Desert Crossing

“Kit, wait.” I ran after him, grabbing his sleeve.

  “No,” he said. “Go back to the motel. You’ve got the key.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you think I’m going to do? Get the bracelet back.”

  “But how?”

  He barely looked at me, jerking free and walking toward the highway. “I know where he lives.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No.”

  “But you don’t know where I hid it.”

  “Under the seat. I can find it.”

  “Kit.” My fingers circled his arm. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really sorry. Let me go with you.”

  He shook free and kept walking. I ran after him. “You need someone to read the map.”

  “No, I don’t. I know how to get there.”

  “Kit, please.”

  We stood there, at the edge of the parking lot, separated from the motel by a moat of pavement. The neon cactus flickered urgently above us, full of its own bright, false assurance. Kit gave me a long, angry look.

  But then he shrugged, and when he crossed the road in the darkness, I was right beside him.

  34

  It was hard to see the turnoff. We drove past the gas station, a low fortress of concrete, and I kept my face to the window, peering desperately into the black night. The moon was a weak sliver.

  “Here it is,” I said quickly, seeing a break in the right side of the road.

  Kit turned sharply, grinding gravel.

  “Slow down,” I said. “It’s too loud.”

  The rumble of the car on the rough road was deafening. He glanced at me.

  “How will we ever get close enough to his house without him hearing us?” I asked.

  “We’ll do it,” Kit said. But his voice was grim. We reached a hummock in the road and suddenly we could see his house.

  Our car slowed to a crawl, but still I could hear every crunch of stone. “He’s going to hear us,” I whispered.

  “He may not even be home,” Kit said.

  But as we came closer to his driveway, I could see the truck. A light was on in the front window.

  “Okay,” Kit said. He pulled off the road and killed the engine, turning off the headlights. We sat in the quiet car, looking at the house. The yellow light from the front window shone steadily into the yard. I couldn’t see anyone inside.

  Kit put his hand on the door handle.

  “No,” I said. “Let me go.”

  “Uh-uh, wait here. It won’t take long.”

  “Kit, you don’t know where to look.”

  “I can find it.”

  I touched his arm. “Let me go. It’ll be faster.”

  He looked at me doubtfully, then back at the house. “Okay,” he said finally. “Be careful. And hurry.”

  I opened the door as quietly as possible and slid my foot onto the road. I was still wearing my flip-flops. Not good for running. I got out, still watching the house. I gently swung the car door closed, my hands trembling, but didn’t latch it. Then I started across the yard toward the dark shape of the truck.

  As I got closer to the house, I could see the window was open. I heard the faint drone of the TV, voices interspersed with canned laughter. The front door was still. My heart was pounding, my blood beating in my ears. Silently I crept to the passenger side of the truck and felt in the dark for the handle.

  Still no sign of movement from the house. I lifted the handle and slowly opened the door. It made a low, groaning noise, and the light flashed on, flooding the cab. Panicking and blinking against the sudden brightness, I scrambled onto the seat and flipped it off. I crouched there, frozen, my eyes fixed on the house. But the TV voices continued, and nobody came to the window.

  Okay, I thought, hurry, hurry, hurry. I shoved my hand under the seat, groping. Paper crinkled beneath my nervous fingers. I felt that hard handle of something and pushed it away. Where was the bracelet? I reached farther, leaning over the foot well, my arm almost entirely under the seat. I knew where it should be. Here on the side. But maybe when he was driving, maybe on the rough road, it had rolled and tangled itself somewhere else. I stretched my fingers flat and ran my palm desperately over the wreckage beneath the seat.

  Then I felt something small and smooth. One of the charms, I was sure of it. I curled my fingers around it and tugged. Immediately the bracelet sprung free. Its chain swung against my skin.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  The high, nasal voice came out of the darkness right next to me, and as quickly as I sprang back, out of the truck, it wasn’t fast enough.

  He was standing there, staring at me, his face a mask.

