by Julie Daines
I thought I had a skewed sense of reality because of too much screen time, but this guy was off the charts. Was he really going to slit her throat right here in the middle of Barnes and Noble? Between Newsweek and Great Castles of Britain?
Scarlett fought his iron grip, but for him, it must have been like holding a cute, squirming kitten.
Without a second thought, I reached down, picked up a coffee-table book, and rammed it into his face with all my strength. I aimed for his jaw, looking for payback, but I missed. The book struck him across the nose, and I heard a little crack. Even better. He released Scarlett and staggered back a few steps. I didn’t think he’d expected resistance.
I glanced at the book in my hand and, for the first time in my life, gained an appreciation for modern art. I tossed the book on the ground, grabbed Scarlett, and practically carried her out of the store, dashing out the side entrance. I heard someone ask, “Are you okay?” I assumed she was speaking to Connor, but I didn’t turn around to find out.
The tall man lurked by the front entrance, still trying to lure us into a false sense of security by pretending to watch the wrong way. We ran across the hall into a discount clothing store.
This time, I wasn’t going to hide and wait. My car was parked in the garage around the corner and down the main hall. But we were so easy to spot. A tall kid running through the mall, towing a very petite girl with pink hair. Even with the hood on, the pink was like a signal flare.
We moved to the back of the store and ended up by the dressing rooms. Some poor mom had abandoned her stroller there and hauled her kid in with her to try on clothes. It was one of those big, four-wheel-drive–type strollers.
“I have an idea.” I yanked a blue casual dress shirt off a hanger and put it on over my T-shirt, tearing off the tags as discretely as possible. I tucked it in, hoping to look like a yuppie dad. I grabbed a baseball cap from another rack and jammed it on my head. I probably didn’t need that. I had basically nondescript brown hair. I checked around to see if I’d been noticed, but the store was thankfully understaffed. Then I tiptoed over and wheeled away the stroller.
“Get in,” I told her.
Scarlett took a step back and bumped into a rack of men’s jackets. The hangers clanged, and a few pieces of clothing fell to the floor. “In what?”
I hefted her into the stroller.
“A pram?”
“Yeah, whatever.” Even with her diminutive size, she was way too big. “Pull your legs up.” If she could curl up behind the backseat of my car for twenty minutes undetected, she could hide in a stroller. A baby blanket lay wadded up in the storage basket underneath. I draped it over her then pulled the hood thing forward to conceal her as much as possible.
It wasn’t exactly stealing, just borrowing. I guess the shirt and hat maybe, but the mom would get her stroller back eventually—when security found it abandoned in the parking garage. I could come back and pay for the clothes later if I lost sleep about it.
I pushed the stroller quickly, but hopefully calmly, out of the store. No sign of the Dynamic Duo. I pulled out my phone and pretended to talk while I pushed my large toddler down the passageways of the Lloyd Center Mall.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Connor and Deepthroat exit a store near the one we’d just left. Connor had a wad of napkins on his nose from the bookstore coffee shop. I grinned.
“I think they’re behind us,” I whispered to Scarlett. “But I’m not turning around to check.” My palms were sweaty, and my heart raced.
“Come on, slowcoach,” she said. “Get a wriggle on.”
If two guys hadn’t been hunting us through the mall, I would’ve asked what that could possibly mean. But we didn’t have time right then for a language lesson. We’d reached the exit to the parking garage, and I wheeled her out through the glass double doors and into the garage elevator. I’d parked the car down on the lower level. When the doors closed and we were alone, I pulled back the stroller cover.
“We made it. I can’t believe it worked,” I said as my pulse began to stabilize.
“You know, I’ve never been in a pram before. It’s kind of nice. I’ll have to get me one.” She laughed. “A little scary though. I might need my nappy changed.” She chuckled at her little joke.
I wheeled her to the car and helped her out of the stroller. “Wait here while I go back for your clothes.”
“No.” She grasped at my arms. “You are not going back. And you are not leaving me here alone.”
A group of gangly tweens walked past. “Hey,” I called. “You guys want to make some money?”
They clustered together, casting me sidelong looks. But if there’s one thing I’d learned growing up with a dead mother, it’s that sympathy can be your friend. And so can money.
“Look, my girlfriend isn’t feeling too great, and I can’t leave her here alone because she’s blind.”
Scarlett made a point of staring off vacantly into space.
“I’ll give you each five bucks if you get her stuff from our locker by the ice rink.”
They huddled up and conferred for a few seconds, then one said, “Ten.”
“Deal.” I handed him the locker key. “There’s two bags. And if you make it back in five minutes or less, I’ll double it.”
They took off running. I hated to think what their moms would say when they showed up with twenty bucks they got from a guy in the parking garage. Wasn’t someone supposed to be teaching them not to talk to strangers?
Scarlett climbed into the passenger seat. I pushed the getaway stroller off to the side near a thick cement pillar then leaned back against my car and waited.
The boys came running back, breathing hard. But they beat the five-minute time limit. I loaded Scarlett’s things into the back of the Rover then divvied out sixty dollars.
They mumbled thanks and trotted off, jabbering about their awesome luck.
