Chapter 17
I sneak out of the house the way I snuck in, though this time I’m a lot more nervous since I now know the house isn’t empty. Of course, Ian would have as much explaining as I would, and he’d get in more trouble, technically.
Still, would you want to explain to your neighbors what you were doing in someone else’s house? And – even stretching credulity to believe you would – would you want to explain that you were investigating how your son came to have stolen property?
So I do sneak out rather than confronting the truant boy and his little paramour and I say a little prayer that they are smart enough to use protection, and I think about how they really shouldn’t cut out sex education from the curriculum, and I wonder just what am I supposed to do about what I know, and how Nancy must not know and it all comes back to all kids lie, which makes me even madder at Drew for planting that freakin’ thought in my head.
I go behind two houses before cutting back out to the sidewalk, running into Hazel Hall on the way. I ask her if she’s seen Maggie May, who I say has gotten loose again. “By the way,” I say off-handedly, knowing she’ll go running to Nancy with this, “I thought I heard a young girl’s voice in Nancy’s house. Does she have company?”
Having done my civic duty, or some approximation thereof, I call out Maggie’s name a couple of times before I get to my front door and find my parents waiting there.
My mother asks what I’m so busy doing that I haven’t called her this morning to see if she’s recovered from the headache that sent her home. I figured that I was the headache that sent her home and that just leaving would fix it. I know that worked for me.
And she announces loudly enough for them to hear in Plainview that the dog is inside the house barking, so why am I shouting her name out here?
I let us in, calling over to Hazel that I’ll check my messages and see if anyone’s found Maggie, as though my mother hasn’t let the cat (or dog) out of the bag. Like an idiot, I go straight for the messages as if Hazel can see me through the walls. If she can, the jig is up anyway because Maggie’s all over me in greeting.
As it happens, the message light is flashing and I push the play button. A strange voice says he’s only going to say this once. Nothing gets your attention quite like that phrase. Unless it’s, “this is the hospital calling.”
“You know what I want. Bring it to the phone booth in the Syosset-Woodbury park. Be there at exactly 11:30. It would be unfortunate if I had to search the house again, don’t you think? And a call to the police could be a fatal mistake, if you know what I mean. ”
“I hate crank calls,” my mother says. “They are almost as annoying as people asking for money.”
My father and I exchange looks. We have no doubt this is not a prank. “Someone broke in here?” my father asks while I check my watch and see I have about twenty minutes to get hold of Drew and get to the park. He’s got the freakin’ dragon, but maybe he can meet me on the way. . .
“No,” my mother assures him. “I’d know if someone broke in. I’d know because even if my daughter didn’t bother to tell me, an unimaginable circumstance, someone in this neighborhood would call me and let me know.”
I’m not sure how it slipped under the radar, but I’m grateful it did.
She continues to rant about how she would know if the people she loved more than life were in danger, and it’s rapidly becoming clear that she is in denial. Only I don’t have time for denial.
I don’t dare call the police, but I do try Drew’s cell. He doesn’t answer. I call his partner, Hal Nelson’s cell, and tell him that I’m going to the park. And that I’d like the ivory thingamwhatsy back. Now. Hal says he was just calling with a message from Drew. “He said to tell you to go nowhere and do nothing and let the police handle everything.” I tell him this has nothing to do with the police. I’m just going to the park.
“Don’t go,” he says.
“Don’t go,” my father repeats.
My mother’s eyes meet mine. “I don’t have the thing the man wants,” I say. “I’ll have to fake it.”
My mother nods. A mother protects her children. We are all tigers when we need to be.
“You have a little black felt bag?” I ask.
“Of course,” my mother says. She opens her purse and pulls out three Sephora bags in different sizes. I choose the one with the lipstick in it and she hands it to me.
I run upstairs and grab one of Jesse’s pewter dragons and put it inside. It just fits.
“If Drew calls–” I start to tell my father, but his keys are in his hand.
“We’ll follow you and keep trying to reach him,” my father says.
I guess it’s not just mothers that need to protect their children. I warn him to stay far back. I figure that no one would suspect my parents of being at the park for anything but a stroll. They certainly wouldn’t think of them as protection.
“Too bad Rio didn’t leave any guns,” my mother says. “Probably thought you’d shoot him.”
There were days he’d have been right, I think.
In the car, my cell rings and I grab it, hoping it’s Drew. It’s not. It’s my mother.
“This isn’t the shortest way to the park,” she tells me.
“Go away,” I say. “You’re following too close.”
“There’s an idiot on my tail,” I hear my father say while my mother shouts at him to turn right! Turn right! “I don’t know what he’s trying to do. He’s signaling me.”
“It’s your boyfriend,” my mother says. “Too little, too late.”
I try to get them to let Drew pass. My mother advises my father to stop short and let him hit them. “Take him to court. Clean him out. He’d never forgive Teddi and we could be rid of him.”
“We could be rid of Teddi if I don’t let him get there when she does, June,” I hear my father say.
In my rear view mirror I see her reaching for the steering wheel.
