“Nice to know you wouldn’t throw me to the stalker in a fit of anger.” I stretch up and kiss him, then pull back. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“You called me? Sorry. Dad played the big-bad-father card before he stormed out. I’m grounded-yeah, right-and phoneless. He made me turn in my cell. I’ll get it back. Don’t worry.”
“Wait a minute. He took your cell?”
“Yeah. I’m surprised he didn’t take the keys to the car, my driver’s license, and-”
“But you’re here.” Something’s wrong. Really wrong.
He squints at me. “Don’t look so worried. I haven’t been grounded since I was ten. He’ll get over it.”
“But how did you know to come and meet me?”
“Meet you? What do you mean?”
My mind is spinning, trying to piece together the messages. “I sent you a text. We’re supposed to be meeting at the school parking lot.”
“Didn’t get the message, Hope. I didn’t have the phone. I just saw you leave because I was guarding the-”
“But you answered. You texted me back and said okay.”
Chase’s face changes. Even his eyes seem to darken. He takes me by the shoulders and eases me back into the passenger seat. “Hope, that wasn’t me.”
Neither of us says a word until I can’t stand the silence. “Chase, if you didn’t send the message…” But I can’t finish it.
So he does. “My dad did.” He stares at his hands. “I was afraid of that.”
“But why would he do that? Why would he tell me to meet you at the school?”
Chase still won’t look at me. “I don’t know.”
He’s hanging over the steering wheel as if his bones have dissolved from his body. He knows something. When we drove away from the Johnson place, I sensed something wasn’t right with him. “Chase,” I whisper, “you have to tell me what’s going on.”
Finally, he looks at me. “I think my dad is the stalker.”
“What? That’s crazy! Your dad is the sheriff! Why would he stalk me?”
Chase is shaking his head. “He’s not. He didn’t. Not really. Not stalk. I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you, Hope. He just wanted to scare you.”
“Well, he did that all right! But it doesn’t make sense.
Why would he-?”
“He wanted us to stop investigating. Dad’s a control freak, Hope. I knew he didn’t like me blowing him off and seeing you anyway. But I didn’t start figuring things out until this afternoon, after we saw him at Caroline Johnson’s. I’ve never seen him that desperate. There was something in his eyes.” He puts his hand on my head and strokes my hair. “He’s not a stalker, Hope. He probably just didn’t know what else to do-and I’m not defending him. Believe me, if I’d known he was the one calling you, I would have made him stop. He kept telling me to leave it alone, and-”
“That’s it! Leave it alone! ” Those words have been circling like a tornado in my brain. “Chase, that’s what the stalker said on the phone, and it’s what your dad said this afternoon.” The pieces click together. I should have figured it out before now. “Could your dad get a pickup from that police impound?”
Chase nods. “He can drive anything on that lot, and nobody knows or cares.”
I don’t know whether to be relieved that the stalker is the sheriff… or terrified that the sheriff is the stalker. “So why did he want me to show up at the school lot tonight?”
Chase’s lips tighten. He sticks the key into the ignition. “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”
Chase drives through the fast-food parking lot to come in behind the school. He stops just inside the fence, too far away for us to see much. “I know he’s out there, watching.”
I scan the field, imagining myself walking across the parking lot, calling Chase’s name, no answer but the wind, a warm August breeze. I’d get closer and closer to the tree. Maybe I’d sit there, waiting. And then what? What would he have done?
A flash of white shines from behind the big oak, the one I scraped. “Chase, there! Behind the tree.”
“I see him.” He swears under his breath. His eyes narrow to black slits. “I’ve spent half my life trying to be like him, trying to be who he wanted me to be. Perfect son. Perfect student. Perfect pitcher. Not anymore.”
“Chase? What are you going to do? Chase!”
He doesn’t answer me. He backs the car up, then eases it all the way around the lot until the truck is in full view. Without a glance at me, he floors the accelerator. The car squeals and shoots forward, back tires skidding, then righting to aim us directly at the pickup.
I scream. We’re going to ram into that truck. “Chase!”
Inches away, he slams the brakes. I catch myself, hands braced on the dashboard. The car swerves. I feel a thunk. I open my eyes and see that we’ve bashed in the door of the white pickup truck, pinning it to the tree.
Sheriff Wells swears so loud I hear the words, the hate, through our closed windows. Chase jumps out of the car, leaving the driver’s door open. He waits, legs spread, hands on hips, while his dad struggles to get out of the truck. But the driver’s door is blocked by our car, and the passenger’s door is smashed against the tree. He kneels at his window and lets out a string of cussing.
Midway through cursing the day Chase was born, the sheriff stops. I think he notices me in the car for the first time. His glare raises the tiny hairs at the base of my neck. Nobody has ever looked at me with so much hate before. I want to curl up in a ball on the floor of the car.
“Are you done?” Chase asks his father. He takes the ground between them in three strides until he’s face to face with his dad, still trapped inside the cab. My Chase is strong and fearless, and he’s not backing down a single step.
I want to be with him. He’s standing up to his dad for me. I open the car door and start to get out, but my seat belt yanks me back. Fumbling with it, I manage to get free and step outside. Without glancing at the sheriff, I walk around the car to stand beside Chase. He and his dad are inches apart, locked in a stare-down.
“I asked you if you’re finished.” Chase’s voice is hard, controlled.
“Finished?” Sheriff says, shifting his weight from one knee to the other, still caged inside the truck. His head has to bow to keep from hitting the ceiling. He rolls down the truck’s window, but it won’t go past halfway.
“Finished stalking Hope?” Chase says.
“I wasn’t stalking anybody.” Sheriff Wells turns to me. “I was just trying to get you to stop nosing around in things you had no business in. You should have left it alone. Then I wouldn’t have had to-”
“Stalk me?” I finish his sentence. “How could you do that? You’re supposed to be… I don’t know… a protector. Not a stalker.” I feel Chase’s hand wrap around mine.
“You’re really something, Dad,” Chase says.
“You don’t understand. You’re just kids! You are nothing but a child, Chase!” Sheriff Wells shouts. He turns to me. “Look. I know you want to get your brother off, but you’re out of your league. You’re just going to make the jury send Jeremy to prison, instead of a mental hospital, where he belongs.”
“You have no right to say where my brother belongs!” I shout. “You don’t know Jeremy. And you don’t know me.”
“What were you going to do if I hadn’t shown up, Dad?” Chase demands. “What would have happened tonight if Hope had come here alone, like you planned? Huh? Answer me!”
“Quit yelling!” Sheriff Wells shouts back. “Don’t talk crazy. I’d never do anything to the girl. I figured she’d show and you wouldn’t, and that would be the end of it. She’d think you stood her up, that you were done with her for good, which is what you should be.”
“I’m done, all right,” Chase says. “Only not with her. With you.”
32
Rita is sound asleep when I get back home. I want to wake her up and tell her what happened. I want her to know that it wasn’t just kids trying to scare me. It was Sheriff Matthew Wells, someone who should be looking out for kids like me, for kids like Jeremy.