Kate stood and put her hand on Tony’s arm. Tony jerked away. “Why you touching me?” she demanded. “Don’t fucking ever do that!”
“He’s arrested. Okay. He killed the gasoline man, he should be arrested. Don’t you think?”
Tony scratched at the back of her ear. “He’ll get the needle over in Jarratt if they try him as an adult, you know. It could have been me. I could have shot him, and got arrested. I could have been the first girl on death row in Virginia. Know that? People don’t think girls got it in them, but fuck, they do.”
Kate spoke slowly. “Is that what you want, Tony? I don’t get it. What is it you want out of all this?”
Tony slammed the receiver into the steel box and then down onto the cradle. She put her mouth on her arm and bit down. Kate could hear the air drawing through her teeth.
“Don’t, Tony.”
Tony let go and smiled, her incisors streaked in blood. Her arm bore the angry and jagged imprint of the teeth, outlined in bright red. Already the skin was rising in defense of itself, puffing up against the assault. Tony held the arm out to Kate. “Tastes good! Better than mouse shit I bet! Wanna try? Now if I go down fighting, they’ll be able to ID me from my dental records! Ha!”
“Tony, what do you want?”
“I want a dare from you.”
Kate shook her head. “Let’s get in the truck and go on. I’ve got a map. We can find Lamesa. It might not be much farther.”
“Got a dare for you,” said Tony.
“No more dares.”
“A dare. I know too much about your fucking life as it is for any more damned truths. So here’s the dare. Call your husband. And he better be at the office.”
Kate felt a click in the back of her throat. “Tony, let’s leave him out of this. You know we aren’t into pedophilia rings. You know that was way off base.”
The knife appeared, and waggered in the air like a steel mosquito ready for the bite. “Call him. Want me to get him on the line for you? I’ll say I’m you. ‘Collect call from Mrs. Kate McDolen, rich bitch moron who licks mouse shit!’”
“I will go with you to Lamesa. You don’t need to threaten me anymore. I’ll drive you to your dad’s ranch. But just let Mistie and me alone. Let us go on our way when it’s done. There is no reason to call Donald.”
“Ronald McDonald!” said Tony. “Call him, bitch, or Mistie’s gonna sport a new tattoo, a nice set of teeth marks like mine here, only deeper.” She yanked Mistie back by the arm, and held the girl beside her, knife running through the girl’s hair. “How deep ‘til you hit bone and come out the other side? My sister Darlene was digging to China. Think she’s there yet?”
Kate picked up the phone. Her head itched furiously. She probably had Tony’s head lice. One eight-hundred collect. She pressed the numbers, waited for instructions, spoke her name. On the back of her left leg, the tickling of blood in a warm pattern down through the stubble of hair.
Lisa answered the phone.
“Lisa, it’s Kate.”
“Collect again? Honey, you are having phone trouble!” A small and distant chuckle. Kate couldn’t tell if Lisa was really trying to be funny or if she sensed something was off-balance. “How are you?”
“Okay. Lisa, is Donald in?”
“Sure is, Kate. Just hang on one dilly-dally moment, okay?”
Kate couldn’t say okay. God, but her leg was throbbing now, and both were shaking. I don’t want to talk to Donald. Maybe he’s in the conference room, maybe he’s out in the hall. Please, let his voice mail pick up.
“Hello, Donald McDolen speaking.”
“Donald….”
“Kate! Where are you? I found your note. God knows I’ve respected your request to let you be awhile, but I thought you’d at least call, to at least touch base, for Christ’s sake. Are you all right?”
Kate looked at Tony, who whispered, “Tell him you kidnapped Mistie. Tell him you’re in Texas with one of the Hot Heads, running from the law.”
“Kate? Are you still there?”
“I’m here, Donald.” I’m not far from Mexico, no matter what I tell him, Tony doesn’t know I’m going to Mexico. “Here, in Texas.”
“Texas? You’re kidding, right? What in the world did you think you’d find in Texas?”
“Tell him the town,” said Tony.
“Nacogdoches, Texas,” said Kate.
“Whatever you say. Is the air good there? All that, what, nice dry heat to clear you head? Is there a counselor there to work on…your issue?”
Fury flared up the back of Kate’s neck. Son of a bitch! My issue? Am I getting help?
“No.”
“I covered you, Kate,” said Donald. She could see him as he told her his this, one arm locked over his chest, the elbow of the other resting on top of the balled fist, sitting on the edge of his desk. The gray hair, neatly cut and neatly moussed, now just a little frizzy around the edge with anger. “I called Stuart Gordonson and asked him to let the school know you’d be out a short while. Of course, you didn’t say how long, so I felt a bit the fool on that count.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re on your way home now, am I right? I can tell Gordon you’ll be this week, yes? By, say, Wednesday at the latest? I can tell Gordon that?”
“Tell him what you did,” said Tony. She picked at a front tooth with her knife, wiped the blade on the side of her camouflage shorts, then pointed it back at Mistie. “C’mon, now, you’re talking on his dime.”
“I…I have a girl with me.”
A pause back across the many miles in Virginia. “A girl. What do you mean?”
He’s thinking I’ve got a lover, thought Kate, some kind of Texas cowgirl lover. The thought was nearly enough to bring on a dry laugh. Nearly. “A girl from my school. A second grader.”
“Her name,” whispered Tony.
“What’s her name?” asked Donald.
Mexico, a few hours, tops. We’ll be okay, we’ll make it. “Mistie Henderson,” said Kate.
“Henderson,” said Donald. “There was something in the local paper about a Henderson girl not showing up at her trailer park. They weren’t sure if she’s an abductee or a runaway. The residents thought she was a runaway. You…have her?”
“I do, Donald. Let me explain….”
Then Tony pinched her nose and wailed, “Help! I’m Mistie! She grabbed me and threw me in her white car! Help me…!” Then Tony snatched the receiver; slammed it down, and hopped back with a little skip-jump. She laughed loud and long, rocking back like a hyena in a Disney cartoon.
“What did you do that for?” cried Kate. “That’s not how it happened!”
“It don’t matter how it happened,” laughed Tony. “It happened. You’re a kidnapper, you said so yourself! And now your husband knows it, too!”
“He won’t believe it. Not the part about throwing her in the car. He’ll think I’m the one kidnapped. He’ll think I was forced to make the call. Do you know how fake you sounded?”
“But he’ll wonder, he’ll doubt! You left him in the first place, didn’t you, and wrote a note to tell him go were going? I heard that! So he’s gonna know something’s screwed up.”
“He won’t believe what you said.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But the police believed it.”
Kate paused, gaped, wiped sweat from her eyes. Her heart stopped one beat, then another, then picked up again. “The police…believed it?
“After I talked to Leroy, I called the police. Right here in whatever the hell this town is called, I forgot. It was easy, got an operator, didn’t even need the one-eight hundred collect. Asked for the city police department. Said my name was Tony and I was with a kid and woman from Pippins, Virginia. Said I’d robbed an Exxon back home and you’d stole a little kid named Mistie. Said they could check up there and know I was right. They wanted to know why I called to confess, and I said what’s the fun of nobody knowing? And I hung up real quick.”