  I couldn’t speak, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. I turned to run, but his hand shot out and grabbed my arm. His grip was as tight as a vice.

  “What have you got there?” he asked, edging between me and the passenger seat, his eyes flicking down to my hand.

  I tried to hide it, spooling the metal links into my fist. But not before he saw it. Even in the darkness, I could sense his eyes focusing on it.

  “It’s hers,” he said finally. I felt a cold blade of fear slice through me. “Where’d you get it?”

  I couldn’t answer. He shook me suddenly, a sharp jerk that almost knocked me to my knees. I cried out and stumbled back to my feet, his hand still locked on my arm. “Tell me,” he said. “Where’d you get it?”

  I shook my head, gulping. But then he squeezed my arm so hard I yelped, and he brought his face close to mine. I could smell him, a cold, sour smell. I cowered. “What are you doing out here?” he said. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  He ducked suddenly and shoved one hand beneath the passenger seat. When he brought it out again, it held something small and thin. Something with a handle. I couldn’t see it, and then I could. A knife.

  “Please,” I said, my voice strange and shaky, not my voice at all. “Please.”

  And then I heard a sound. A hissing sound, close to us. Wicker turned, lifting the knife, and I squinted into the darkness. Something silver came flying toward us.

  “Run, Luce! Now!” I felt wet drops spitting over me and heard a dull crunching sound as the soda can smacked the left side of Wicker’s face. He let go of my arm, staggering backward.

  I ran. Blindly across the hard ground, through the rough grass, straight into the night. When I tripped in my flip-flops, I kicked them off, and the rough stones stabbed my bare feet. I could hear Kit behind me, and then Wicker’s grunt and cry. “Hey!” But we were at the car, scrambling inside, and Kit was fumbling with the keys, shoving them into the ignition.

  “He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming,” I sobbed, watching the darkness shift, both shielding and revealing whatever was out there.

  The engine roared, the tires spun on the gravel, and Kit turned the wheel sharply. We veered off the road for a minute, making the turn, and then Kit gunned the engine and sped back toward the highway.

  He didn’t look at me. He was leaning over the wheel, his eyes locked on the road. “Is he following us? Can you see the truck?”

  “No,” I whispered. “No, not yet, but Kit, hurry. Hurry.”

  The road disappeared behind us. I couldn’t see the house. The car jolted onto the smooth surface of the highway, and I huddled in the dark, the bracelet clutched in my hand.

  35

  “We have to call someone,” I whispered, barely able to speak. I kept looking behind us. No headlights.

  Kit nodded and tossed me his cell phone. The panel of turquoise light beamed brightly in the darkness, but I couldn’t get a signal.

  “Wait till we’re closer to Kilmore,” Kit said. He kept checking the rearview mirror. Finally he turned to me. “You okay?” he asked.

  I nodded mutely.

  “Luce? Are you?”

  “Yeah,” I said, forcing my voice into some semblance of its normal self.

  “You should have let me do it.”

  I no
dded again, but I was thinking of what Kit had said about putting the bracelet in Wicker’s truck. About me being judge and jury.

  “Kit, when he saw the bracelet, he said, ‘It’s hers.’”

  Kit didn’t say anything.

  “He did this to her.”

  “Yeah.”

  Finally the NO SERVICE message on the phone stopped blinking. “I want to call Jamie,” I said.

  “You should call the police.”

  “I know, but Jamie first, okay? You have the number at Beth’s, right?”

  Kit shrugged. “Listen to the messages. It’s on there. There must be a dozen from Jamie.”

  I started to play through the messages, but the first one was from Lara. I stiffened when I heard her voice. “Hey, Kit—”

  Kit must have realized who it was, because he reached for the phone. “Here, you don’t know how to work it. I’ll get the number,” he said quietly.

  He dialed for me and handed it back. A few seconds later, I heard Beth’s anxious voice say, “Hello?”

