke the bulb.
“Better get the next one too,” Anorak Man said.
In the disorienting darkness I heard another bulb shatter, and I hugged myself as if I could hold onto what little courage I still had. Violent, irrational men were much more terrifying in person than in any book or movie.
“No one can see us now. And don’t you try going anywhere.” He grabbed my arm. “The gun is still pointed at you.”
I couldn’t see it, but I believed him.
Braves Cap Guy laid down the tire iron, and in the faint illumination of the trunk light began emptying the desk and file cabinets. He lugged load after load as Anorak Man and I stood in the deep shadows and watched.
“Get every piece,” Anorak Man ordered. “Every single scrap of paper.”
“You could at least help,” Braves Cap Guy complained.
“And leave her alone?”
“Then she can help.”
Anorak Man shook his head, though I doubt the Braves Cap Guy saw. “I like knowing exactly what she’s doing. Just cut your grousing and move it.” He sighed as if he bore a great weight. “I can’t wait to get away from you and your whining!”
“I do not whine!” Braves Cap Guy spun and looked furiously at Anorak Man. As he did so, he lost his grip on the armload of papers he was carrying, and they slithered to the ground in a pulpy waterfall. An errant breeze caught some, and they fanned out across the drive.
“Stupid!” Anorak Man reached to catch a few sheets that fluttered in his direction.
As he reached, I pulled free and pushed. He fought for balance. I caught him in the rump with my foot, and he toppled over on his face. His gun went flying as he put his hands out to protect himself. It struck the ground and discharged. I could hear pings as the bullet ricocheted.
Braves Cap Guy screamed, but I couldn’t tell whether in pain or anger. And I didn’t wait to find out. I tore out the door and around the corner at the end of the line of garages into total blackness. My heart hammered in my throat as I put my hands out in front of me and ran sightlessly. Any risk was better than standing around docilely, waiting to be shot. My back itched and I hunched my shoulders as I anticipated the smash of a bullet into my body.
I flew around a second corner and felt true terror as I ran headlong into the grip of a third man.
19
My heart stopped as a hand clasped firmly over my mouth.
“Don’t make a sound,” a voice whispered in my ear.
I couldn’t have spoken if my life depended on it.
“Run!” it whispered.
Like I needed to be told to do that.
I fled willingly behind the sprinting figure. We rounded one corner, then another, zigzagging through the rows of garages. Now that I was back in the main part of the complex, the little lights on the garages showed us the way. Of course, they would also show the bad guys the way.
Shouts and shots followed us as Anorak Man and Braves Cap Guy gave chase, but we always managed to be at least a corner ahead. Even so, my back twitched and I imagined the staggering impact of a bullet tearing through sinew and spine, piercing the heart, my heart.
We stopped to catch our breath in the shadows of a rented moving van parked before a storage unit. It was in that moment that I realized my rescuer was Clarke. He held out his arms, and I buried my face in his chest and clung. My legs were like spaghetti, and my breath rasped. I’d never been so terrified and so happy in my life.
“What are you doing here?” I panted.
“Are you all right?” he said into my hair. His arms were a steel vise clamping us together. All the worries and conjectures of the few days fell away.
A shout from Anorak Man sounded just around the corner, and Clarke and I broke apart. I made a strange little hiccupy noise as I swallowed a scream.
He grabbed my hand and we dived to the ground together, rolling under the moving van. We lay huddled in the middle, arms wrapped around each other. Any other time it would have been my current version of heaven to be so entwined, but now all I could think was, Lord, don’t let any of our feet be hanging out, okay?
“You check down this aisle,” yelled Anorak Man. He was mere yards away, so close my skin retracted in aversion. “I’ll go to the gate to make sure she doesn’t get out there. We can’t let her escape!”
Footsteps thundered toward us and came to a stop beside the truck. I stared at a pair of black-and-white sneakers just inches from my face, as mesmerized by them as a cobra is by the charmer’s music. The heels were toward me, and I could see that Braves Cap Guy ran the left one down pretty badly. Bad hip? Who cared?
I was afraid to breathe, though Braves Cap Guy was puffing so hard he probably wouldn’t have heard me if I had a major sneezing fit.
The sneakers turned to face the truck. The toes were scuffed and one lace was undone. Maybe he’d trip the next time he ran, we should be so lucky. Of course, that might mean that we were also running, having been discovered down here.
“Okay,” yelled Braves Cap Guy. “Come out of there!”
I flinched as if he’d hit me, and I felt Clarke go rigid beside me. How had he known? A reasoned guess? Maybe I’d underestimated him. Or maybe it was just luck? Or was something hanging out after all? A foot? A jacket?
Oh, Lord, please, no!
The black-and-white sneakers walked right up to my nose, and I squeezed my eyes shut on the if-I-can’t-see-him-he-can’t-see-me premise.
“Out!” he ordered. And he yanked the door of the truck cab open.
