I began to pace again. “I don’t know. Maybe they saw me leave the house out the back door, or maybe they had a hunch, but they’re here. If we go back and tell Payton that she’s going to die next week, don’t you think that’ll look really, really bad to them?”
“Then you stay here and I’ll go!” Stubby said, turning away from me.
I clamped down on his arm once more and wouldn’t let go. Getting right up into his face I said, “Stubs, stop! You have to think! I mean, Faraday and Wallace know you. They’ve even talked to you! They also know that we’re best friends and we hang out together. If you go back there and say something to Payton and she ends up dying next Wednesday, they’ll know it came from me! Remember what Donny said? He said under no circumstances can I tell anybody their date!”
Stubby stood back and simply stared at me as if he couldn’t believe what was coming out of my mouth. “We’re really gonna let her die? Mads…come on! She’s getting that new car next week! What if she goes cruising with her friends, and she gets distracted and loses control of the car, and then some of them die, too?”
I hadn’t been close enough to the other girls to see their deathdates. There could be more than one casualty next Wednesday. I balled my hands into fists, so frustrated because I didn’t know what to do.
“We have to warn her,” Stubby repeated more gently this time as he laid a hand on my shoulder. “I mean, we didn’t try hard enough with Tevon, and look what happened to him.”
I winced as if he’d struck me. “Ouch.”
Stubby immediately lifted both hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
I sighed. “No. You’re right. We can’t sit back and do nothing. We’ll warn her, but not here and not now.”
Stubs frowned. He didn’t like my answer. “Then when and how?”
“We have a couple of days. I’m pretty sure we can figure out how to get an anonymous message to her.”
“She’ll think it’s a joke,” he countered, looking again to the field.
“And what do you think she’ll decide if you go marching up to her right now and say, ‘Gee, not to upset you or anything, but you’re going to die on your birthday. Just thought you should know!’”
Behind us the roar of the crowd erupted again, but this time it was from the Poplar Hollow side.
Stubby stood there looking at the field for a long time, and I could tell he was wavering about what to do. “I promise you,” I told him, “we’ll figure out a way to warn her, Stubs. On my life I promise you, but please, not here and not now, okay? Let’s think of another place and time when there aren’t so many people around and in a way that doesn’t lead back to us.”
Stubby stared hard at me and sighed, then he looked down and kicked at the ground. “She can’t die, Maddie. We have to save her.”
I didn’t immediately reply because I had no idea what to say. If mere words could prevent someone from dying, then my dad would still be alive and so would Tevon Tibbolt. Still, after a long stretch of silence, what I said was, “I know, buddy, I know. But you have to trust me on this. We can’t say anything to her tonight.”
“Whatever,” he grumbled, turning away from me. “Let’s get outta here.”
I tried not to feel the sting of that cold shoulder, but it was hard. It got harder still when Stubby dropped me off in front of my house and without another word sped away. I knew he wasn’t angry with me per se, but it felt like he was, and I wished very much that I’d waited to tell him until after the game. I didn’t know how we were going to warn Payton without it coming back to me. I vowed to call Stubs in the morning and talk about it, but when I walked inside I found Ma on the floor, passed out cold. I cried out as I dropped to her side, momentarily panicked by finding her on the floor facedown. Grabbing her wrist, I felt for a pulse, and glimpsed an empty liter of vodka lying under the coffee table.
I closed my eyes in relief as I felt her pulse, which was slow but steady. When I strained, I could hear her breathing rhythmically, too.
With a tired sigh I got to work cleaning up, and then moved Ma to the couch. It took me a while because she was completely limp, but at last I got her situated and covered with the afghan. And then I stood in the doorway of the kitchen looking at her lying there on our beat-up old leather couch in a room that smelled like cigarettes, with dingy blue walls, and taupe carpeting littered with stains. I shut my eyes to block out the sight and thought about Aiden and how he’d smiled at me and mouthed the word Hi.
