Another dismal day without my car.
What would I do if I still didn’t have it by the time school started? I would have to take the bus! There wasn’t anybody up where I lived who took the bus to Southbridge High. They mostly went to Lakeside or had a car, or both. This really sucked.
I called the service manager, Mr. Patton, at Barger Brothers.
It sounded as if he was chewing on something, maybe a good excuse. Finally, he said, “That depends.”
“On what?” I asked.
“When did you bring it in?”
“Do you mean there’s big long line waiting for service?”
“Give me your name again.” That was an order, not a request. I gave him my name.
I could almost see him flipping pages in his order book. I knew they kept it all in a looseleaf binder.
“We had to order a part,” he said.
“Yes, I know that. They wouldn’t tell me what part or how long it would take.”
“Depends,” he said. “Car needs a new engine.”
“A new—” I felt myself choking. I thought I was having a heart attack.
“Can take a while,” he said, unmindful of my distress. “We’re looking for a used one to save you some money.”
“How much—do you think—” Then I had a clearer thought. “I want one that’s going to work. And will go on working for the next ten years.” By that time, maybe I could afford a new car.
“We’ll give you a call when it’s ready,” he promised.
My head went on spinning. I had a crazy thought about going and living with Cree. She could walk to school from her house. It was only one more year. We could walk together and keep each other company.
Now I missed Ben as much as she did. If he were here, I could ride to school with him.
No, I couldn’t. Not when he’d already graduated.
If it weren’t for Evan, I would still be at Lakeside. I could easily walk there from home and usually did.
Then I started thinking about Kelsey. She was supposed to go to some college in Massachusetts. Mt. Holyoke, I thought. Would she still do that? Would she be ready? If I were her, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere ever again. At least she’d be far away from Southbridge and anyone who knew her. As long as that turd didn’t put her pictures back on the Internet.
How I missed Rick. If his hostage situation were over, he would have called me. Unless they had a big long debriefing, or something. Even then, I couldn’t get a picture of him and Rosie out of my mind. Sitting with the others at a big long table, talking, listening, and holding hands.
Was that an accurate picture? The hands? Why did my brain have to focus on it? Or bring it up to begin with? Curses.
I tried to call Phil Reimer and ask about the hostage situation, like if it was still going on and where. Couldn’t get him and nobody else answered his phone. Probably it was top secret anyway, to keep away gawkers who might get hurt and would certainly be in the way.
My call to the garage seemed to work. Or I liked to think it did. By mid-afternoon they got back to me. My car was ready!
“Are you sure?” I asked. “A nice new engine? Firmly in place?”
“Well, not exactly new.” It was Mr. Patton again. “I explained about that.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “As long as it lasts forever.”
“Ninety-day guarantee.” He seemed proud of that.
Who was I to argue? I called Rhoda, hoping she’d be home before they closed.
“I’m sorry, honey. I have a late appointment this afternoon. You don’t need it tonight, do you? I can drop you off there tomorrow morning.”
I didn’t need it that night, but I wanted it all safe at home. Once again, I couldn’t argue. Rhoda’s appointments were her livelihood. And someone else’s sanity. How could there be so many neurotic people in the world? Why weren’t they all nice and normal, like—ahem—me?
I tried calling Cree, just in case she felt like borrowing her grandmother’s car and driving several miles to pick me up.
She wasn’t even home. Nor was the car, because Cree had it. Her grandma didn’t know where she’d gone. I thought Grandma kept close track of the car, if not her granddaughter. Apparently, she had learned to relax a little.
I called the garage, told them I couldn’t get there until morning, so please would they put it in a safe place and keep the keys in their office.
It was Wally I spoke with that time. “Will do, pussycat.”
It made him laugh, me treating the ratty old Chevy as if it were a Rolls Royce. Hey, I was paying through the nose for that new engine. A girl had to protect her investment.
I fiddled with my computer, not really seeing it, till Daddy came home. I explained about Rhoda being late and together we heated some beans.
By morning, I still hadn’t heard from Rick. How could the hostage guy hold out so long? Didn’t he have to eat and sleep and go to the bathroom?
