Tuesday Morning, Continued
I recognized the canary yellow sheet of paper. The tiny gift shop at the south entrance of Dry Hollow Park hands them out. There’s a series of paths running through the park, including my favorite that curves around the soccer fields and looks down on them from above, and this map showed visitors the system.
There was an X on the map in a wooded area near the archery range with the words “Maggie marks the spot.” My phone beeped.
Come find me. I’ll be waiting.
My teeth ached as I clenched them. Hurt Maggie and I’ll kill you.
I glanced at my mobile phone sitting on the newspaper box, but then I glanced around again. Where was Alex hiding? Could he still see me?
Even though I wanted to grab my phone, I forced myself to take a step toward the bus stop on the opposite corner of the street. When the light for pedestrians turned green, I watched my brown boots as I strode across the intersection.
“Watch it!”
My eyes snapped upward when a guy in a business suit and trench coat ran into me, a mobile phone in his hand.
“You could try paying attention, too,” I told him, and he scowled at me. I glared back, feeling a warm ball of anger gather inside me. It was like a jolt of caffeine on an empty stomach, except instead of awake I felt ready to attack the world.
The man in the suit walked on, and the anger continued to give a bounce to my step as I marched the rest of the way across the street. Alex thought he was in control, and he did carry the trump card with Maggie.
But I had my own advantage, like my knowledge of the park. Alex hadn’t thought that part through. As I counted out change for the bus, I took inventory of what I had with me. One textbook, and two notebooks. Several pens. A graphing calculator. A bar of chocolate. Half-empty water bottle. A seven-inch tablet.
I started to smile when I saw the tablet, but I slid the expression off my face in case Alex was still watching. I rooted around in my bag, pretending I was just finding one last quarter for my fare, but my mind was spinning with ideas. I paused when I saw a flash of orange out of the corner of my eye, and a brief moment of hope lit my chest. Was that Gin’s Jeep? But it was gone around the corner. Maybe it wasn’t even a Jeep.
The bus pulled up, and as the wheels stopped in front of me, the gears in my head started spinning in overdrive.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” the driver asked as I dropped my change into the money collector.
“I’m doing a project at the park.” I took my ticket out of his hand and headed to the back of the bus.
Alex had marked a spot off of Dry Hollow’s Oak Trail. I’d stay on the bus longer and enter the park from the south, instead of the closer north entrance.
I pulled the tablet from my bag. Maggie had a matching device, both given to us for Christmas. The city was running an experiment of offering WiFi on buses and trains for commuters, and there was the blue symbol on the front windshield of the bus saying this bus was part of the pilot program.
After I logged onto my e-mail, I popped open a new e-mail, and pulled the detective’s card from my bag. Should I really e-mail a confession, especially before I got Maggie back?
Yes. I should.
My thoughts felt jumbled as I typed them out, and I had to correct words several times as I typed the wrong letters on the cramped screen. But twenty minutes later when the bus pulled up to the north end of the park, I had a coherent message explaining what we’d done, although I omitted Gin and Benji from the confession. I told him that Alex had Maggie and I was going to get her back. It wasn’t the best essay I’d ever written, but my English teacher might be proud of my directness. Except she wouldn’t like the content. I doubt she’d be down with criminal acts. After all, she doesn’t even like sarcasm.
I quickly added Gin’s father to the CC line, and went ahead and added my dad too. I pictured how his face would look when he read the e-mail. Despite my brother’s drug problems, Daniel didn’t have a criminal record. His one arrest had been sealed after the two r’s: restitution and rehab. Now the glory child, the athlete, the one kid he could brag about, would be the scandal of the city. The cautionary tale to keep kids in line. There was once this girl, Harper, and she went from homecoming princess to felon in a single school year.
Hopefully Gin’s dad would keep his son out of the dung heap I was dragging myself into.
The black phone beeped.
Are you scared, yet?
Just you wait.
I shoved the phone into my bag and stared out the window. We passed by the east entrance, the one closest to the soccer fields. Maybe five more minutes until the south entrance of the park.
Until showtime.
I took a deep breath, glanced at the e-mail one more time, and hit Send.