In an instant what’d filled me with such sunny happiness clouded over with a threatening storm. I opened my eyes and looked again at Ma and our house, and I knew that no boy would ever want to get close to a girl like me. A girl who lived in a house with threadbare carpeting and dingy walls that smelled like an ashtray. A girl who saw death in every face. Who was labeled a witch at school. Who had a drunk for a mother, and a father who’d died in a gunfight with drug dealers. A girl who was being investigated for murder by the FBI.
I was like a whirlpool of tragedy, and anybody who dared to get too close to me could get sucked in and drown. Like I was drowning right now.
And I knew that it would never be better. Our house would continue to slowly fall down around us. I would always see death. People at school would always think I was a witch. Ma would always be drunk. Tevon Tibbolt would always be dead, and so would my dad.
For years Aiden had been like the sun to me, shining brightly from the Jupiter sidelines. Tonight, for a brief moment, his star had nearly banished all of the misery right out of my world. But I finally realized that I should probably let go of living in the fantasy that a boy as beautiful as him could meet a girl like me and feel anything other than pity. I needed to accept that this was my reality, and nothing was ever going to change it.
With a heavy heart, I climbed the stairs to bed.
THAT WEEKEND WAS TERRIBLE. Stubby remained distant and didn’t call or even send a text all day Saturday. Not that I really noticed, because my hands were full with Ma. She had a really bad day looking online, trying to find a job, when there didn’t seem to be anything good available.
Then I caught her on the phone with Donny, asking him if I could just do a few readings a month, and he’d blown a gasket. I could hear him yell at her all the way across the room. After a few minutes, she slammed the phone down and headed straight for her stash. “Ma!” I snapped, once I saw her filling the big plastic cup. I couldn’t take it anymore. “If you’re going to get a job, don’t you think you should try and cut back a little?”
She glared hard at me, and before I knew it we were yelling at each other. Getting angry had never gotten Ma off the bottle, but I couldn’t help it. I yelled and yelled at her, and then I threw my hands up and headed upstairs. When I came back down a few hours later I realized she’d left.
I checked the pantry, and sure enough, all the vodka was gone, which implied she’d taken off to replenish the stock. But by seven o’clock she still wasn’t back, and I had a bad feeling.
I went to the front window and peered out. I hadn’t seen that familiar black sedan all day—it seemed that my least-favorite agents took Saturdays off. Next, I checked the garage, and thankfully Dad’s vintage T-Bird was still inside. Neither one of us was allowed to drive it because we couldn’t afford the insurance after Ma got her second DUI and lost her license, but Ma refused to sell it even though we really needed the money. She and Dad had had their first date in that car, and I think she was convinced that someday she’d get her license back and come up with the money for the insurance and be back to driving it again. Still, I knew that sometimes, when she was really missing Dad, and she was sick of taking the bus everywhere, she would sneak out and take it for a spin. It scared me because Ma was never sober. She woke up and the first thing she did was pour vodka into her morning coffee. All those agents had to do was call the cops, and Ma would go to jail and CPS would be back at our door.
Donny called my cell as I was pedaling up and down the
dark streets looking for her. “I can’t find Ma,” I confessed as soon as I answered the call.
I heard him sigh on the other end of the line. I knew he was pretty tired of conversations like these, and I’d gotten better about not calling him in recent years. “How long has she been gone?”
I blinked hard. It wasn’t just the cold misting up my vision. “I’m not exactly sure, but I think she left sometime after one.”
“Did she take the car?”
“No. It’s still in the garage.”
“Where’re you?”
I braked and came to a stop. I was near the park about a mile from my house. “I’m out looking for her.”
There was a pause, then Donny said, “It’s not even eight o’clock, Maddie. She’s probably at some bar, and she’ll find her way home just like she always does. Go back to the house and get warm.”
I looked up and down the street, my eyes searching for Ma in vain. I knew most of the bars she liked to go to, all within a bus stop or two of the house, but I’d been by them and she wasn’t there.
“Maddie?” Donny said. “You there?”
