Wanted!

by Caroline B. Cooney

  But my need for revenge never lessened. It was deep within me, sometimes all over and through me.

  No wonder Dad liked a car called Avenger.

  No wonder Dad played Escape and Chase. He’d been chasing for twenty-three years.

  Alice did not know which was more awful: the idea of a killer whose viciousness had touched her own family, or the idea of Dad chasing him for so many years. Dad had not taken all those new jobs because of the money or the excitement of the work—he’d been trying to get closer to Dick Arren. The tragedy of Rob’s death had become an obsession.

  Oh, Dad, why didn’t you tell us! Did you think I was too little? For ten or twelve years, you were right. But I’m fifteen now, Dad. You could have included me.

  “I would have understood, Daddy,” Alice whispered, and then she thought: but Mom wouldn’t have. She’d never have let Dad dedicate his life to revenge. Living is better. Laughing and loving is better.

  So. Was Dick Arren out there, using another name? Still in computers? Still stealing formulas?

  Who did Alice know, age fifty? Elegant and hard and blue-eyed and a computer expert? A man in his twenties who drove a Porsche would drive something spectacular in his fifties, too.

  Mr. Scote and Mr. Austin were middle-aged and drove great cars. Mr. Scote had a silver Jag; Mr. Austin, a Mercedes. They were certainly into computers.

  And yet—a Lumina minivan was in this. A Lumina was an unpopular, unsuccessful, low-end model. Did a former Porsche owner pick out a Lumina?

  Had Dad, like Rob, been murdered by his employer? Was Mr. Scote or Mr. Austin really Dick Arren? But why on earth would Dad voluntarily go to work for Dick Arren? Surely her father could not have stayed sane, showing up for work every day with the man he believed had snapped Rob in two.

  And if Dad had finally located Dick Arren, and that was what this disk was about, why hadn’t Dad been ready when the bad guys came? Dad was big and strong and full of fight. He’d planned for years. He knew the enemy was dangerous. Why hadn’t he been ready?

  “Oh, Daddy!” she cried, and she had to get away from the gray and careless screen. She tottered in the dark to the small living room and fell to her knees and curled over the coffee table, clinging to its sides, wanting things to be different.

  The phone rang.

  The sound of the bell burst through her head and she convulsed on the carpet, almost yanking the table over. Could she live through the sound of her father’s cheerful voice explaining that neither he nor Alice could come to the phone right now?

  But the answering machine did not pick up.

  It had been the fax.

  Alice listened to the harsh cry of the machine and the sound of a single page inching out.

  She had to crawl back to the desk and drag herself up by the knobs on the drawers and reach for the page. She stumbled into the bathroom to turn on the light and read the fax.

  It was from James.

  Marc—What are you waiting for? I’ve tried E-mail, I’ve tried phone, I’m down to fax. Now send the stuff so I can download. Condense to one page. Nobody’s going to read more than that.

  Too bad the only photograph of Dick Arren is twenty-five years old. We should hire somebody to do a computer aging process, guess at what he’d look like now. As soon as you send me the WANTED poster, we’ll get it out on the Internet.

  Dad had planned to put the story of Rob’s death on the Internet. He was through asking around locally. He was going to ask globally.

  Dad must have been ready to send his WANTED poster when the killer walked in on him.

  The events of that terrible day were becoming clear now.

  Dad realized he was in trouble, but not how much trouble. He’d called Alice to get the disks, and he didn’t want anybody to know where she was going with them.

  Then he ran out of time.

  He had not found the killer. The killer had found him. Right up to the end, they had been drag racing, and the killer’s car was still faster.

  Alice could take no more.

  She made it to the couch. She felt her headache fall off, sliding down into sleep, and she slid with it.

  Chapter 11

  ALICE SNAPPED AWAKE.

  Somebody was cranking a stalled engine.

  Daylight made pale rims around the pleated blinds in the living room windows.

  Two other cars started up, decently and quietly. People were leaving for work.

