My eyes opened into the blinding construction lights, and my hands reached out on either side of me and searched the concrete floor for my sunglasses. When my fingers closed around them and lifted my sunglasses to my eyes I felt something warm and wet. Blood.
When I stood, I stepped on the heavy framing hammer she’d used, and the toe of my shoe kicked it, sending it skittering across the floor and into the darkness.
The garage door was open, and Lane Kelly and his wife were gone.
Outside, the floodlights showed two sets of footprints in the shiny, damp grass that led to the woods behind Kelly’s house. They’d known better than to go back inside. They must’ve also known that those woods would go on for miles and miles before crossing the South Carolina state line, that they’d be walking barefoot and bare-legged in the pitch black for hours before stumbling upon another house. There was no one coming to help them, and there was no one they could go to for help.
My truck was parked in the grass about a quarter mile down the road, but within minutes it was rolling through Lane Kelly’s front yard on the way behind his house. It came to a stop at the spot where the sets of footprints disappeared into the woods, the high beams and the lights on the roof rack piercing the darkness and throwing long shadows out away from the trees.
The truck idled in neutral for a few seconds, and then my foot eased on and off the gas and the sound of the engine revving echoed back toward the house from the woods. My eyes scanned the trees where they were lit up like a stage, looking for any sign of movement, any flash where the light caught an open eye or a piece of white fabric. Lane Kelly and his wife were out there somewhere in those trees, hunkered down, holding their breath, listening to the sound of the engine and praying to hear it die away. It could’ve taken hours to find them, and it would be near daylight before they were marched back into the garage. And that would be time taken away from the search for Wade Chesterfield and the money.
I dropped the gearshift into reverse. It was still full dark in Gastonia, North Carolina, but in less than three hours the sun would be rising over Charleston.
Easter Quillby
CHAPTER 17
In the middle of the night, I woke up with Ruby beside me, but Wade’s bed hadn’t been slept in yet. He stood by the window, peeking between the curtains with the light from the parking lot shining on his face. I whispered his name, and he looked over.
“Did you hear something too?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“What woke you up?”
“I don’t know.” He looked out the window again, and then he let go of the curtains and they closed. Two chairs sat beside the door, and one of them faced the window. I knew that’s where Wade had been all night. He turned the chair around toward the bed, and then he sat down and crossed his legs.
“You not going to sleep?” I asked. He held a finger to his lips, and then he pointed at Ruby. I kicked the covers off and got out of bed and went and sat in the other chair. Wade grabbed one of the legs and pulled my chair closer to his. We’d gotten our nightgowns out of the trunk, and I had mine on. I pulled my knees up to my chest under my gown. “Are you not going to sleep?” I asked again.
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not sleepy,” he said.
“Are you worried?”
He smiled. “What would I be worried about?”
“That the police are going to find us,” I said. “Or maybe he’ll find us first.”
“That’s not why I was looking out the window,” he said. He put his legs out in front of him like he was stretching, and then he crossed his ankles.
“Then why were you looking out there?”
“I already told you,” he said. “I thought I heard something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Could’ve been anything: a ghost, a vampire.” He pointed to the bed. “The kind of things that wouldn’t bother you if you were asleep.”
“I’m too old for that to scare me,” I said.
“You’re too smart for that, aren’t you? You’re starting to remind me of your mom.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” he said. “You’re starting to look like her too.”
My new brown hair hung over my shoulders. I picked up a piece of it and looked at it up close in the dark room. “Not for long,” I said.
“It’s not your hair that’s making me say that,” he said. “Your mom was tough-tougher than me-and you’re just like her. The things you’ve done?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t have done any of that when I was your age-taking care of Ruby like you have. I can barely take care of y’all now.” He smiled. “And now you’ve got a boyfriend?”
I could feel my face getting hot, and I looked down. “I think so,” I said.
“You think so?”
“I think so,” I said again.
“How’d y’all meet?”
“At school. He’s in my grade, but he’s in another class.”
“What’s his name again?”
“Marcus Walker.”
“Marcus Walker,” he whispered. “Trying to steal my little girl away from me.”
“No he’s not,” I said.
“Serves me right if he did,” Wade said. “Your mom was only seventeen when I met her.”
“How’d you meet her?”
“She never told you?”
“No,” I said. “She didn’t like to talk about you.”
“I can’t blame her,” he said. “I wouldn’t have liked to talk about me either.”
“Then tell me now,” I said. “How’d you meet her?”
“I was playing ball in Gastonia for the Rangers when I met her. I guess it was probably the ’eighty-four off-season. A bunch of guys I played with that year decided to go up to Alaska and work these terrible jobs to make as much money as they could before the season started back up in the spring: canning work, refinery, oil field-all kinds of cold, miserable jobs. Dirty jobs too. But you could make good money fast, and that’s all we cared about.
“I worked in an oil field outside Anchorage, and my first day at work some of the guys took me to a little restaurant that was supposed to have the best hamburgers in the world.” He smiled. “And that’s where I saw your mom for the first time. She was working as a waitress that summer; I think it was probably the first job she’d ever had. I can tell you I ate more hamburgers that fall and winter than I’d ever eaten in my life. When it was time for the season to start, I convinced her to come back to North Carolina, and the rest is history. You were born about a year later.”
“And when did you leave?” He looked surprised that I’d asked him that, but I’d never had the chance to ask him before, and I didn’t know for sure if I’d ever have this chance again.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I don’t know when the first time was. I think I did a lot of leaving during those years when you were growing up.”
“There’s a lot I don’t remember about you,” I said. “Same with Ruby. She was little when you finally left for good.”
“I know,” he said. “But it’s probably a good thing that y’all don’t remember much about me. I’d forget it all myself if I could. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of, but all that’s behind me. Behind us.”
“But what about the money?”
“What money?”
“The money under the bed.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I found it today,” I said.
“Okay.”
“Is it his?”
“Whose?”
“The guy looking for you. The guy who came to my school.”
“No,” Wade said, sighing. “It’s not his. I don’t know why he’s out there looking for me, but we don’t need to worry about him. I’ve already told you that. And I’ve also told you that we have to start trusting each other. You shouldn’t have been going through my stuff.”