| |
Tuesday passed uneventfully. We kept our distance from Winston, though he did seem to be following us the whole day. Dr. Kestler kept us so busy with tutoring that we were unable to learn anything new there. Wednesday, after morning classes were over, Matt and I walked to the General Washington Student Commons for lunch.
As we sat down at a table and paused to say grace, I added silently, Protect my parents, Lord, where ever they are. Help us to find them soon.
I opened my eyes with a sigh and saw Trinity standing across from me.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked with a smile.
“Go ahead.” I smiled back, motioning with my hand to the spot across from me. I couldn’t help noticing that she managed to look great even in her Academy uniform, then remembered Matt’s teasing and lowered my gaze to my plate.
“Uggh.” Trinity made a face as she sat down. “I am so tired of Winston. He had the audacity to tell me that I was just like my mom. He knows nothing about my mom!”
Somehow in the short time he had been at the Academy, Winston had managed to learn exactly what bothered each student the most. Trinity couldn’t remember her mom, but she also couldn’t forgive her for leaving her and her dad when she was young. Comparing Trinity to her mom was probably the worst insult Winston could have given her.
“So what did you say to him?” I asked.
“Nothing!” She slammed her plate down in front of her. A few of her potato chips bounced off and scattered across the table. “But only because we were already in class. If it weren’t for the teacher, none of the other student would have stopped me. They’re as tired of him as I am.”
“Join the club.” Matt rolled his eyes and took a large bite out of his ham sandwich.
“The teachers love him.” I allowed just a hint of the frustration I felt into my voice. “They just think he’s having trouble ‘adjusting to his peer group.’ He’s doing great in all of his classes. They act like he’s some sort of genius.”
“He’s a genius at getting other people to do his homework for him,” Trinity said, lowering her voice. “But none of his victims are willing to talk.”
“Perhaps your dad could help?” I suggested. Coach Shiloah had no tolerance for cheaters, and little reason to care for Winston, especially after his behavior at the game.
“I’m going to talk to him about it tonight. Maybe he can do something.” Trinity glared down into her glass. “I wish Winston had never transferred here.”
“At least we don’t have to see him in the afternoon,” I commented, popping a potato chip in my mouth.
“Yet another great reason for tutoring.” Matt smiled sweetly at Winston, who was watching us from a couple tables away.
Winston glared back at him, pointed two fingers at his own eyes, and then at Matt to signal, “I’m watching you.”
“You know, we could always swing by after tutoring today and pick you up for church tonight.” I finished my sandwich and tried to cover my nervousness as I looked at her. “I’ll pay for dinner.”
She hesitated for just a moment, as if considering my offer. “Church isn’t really my thing, Scott, you know that.” Her blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “But if you ever want to buy me dinner any other time, I might be willing to say yes.”
Matt coughed beside me as my ears burned red.
“Ummm... I’ll keep that in mind.” Ugh. Even I knew that was incredibly lame.
Fortunately, Trinity just laughed at my awkwardness as we stood to clear our plates.
The rest of the school day was fine. I mean, Winston eventually ignored us in favor of irritating other students and I managed not to stuff my foot in my mouth again. Once our last class was over, Matt and I raced to our room to prepare for tutoring and church.
“We’ll have to leave straight from Dr. Kestler’s.” I pushed open the door to our room. “You’ll want to make sure you have your – What happened in here?”
The room looked like it had been trashed. Dresser drawers had been removed and their contents strewn over the room. Bookshelves had been roughly emptied and books lay in piles, open and bent. Our laundry hampers had been dumped and the dirty clothes had been mixed with the clean clothes so that I could no longer tell the difference. The sheets had even been ripped off our beds.
“Winston!” Matt growled as he waded through a pile of junk into the room.
“When would he have had time to do this?” I waved my hand at the mess. “He was in school the same as us.”
“He’s not in all the same classes as us, maybe he skipped class to try to figure out what we’re doing.” He bent to gather his scattered comic book collection and glared at a creased cover. “Besides, who else could it have been?”
“Not a teen.” My voice was low as I tried to keep my suspicions from turning to fear. “What teen would think to pull the blinds off the windows or shove the mattresses off the beds?”