Clarke and I sagged with relief.
Braves Cap Guy swore as he slammed the door shut. In frustration he swung his tire iron viciously into the side of the truck just inches from me, not once but twice. The clanging of metal on metal at such close quarters reverberated inside my head.
Braves Cap Guy stood quietly beside the moving van, listening. Then he turned away and rounded a corner.
Relief made my ears buzz. In the warm flush of temporary safety I thought I would be happy just lying here all night beside Clarke. Surely the men would decide to leave with the revealing light of morning, and then everything would return to normal, whatever that was.
Clarke tightened his arm around me and pulled me close.
“We’re going up,” he whispered in my ear. “It’s too dangerous here!”
Up? Up? To what? And how?
He rolled out from under the truck, and I followed. He quickly climbed onto the vehicle’s hood, reached down, and pulled me up after him. When he said up, he meant it quite literally.
I cringed at
the pop and crack of the metal underfoot. Surely Braves Cap Guy would hear, would come flying around the corner and catch us midclimb. The thought of his tire iron across my shins or knees made me shiver uncontrollably.
“Hurry!” I whispered, as if Clarke needed my encouragement.
He clambered up the windshield to the roof of the cab and then onto the roof of the truck body, and I climbed right after him. In a quick surge of movement he was on the garage roof. He turned to give me a hand, but I was already crouched on the roof beside him.
Suddenly Anorak Man raced down the passage below us, and we fell flat. A small cloud of dust rose about us as years of accumulated roof dirt was disturbed. I fought the urge to sneeze by rubbing my nose like mad.
“Did you hear that?” Anorak Man hissed.
Braves Cap Guy limped behind him, winded and unhappy. “What?” he gasped. “I didn’t hear nothing.”
Anorak Man snorted. “Of course you didn’t. How could you? You’re panting too hard to hear anything. I can’t stand it! Why do they keep making me work with you? You drive me crazy!”
“Don’t push me, Marty,” Braves Cap Guy snarled.
“Put that tire iron down, you idiot.” Marty’s voice dripped condescension. “I don’t have time for your macho nonsense. We’ve got to find that girl. Besides—” There was a lengthy pause, and I could just picture them, each trying to stare the other down. “Don’t forget that I have the gun.”
There was a moment of tense silence, and then Braves Cap Guy must have blinked. I heard Marty snort derisively.
He said, “You go that way. I’m going this.”
Clarke and I stayed still until both men were some distance away. Then, bending low, we moved cautiously along the flat, shadowy roof away from our erstwhile ladder. At the far end of the building, we lay huddled in a darkness deepened by the entrance lights below. I listened in heart-stopping tension as Marty and Braves Cap Guy ran up and down the rows below us.
Dear Lord, don’t let them think to look up! Please! They’re not in the mood to be kind.
When the men stopped immediately beneath us, I squeezed my eyes shut and ducked my head. Clarke’s arm tightened around me. Once again we were afraid to breathe.
“Maybe she…got out after…all.” Braves Cap Guy was gasping, speaking only two or three words at a time, sounding as bad as Mr. Geohagan. The man needed an exercise program desperately.
“She didn’t get out.” Fury filled Marty’s voice. “I would have seen her. And she didn’t scale the fence, not with that barbed wire around the top of it. No, she’s here somewhere. There are a couple of stored RVs in the back. Look in them.”
“I already did. She’s not there.”
“Well, let’s look under them.”
And they were off.
I leaned close to Clarke’s ear. What a nice ear. And he smelled good too. “You sure called that one right,” I whispered. “If we’d stayed under that truck, they’d have found us in time.”
I felt him smile. “I have to tell you,” he whispered in my ear. “When I heard those lights break and then that shot, my heart stopped.” His voice shook at the memory. “Try not to do that to me again, okay?”
Then he kissed me, and I melted against him. Most appropriately, bells and whistles sounded, accompanying the fireworks exploding in my head.
No, not bells and whistles. It sounded more like sirens.
I pulled back. “Sirens?”
“The cops,” he said.
“Where’d they come from?”
“We called them.”
“We did?”
“Not you-and-me we but Mary Ann-and-me we. And the attendant.” He leaned over to kiss me again.
I put a hand to his chest. “Mary Ann?” A chill went down my spine. “Mary Ann?” I just bet she was blonde and cute and had an umbrella.
Below we heard shouting, running, cursing, and brilliant searchlights blazed. A shot, then two, tore the night.
Braves Cap Guy yelled, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I’ll talk! I didn’t do nothing!”
“Shut up,” Marty bellowed at him. “We’ll be out by morning!” He must have turned to the cops because his next words were, “I demand a lawyer.”
“Sure, sure,” said a new voice. “You have the right to remain silent…”
The confusion below was nothing compared to the confusion I felt. My knight had come to my rescue, but he had brought along the fair Mary Ann.
That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work!
