Chapter 17
The library’s stifling, as if someone’s cranked up the thermostat since we first walked in. “Is it hot in here all of a sudden?” I ask Kieran, who hasn’t stopped gawking at Frank Dozier’s younger self.
“It’s a little warm,” he agrees without looking at me.
I lean forward, elbows on the table and chin resting on my fists, joining him in this imaginary staring contest with Frank Dozier. “What do we do now?” I whisper. “I mean, he’s here.”
Kieran’s gaze darts around the area we can see from where we’re sitting, almost as if he expects Frank Dozier’s lurking in the Titusville library, waiting to jump out and do…whatever…which leads me to ask, “Wait—isn’t he supposed to be in jail?”
“Maybe he got paroled?” Kieran suggests, voice unsteady. “Time off for good behavior?”
I shrug, because this is all so weird anything’s possible at this point. “Maybe. But at any rate, what are we supposed to do? And do you think Morgan Levert’s hiding out here somewhere, too?” I glance around the library just as Kieran had a minute ago. Both Morgan and Frank might as well be in the room right now, I feel so trapped by them already, but Kieran shakes his head with confidence that Morgan, at least, isn’t in our general vicinity. “As far as he knows, we’re still in North Carolina.”
“Well, apparently Frank Dozier knows you’re in Illinois.” I jab my finger into the table for emphasis. “It can’t be some random coincidence he’s working at a diner in the town your family happened to move to three months ago.” Kieran doesn’t say anything, and so I keep pressing. “What should we do? Tell your dad?”
“I don’t know,” he murmurs.
“We’ll need to come up with some excuse for why we’re not at the Diner,” I say, piling on. “My mom’s meeting us there like always. I can text her that we’re coming to pick her up from somewhere else, but she’ll ask why we didn’t go to the Diner after school.”
Kieran shifts his attention back to our nemesis on the computer screen, the man who until a few minutes ago was nothing more than some guy at the Diner who served us cheese fries and drinks five times a week. Kieran clasps my hand in both of his and his jaw sets, eyes glowing ice blue with an intensity I’ve never seen before. “I think we should go to the Diner anyway. Pretend today’s a normal day.”
My mouth drops open. “Okay—I think we just left normal in the rear-view mirror,” I point out, but Kieran squeezes my hand, as if trying to transfer some of his confidence to me.
“He doesn’t know that, though. He has no reason to think we wouldn’t be there today. We’ve spent the last six weeks practically ignoring this guy. Now that you know who he is, don’t you want to observe him a little, figure out what his deal is?”
“Not if his deal is that he wants to hurt you,” I insist.
“Well, first of all, we have no idea if he wants to hurt me. Second, what can he do to me in a public place? Think about it—we’re probably safer at the Diner right in front of him than we are anyplace else.”
Kieran has a point. At the Diner, Frank could do little to nothing to us without raising suspicions.
“Okay,” I say, giving in. “I guess I do kind of want to watch him a little bit now that we know who he is. But then we’ve got to come up with some kind of a plan for what we should do, okay?”
Nodding, Kieran stands up and I rise with him. He takes a second to lean down to the mouse and close out of our web search before we leave, Mrs. Bochine barely looking up from her computer as we pass by the front desk. Once we’re out in the parking lot, the sky unleashes a downpour, forcing us to sprint to my car parked by the football field, the two of us shrieking and laughing the whole way in a much-needed break from the tension of the library. As I start the car and turn on the wipers, Kieran smoothes strands of wet hair behind my ears, the sensation of his fingertips grazing my skin stirring the ache in my stomach. I can’t help but think how any other couple at this school with more than an hour of unsupervised time on their hands would be driving out to the Buckley plant right now, but here we are, heading straight into the path of a convict.
I shake off whatever I’d much rather be doing to Kieran and focus on the mission at hand, which is getting us to the Diner. It takes mere minutes for us to drive from school to River Avenue, the six-block stretch of stores and churches that make up downtown Titusville. I pull into a parking space to the left of the Diner’s main entrance and at this angle, all we can see through the Diner’s plate glass window is the dull glare of clouds and rain reflected back at us rather than getting a good view of anyone inside. After I turn the car off, we get out and huddle together against the drizzle in the few steps we have to take to reach the Diner, and once inside, we slide into our familiar booth near the door, Frank Dozier immediately walking up to the table as he does every day.
“The usual?” he grunts.
“Yeah,” is all Kieran gets out before Frank turns and walks back to the kitchen to put in our order. Observing him here in the flesh, although older and more shiny bald than his newspaper photo, confirms what we already know. “It’s definitely him,” Kieran mutters, voice low enough only I would hear him.
As we have on every other day we’ve been here together, we start pulling textbooks and notebooks from our respective backpacks, but I’m guessing neither of us will get much studying done. We both concentrate on the swinging double doors leading back to the kitchen, not talking to each other or joking around as we normally would. The second Frank reemerges to fill our drinks at the fountain next to the cash register, we drop our eyes to our books as if someone’s just shined a spotlight out from the kitchen and we need to shift our gaze or risk going blind. I stare at some paragraph in my history textbook, the printed words blurring together on the page and creating a haze of black and white nonsense blending perfectly with noise from the soda fountain, the whir and gurgle of plastic cups pressed against levers and drinking up liquid. From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of navy blue tennis shoes approaching the table, followed by the lower half of a drink cup next to the edge of my book seconds later. I fold and unfold my hands in my lap, but find myself otherwise paralyzed, afraid if I twitch too much or make a sudden motion, some kind of hell will rain down on Kieran and me.
