“Karen here,” said her mother.
“Hi, Mom—”
The operator said, “Will you accept a collect call from Dakota?”
“Oh, dear. Of course, I will. That’s my daughter. Of course. Dakota?”
The operator hung up.
“Hi, Mom.”
“What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”
“With my phone, yeah,” Dakota said. “There’s no reception out here.”
“Where are you? What’s wrong?”
“We stopped at a diner on the highway. Everything’s okay.”
That was a lie, but Dakota knew you had to work your way through a few lies to get to the truth.
“Whose phone are you calling from?”
“It’s a pay phone.”
“Pay phone?”
“It’s okay, Mom. It’s kind of cool. Like an old movie. You’re supposed to use coins, I guess, but—”
“I remember pay phones,” her mother said curtly.
“Well, I lost the signal on my phone, that’s all. Sorry to call collect.”
“What’s going on?” her mother asked. “How close are you?”
“I’m not sure. I wasn’t paying attention. We had to walk some of the way.”
“Walk? What are you talking about? What happened to the car?”
“Trevor had some car problems.”
“Oh, god.”
“No, it’s okay. we pushed the car to a—”
“Pushed?”
“Yeah, to a garage. But it’s okay now. There’s a diner here, and a pay phone, and everything. Trevor’s talking to the mechanic now, I think, and the mechanic says…”
What?
“…says we’ll be back on the road in no time.”
Her mother asked, “What’s the name of the diner?”
“Dinah’s Diner.”
“That’s a terrible name.”
“They got a B grade in the window, so it can’t be too bad.”
“Oh, god.”
“That’s a passing grade.”
“Dakota, don’t eat the food. B is for bacteria.”
“Don’t worry, Mom, we’re fine. There’s food in the car, snacks and stuff.”
“Call me when the car is fixed.”
“Sure, Mom.”
“I mean it.”
“I know,” Dakota said. “Ethan needs something. I gotta go. They need help or something.”
Another lie. She had to sandwich the truth with a lie, so her mom could swallow it.
“Dear, we’re at the hotel already, waiting for you.”
“See you tonight, then,” Dakota said.
“Call me back within the hour.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Remember to call. Collect if you have to.”
“I will. I said that.”
“I’ll have my phone with me.”
“Bye, Mom.”
She hung up.
Jesus, she thought, and went into Dinah’s Diner, suddenly hungry.
The lighting inside was dim, and the place was nearly empty.
A guy sat at the counter, drinking a beer. His back was turned to the door, and he didn’t look around when Dakota entered. His hair was thin and graying. He wore an old bomber jacket and a baseball cap.
That trucker who pushed us in, she thought.
Dakota found Claire sitting alone in a corner booth and joined her.
“I called my mom,” Dakota said.
The seats of the booth were cracked plastic upholstery. When she sat down, her seat whistled.
Claire sipped her coffee, then set her cup aside. “I thought your phone didn’t work.”
“I used a pay phone outside.” She pulled out her cell phone. “No reception, but the battery’s fine.”
She opened the mobile app for Guitar Hero.
“Don’t waste your battery on a video game,” Claire said.
“Relax, Claire. Jesus. You really need to Zen.”
She put her ear buds in, and fired up a new game.
14
Claire sipped her coffee in silence. She deliberately ignored Dakota, who sat on the other side of the table scowling through a game of Guitar Hero on her cell phone. Claire was in no mood for games.
The man in the bomber jacket was still sitting at the counter, Claire noticed. He was in his fifties, maybe older, and he kept his back turned to the door. He drank alone. Dark beer in a tall glass. The man stared straight ahead, lost in his own thoughts.
Something caught Claire’s eye. She glanced out the window. The glass was dirty, like everything else. Outside, across the road, next to the ghost bike memorial, a man stood alone. Claire hadn’t seen him there before.
The mechanic? she wondered.
He didn’t look like a mechanic. He was old and gaunt and pale. He wore a slouch hat and a black duster. He stood perfectly still beside the road and stared directly at her.
The man seemed familiar somehow, but something was wrong with his eyes. They had bright greenish tint. Claire wiped dirt from the glass pane.
Who is that guy?
“Hey, Dakota,” she said.
But Dakota was busy playing her game. Music blasted from her ear buds. She didn’t look up from the screen.
Claire glanced back at the man across the road. She felt drawn to him somehow, like he was calling to her. But all he did was stand and stare.
Some old hitchhiker, Claire decided.
A semi truck drove by on the road between them—for a brief moment blocking Claire’s view of the old man—but when the truck roared of sight, the hitchhiker was gone.
What the hell?
For a moment she wondered if the man had been there at all.
Don’t go crazy, now.
It was a constant fear of hers, going crazy. She didn’t talk about it to other people, not even to Trevor, but she had crazy thoughts sometimes, thoughts of hurting herself or hurting others. Terrible thoughts. Dangerous thoughts.
She wondered if somehow she had inherited a streak of madness from her unknown parents. According to her biology teacher, most things were genetic—the way you looked, the way you thought, the way you were. If you didn’t know your parents, how could you possibly know yourself?
