“Good,” he said with a hint of bashfulness. “I’m heading to catch the jitney to Albany and the train back home for nine days of sleep!”
Acadia smiled, said, “How much do the jitney and train cost?”
“You mean, like, together?” he asked, checking his watch.
“Yes.”
“I dunno, sixty-eight for the train and like twenty for the jitney. Look, good seeing you, and glad your nephew was admitted, but I got to go.”
“Maybe I can save you seventy dollars,” Acadia said.
Damon had been turning. Now he halted, looked back. “Excuse me?”
“I am on my way to Virginia on business and have to go right through Washington,” she said. “You give me twenty dollars for gas and you pocket the difference.”
Two other students, a boy and a girl, walked by, carrying their bags. The girl glanced at Acadia, said, “We’ve got to hurry, Damon.”
“Okay, Silvia,” he said, looking embarrassed. “I’ll be right along.” When they’d left, he looked at Acadia and said, “I dunno. I don’t think so.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself. I could have used the company and some help driving. My left eye’s been bothering me and it’s a long way. Good-bye, Damon Cross. I wish my nephew was going to meet you.”
Acadia started back in the direction of the admissions office, thinking that men are like boys in that they always want what they’ve been denied.
“Okay,” Damon called before she’d gotten twenty yards on. “If I can help you with the driving because of your eye, and the gas, I guess it’ll be fine.”
She turned, grinning. “You don’t know how much of a help this is.”
“I should run up there and tell the jitney driver,” he said.
“Do that, and I’ll come around to pick you up,” she said.
Ten minutes later, the jitney left. Acadia pulled up in front of Damon and said, “Get in.”
“You want me to drive, Ms. Mepps?” he asked, putting his backpack and bag in the backseat.
“My eye’s got at least an hour in it,” she said as he got in and buckled his seat belt. “And call me Karla.”
As she drove on, he said, “You know the way?”
“I got here, didn’t I?”
“True,” he said awkwardly.
“Latte?” she asked, gesturing to a center console and two to-go cups from the coffee shop across from the campus. “I figured to drink them both, but we can stop later.”
“Oh,” Damon said, and took the cup. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” she said as he took a sip.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s wrong with your eye?”
“The doctor says it’s strained,” she replied. “But my family has a history of glaucoma, so I’m not sure.”
“What’s your job?” he asked, and took a longer draw on the coffee.
“I am a traveling saleswoman,” Acadia replied, grateful that Sunday had convinced her to make her false identity deep. “I represent several fashion manufacturers up and down the East Coast.”
“That’s cool,” Damon said.
“I like to think so,” she said, and went on to move the focus off her and onto Damon, who warmed up and enthusiastically answered all her questions as they drove back roads west toward the New York State Thruway.
About thirty minutes into the drive, however, and soon after he’d finished his coffee, Damon’s energy began to wane. He yawned. At a stop sign she caught him blinking several times as if he were confused about something.
Ten miles from Glenmont, she heard the first thickness in his tongue when he said, “I should probably call my dad, tell him I’ll be home early.”
“Cell service is horrible through here,” she said. “I’d wait until we’re on I-87. Good service there.”
Damon’s words were slurred when she took the exit ramp onto the thruway heading south. “You said, I drive…the interstate.”
“Sorry, sugar,” she said. “You’ve had much too much Rohypnol to be anywhere near the wheel of a car.”
Acadia glanced over to find him staring with unfocused eyes.
“Roofie?” he said woozily. “That’s…a date-rape drug.”
“Yes, it is,” Acadia said, patting his leg as he started to pass out. “But don’t you worry your virgin little heart over it. You and I are going on a far stranger journey than sex.”
Chapter
92
Around the corner from the Cross residence, Sunday waited patiently in the van, which now sported a magnetic sign that read, SILVER SPRING ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS AND REPAIR. It was a quarter to noon. The guys from Dear Old House were just leaving for the holiday weekend.
Things were falling neatly into place, he decided, putting the van in gear the second they left his view. Acadia had texted him that she’d picked up a friend and was on her way, already driving across the George Washington Bridge.
Now it was Sunday’s turn to have a little fun.
The writer pulled into the parking spot the contractors had left and got out. He was wearing a set of green workman’s clothes with a badge that identified him as Phil Nichols of Silver Spring Electrical and carrying a metal clipboard. Sunday bounded up the steps and gave a sharp rap on the door, then rang the bell. Moments later, Nana Mama came to the door in her church clothes, opened it on a safety chain, and said suspiciously, “May I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said deferentially. “Sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Cross, but I’m the electrical sub on your addition. Did I miss the Dear Old House guys?”
“They just left,” she said.
“Dang it,” he said. “Well, I can probably look at it myself. Can I go around back? I won’t be long. I’m just trying to get a general sense of where we are before heading down to St. Anthony’s.”
Cross’s grandmother softened. “For the Stations of the Cross?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I promise you I won’t be long.”
“You attend St. Anthony’s?” she asked.
“Regularly? No,” he said. “St. Tim’s in Fairfax. But St. Anthony’s is the only church doing the stations at a time I can go.”