I started to get up. No more coziness on the roof for me.
“Get down here!” Clarke grabbed me none too gently and pulled me back.
I lost my balance and fell on him. Accidentally my elbow caught him in the gut. I tried to feel badly as he wheezed, “Dangerous. Bullets.”
There hadn’t been any bullets for several moments.
I rested my head on Clarke’s chest and listened to his two-timing heart beat. “How did you know to come here?” I asked in what I hoped was a cool, detached manner.
“I went to the Zooks,” he said, “and Mary told us you might be here. We arrived just as the attendant was leaving. He told us you and your two friends were in the garage at the end of the third line. As soon as he said ‘friends,’ I was worried. You’ve had too many strange things happening to you recently. ‘Is one of them wearing a baseball cap?’ I asked. ‘Yeah, now that you mention it,’ the attendant said. ‘A Braves cap.’ And then the lights were broken. We heard them shatter. I told Mary Ann and the attendant to call the cops, and I took off to see if you were all right. When the shot was fired, I…”
“I was doing okay,” I said with a distinct lack of appreciation for his emotional turmoil and his gracious rescue effort.
“That you were,” he agreed magnanimously, kissing me on the top of my head.
Suddenly we noticed that it was quiet below.
A woman’s voice rang out. “Clarke! Jon Clarke! Where are you?”
“Mary Ann,” he told me needlessly.
“Oh, goody,” I said. “I’m so glad.”
He didn’t even hear my sarcasm.
We got to our feet and leaned over the roof. We watched as people in blue scurried up and down the rows, looking strangely out of perspective. Red and blue lights flashed, and a pair of men in handcuffs were being put in a police car. The attendant and a blonde stood off to the side, looking worried. She was wringing her lovely hands while the attendant patted her on the back to comfort her.
“Up here!” Clarke yelled. “Up here!”
I was vaguely aware of a ladder being placed against the building, vaguely aware of climbing down it. All I could see was the little curly-haired blonde whose face lit up when she saw Clarke in one piece. She pointed and jumped up and down and clapped her hands, and I hated myself for my jealousy.
“I was so worried about you!” she shouted as she rushed forward. She threw her arms around Clarke as soon as his feet hit the ground. She kissed him with obvious affection, looking far more lovely than worried.
I didn’t even want to think about what I looked like, rolling around on the ground under trucks, lying on dirty roofs. Some comparisons are too painful.
“Mary Ann, I want you to meet Kristie.” Clarke smiled from one of us to the other.
Mary Ann smiled charmingly at me. “I’m so glad to meet you!”
I tried to smile back. I wondered if I looked as pickled as I felt.
“Excuse me, Miss Matthews, but we need to speak with you a few minutes.” It was one of the policemen, saving me before I thoroughly disgraced myself by saying what I was thinking or by bursting into tears. He took my arm and led me gently but firmly to his car.
I looked back over my shoulder at Clarke and shrugged. I hoped I looked what-can-you-do? In reality I felt so relieved to be out of a situation I wasn’t certain I could handle that I wanted to hug the cop.
“Just sit right down and tell me what happened here tonight,” he said briskly. Bri
sk was good. I could deal with brisk. It was kindness and sympathy I didn’t think I could handle.
Another officer began talking to Clarke and Mary Ann and the attendant. Then I heard Mary Ann say, “But if we don’t leave now, Clarke, we’ll miss our plane.” She turned to the officer they had been talking to. “I haven’t been home in over a year, and I can’t wait for us to get there!”
Us. How delightful.
“Kristie,” Clarke called as Mary Ann pulled on his arm.
I smiled sweetly at him and turned my back, giving my full attention to my interview. It was preferable to murdering him and/or Mary Ann in full view of the authorities.
20
I drove to Holiday House on my way home from school the next day, Wednesday. I walked up the front walk past the great copper beech with its masses of golden leaves gracefully bending to touch the ground. Clusters of lavender, crimson, and bronze chrysanthemums brightened the front porch and sat in brass pots in the lobby. Heavy brass chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting a warm glow over the green-and-wine upholstered furniture and oriental rugs.
Holiday House was a beautiful place. When the time came for me to go to a care facility, I sure wouldn’t mind coming here. If I could ever afford it. I couldn’t begin to imagine how expensive it was, especially for someone with a private room like Mr. Geohagan.
I found him sitting in bed surrounded by reams of paper.
“Kristie!” he said as soon as he saw me. “Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you, did they? And the police treated you with respect? The press didn’t bother you?”
“I’m fine,” I assured him. Not happy. Not excited about life. Not ever planning to laugh again. But also not physically harmed. Fine.
“The police told me what happened when they brought me my material this morning.” He laid a protective hand on the stack of innocent-looking papers resting on his stomach.
I stared somewhat resentfully at the papers. What was in them that made those unknown men take such extreme action? And what could possibly be worth putting me in such jeopardy not just last night but several times?