What if her folks had been schizophrenic? Paranoid? Suicidal? She was pretty sure suicide ran in families. Her English teacher said that about the Hemingways. Claire figured that a parent had to be at least a little bit crazy to abandon a child.
She would never do that. No matter how crazy she was, she’d never do that.
Never.
Claire had been thinking a lot about her parents recently. Sometimes it was all she thought about. It was enough to drive her nuts, with or without genetics. All those Internet searches, emails to potential relatives, phone calls to state officials. Nothing ever panned out.
Still, she had a few potential leads on who her parents might have been.
A grave marker in Missouri…
A lawsuit in Nevada…
A last name…
Fowler.
There had once been a family of Fowlers living near Cedarview. Claire had read a blog post about an alleged phantom named Fowler. Locals hinted at a tragic past but wouldn’t talk on the record to the ghost-hunting blogger, who had called this road “Blood Alley.”
That was about all the blog post said, but it was more than enough to pique Claire’s interest. Not much of a lead, perhaps, but Claire vowed to follow all trails until she reached a dead end. It was one of the reasons she had insisted on going with Trevor on his funeral trip.
A waitress made the rounds with a fresh pot of coffee. Claire smelled hazelnut in the steam. The service worker was older, maybe in her sixties.
Claire pointed out the window to where the hitchhiker had stood. “Did you see...”
The waitress smiled like an aunt. “What, dear?”
Don’t go crazy, she reminded herself, then said, “Nothing. I’m just really tired.”
&nbs
p; The waitress lifted the pot of coffee, making it a question. Claire nodded. The waitress refilled her cup.
“Do you have a phone book?” Claire asked.
“Don’t know if we do.”
“I haven’t got any reception on my phone, and I was hoping to find a number.”
“Maybe I can help. I know most of the folks who live around here.”
“There’s a family that lived here once. Up near Cedarview. I checked online, but there was no phone number listed. I’m hoping to find them.”
The waitress smiled again. “Try me.”
“The Fowlers,” Claire said.
The smile melted from the lady’s face. A shadow seemed to pass over her features.
Claire said, “You know the Fowlers?”
The waitress nodded. “Farmhouse up the road, near the foothills. But they’re long gone now. You’ll find no Fowlers in these parts.”
“Did you know them?”
“Heard the stories. Rumors, really.” She pursed her lips in disapproval. “People say the most terrible things.”
“Like what?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Never you mind about that.” The waitress glanced out the window. Her mood softened. “But I saw one of the children once. Becky, I think. Poor girl.”
“What happened to her?”
“The Devil knows, and he ain’t saying.” The waitress adjusted the collar of her work shirt. “Story was, the father killed his wife.”
“How?”
“Stories don’t agree on how. And what he did to his poor daughters...well, that’s not for me to say.”
Claire imagined all the horrible things a father might do to his daughters.
“Where are they now?” she asked.
The waitress shook her head. “Police went to his house to rescue the girls. Fowler resisted. Ended up dead. They found the daughters, all right, but...it was too late.”
Dakota paused her game and took out her ear buds. “Anyone still alive?”
She’d been listening all along.
The waitress leaned in close, and gave Claire a stern look. “My advice, you stay away from that place.”
Claire gripped her coffee cup tightly, and met the woman’s gaze with her own.
A family of Fowlers had once lived around here. The parents were long dead, but what happened to the children? Claire needed to know more. This trail was leading her somewhere. She would follow it to the end. “You said this farmhouse is up the road. Well, that’s where we’re going.”
“We’re headed into Cedarview for a funeral,” Dakota said. “My uncle. He drove his car off a cliff.”
The waitress took a deep breath, then lowered her voice in warning. “You’ll see that farmhouse, all right. An old ruin, but you’ll see it. Might be tempted to slow down, pull over, take a look inside. But you keep driving, you hear? When you see that house, you just hit the gas hard. Hit the gas and don’t look back.”
Claire looked away. She didn’t care to argue about it.
But one thing she knew for certain: if she ever saw that old farmhouse, the home of the Fowlers, nothing in heaven or hell could keep her from going inside.
15
The bumper was hot in Ethan’s hands as he helped Trevor push the Hummer into the garage. He was glad to help. He wanted to make a good impression.
Ethan had been dating Dakota for weeks now, but he’d only met Trevor this morning. Of course, Ethan knew all about Dakota’s older brother.
Trevor was hard to miss on campus, smiling at the girls, fist-bumping the guys. A smile from Trevor made the girls seem prettier. A fist bump from Trevor made the guys seem taller. He was captain of the swim team, and even the rival coaches said he had Olympic potential. Everyone looked up to him, especially his sister Dakota, though she tried hard not to show it.
Dakota was the hottest girl Ethan had ever been with. He didn’t want to blow it. If it was going to last, her family had to like him. Ethan would meet the rest of the family tonight in Cedarview, but now was his chance to get on Trevor’s good side.
The Hummer came within a few feet of the open garage.
“I’m gonna steer. You got it?” Trevor said.
Ethan nodded, too winded to speak.
Trevor stopped pushing and jumped into the front seat.