Matt laid his pile of comics on his desk and looked at the room again. “That’s a scary thought. How would they get in?”
“We got out,” I reminded him as I sat on the floor next to a pile of clothes and began to try sort out the clean ones and fold them.
Matt picked up a few textbooks thoughtfully before responding. “Do you think anything’s missing?” He frowned. “We don’t have anything worth taking, so why else would they do this?”
“To scare us?” I suggested, although I was really more irritated than scared. I paused to sniff a shirt I had picked up and made a face as I sorted it into the “Dirty” pile. “To find out if we’re working with SATURN? I’m not sure.”
I looked at the mounds of scattered things and sighed. “I am sure we’re not going to get to Dr. Kestler’s this afternoon. This is going to take a while.”
“Do you think we should tell Chris?” Matt gave me a glare that made his preferred answer to that question clear.
I paused for a moment to take a pile of dirty laundry to the hamper before answering.
“No,” I said slowly. “Not unless something’s missing. Superintendent Hinkly will insist it was just another student, and we can’t prove otherwise. We’ll just need to make sure we lock the door when we leave.”
“Are you sure we can’t just stuff this mess under the bed and clean it up later?” Matt groaned as he looked at how much we had left.
I just stared at him.
“Guess not.”
We finished picking up just in time to get ready for evening formation at 1800. As soon as formation was over, we grabbed a bite to eat and hurried out to my car. We had permanent passes to leave the campus on Wednesday evenings, as long as we drove directly to church and came directly back. While the school wasn’t in any way religious, Superintendent Hinkly had a great respect for the part religion played in the founding of our country and allowed any of the students to worship as they pleased.
“If it was an intruder,” Matt began as I turned the car onto the road. “Why us? As far as anyone knows, we’re just two high school students being tutored in science.”
“I don’t know.” I’d been asking myself the same question. “Maybe they just wanted to be sure, or maybe we slipped up somehow.”
“I can’t think of how,” Matt said skeptically. “We haven’t done anything unusual.”
“I’ve been running the last few days over in my head,” I said as the church came into view. “I can’t think of anything we might have done wrong.”
I pulled into the west parking lot of Faith Community Church. It was a large church on the outskirts of Baltimore. The building was new but still had a quiet, traditional look to it. Matt and his brother began attending Faith when they had moved to the Baltimore area. He had invited me to come the first week of my freshman year. It was a bit bigger than what I was used to, but I became used to the size fairly quickly.
“Well, don’t worry about the mess.” Matt unbuckled his seat belt and stepped out of the car. “It’s cleaned up now, and you won’t be able to concentrate on Preacher’s message if you keep thinking about it.”
“I’ll do my best,” I promised as we walked through the church’s double-hung glass doors and entered the auditorium, although I wasn’t sure how good my best would be.
Five rows of red, upholstered pews fanned away from the platform at the front. We headed down the aisle just left of the center row and went straight to our usual pew, about three from the front on the left, and sat down. The service was just about to begin.
The music director stepped up to the pulpit to begin the service. “Please turn in your hymnal to hymn 325, 'Trust and Obey'”
Mechanically, I stood to my seat and began to sing the words to the familiar hymn, but my mind was already far away.
I wonder if we did slip up. Perhaps someone saw us talking to Chris or Mr. Jackson.
The song ended and the music director instructed the congregation to be seated. I continued following the order of service with my body, but not with my brain, until Pastor Williams got up to speak.
“Turn in your Bible to the book of Job.” The preacher’s voice broke into my thoughts.
You really don't believe in coincidences, do you , God? My conversation with Trinity came to mind. God has a way of using others to remind us of stuff we probably should have remembered on our own. I really do feel like Job right now.
Suddenly I was overwhelmed by memories of my parents. They felt church was important. They felt God was important. Even when they were on one of their “business trips,” they'd always made sure my babysitter took me to church. Pictures of them ran through my mind like a slide show. Each memory brought another and another until I felt like I was about to be overwhelmed by emotion.
