Yeah, right. Like that would happen. It’d probably be more like, Well, Charlie, my boy, thanks for your help. Be sure to look me up in twenty-five years to life when you get out.
I climbed down off the bus. I shivered as the air hit me. We were up in the hills here. It was colder than the city, and all I had to wear were the jeans and flannel work shirt I’d gotten from Mrs. Simmons.
I found myself standing in front of the Cale’s Station bus depot. It was a small box of a building at the very edge of a short, rural main street. I headed for the door. I knew I had to get moving, start hiking over the hill. It was already after eleven. In less than an hour, Richard Yarrow’s motorcade would start traveling over the highway toward the canyon bridge. Even if I started right now, I was going to have to hike fast to cut him off.
All the same, before I started, there was one more thing I had to do.
There wasn’t much inside the depot. A ticket window with no one behind it. A couple of benches against the wall. An old pay phone.
I went to the phone. Like I said, I figured when this was over, I would be going back to prison. That’s if I was lucky. If I wasn’t lucky, I might just get myself killed. In either case, I wanted one last chance to say good-bye.
I picked up the handset and pressed zero for the operator, then I dialed the number. It was the number Beth Summers had written on my arm. I had read it over so many times that I knew it by heart. I’d forgotten the whole year of my life that followed that moment, but I remembered the number.
The operator came on. I told her I was placing a collect call to Beth from Charlie. As I waited, listening to the phone ring, I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one recognized me. The place was empty.
“Hello?”
The sound of her voice sent an ache through me. It was the same kind of ache I’d felt on the bus when I woke up and realized my mom wasn’t really calling me, that it was just a dream. It was that yearning to be back home again, back in school, talking to my friends and trying to figure out calculus and asking Beth to go to the movies. It was an ache to be normal and have my life back and have everything be all right.
I opened my mouth to talk to her, but the operator cut me off.
“Will you accept a collect call from Charlie?” she said.
I heard a little sound far away over the line, a little intake of breath. There was a silence after that. Then, in a weak voice, Beth said, “Charlie?”
“Yes, ma’am. Will you accept the charges?”
“Yes. Yes, I will.”
I licked my lips. My throat suddenly felt dry, almost too dry for me to speak.
“Charlie?” came Beth’s voice over the line.
“Hi, Beth,” I said. “It’s me.”
“Oh…” There was another silence, another breath, and when she spoke again I could tell she was crying. “Charlie… are you all right? Are you hurt or anything?”
For a minute I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, no-no, I wasn’t all right. I was lost and alone and afraid. Everything I loved, everything I knew, was gone. Terrorists were trying to kill me. The police were trying to arrest me. I was setting off to do something that seemed almost impossible, and even if I succeeded I’d kprobably end up in prison or dead. No. No, I would have to say I was very much not all right.
“Charlie?” said Beth again, crying.
“Yeah. Yeah,” I said. “I’m okay, Beth. I’m fine. I just wanted… I just wanted to hear your voice. I needed to hear your voice, that’s all.”
“Charlie, what are you doing? They’re hunting for you everywhere. Your picture’s on TV. You’ve got to turn yourself in. You could be shot. You could be killed.”
I nodded, but for a second or two I couldn’t answer her. Finally, I got the words out. “Listen, Beth. Before I can turn myself in, there’s something I have to do. But the thing is, it’s kind of dangerous.”
“Charlie…”
“Listen to me, Beth. You have to listen and you have to tell my mom and dad what I say too. Okay?”
“What? What is it?”
Her voice was so sad, so tearful-there was so much emotion in it-that I wanted to reach out over the distance between us and wrap my arms around her and hold her close and tell her it was going to be all right.
But all I could do was say: “I don’t know what’s happened. About Alex and everything… I always tried to be a good person…”
“I know that. Your mom and dad… we all know it. We all believe in you, Charlie.”
“Whatever you hear about me next, I just want you to know: I was trying to do the right thing. See, there’s a man who’s going to be killed…”
“What? Charlie, what are you talking about?”
I closed my eyes. I leaned my forehead against the cold plastic edge of the phone booth. There wasn’t enough time. It was all too complicated to explain. I just wished I could see her. I wished I could touch her face.
“Never mind,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. I just want you to know that I’m trying to do what’s right. There are all these bad things happening. I can’t make anyone understand. I don’t understand it myself. The thing is, Beth, I can’t remember anything. I mean, I remember everything up to that day you gave me your phone number, but after that-this whole last year-it’s just gone.”
When I stopped talking, I heard Beth crying, sniffling. “You don’t remember?”
“This year. What happened. It’s all a blank.”
“You don’t remember… us? You and me?”
I reached my hand up to the phone as if I could reach through it and touch her. “I remember you,” I said. “I remember you and how much I liked you, but…”
“But… you said you loved me… we love each other. Don’t you remember?”
My throat felt so tight I could hardly get the words out. “I want to, Beth. Believe me, I want to a lot, but…”
Beth’s voice sounded sad and small. “We were going to spend our lives together. You were going to join the Air Force and we were going to get married…”
I shut my eyes tight. I was sorry I’d called. It was selfish. I hadn’t accomplished anything. I’d just hurt her feelings.
“I want to remember, Beth, I really do,” I told her. “I’m trying as hard as I can. Beth, listen, I just have to do this one thing and then… somehow, I’ll find my life again… I’ll find you again… I promise. I just…”
“I love you, Charlie,” Beth said.
My heart swelled up in my chest.
“I’ll come back to you, Beth,” I told her. “So help me, I will find my life again and I will come back to you.”
My hand was shaking as I reached out to hang up the phone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Death Over Indian Canyon As I walked down the road, I felt as if there were a lead weight in my chest. I could still hear Beth’s voice inside my head. I love you, Charlie. I could still hear the sound of her tears.
I thought about that, and I thought about my father crying on TV. And about my mother crying so hard she could barely speak. I’d caused everyone so much pain-so much pain-and I didn’t even know how or why.
I walked along the side of the road, leaving the little town of Cale’s Station behind me. I’d barely gone half a mile when the road curved. I looked back and saw that the last buildings and houses of the town had disappeared from sight. I waited while a huge tractor trailer went groaning past. Then I was alone.
I left the road and headed up into the forest.
There was no trail. I had to push through underbrush and tangled branches. The going was slow at first. But as I went higher, I found myself in the shadows of tall pines where there was little undergrowth. The ground was more open here, and I could move more easily among the tree trunks.
All the way, the sadness traveled with me. I didn’t know if I could stop what was going to happen, but whether I did or not, I was pretty sure I would not escape. At the very least, I was going to be captured, arrested, sent back to prison, maybe for the rest of my life. I couldn’t prove my innocence. I couldn’t even remember for sure if I was innocent. All those tears I had caused-they were going to keep on falling. I couldn’t see any way to a happy ending.