Ethan huffed and grunted, moving the car by himself out of the sun and into the garage. The H3 slowed and stopped as Trevor applied brakes. Ethan slumped down on the back bumper. He wiped his forehead with the bottom of his t-shirt.
The vehicle rocked as Trevor jumped out of the driver seat. “You did great.”
The door slammed shut.
“Thanks,” said Ethan.
Trevor sat down next to him on the bumper. He offered Ethan a water bottle and kept a second one for himself. The water was warm but welcome. They drank together in silence. Trevor guzzled his, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Ethan stared at the roadside diner across the lot. He saw Dakota in the window. She sat across from Claire.
“You’re lucky,” Trevor said. “My sister doesn’t like everybody.”
“She sure does hate her ex.”
Trevor chuckled. “Don’t worry about him. He’s Little League.”
“What does that make me, J.V.?”
They both knew Ethan was no jock. He’d done a bit of cross country, but dropped it for the marching band.
“Nah, you’re different,” Trevor said.
In the window Dakota waved to them.
Ethan waved back.
“Don’t worry about the family stuff,” Trevor said. “You’ll do fine. I’m not saying you’re the Majors, but my sister likes you. I like you. Mom’ll be crazy about you.”
He likes me?
That surprised him. Jocks didn’t usually like Ethan. He wasn’t one of the team.
But then Ethan remembered, Trevor likes everybody.
The real test would come tonight. “I’m more worried about your dad.”
“Don’t be,” Trevor said. “Just talk about golf.”
“I don’t play golf.” Ethan was about to add that he played chess, but then thought better of it. “I wouldn’t even know how to putt.”
Trevor reached over and put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “Let Dad take you out on the golf course, give you a few pointers.”
He gave Ethan’s shoulder a friendly squeeze, like they were teammates on the field.
Ethan liked that idea. Teammates.
“You’ll be fine,” Trevor assured him.
Ethan relaxed a little. He wiped sweat from his brow, and felt good again. This was going to be a great trip. He had work to do, of course—preparing for the SAT. Ethan had already taken the test once, and did okay, but he needed to boost his Critical Reading score if he wanted to get into a top school. He’d brought some vocabulary flash cards to study on the road. But it was the other test that troubled him. The compatibility test with Dakota’s family.
Trevor’s hand was still on Ethan’s shoulder. The hand squeezed harder, strong fingers digging under Ethan’s collarbone.
A jolt of pain shot down his arm.
He couldn’t move.
“One more thing,” Trevor said with his patented smile. “If you break my sister’s heart, I’ll kill you myself.”
The diner had the creeping quality of déjà vu. Claire hadn’t felt it when she first stepped inside, but now the sense was overpowering.
Fowler…
A name from her childhood. A name she’d once heard whispered when Mama Johnson thought Claire was asleep on the sofa.
Fowler…
She had been five years old then, and thought Mama Johnson was her real mother. One day looking for a missing crayon, she saw a paper with her name on it: “Claire.” It caught her eye because she’d just learned to spell her own name. The name on the paper looked like “Fowler, Claire,” but she wasn’t sure what the first part meant. She thought maybe it was a different person with her name. She’d t
aken the paper and showed it to Mama Johnson, but Mama just got mad and sent her to her room.
Claire never saw that paper again, nor did ever she see the name “Fowler, Claire” in that house again, but Mama Johnson had been very upset about it, so the memory remained.
Fowler…
Claire sipped black coffee and wondered about her earliest childhood memories. Could she trust them? Were they real, or the inventions of a lonely little girl?
Her true family might be here somewhere, down this desert highway. She had bounced between so many different families. Two years here, three years there. But she never belonged to any of them.
Is this where I belong? she wondered.
Fowler…
Claire had searched for that name on the Internet. There were Fowlers scattered all across the country, and a few living near Cedarview, where tomorrow’s funeral would be. She hoped that this road trip might give her a chance to meet the Cedarview Fowlers.
And even if that proved to be another dead end, she understood now that it really was the search that mattered. If she kept at it long enough, and learned from her mistakes, and never gave up hope, then one day she might finally arrive at the truth.
Fowler…
The diner’s familiarity intrigued her.
What is it about this place?
Then she realized—
The roadside memorial.
It had rattled her. There was something about seeing the ghost bike and imagining that poor boy who got hit.
She felt connected to him somehow.
In her purse Claire kept a notepad, a diary of her search. She pulled it out.
“What’s that?” Dakota asked.
“None of your business.”
Claire jotted down: Roadside memorial. Ghost bike. Boy killed on highway outside Dinah’s Diner. Blood Alley.
Dakota removed her ear buds. “I used to have a diary, but I could never keep it going. I tried a blog once, but I got bored with it.” She set the cell phone aside, and craned her neck to see the diary. “Is that about me?”
“It’s private.”
“Why?”
“It’s about my parents.”
“Oh, right.” Dakota nodded and sat back. “Trevor told me. You’re adopted.”
“Fostered.”
“Like with pets?”
Claire clicked her pen and closed her diary. “I’ve got a foster family. The government pays them to be my parents. They do it for the money.”
Blood Alley (The Highwayman) Page 6