Or was Rosie keeping Rick occupied? Maybe I didn’t want to know.
I had to brace myself once again for being boyfriendless. But this was different from when I dumped Evan. I really cared for Rick. Okay, I loved him. I even had dreams of a whole future together.
Probably that was stupid. As Rhoda constantly pointed out, I was only seventeen. So what? I’d found out from a distant relative that Rhoda herself was seventeen when she got engaged to Daddy. I never told her I knew, but believe me, I filed it away. Now wasn’t the time to confront her, not until I knew where I stood with Rick. He might have woken up and realized I was just a high school kid, while Rosie was—good grief, she was married, divorced, and a mother. That’s old.
Someday maybe I would be a mother. But not divorced. Not if I married Rick.
The garage opened at eight. Rhoda had a nine o’clock appointment, so she wanted to drop me off in time to reach her office by then. Her office was in Ossining, not too far from us, but not right next door either.
I was ready by seven-thirty. That was actually no worse than a school morning. As soon as we got to Barger Brothers, I looked around in back and saw my car there. Outside.
I had specifically asked for a safe place. They must have thought their parking lot was safe. They didn’t know Evan. Or his cronies.
Come to think of it, the time he cut the brake line, it had been parked outside at home. Right next to my house. No place was safe from Evan.
Rhoda stayed with me until I finished paying. It took all of my credit card and a good bit of hers. It also took what seemed like forever. She got fidgety but finally was able to leave in plenty of time for her appointment.
“Your car’s right out in back,” Wally told me.
“Yes, I saw it there. I asked for a safe place. Aren’t there any safe places inside?”
That called for a laugh. “Inside? That’s a work area. It’s all finished. Doesn’t need more work.”
“I’ve been having some trouble with somebody who hates me,” I explained. “Remember when it got towed in with the brake line cut?”
He didn’t remember. I knew they had a few other customers besides me.
His face crinkled with amusement. “You’re perfectly safe here at Barger’s, pussycat. Go and enjoy your new engine.”
At least they hadn’t left the keys in it. He gave them to me and I went outside to take the old biddy home.
I thought of it as female, but maybe it wasn’t. Cree’s grandmother gave her car a name. She called it Archie. When I told that to Ben, he suggested I name mine Rufus because it was red. He said Rufus was a Roman name meaning “red-haired.” My car didn’t have hair and I couldn’t think of it as Rufus, so I didn’t bother.
“Okay, nameless one.” I said, and inserted the key.
It didn’t turn.
I tried it the other way, and it locked.
I ran back into the office. “Mr. Wally!”
In the service bay, he popped out from behind a green Jeep. “What’s the matter, pussycat?”
“I am not a pussycat and my car was unlocked! How could they leave it outside unlocked? Overnight!”
He looked totally baffled and somewhat appalled. As if I’d said I found a body in it. “Who did?” he asked.
“Whoever put it out there. I said I wanted it safe. That would include locking it, I would think, considering your parking lot is wide open to the whole world.”
“Did something happen?” he asked.
“I haven’t tried it yet and I’m not going to without a thorough inspection. The person who cut my brake line is still at large.”
That made it sound as if Evan was some kind of escaped monster. Okay, if it acts like a monster. . . .
Wally was still trying to digest that when I asked him to take a look at it. I had no intention of getting in the car until somebody went over it. I never thought I’d miss Ben so much. He was the one who found the cut brake line that time.
“Uh, pussycat, we’re kinda busy right now.” He emphasized it with a look at his watch.
“Then I’ll have to leave it here until somebody has the time.” I could take a taxi home but I really wanted to stay and watch while somebody went over it.
I added, “It can’t take more than five minutes to check the basics.”
How much did I know about it? Not one thing. I desperately needed to study auto mechanics.
Wally scratched his head. Way to get grease in your hair. He asked, “What do you want looked at?”
“Everything that could be sabotaged that would put me in danger. Brakes, steering. I’m sure you would know.”
That worked, appealing to his superior knowledge. I didn’t grow up with a brother for nothing.