She nodded. “I’ll see you there, then.”
“That’s nice,” he said, smiled. “Am I good to make a quick check of the addition, then?”
She nodded. “Come around. I’ll give you five minutes. I have to be over at the church soon.”
“No problem, ma’am,” he said, turned, and walked off the porch and around the side of the house, remembering how he’d sprinted along this same route the night Ali Cross had spotted him. But when he got around the side, the plastic sheeting was gone. The addition walls were all up, the windows were in, and a steel door blocked access.
He heard the key in the dead bolt, put on his happy face. Nana Mama opened the door and waved him in, saying, “It’s not too bad. They just swept it.”
“This will take no time at all,” he said, and went in.
Sunday spent about ten minutes looking around the addition, jotting notes as he exclaimed how nice the great room and the new kitchen were going to be. Rain had begun to patter on the roof when he beamed at Nana Mama and said, “That will do it until someone marks where you want the outlets, the switches, and whatnot.”
“My grandson’s planning to do all that tomorrow,” the old woman said.
“Perfect,” Sunday replied, made as if to leave, and then stopped. “Can I give you a ride, Mrs. Cross? Do my good deed for the day in honor of the good Samaritan who helped our lord in his time of trouble?”
Nana Mama glanced at the roof, listened to the rain, and then nodded. “Very nice of you to offer. And I’m Regina Hope. Cross was my maiden name.”
He stuck out his hand and shook hers, saying, “Wonderful to meet you, ma’am.” He almost added, “I’m Thierry Mulch.” But he caught himself, glanced at the badge, and said, “Phil Nichols.”
“I’ll get my umbrella, Mr. Nich
ols,” she said.
“Do you want me to go around?” Sunday asked.
“No, no, walk through with me,” she said. “You’re parked right out front?”
“Yes, Mrs. Hope,” he replied. “Thank you.”
He continued on in this deferential way, holding the umbrella for Nana Mama and supporting her elbow as they made their way down the walkway and as she climbed into the van. Nana Mama looked around, saw that the van was neat as a pin, and nodded. “I do appreciate this, Mr. Nichols.”
“Glad to do it, Mrs. Hope,” he said, and shut the door.
Sunday walked around, got in. He fished in his right-hand pants pocket, found the pen, and palmed it. Then he dug in his left pocket and came up with the keys. He started the van and pulled out of the spot.
“You’ll have to go around the block,” Cross’s grandmother said. “St. Anthony’s is back the other way.”
“I thought so,” he said, putting on the blinker and seeing her turn her head to look out the rain-streaked passenger-side window.
Sunday thumbed the pen’s button, seeing the small hypodermic needle drip for an instant before he stabbed it into her thigh and drove a small dose of Rohypnol into her. Nana Mama screamed and tried to reach for the syringe.
But Sunday let go of it and used his forearm to pin the old woman against the seat until she lost consciousness.
Chapter
93
Three hours later, Ali Cross skipped across the playground at Sojourner Truth School. Nine whole days of vacation! They weren’t going to Florida or anything like that. But Damon was coming home, and he’d have his big brother to hang out and play basketball with—
The little cell his father had given him rang. He stopped and answered.
“Dad?”
“How’d you guess?”
“You’re the only one who ever calls this phone,” Ali said.
“Oh, right,” his dad replied. “You on your way to St. Anthony’s?”
“Yes,” Ali said impatiently. “Where are you?”
“Heading to Jannie’s track meet.”
“I’d rather do that than go to church,” Ali said.
“You weren’t listening this morning. Stations of the Cross are over by now. You’re coming to the track meet with Nana Mama.”
“Oh,” Ali said, sort of remembering that his father had said something about that at breakfast. “Okay. Nana will be there?”
“Probably inside.”
“When’s Damon getting home?”
“In time for dinner. Got to go.”
“Gotta move!”
He and his dad were laughing as they hung up.
Most of the kids had already cleared the playground. Heading out through the gate in the fence onto Franklin Street, Ali turned away from home and had soon crossed the intersection and headed north on the east side of Twelfth Street toward St. Anthony’s, some eight blocks away.
He’d crossed Hamlin Street and was walking by a funeral home when a panel van came roaring up alongside him. “Hey, kid! You Ali Cross?”
Ali stopped, looked over, saw through the open window of the van that his great-grandmother was slumped in the front seat, out cold. The guy in the sunglasses driving looked worried.
“I was bringing her from church to find you and she passed out,” he yelled. “Get in, we got to get her to the hospital!”
Ali didn’t think. He bolted for the van, opened the side door, and jumped in, seeing computers and electrical gear bolted onto shelves. The van was moving the second he closed it.
“What happened to her?” Ali said fearfully. He was crouched on his knees now between and behind the front seats.
“Heart,” the driver said. “I don’t know.”
“Nana!” Ali said, shaking his great-grandmother’s shoulder. “Nana, wake up.”
But she didn’t move. “Oh, no,” he moaned. “Is she dead?”
“No,” the driver said. “She’s breathing. I think. Check.”