I swallowed a lump rising in my throat and forced my runaway thoughts to a grinding halt. Dear God, please be with them, wherever they are. They love you, Lord, and I know you love them. Please protect them.
“Point number three: Job Trusted in God.” The preacher’s voice again broke into my thoughts. “Look at chapter thirteen, verse fifteen. ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him.’”
Oh, man! I frantically tried to find the verse the preacher was reading. I’ve missed over half the message. I’ve got to start paying attention!
Almost as soon as I had found my place, my distracted mind strayed again. I probably heard the last half of the message about as well as I had heard the first half. Memories of my parents consumed my thoughts.
As Matt and I drove back to the Academy after the service, Matt commented, “That was a great message, wasn’t it?”
“Huh?” I asked, glancing up from the moonlit road. My mind was still far away. “Yeah, I guess it was.”
“Did you even hear any of it?” Matt asked suspiciously.
“It was out of Job,” I offered weakly.
“What chapter in Job?”
“I don’t know. That’s about all I heard,” I admitted with a sigh. “I kept thinking about my parents.
“I know.” Matt laid a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “We’ll find them.”
I stared silently at the road for a moment and then glanced out my rear-view mirror. “Man, that guy is right on our bumper.” I was trying desperately to stop thinking about my parents, even if it meant focusing on something as minor as a lousy driver behind me.
“Maybe it’s Winston,” Matt joked.
“Matt.” I laughed, relieved at the change in subject. “Winston’s not to blame for everything.”
“Sure he is.” Matt tucked his arms behind his head and grinned. “Everything can be traced back to him. I’ll bet the hole in the ozone layer was caused by all his hot air.”
“You’re hopeless...”
I broke off as my car lurched forward.
“What was that?” Matt gasped, grabbing at the dashboard.
“That guy back there just rammed us!” I clenched my teeth as I fought to keep the car from hitting the steel guardrail between us and a deep ditch to our right. I was thankful that my car was old and bulky. I felt better knowing there was a lot of metal between us and that guardrail.
Metal shrieked against metal as the car hit us again, sending us careening into the guardrail in spite of my efforts.
Sweat ran down my face as I pulled the car back onto the road. “Start praying, Matt. That’s the end of the guardrail. If he hits us again, we’ll be in the ditch!”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Matt snapped back, gripping the dashboard with white-knuckled hands.
Stars flashed in my eyes as the jolt from the third hit slammed my head into the steering wheel. I lost control of the car, sending it skidding into the ditch. My head bashed against the window as the car jerked to a stop. An engine roared beside us as the car that hit us sped down the road into the darkness.
“Scott?” Matt shook my arm, his voice filled with concern. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine.” I groaned, touching the bump on my forehead gingerly. How am I going to explain this back at school. If my car can even get us back to school. Another bump was growing on the side of my head where I had hit the window, but that, at least, would be covered by my hair. “Let’s get out and look at the damage.”
We stepped out of the car and looked it over. A nearby streetlight allowed us to see fairly well. The rear bumper was crumpled and a long gash had been scraped in the already peeling paint on the passenger's side.
“It doesn’t look much worse than it did before.” I grinned weakly as I traced the gash with my fingers. Another dent or scratch on my battered car would blend right in.
“It could have been much worse.” Matt face was practically white in the light of the street lamp. “We could have been killed!”
“I don’t think whoever was driving that car was trying to kill us,” I reasoned as I climbed back in the car. “I think he was trying to scare us. It was probably the same guy who wrecked our room.”
“I think we need to call the police,” Matt said as he sat down and closed the car door, “or at least call Chris.”
“And get pulled off the case?” I backed the car out of the ditch and on to the road. Matt was probably right, but I was not about to lose my only chance to find my parents. “We’re not hurt, and my car looked like it had been in an accident already.”
“What about your head?” Matt argued.
“Just a couple of bumps, probably just a bruise. Nothing serious.” I had to convince Matt it was no big deal. “Please, Matt. We’ll just have to be more careful, that’s all.”
“Fine,” Matt conceded reluctantly. “I know how important staying on this case is to you, but from now on, if anyone so much as looks at us funny, we’re going to Chris.”