AmberLea jumps up, grabs me by the hand and walks me to the exit, past where Black Mustache is sitting. She nuzzles my neck and whispers, “Follow my lead.”
Outside, she pulls me past where the skis are stacked. Then she turns, throws her arms around me and kisses me. I’m so surprised, I almost inhale my glasses. Still, it’s a great feeling—until I realize she’s not really kissing me, she’s whispering lip to lip. “Hug me back. Turn to the right so I can see. Okay, he’s watching us. Keep hugging me and back me against the wall.” I do my best. Her hands run across my back and up into my hair. We’re against an equipment shed with an open garage door. “Now I pull you in here, and unless he’s a real perv, he’ll leave us alone for a bit while we trade clothes.” She tugs me into the shed and past a snowmobile and unzips her jacket.
It’s a good thing we’re close to the same size. In fact, AmberLea is a little bigger than me. Her red jeans feel funny. “How do you wear these?” I ask.
“Shut up and dress. And no peeking.”
I snap on the ski boots. My rentals are red; hers are white. Naturally, they’re the only thing that’s too small. I’ll manage. I zip up AmberLea’s jacket. We don’t have to trade hats, but she tucks her hair up. “Glasses.” She snaps her fingers. “I need your glasses.” She jams them on, then swears under her breath. “How do you see in these bleeping things?” I don’t bother to tell her they’re not that strong. “I hope you know you’re the only person in the world I’d do this for.” She bumps into the snowmobile. “Now, stay in here until you see him follow me.” She ducks her chin into my jacket collar and steps out of the shed. I wait one minute, then peek out. A blurry AmberLea has my rental skis on and is joining the line for the chairlift. Black Mustache, or Dusan or whoever he is, is doing his best to hurry after her.
I wait until they’re both in the air, then step out of the shed and Frankenstein-walk to the parking lot. It takes a little longer without my glasses, but I find the car, two rows over from the Cayenne: an old gray Honda Civic with a sagging rear bumper. I peer inside. By O’Toolemobile standards, it’s neat as a pin: a Starbucks Tall cup in the driver’s-side holder, an apple core on the gritty floor mats, a scraper for the windshield, a box of tissues and what I think is a parking ticket. I try the doors; they’re locked. I move to the back of the car. One end of the bumper is attached to the car with a big version of one of those notched plastic fasteners you sometimes get with garbage bags. I try the hatch release and get lucky. It’s unlocked. I lift the hatch and fold back the compartment cover. There’s a container of washer fluid, a set of jumper cables and a leather messenger bag. I open the bag.
Inside, a tube of something labeled Skinbind nestles in a bundle of yellow fur. I jump back, thinking it’s an animal, then gingerly pull out what looks to be a fake beard and mustache. They’re like the stupid disguises I brought back from the cottage. Below them is a file folder and a CD jewel case. The jewel case holds an Aiden Tween CD. In the folder are snapshots of Deb, Jer, me and Bunny. One of Bun has been shot through a wire fence. I recognize a Creekside building in the background. There’s another of Jer and Bun getting out of the van at O’Toole Central, probably the day Bun came home. There are also photos of AmberLea and Toby and me stepping out of the elevator in the lobby of Aiden Tween’s hotel.
What’s left in the bag is even creepier. It’s a small cardboard box stamped with numbers and labeled HOLLOW POINT. Inside are two tidy rows of bullets, like miniature moon rockets. My times around guns have never been happy, and I know what “hollow point” means from the movies: the heads of the bullets flatten on impact to rip a bigger hole in whatever they’ve hit. I take the bullets out of the box and put them in AmberLea’s jacket pocket. Next, I scrabble up some stones from the gravel of the parking lot and dump them in the box, so that it weighs about the same as it did before. Then I put everything back just the way I found it. Before I close the hatch, I take the jumper cables and use the jagged copper teeth on one of the clamps to tear the plastic strip holding the right side of the bumper to the car. The end of the bumper clonks to the ground. It should take a while to fix, maybe long enough for us to go home on our own.