“Thanks,” Kieran says for both of us, and I can tell from his voice he’s looking up at Frank Dozier.
“No problem.”
“Hey—got a minute?” Kieran’s breezy, “Dude—what’s up?” tone prompts me to raise my head. Frank’s already turned back toward the kitchen, but he stops, twisting to the table at Kieran’s question.
“Whattaya need?”
“Well…it’s…we hang out here almost every day, and I feel bad we’ve never asked you your name before.”
I want to kick Kieran or shoot him the kind of teeth-gnashing, eyes flashing Oh-My-God-What-Are-You-Doing expression I’d usually reserve for my mother when she’s going out of her way to embarrass me, but I’m afraid I’ll give us away. So I plaster a smile on my face, stare up at Frank Dozier, and pretend to be interested in an answer I assume will be a lie.
“Danny,” he rumbles, his voice a gruff baritone. “Danny Dubrow.”
Kieran smiles and, drawing upon some reserve of cool inside him mixed with his usual charm, holds out his hand for “Danny” to shake. “Danny” wipes his palms on his apron before giving Kieran’s hand a polite pump.
“I’m Kieran, and this is my girlfriend, Zip.”
Rather than hold out my hand, I bob my head in a hello, trying to accept that the first time in my life I get introduced as someone’s girlfriend is to a convicted felon who’s lying about his identity. Lucky me.
“So, Danny,” Kieran continues, completely unflappable. “I understand we have something in common.”
Rather than dive over the table to clamp my hand over Kieran’s mouth, which is what I really want to do right now, I keep my gaze focused on our new friend “Danny,” waiting for any
changes in his expression, any hints of shock or surprise, any indication his straight-line eyes might pop out from the flesh surrounding them.
And…nothing. Nothing but a frown, a normal facial expression for someone who’s just heard a total stranger claim they have something in common. Since Kieran obviously can’t admit that they both have a connection to Morgan Levert, I wonder what his next move is going to be in this game of chicken he’s playing.
“Really,” Frank says, tucking his fists into his long sleeves and folding his arms across his chest. “We got somethin’ in common. What’s that?”
Yes, Kieran, my eyes scream at him. What would that be, exactly?
“Well, we’re both kind of new in town,” Kieran calmly reveals. “Dewayne mentioned you moved here not too long ago.”
“Yeah,” Frank nods, giving no indication he thought Kieran was going to say something else.
Kieran keeps prodding. “So, where are you from? Dewayne didn’t say.”
Danny/Frank looks down at his apron. If he were anyone else, I’d think he’s shy or maybe uncomfortable making small talk with the customers. Being who he is, however, his actions tell me he’s buying time to come up with a good story.
“Around Chicago,” he says at last. “Lost my job and my house, so I’m stayin’ with some relatives ‘til I can get back on my feet.”
I concentrate on the sound of Frank’s voice as he utters the longest string of words he’s said in the weeks he’s been working here. He’s definitely not from Titusville, because he’s got some thick accent I can’t place, although I’m pretty sure it’s not the flat, kind of “I’ve got something stuck in my nose,” accent I’ve heard from some native Chicagoans when I go to visit my dad.
“Times are tough.” Kieran tries to sympathize with Frank’s fake drama, while I finally work up the nerve to contribute to the conversation.
“Where around Chicago are you from?” I ask.
Frank’s expression shifts just enough for me to tell I’ve nailed him. His eyes grow to what on anyone else would be normal size, and he clears his throat several times as if he’s trying to stall so he can think of the name of a neighborhood or a suburb. In the lull, I roll my eyes toward Kieran, who maintains the pleasant expression he’s held since we first started talking to Frank.
“Oh, ya know—the city,” Frank responds at last, probably thinking he’s dodged a bullet before I take another shot at him.
“Really? What part? My dad grew up in Chicago, so I know a lot of the neighborhoods,” I explain, all curious innocence. My dad’s originally from Lincoln Park, but I’m guessing Frank Dozier’s never heard of it.
“Um…North side,” Frank answers after taking a little too long to think. “Near Wrigley Field.”
I almost want to congratulate him on the safe response, something anyone could’ve learned from watching a few Chicago Cubs games. An evil impulse tempts me to push him for a street name, but I hold back, remembering what’s going on here isn’t playtime.
“I should check on those fries,” he tells us. “Nice talkin’ to ya, though.”
“You, too,” Kieran calls after him as Frank motors away toward the kitchen. As I stare at him, Kieran lifts his caffeine-free soda to take a drink, swallows, and sets the cup back down before he starts paging through his algebra book as if we’d just had a pleasant conversation with a new acquaintance, which on some level, I guess we kind of did.
“You any good at factoring?” he asks me.