  “Beth, it’s Lucy. Can I talk to Jamie?”

  “Lucy! Where are you? We thought you’d be back hours ago. What’s going on?”

  “We found…” I sucked in my breath. “We found the guy, Beth. The one who left her there.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, a beat of nothing, then her voice, puzzled, disbelieving. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

  “It’s a long story. Can you call the police for us?”

  “Have them come to the motel,” Kit said.

  I nodded at him. “Could you tell them to meet us at the Desert Inn in Kilmore? That’s where we’re staying. And, Beth … could you tell them to come soon?”

  “Lucy,” Beth said. “What happened?”

  “I can’t,” I said. My voice was shaking. “There’s too much. I’ll tell the police. But can I talk to Jamie?”

  I heard the hesitation at the other end of the line, then Jamie’s worried voice. “Luce? Where are you?”

  “Jamie, we found the guy. The one who left her on the road. We think he killed her.”

  “But it was heart failure,” Jamie said.

  “I know, I know, that’s what the police thought. But we went to his house and we found pills, ecstasy—”

  “Ecstasy?” Jamie sounded stunned. “Luce, you have to get back here. Now. Mom and Dad have both called, like, five times today. Asking where you were, who you’re with, what’s going on.”

  I sighed. They knew just enough to be worried. “Call the police for us, okay? Right now?” I said finally.

  “Okay,” Jamie said. “But Luce—are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I missed him, suddenly. Missed not just him but myself, who we were four days ago, before any of this happened. I thought of the two of us when we were kids, all the crazy stuff we used to do. And how things turned out fine, more or less, every time.

  Jamie sighed. “Man, do I want this to be over.”

  “Me too,” I whispered.

  I clicked off the phone and held it in my lap. If it was so hard to explain to Jamie and Beth, how would we ever tell the police?

  * * *

  It was well past midnight when two police cars pulled into the motel lot. We’d been watching the highway, sitting in silence on the edge of Kit’s bed. I could feel things changing, the tipping of one reality into another. It reminded me of that moment on the road when we first found her. The rising panic was the same. And the sense that everything was about to be different.

  I had the bracelet in my hands. I slid it back and forth between my palms and stared at the tiny charms. I thought of the girl buying each of them, carefully choosing the horseshoe for luck, the treasure chest for its surprising cache of jewels. The bracelet was an intimate record of who she was.

  The blue lights of the police cars flashed over Kit’s face in a sudden strobe. He looked so serious, almost frightened. The knock on the door made us both jump.

  When I opened it, the sheriff was standing there, and the cop with the nice eyes who had questioned me on the night of the accident.

  “Miss Martinez?” Sheriff Durrell said. “You remember Sergeant Henderson. I understand you have some information for us.”

  I nodded, opening the door wider. I held out the bracelet. “I—”

  But Kit crossed over to me, grabbing it from my hand. “I took this from the girl,” he said, not even looking at me. He gave it to the sheriff. “The night of the accident. It was on her wrist.”

  I stared at him. So many feelings hurtled through me that I didn’t know what to do. And then, suddenly, I did. I reached for Kit’s arm, and slid my hand down it till my fingers laced with his. “No,” I said. “I took it.”

  Kit turned to me, but I didn’t look at him.

  The sheriff watched us. His face was unreadable. “Does one of you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  And so we did.

  We sat on the edge of the bed and told them what had happened. About the bracelet and my sketch of the girl, going to the diner, finding out about the blue truck. The sheriff asked the questions, the sergeant took notes. The part we glided over, not giving the details, was the part about Elena, the waitress. We didn’t want to get her in trouble. Kit just said we’d shown the sketch to people at the diner, and one of them had recognized the girl.

  “Who?” the sheriff asked sharply. “Who identified her? Did you get the name of the person you spoke to?”

  “Um, no,” Kit said. “Just some woman.”

  “What did she look like?” Sergeant Henderson asked.

  “I don’t really remember,” Kit said. “I’m not too good at that.”