I started the engine and looked at Scarlett. Her face was pale and drawn. She needed more help than I could give. I typed Portland Police Department into the Rover’s navigation system.
Chapter Seven
Christian vs. Professional Help
I pulled out of the parking garage. “Scarlett, I have something to tell you, and I want you to try to stay calm.”
Bad choice of words. She bolted forward in her seat, but the seat belt caught and she slammed back. “What? What is it?”
“Calm,” I reminded her. “Now, don’t overreact, but I’m taking us to the cops.”
She flung her arms out, one pressing against the window and the other restraining me. “No! It’s not safe. They’re all in on it together, the whole lot.” She folded her arms across her chest with finality.
“I know that’s what you said, but think about it. How can that be true?” She implied some kind of global kidnapping scheme involving the police in London and the Portland PD. “There’s no way both sets of police are connected. You don’t have proof that the London police had anything to do with your abduction. It has to be coincidence that you were taken right after going to them.”
She didn’t respond.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Thing is, I’m out of my league with these guys.” What could one kid really do against men like that? If I failed, I didn’t lose the tennis match or get a bad grade on my report card; it was Scarlett’s life. “I don’t know how to keep you safe.”
She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it out with a huff. “All right. If you think it’s the right thing to do.” She turned her face away from me.
I headed to the nearest precinct, down by the riverfront. Three times they’d found us, and each time they’d gotten bolder. Connor had grabbed Scarlett right in the mall. I couldn’t count on there always being a handy stroller nearby.
“Scarlett, what in the world is get a wriggle on? That sounds kind of . . . wrong.”
She snorted despite the fact that she obviously tried not to. “It means hurry up.”
&nb
sp; “Of course it does.” Where did she get all these crazy sayings? “I should’ve picked up a British-American dictionary while we were in the bookstore.”
Another snort, this one slightly more relaxed than the first. “Speaking of, did you just take out Connor with your bare hands?”
Yeah. I was cool. “Actually, I hit him with The Complete Guide to Modern Art, Volume 2. I was going to use volume one, but I kind of like Picasso. So I went with two. I mean, who needs Jackson Pollock.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen either.”
Stupid, stupid me. Just one more reason her life stank. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe you could show me sometime and describe them to me.”
How could I describe something she’d never seen? Color, the texture of paint on canvas, the geometric arrangement of body parts in Picasso’s cubism. “I’d love to.”
I parked in front of the police station and helped Scarlett out of the car. She clumped along behind me, moving at a snail’s pace. I told the man at the front desk that we wanted to report a crime. He gave me a clipboard full of tedious questions and told me to take a seat.
About ten minutes later, a different man came and escorted us to his desk. He was a few inches shorter than me, late thirties maybe, and had the beginnings of a gut that said time to lay off the donuts. Still, he looked like a guy you didn’t mess with. The plaque on his desk identified him as Detective Scott Parker.
He scanned the clipboard and said, “You state here that two men assaulted you at a restaurant then followed you to a cabin at Hood River.”
“Yes.”
“Where was the restaurant?”
“Shari’s, in Vancouver. Just off the 205.” I didn’t know the laws about out-of-state crimes, but Portland and Vancouver were basically the same city divided by the Columbia River. I hoped the bruise on my face and my cut lip might garner some support, so I mentioned the restaurant assault, even if it didn’t mean anything in Oregon.
“And this happened yesterday?”
“Yeah. Well, they hit me in the restaurant yesterday; they broke into my cabin this morning. Then, just now, they chased us at the mall.” Although I didn’t have proof of any of it.
“Your cabin?” Interpretation: How does a seventeen-year-old kid own a cabin? Since no one besides me ever went there, I always referred to it as mine. “It’s my mom’s.”
“Was she there?”
I wished he would just say what he meant. He fooled no one by asking all these questions with double meanings. What were two teenage kids doing alone at a cabin? Sex, alcohol, building a meth lab in the bathroom . . . everything I was morally opposed to.
Well, two could play at that game. I usually saved this card for later, but now seemed the right time. “My mother’s dead.”
Scarlett looked at me. Well, she didn’t look, but her head flicked in my direction, and her mouth dropped open a little. With all the trouble of Scarface and Deepthroat, I hadn’t spent much time giving her a replay of my own history.
Detective Parker stared at me then turned and clicked away at his keyboard. A minute or two later, he rose and went to a bank of printers lining the wall, returning with a photo printed on regular office paper. “Do you recognize this person?”
He held the picture in front of Scarlett. It was a testament to her abilities that people didn’t catch on about her blindness right off the bat. I snatched the paper from Detective Parker’s hand and gasped. “It’s the waitress from Shari’s.” Why did he have a picture of her? I felt Scarlett stiffen beside me.
“I’m asking her,” Parker said, tipping his head toward Scarlett.
“She’s blind.” Idiot. How many people wore sunglasses inside? Not really a fair accusation though, considering I’d been much slower on the uptake than him. “Why?” I asked.
Parker took the photo from me and set it on his desk. “She’s dead. They found her body this morning a couple of blocks from the restaurant.”