  Alice had planned to get out of Dad’s condo when it was still dark; when no alarm clock had gone off, no automatic coffeemaker had begun to drip in a dark kitchen, no neighbors were turning the keys in their locks, glancing around and seeing Alice. Now she would have to leave in daylight.

  She had had plans for the day: clear, careful, intelligent plans. But she could not bring them to mind. Okay, she said to herself. Okay.

  She was like a kindergarten teacher, trying to coax all her little thoughts to get in line.

  Last night I realized that Dad and his friend James believe there is a killer out there. A killer who has been around twenty-five years. If Dad was murdered by this person, he’s still out there, ready to do it again. A killer whose voice I heard: I killed him good. As Rob had said, not normal.

  Last night Alice had stripped off the clothing stolen from Amanda but had not changed out of her jeans and T-shirt from the mall. It was strange to sleep in her clothes, even stranger to be filthy and not care. She looked like what she was: a girl on the run. Alice yanked her hair into a ponytail to help herself think.

  What would the former Dick Arren be doing right now? He had killed another person, and surely it was time to abandon this place and this identity. No doubt he was packing. Throwing files and papers into boxes, cramming suitcases full, calling the airlines. Perhaps he already had a new identity and a place to go. Perhaps, while she slept, he had already vanished. If Alice did not take action today, he’d be gone, and history would repeat itself.

  You will not get away with murder this time, she thought. Not Rob’s and not Dad’s. You will not laugh from the safety of another name and another city. I will move too fast for you.

  Last night she’d half thought that Dick Arren must now be Mr. Scote or Mr. Austin. This morning that conclusion seemed flimsy. After all, Dick Arren would recognize Dad’s name. He would not hire Marc Robie, because he’d remember Marc Robie as vividly as Marc Robie remembered him. She was basing her conclusion solely on the fact that Mr. Scote and Mr. Austin were middle-aged and drove great cars.

  Her stomach hurt from emptiness and yet the thought of food was nauseating. She did not even want to go near the refrigerator for orange juice. It was too normal. People with ordinary lives, calm lives, lives that worked out—those people had a glass of orange juice in the morning.

  Alice could only stand in the half light and have half thoughts.

  The file called TWIN was not the sort of thing that would become a wanted poster for the Internet. It was long, and rambling, and full of personal detail that nobody but Dad, or Alice, would care about. Perhaps, she thought, it was just for him. He was sorting out the worst subject of his life. Getting ready to choose the dozen sentences he’d actually use on the wanted poster. Or perhaps there’s another file, accessible by a password I don’t know. Perhaps somewhere, a twenty-five-year-old photograph of Dick Arren.

  It was way beyond Alice’s capacity to sort this out.

  Only the authorities had the time and expertise to follow Dad’s years of research and locate the real Dick Arren.

  The awful time had come in which she was going to have to turn herself in. There would be a period in which nobody believed her. She would have to accept that. Everybody, including her mother, had accepted the E-mail confession.

  Alice would have to face people who were horrified by her, who would treat her as a vicious animal, and she would have to stay calm and convince them that yes, there was a vicious animal out there, and it was a man formerly known as Dick Arren.

 
She could do this with her mother at her side.

  Of course…Mom might not be at her side.

  She said she was, Alice told herself. Mom said she loved me no matter what I did. I have to count on that. I can go home.

  She imagined Mom forcing herself to touch her daughter, flinching because they were related, sick because she was picturing Alice hitting Dad.

  I have to be brave enough to get through that, Alice told herself. I have to believe Mom will believe me later.

  And what if I’m wrong? What if nobody does believe me ever? What if nobody can find Dick Arren, if nobody tries to look—because nobody thinks there’s a reason to?

  Alice had no choice. The situation was too large and terrible for her to go on alone.

  She had no friends to call upon. Her classmates had gone after her as if she were a fish in tournament. They were wading around in their hip boots, sweeping their nets, eager to catch Alice.