Ali struggled to stand, to lean over the seat to see if that was true. That was when the boy smelled the zombie at the wheel. The look of shock on Ali’s face was so deep that Sunday caught it. Cross’s younger son tried to push himself backward and opened his mouth to scream. Sunday was ready.
Quick as a whip, he raised an aerosol can and sprayed the boy in the face with vaporized chloroform. The boy staggered backward, smashed off one of the shelves, and collapsed on the floor of the van.
Sunday opened a window and kept an eye on Ali in the rearview mirror as he drove toward St. Anthony’s Church. The chloroform would not last long.
He pulled in and parked in the small lot behind the church. Within three minutes he’d injected Ali with about the same amount of Rohypnol as he’d given his great-grandmother, enough to keep them both out a good twelve hours.
Before he drove on, he texted Acadia: Got two. Your play.
Chapter
94
Jannie was all warmed up, stripped down out of her sweats, and making little sprints to get her muscles firing. My daughter was as tall as or taller than the other girls warming up for the quarter-mile. But she was easily the thinnest girl out there, as well as the youngest athlete in the entire event, the first meet of the year, a prestige invitational on Benjamin Banneker High’s home track.
Sitting in the stands, I checked my watch, said, “Ali and Nana are going to miss this if they don’t get here soon.”
“They’re probably caught in traffic,” Bree said, shading her eyes from the afternoon sun. “Call them.”
Reaching for my phone, I heard the starter call out: “Take your mark.”
“Too late, here we go,” Bree said as the seven girls in the race moved toward the starting line. Jannie was in lane two, well back in the stagger.
“She told me at breakfast that she’s got no expectations,” I said, despite the fact that my stomach was doing flip-flops, the way it always does when I see one of my kids about to compete. “Her coach said this is just for the experience.”
“That why you’re practicing your ballet pose?” my wife asked.
“Just trying to see a little better,” I replied.
“Alex, you’re six three, you can always see a little better.”
“Set,” the starter said, raising the gun.
The gun went off and they sprang off the line, driving their arms and legs down the straightaway toward the first curve. Once around the track as fast as you can go, the quarter-mile takes speed, strength, and guts.
My daughter had gone to the starting line remarkably relaxed, but the second the pistol fired, the intensity exploded out of her with such force that it caught me completely off-guard.
So did her speed, which was evident almost immediately as she began to make up the stagger and run the curve. When they entered the backstretch, Jannie was barely third and boxed in by the second- and fourth-place runners. I wasn’t thinking strategy, just praying that she hadn’t blown her wind in that first hundred and ten yards.
But again to my surprise, Jannie ran with the older girls stride for stride down the backstretch, and she didn’t look like she was straining at all. Then they entered the far turn, still in that tight bunch with Jannie boxed in third, jostling with the elbows of the second- and fourth-place runners. I felt certain she’d stay boxed as they exited the curve and headed toward home.
Then the girl in second place, a senior from College Park, made her move, trying to get ahead of the leader, a senior from Eastern High. The girl in front sped up and gave no ground, but the give-and-take opened up a gap between the second- and fourth-place girls.
Jannie seized on the opportunity like a cagy veteran. She leaped diagonally through the opening. Showing strength and guts I’d never known she had, my daughter gritted her teeth, dug deep, and ran like there was a lunatic with a blowtorch chasing her.
She caught and passed the girl from College Park with sixty yards to go and ran neck and neck with the senior from Eastern, who was a
fighter, too. She held Jannie off until the thirty-yard line, where my baby girl hit the afterburners and broke the tape two full body lengths ahead.
Chapter
95
Bree and I went wild, or at least as wild as two bruised and injured people can, cheering and whooping it up along with hundreds of Jannie’s schoolmates who were stomping their approval on the metal grandstands and clapping wildly.
Down on the track, the coach was hugging Jannie. The other competitors in the race were eyeing her in shock and awe. My daughter was at least three years younger than them, a girl against women, and she’d blown their doors in. I still couldn’t believe it as Bree and I made our way down to the track.
Jannie came toward me with the coach in tow. She had tears in her eyes.
“Did you see it?” she asked.
“Every incredible second of it.”
“Fifty-four nine,” said the coach, an earnest guy in his late thirties who looked shocked. “Paul Anderson. Honor to meet you, sir, ma’am. Saw you both on the news the other night.”
Bree touched her facial bandages and smiled. “What’s fifty-four nine?”
“Why, her time,” Anderson said, beaming.
“That’s good?” I asked.
“Mr. Cross, that’s one-point-twenty-five seconds off the national high school record of fifty-three sixty-five, set back in 1979!” Anderson said. “It’s also now the school record!”
“That is good,” Bree said.
“At fifteen? In her first race?” Coach Anderson cried. “It’s ridiculous! And I’m telling you, that wasn’t the strongest I’ve seen Jannie run. Not by a long shot.”
This was all staggering news, hard to wrap my head around. I knew it was a big deal that she’d made the Banneker track team, but this?
“So what exactly are you saying?”
He leaned over the fence and replied, “Get ready for every NCAA Division One track coach to come to watch her run and knock at your door with scholarship money. Get ready to watch her smash records in the coming years. Your daughter, Detective, is a running marvel.”