We walked out together. He hoisted up the hood and peered into the engine. I did, too. No time like the present to start my education.
He showed me where the brake fluid went and how it was carried to the brakes. The power steering, too, was AOK. Also the spark plugs. I knew about those. I’d had trouble with them before. That, for a change, was not Evan’s fault.
Wally checked everything he could easily reach, which I had to assume was all Evan could easily reach, and pronounced it in working order.
“Satisfied now, pussycat?”
Not quite. I asked him to start it for me. He chuckled, and did. Nothing blew up. It was not that I wanted to endanger him. I didn’t want me in danger, either, and he was laughing at me. I couldn’t help being annoyed about that.
Still laughing, he went back to his green Jeep and I tried once again to get Rick.
Not even voicemail. He never turned off his phone. Was it still that hostage taker? Why didn’t they just teargas the guy? It wouldn’t hurt the children permanently. Probably a lot less permanently than being held hostage. Maybe he had electric fans set up in all the windows to blow it back at the cops. Maybe he was holding the children at gunpoint. Again, I wondered where in Southbridge this was taking place. Who in Southbridge would do such a thing? Nobody I knew, except maybe Evan. I didn’t by any means know all or even most of the people in my town. Not with a population in the thousands.
While my thoughts ran, I’d kept the engine running. Stupid me, wasting gas. I told myself I was testing it. It seemed okay, so I turned around and left Barger Brothers—forever, I hoped.
Don’t say that. Don’t say forever.
Where did that come from? I really was a nervous wreck. Who’d have thought it? Safe, sane Maddie Canfield.
Now that I had my car, I could go and see how Kelsey was doing. Maybe I should pick up Glyn and take her, too. But that would mean going all the way up to Fremont. Once there, I might as well go home, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. I had my car, I had freedom, and I wanted to do something. So I aimed for the highway that went to Hudson Hills.
The trip to the hospital was a little over four miles. My brakes held and so did the steering. It wasn’t that I mistrusted Wally’s inspection. Call it a severe case of paranoia.
It never occurred to me it wasn’t visiting hours yet. I mean, I knew that, but it went right through my brain without registering. I was preoccupied. That kept me going onto an elevator and up one floor without a pang of guilt. No one stopped me. So much for security.
When I got to Kelsey’s room, it was empty. I mean really empty, with the bed stripped down to its vinyl mattress cover and nothing there that was Kelsey’s. Not even the flowers we sent her. She must have been released. So soon? I went out to the nurses’ station and asked.
“Oh. Kelsey Fritz,” they said. “She’s been transferred to Intensive Care.”
“What happened?” A turn for the worse. The poison must have caught up with her.
When they didn’t answer right away, I tried the obvious. “She’s alive. Isn’t she?”
Yes, she was. They didn’t say “barely,” but refused to tell me anymore.
I knew where ICU was. I’d had a friend there last year. I didn’t expect them to let me in, only family members were allowed, but I knew some of the nurses, if they were still there.
Before I reached the nurses, I passed a small waiting room. That is, I started to pass it till I saw the person waiting there.
She sat alone, reading a magazine, and didn’t look up until I said, “Velda!”
“Maddie?” She was surprised, but not excessively so.
“They told me she was transferred. What happened? She got worse?”
“I’ll say.” Velda looked grim. “They should have had bars on the window.”
“Bars? What happened?” I pictured Evan climbing in.
Velda was sitting on a two-person sofa. She patted the other cushion.
Closing the magazine with a finger in it to keep her place, she said, “They called my folks in the middle of the night. Apparently she jumped.”
“Jumped?” My slow mind tried to grasp it.
“Out the window. It must have taken her a lot of effort to get there. She wasn’t very strong.”
“But—”
“Lucky for her, or at least for the rest of us, the cafeteria has a roof that juts out. It broke her fall.”
I knew that cafeteria. I’d been there, with Rick. Never thought about the roof one way or another.
“This was at night?” I asked. “How did—they know?”
“Another lucky break. A security guard was patrolling the grounds and just happened to see her.”
I thought of Kelsey’s state of mind. “She must have been desperate.”