  They looked at me expectantly. I bit my lip. “She had brown hair.”

  But then we told them the rest of it: meeting Wicker on the road, going to his house, finding the box with the charm and the bottle of pills. I dug the pill out of my pocket and gave it to the sergeant, who squinted at it and handed it to the sheriff.

  “It’s…” I hesitated.

  “I know what it is,” the sheriff said curtly. He and the sergeant exchanged glances, not saying anything.

  I told them about putting the bracelet in Wicker’s truck.

  The sheriff stared at me, shaking his head. “And why did you do that?” he asked. “Miss Martinez? Why would you do something like that?”

  “I don’t know. I thought if you found the bracelet in his truck, and then the charm at his house, maybe you’d … maybe you’d know that the girl had been there.”

  “I see. So you planted evidence?”

  “No, it wasn’t like that…” My voice trailed off thinly. It was exactly like that. “I mean, I knew it was wrong. That’s why we went all the way to his house to get it back.”

  I told them everything I could remember about Wicker, his pale eyes, his bristly gray hair.

  “You don’t seem to have any trouble recalling what he looked like,” Sheriff Durrell commented.

  I swallowed. “I was scared,” I said. “He had a knife. I was watching him the whole time.”

  The sergeant glanced up from his notes. “What kind of knife?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t that big, but the blade was long.”

  “How long?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see.”

  The sergeant continued writing, his hand moving across the page.

  * * *

  When we finished talking, the room was quiet. The sergeant looked through his notes. The sheriff just watched us, a cold, assessing gaze. He took the pad from the sergeant and flipped through the pages.

  “So,” he said.

  We waited.

  “Larceny.”

  Kit glanced at me.

  “Lying to a police officer.”

  I swallowed.

  “Breaking and entering.”

  The sheriff turned another page.

  “Illegal possession of a controlled substance.”
br />   He looked at me, and I could only stare at the floor.

  “That wasn’t ours,” Kit said.

  “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”

  Neither of us said anything. I tightened my fingers over Kit’s.

  “Do you realize how this information affects the investigation?”

  Slowly, I raised my eyes. The sheriff’s face was impassive.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “Sorry? You’re sorry?” He snapped the pad shut with such force the sound made me cringe.

  “That girl has been dead for four days. Four days. Without identification, maybe with an incorrect finding of the cause of death. You had knowledge, information, an object found on the body of the victim that could have changed that.”

  My throat ached. I could feel my eyes welling up.

  “Listen to me, Miss Martinez. Suppose that girl was your sister. Suppose your sister was found dead on a road somewhere, and the person who found her took information that would have been helpful in identifying her and figuring out what happened to her. Information, in fact, that might show evidence of a crime.”

  I could feel Kit shift beside me, sitting up straighter. “She said she was sorry,” he said.

  The sheriff glared at him. “I’d advise you to keep your mouth shut, Mr. Kitson,” he said coldly. “I haven’t even started with you. You’re … let’s see…,” he shuffled through pages, “just four months shy of being legally classified as an adult. Would you care to hear the consequences of these actions for someone over the age of eighteen?”

  Kit said nothing.

  The sheriff snorted. “I didn’t think so.”

  He shook his head and motioned to Sergeant Henderson. “All right,” he said to us. “Wait here.”

  We watched them return to the police car, the bracelet dangling from the sheriff’s hand. They sat in full view of the motel window, talking and paging through the notebook.

  “Okay,” Kit said. “You can let go of my hand now. My fingers are cramping.”

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  He half smiled at me, not his usual smile, but something. I knew he was trying to make me feel better.

  * * *

  It seemed a long time before they came back into the room.

  “I’m going to take a ride out to this fellow Wicker’s place,” the sheriff said. “We’ll see what he has to say. Sergeant Henderson will stay here with you.” He looked at me sternly. “He’ll be in the squad car outside. Neither of you will leave this room. Understand?”