“She doesn’t have her coat, Donny.” I could feel myself getting emotional, and had to swallow hard simply to talk. I felt guilty about our argument, and I was so tired of this. I wanted Ma to see how tired I was. How worried. How afraid. I wanted her to choose to look out for me for a change. I wanted her to stop pulling stunts like this, because I knew that she knew they were really hardest on me.
Donny sighed again. “Maddie,” he said gently. “I’m more worried about you riding around in the dark than I am about your mom. Go home, sweetheart. I’m all the way over in Jersey tonight, but I’ll drive up in the morning and we’ll have a talk, okay?”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. I was too choked up to reply.
“I’ll be there around ten and we’ll grab breakfast,” Donny was saying. In the background I heard a woman’s voice. “Listen, I gotta go. As long as Cheryl’s not behind the wheel, she’ll be okay. She always is. Go home, take a bath, and get warm. I can hear your teeth chattering.”
And then he was gone. I tucked my phone into my pocket and again looked up and down the street, and that’s when I noticed something weird. Far down the street I could hear the faint rumble of an engine, but all the cars parked along the curb had their headlights off. The light from the lone streetlight at my end didn’t let me see into any of the cars, so it was impossible to tell if someone was inside one of them, but I had the prickly feeling that I was being watched by someone other than Wallace and Faraday.
When I got to the next intersection, I paused at the stop sign and heard that slight rumble behind me again. A quick backward glance revealed a large pickup truck moving toward me with its lights off. As I stared, the truck pulled over to the curb and sat there idling again, as if the driver didn’t want to pass me before seeing which direction I was going to take.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end. Pushing off, I turned right and rode hard up the hilly street. Behind me, I heard the engine rev, and I knew the pickup had pulled away from the curb and was coming after me. I pumped hard up the hill, and at the intersection I turned the bike around in a tight loop and raced to the right to hop the curb onto the sidewalk. Crouching low, I pedaled for all I was worth and darted past the truck, gaining momentum on the downward slope. I caught only a blur of movement within the cab of the truck as I whizzed by.
Pumping hard again at the bottom of the hill, I rode my bike back across the street, racing through the metal archway that marked the park’s entrance.
Looking over my shoulder, I saw the pickup finishing its awkward turn at the top of the hill, and that’s when its headlights finally came on.
I knew without a doubt that I was in trouble now, because the truck roared down the hill heading straight for me. I faced forward again and pedaled as fast as I could, at last moving past the concrete barriers that kept vehicles out and marked the beginning of the trail. The ride immediately got bumpy, forcing me to focus in the dim light of my headlamp on the terrain. But I didn’t slow down.
Because I had to focus on the dirt path, I couldn’t lift my gaze away to look for the truck, so I kept my ears pricked for the roar of its engine, and I could still hear its loud rumble keeping pace with me in the distance. I was certain the driver was tracking my escape—intent on cutting me off at the opposite end of the park.
My mind whirred: what should I do? There was nobody in the park to help me, and if I stopped pedaling to dial the police on my cell, the driver could also stop, race across the lawn, and nab me before I was even done with the call.
Then I had a sudden insight. As I started to pass a large clump of evergreen trees, I reached down to click off my headlamp. I lost sight of the path and braked slowly until I came to a stop, huddling next to the largest tree in the cluster. Listening hard, I heard the slight squeak of brakes and then the low rumble of the truck in idle. I gathered my courage and stepped off my bike, running it in a straight line directly in front of the trees, keeping them between me and the pickup as I headed through the grass toward the street I’d been on when Donny had called.
It was then that I heard the rumble of the engine pick up and the truck moved on at a rapid pace again. I wanted nothing more than to jump on the bike and pedal for the street, but I couldn’t see the ground clearly. If I hit a log or a rock, I’d be toast. I settled for trotting the bike quickly across the open field, stumbling a few times as my feet met with uneven terrain.