“That scene. At the party.” Velda couldn’t say “rape.” “It was the worst thing that could have happened to her.”
“Men can be such pigs!”
“Not all men,” she said. “Not my husband. It doesn’t mean porker pigs. It’s just an expression for that kind of male.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “And not my boyfriend, either.”
He could at least answer his phone.
“And not my daddy,” I went on. “Or my brother.” In spite of what Kelsey thought of him. “Predatory, that’s what you mean.” I was adding it to the vocabulary for my campaign.
“Was she badly hurt?” Stupid question. Of course she was.
Velda leaned back her head and tried to think. It must have been quite a list.
“Her right arm and shoulder are broken. Several ribs. She landed a little to one side. It might not have been so much damage if she’d been more relaxed, but of course, that wasn’t the idea. They think she was trying to push herself out beyond the roof but she was too weak.”
“How is she going to get over this?” I wasn’t really asking. “It’s just so incredible.”
“We tried to get a private duty nurse for night times,” Velda said. “We thought we had one but at the last minute her child got sick and there wasn’t any replacement. If I’d known, I’d have sat up with her myself.”
“The hospital must have known,” I said. “She already tried it once. You could sue them.”
“Hospitals don’t have any money. Whatever they do have should go for patient care.”
“That wasn’t very good care. But I know what you mean. I hate people who try to make money by suing. But you could threaten to sue in case they didn’t already get the message.”
“It would have to be my parents doing that. Let’s hope they did get the message, a little late.”
Velda looked at her watch. “I think my fifteen minutes have arrived. That’s all I get, fifteen minutes every two hours.”
“For that you sit here all day?” I wondered if anyone would do that for me.
“Not all day. Only a large part of it. I need to be on hand.”
“Is she conscious?” I asked. “Give her my love. And Glyn’s, too.”
“Thank you. And thanks for the flowers you sent. She enjoyed them for a while but she’s not allowed to have them in ICU. I took them home.”
Even the flowers couldn’t cheer her up. The monstrosity of Evan was too much.
With his unerring nose for evil, he picked the most vulnerable person he could find. I refused to think it was simply a matter of opportunity. He didn’t have to take the opportunity. He was just evil.
I went out to the parking lot and studied my car. Did anybody touch it while I was gone? I walked around it. Tested the doors. They were still locked. Would he lock it again if somehow he got it open and unlatched the hood?
He might, just so I wouldn’t suspect anything. I studied the doors, not knowing how I could tell if they’d been jimmied.
The hospital was several miles from Southbridge. Would he even know where I was? Not unless he followed me.
There was the time he attached a tracking device to my car. Again, it was Ben who found it. I wouldn’t know where to look.
Somewhere on the underside. I ran my hand over every surface I could reach without actually getting down on my back the way Ben did. My only result was dirty fingers.
Dammit, I was not going to live like this!
Or maybe I wasn’t going to live, period.
If anything happened, my family would know where to look.
So would Rick, if he still cared. I hauled out my cell phone and tried again to reach him.
Again nothing. Dammit, Rick! I checked to see if I still had battery power. Maybe he was the one who didn’t. I couldn’t call 911 about this. It was only for emergencies. I had the number for the Southbridge PD but hesitated to bother them if they were in the middle of a hostage crisis. I only wanted to know if the crisis was still going on. I consoled myself with the thought that they probably wouldn’t tell me, even if I said I was from the newspaper.
It wouldn’t be a complete lie. I was on the staff of the Southbridge High paper, The Tiger’s Roar.
This was ridiculous. I would get Rufus and me home first and then worry about the police.
“Are you really a Rufus?” I asked him as I unlocked his door.
I looked all around inside, and sniffed, to be sure there weren’t any dangerous chemicals. I don’t know where that idea came from. Maybe I was thinking of explosives.
Nothing, either visual or olfactory, seemed out of the ordinary. This time I was looking for it. I hadn’t been, that time when he cut my brake line.
What does brake fluid smell like? I got out of the car and looked under it to see if anything dripped.
All clear underneath. I got back in and started off for home.