  She considered calling the police from here. But what if they came and did not let her see her mother? What if it was like some Monopoly game card—Go straight to Jail? No. She had to go home, and once she was with Mom, whatever happened would happen.

  Wait.

  There was one person who would believe her. James.

  Alice stumbled around the condo, trying to find the fax. She was so muddled that she could hardly tell what was paper, what was book, what was plastic. There it was. Lying on Dad’s desk. Alice snatched it up, and sure enough, the heading on the fax gave James’s last name.

  Alice turned on the computer, grateful that she used it so much that the movements were automatic for her; making her way through each command did not require thought. She went into Dad’s address book. There was the E-mail address for James. Alice opened the document and sent him the entire TWIN file.

  She found herself playing with the computer, wanting to hang out and search for the stored photo and the wanted poster. She went back to Dad’s address book and read through names. Who else should I send TWIN to?

  I’m killing time, she thought. I’m afraid to leave the condo. I’m so scared of what’s going to happen next.

  She made herself leave the computer, but it didn’t get her out the door. She wandered around. She would drive the Blazer, which had extra power outlets. With phone and laptop, Alice would have a command center. From her bedroom, Alice got her laptop. In the kitchen, she got the spare keys to Dad’s Blazer.

  She stared into the garage, her feet exactly where her father’s killer’s had been. If her guesses were right, Dick Arren had stood here. Was he Austin? Scote? Another employee? A client? Or was he a neighbor right here in Stratford Condominiums?

  The people in the next condo would be shaken when they heard a car start from the empty home of a murdered man. She had to move fast. Alice had no fast left in her. She had only slow and muddled. She forced herself to climb behind the wheel of the Blazer. What if her very own mother was afraid of her?

  Alice turned the key; the engine caught; she hit the garage door remote and backed out.

  Even at this hour, the roads were crowded and slow. No matter how early you got started, so did everybody else. Alice headed through the city to her mother’s house. Her hands were puffy with heat and fear. It was hard to hold the steering wheel.

  Traffic was useful. Because she had to think about it, it kept her busy and anxious. But once she crossed the center of town and began to head back toward the suburbs again, traffic was light. Nobody drove in this direction in the morning.

  Alice gave calming orders to her body, but her body refused them and became hotter, more tense. Explosions were building inside her, and she must not let this happen; she must be rational and careful.

  She turned the last corner. Tree branches hung too low, and houses she had known for years were hunched and dark. She felt spied upon, expected. Neighbors who had once been her friends were peeking behind curtains, whispering to each other—There she is! She’s giving up!

  I am not giving up, thought Alice. I have plenty of fight left in me.

  She swung into her mother’s driveway. She drove all the way around the house and parked in back, hidden from prying eyes by a low hill covered with swooping shrubs. The garage doors were open. Mom’s good car was not there.

  Alice stared at the garage.

  Mom wasn’t home?

  Impossible!

  She had to be home.

  And there were no other cars, either. No police, no friends, no nothing.

  Alice had no key, and Mom didn’t keep a spare outside. Alice left the Blazer idling and ran to the back door, knocking, and then hammering, and then shouting, “Mom!”

  It was Friday. A workday. But even if Mom left this early for work—which she didn’t—she wouldn’t go to work when she was waiting for Alice to call, would she?

  She stayed at Richard Rellen’s, thought Alice.

  Alice forgot everything. How dare she! Maybe Mom didn’t even mind that this was happening. Maybe it was a nice chance to be in Richard Rellen’s arms. Maybe Mom was so drunk with love that this was an opportunity for her.

  Would Mom sacrifice Alice to her own second chance at love?

  Parents did it all the time.

  How many families did Alice know of where divorce ripped them apart once, and remarriage ripped them apart a second time? How many kids did Alice know who were going to college solely to escape a parent’s remarriage? Or worse, to escape the endless dating of a parent, the leaping from one boyfriend to another, the broken hearts, the teenager having to be parent to the parent?