Scarlett’s grip on my arm tightened. Dead? It had to be the work of Connor. My stomach dropped into my feet. These guys meant business. The waitress hadn’t done anything. Why kill her? I rubbed my hand across my face.
“Says here”—he pointed to the computer screen in front of him, which I could only see the back of—“one witness came forward. He claims a teenage boy and a girl with pink hair came into the restaurant, made a big fuss about something, threatened the waitress, and then left.”
Scarlett gripped my arm so hard her nails dug into my skin. She was right. Coming to the police was a huge mistake. The detective had essentially accused me of murder. Connor was always a step ahead. I’d bet anything he was the informant. Or his buddy, Deepthroat.
“Who was the witness? Did he have a scar across his eye?” I asked.
“That information is confidential.”
Confidential? If he suspected me of killing someone, didn’t I have a right to know my accuser? “Whoever it was is setting me up. I didn’t do anything.”
Detective Parker nodded in a way that suggested maybe I did and maybe I didn’t; then he turned to Scarlett. “What’s your story?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but the detective shook his head. “Let her speak.”
“He didn’t do it,” she said. “He’s telling the truth. Everything happened just like he said.”
What? Why didn’t she say anything about being kidnapped and stuffed in a suitcase or anything about her dreams? Especially if I was a suspect for murder. That could have been useful information in my defense. Did she seriously believe there was a big conspiracy and this guy was a dirty cop?
Parker leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, studying Scarlett and me. “Why?”
“Why what?” I asked.
“Why’d he hit you, and why’d he follow you to the cabin?” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk, clasping his hands. “Why are two guys—what was the word you used?” He glanced at the clipboard. “Tracking you, breaking into your mom’s place without stealing anything, and chasing you through the Lloyd Center? And now you claim they’re setting you up for murder?”
“Hey!” I pounded my fist on the desk and stood up. “I didn’t kill anyone. Why would I walk in here asking for help if I was the murderer? They’re lying. They’re trying to cover their tracks and blame it on me.” Some of the other cops glanced in our direction.
Detective Parker responded with a single raised eyebrow. I probably wasn’t the first person to slam a fist on his desk.
“Sit down, sport. What about your dad?” he asked.
“What about him?” I sat, leaned back, and folded my arms.
“Why isn’t he here, helping you? He’s a big-shot lawyer.”
How much information was on that glowing screen in front of him? “I don’t live with him anymore. I moved out.” Why did my voice have to crack when I said it? It’d been the best decision of my life, even if it hadn’t worked out the way I’d planned.
“You ran away. That’s what we call it when you’re under eighteen. What’d he do? Beat you?”
I met his eyes and glared back. I hated his smugness. “No, he didn’t beat me.” He ignored me. Wasn’t there a legal term for that? Child neglect or something? But how do you explain that when you have every material need and more? Besides, if he’d beaten me, that would have been acknowledging my existence.
Scarlett let out a long breath. “They’re not after him. They’re after me.”
“Ah,” he said, turning to Scarlett. “Now we’re getting somewhere. You want to try again with your story?”
Scarlett tucked a strand of pink hair behind her ear and started with, “I was kidnapped—”
“Kidnapped. That’s a pretty serious charge. Who kidnapped you?”
She waved her hand in front of her eyes. “Dunno, do I? I didn’t get a good look at him.”
Parker cringed. I wanted to high-five her for taking him down a notch.
“Was it Junior her
e?” he asked, pointing at me.
He wasn’t as quick as I thought a police detective should be. I said to Scarlett, “He’s pointing at me.”
Parker realized he’d made another mistake, and I could see his mind working to process the pitfalls of communicating with someone who couldn’t see. He clearly didn’t like to be wrong.
“Course not. If it were him, why would he bring me here? No, it was one of the duffers from the restaurant, I think.”
She related the account of her kidnapping from London, her escape, and then hiding in my car—kindly omitting the part where I left her on the highway. She still didn’t mention her death dreams, and I guess I understood why. No one believed her in England, so why bring it up again here? She skimmed the truth by telling Parker her friend from school had gone missing and that she’d told the police. Then the kidnappers had come after her.
Parker asked for details of where she lived and which police station she’d reported it to in London. He listened and scribbled a few notes.
“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight.” He leaned back in his chair again and clasped his hands behind his head. “You were kidnapped. But you’re not here to press charges on the abduction.” He turned to me and continued. “You came in to file a complaint about some guys who broke into your cabin and chased you in the Lloyd Center?”
“We came in here,” I said, “because we want to be left alone. And didn’t Scarlett just say one of them is the same guy?”
He nodded and typed on his keyboard again, and then he rose. “Okay. I’m going to have to keep you here for a while. Until we can get the death of the waitress sorted out.”
“What? I’m under arrest?” Unbelievable. “This is crazy. I didn’t do anything!”
“Then you don’t need to worry. Empty your pockets.”
I dumped my keys, wallet, and cell phone onto the desk. How could I not worry? I was being arrested for murder. I’d be eighteen in a few weeks; would I be tried as an adult? I swallowed hard. Get a grip. Don’t fall apart here, not in front of the whole police department.
“You too,” he told Scarlett.