At last I came out onto the street and quickly mounted the bike again. At the top of the street, I moved right over to the first house I came to and huddled in the shadows next to a garage. At the entrance to the park the truck appeared again, moving along slowly while the driver hunted for any glimpse of me in the park. After it passed, I stepped out of the shadows and raced in the opposite direction, which was also the way home. Once I was safely up the drive, I didn’t even put the bike away; I simply leaned it against the garage and bolted for the back door. I’d left it open because I didn’t know if Ma would be able to get her key into the lock if she came home, but once I was through the door I slammed it shut and threw the dead bolt, then I leaned against it and tried to catch my breath.
Finally, I pushed away from the door and was about to head to the front window, when I tripped over something on the kitchen floor. I heard a muffled grunt. Scrambling backward in the dark, my heart racing, I flicked on the lights and saw Ma sprawled out on the floor, her clothes bunched up around her. She mumbled something incoherent, then she settled into a soft snore.
I stared at her for a long moment, waiting to catch my breath. When I wasn’t so panicked, I turned off the lights again and made my way to the front window to peek through the curtains. The street was empty—no sign of the truck anywhere—and no black sedans parked on the street, either.
Next, I went into the bathroom and peeked out the small window on the side of our house. There was no one lurking outside, but I could see Mrs. Duncan in her kitchen doing the dishes. Seeing her helped calm me down, and at last I moved back toward the kitchen.
My eyes were adjusted to the darkness by then and I could see Ma’s sleeping form on the linoleum floor. I felt a sudden and unexpected surge of anger. I was so sick of all this that I wanted to scream. But I didn’t. Instead I dutifully got her to wake up enough to get her to the couch, and I put her to bed. “Luff you, baby,” she slurred after I tucked the afghan around her.
“Then why won’t you stop drinking?” I whispered. She didn’t answer, so I turned to the stairs.
In my room I tried to decide what I should do about the truck. I thought about calling Donny and telling him about it, but he’d only get upset and tell me to call the police. I knew I couldn’t do that because they’d come to the house, take one look at Ma, and then we’d have CPS to deal with, and didn’t I already have enough trouble on my hands? I shuddered at the memory of being so scared
in the park, and not knowing who was after me. Downstairs, Dad’s clock began to chime and I sighed, wishing he were here and could chase the bogeyman away.
By the time I crawled into bed, I’d decided to tell Donny about it in the morning when Ma was sober. Maybe he could even be there when the police came to take my statement. That way they’d know there was a responsible adult in the house, and I could report the incident without worry. It seemed like the only way to go without bringing myself a whole lot of extra trouble.
The next morning I met Donny at the curb. I wanted to avoid having him go into the house, but he was onto me. He got out as I was trying to get into his car, and eyed me across the roof. “Where’s your mom?”
“She’s inside. Asleep.”
Donny’s lips pressed together, and he marched up the drive. I trailed behind him, wishing I didn’t have such a screwed-up life.
I stood in the kitchen by the back door while he had a look at Ma. “Cheryl,” I heard him say. I imagined him standing over her, that look of disgust on his face that he didn’t even try to hide anymore. I heard Ma mutter something, and I figured she was trying to roll away from Donny.
“Cheryl,” Donny repeated, more sternly this time. “We need to talk.” Ma didn’t reply, which was typical. “This is getting untenable, Cheryl. Scott would never want Maddie to grow up like this.”
I heard Ma then, loud and clear. “Go to hell, Donny.”
I bit my lip. I wanted Donny to come out of there. I wanted him to take me to breakfast and to tell me a story about my dad when they were kids. A story that maybe I hadn’t heard before. I didn’t want him to come back around the corner looking so disgusted and mean that he looked less like my dad and more like a total stranger.
Donny tried to talk to Ma a few more times, but she wasn’t taking the bait, and at last he came into the kitchen again.
“Come on,” he growled angrily, moving past me and out the door. I hustled after him.
Donny drove in silence to a local breakfast joint in downtown Jupiter. The place was crowded, but Donny flashed his smile at one of the waitresses and she got us a booth. After we took our seats he started in. “I want you to think seriously about coming to live with me.”