  Why hadn’t the police staked out the house, the way they did on television, ready to seize Alice? Perhaps in real life there weren’t enough police to go around, or perhaps they believed Alice long gone. Out of state by now.

  Alice got back in the Blazer. She didn’t back up but circled hard and fast over Mom’s precious grass, wishing she could leave tracks like that on Mom’s heart.

  She drove to Richard Rellen’s, going faster and seeing less.

  His house was large, and its four-car garage faced sideways, so that from the street, it was just two quaint windows and a cupola. He had a lot of yard help, and the landscaping was flawless, every flagstone neatly edged, every flower carefully mulched.

  She’d been in his house once. Mom stopped by to bring Rick darling some dessert she had baked—yes, Mom was that woozy about the man, baking little treats for him! Alice had refused to go in and sat in the car. After half an hour, Mom and Mr. Rellen had come out and said they had ordered pizza, come on in and share with us, and Alice had broken down, gone in and shared with them. She never told Dad.

  Alice swung into the long split driveway, expecting to see her mother’s car. It was not visible. Well, at least Mom felt guilty enough that she’d driven into the garage to hide her presence from the neighbors.

  Most people Alice knew had lots of cars. The parents each had one, and there’d be one for each teenager, maybe one for hauling, possibly one for showing off.

  The garages were closed, but a row of windows ran across the big doors.

  The Blazer was relatively high. Craning her neck, she could glimpse what was parked inside.

  A big power boat occupied the first slot. Alice had not known about the boat. Did Rick darling and Mom go to the lake in that boat?

  In the second was the green Volvo wagon. Rick darling was home anyway.

  In the third was a beautiful classic Porsche, probably thirty years old, an incredibly lovely car; a collector’s joy.

  The fourth was not visible. The windows were blocked with paper that had faded. How tacky and sloppy it looked above the neatly swept driveway.

  The Blazer’s engine chugged on. Alice sat with her foot on the brake and her mind in neutral.

  A heavy hand closed on the door handle, and ripped it open, yanking Alice out before she could think, before she could struggle. Richard Rellen held her arm, and incredibly, he was smiling.

  The Blazer was still in
gear, and it moved forward by itself. It had little time to gather speed, but it was heavy, and the garage door nothing but pressboard, and the Blazer slammed right through the fourth door and into whatever was parked there. The all-too-distinctive sound of crunching metal filled the morning air. The windows broke and fell in that strange, straight-down collapse of safety glass, a million teeny, harmless squares coming down on the hood of the Blazer.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” said Alice. Her reserve strength vanished and she began sobbing. She tried to free herself from his grip, but he was way too strong. She stopped. After all, she wasn’t going anywhere. “I was coming to turn myself in. Now I’ve dented both cars, and Mom will be even madder.”

  “I don’t think she cares about the cars,” said Mr. Rellen. “Let’s go inside, Alice.”

  “Is Mom there?”

  “No. Your mother has gone to the airport to meet your grandparents. She’ll be back in an hour.”

  “Oh,” said Alice. She felt stupid and young. Mom was not somewhere being wrong or evil. Just going to the airport to get her own mother and father. Grandma and Grandpa were coming to the rescue.

  Her grandparents thought Alice was perfect. They told her so all the time. They would be on her side. They would listen, and love, and agree. Alice’s tears became relief; family was coming, people who loved her.

  Mr. Rellen moved her toward the house, in a practiced, steady way; the way Paul of the computer lab had escorted her.

  Alice said, “But if Mom drove to the airport, what car is in the fourth space?”

  Mr. Rellen smiled even more broadly. The smile decorated his face like a spaceship: an alien object that had no business being there. Spaceship. Alice swerved and looked back, and through the broken windows, lit by the rising sun, she could see the unmistakable spaceship front end of a navy blue Lumina minivan.

  Mr. Rellen was chuckling. Alice stared at him. She stared at where his strong thick fingers held her own arm.

  How close the name Rick Rellen was to the name Dick Arren.