Girl on the Run

by Abigail Johnson

  I’m sitting down. I don’t remember when my legs refused to hold me up anymore, but I’m on the ground and the chill of the earth is seeping through my jeans and causing goose bumps to break out all over my skin.

  It’s just the cold, I tell myself. Not anything else. Not these lies that can’t possibly be true.

  I think about my mom: the way she traps daddy longlegs under glasses to set them free outside, the way she leaves notes in my lunch every morning and cries over commercials with puppies in them. She could never kill someone. Maybe she did know Derek Abbott, and if she’s been secretly visiting his grave for years, then she obviously cared about him. Maybe she was a witness and was too scared to come forward. That would be the kind of mistake that could haunt a person. Or maybe her mistake was something else entirely.

  Nothing that Malcolm has said proves she played a role in his death.

  “I can’t believe she killed someone. I just can’t.” I lift my gaze to his. “If you were me, you wouldn’t believe it either.” I’m chewing my lip, considering my options, when, out of the corner of my eye, I see Malcolm gingerly pushing to his feet. In less time than it takes to blink, I have my knife in my hand. His light-brown eyes slowly bounce from the weapon to my face and back again.

  “Really?” he says, taking a careful step toward me. “My lightning-quick leap to my feet prompted you to get all stabby?”

  I tighten my grip, but he doesn’t seem intimidated at all.

  Holding his side, Malcolm limps closer, until he can see into the parking lot, where the manager is still struggling to wrestle the door to my old room back into place. “Think that’ll take him another five minutes?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need that reward money, and the only way I’m going to find your mom again is if you help me, which you’re not going to do unless I can prove I’m telling the truth. So I’m going to get you to someone you can believe.”

  I’m playing lookout.

  Malcolm and I are inside the motel office. He’s hunched over the computer while I chew my lip and peer outside at the manager unscrewing the busted hinges on the door to room 5.

  “Here,” Malcolm calls, backing away from the desk and motioning me over.

  When I join him, I see a video cued up of a reporter standing in front of a run-down metal Airstream surrounded by other similarly neglected trailers. Malcolm taps a key, and the pretty woman with deep-bronze skin, gleaming white teeth, and black hair starts talking.

  “Coworkers say seventeen-year-old Tiffany Jablonski took an instant and obsessive interest in Derek Abbott when he started coming into the coffee shop where she worked. They say she wouldn’t let anyone else take his orders, and she wrote increasingly inappropriate messages on his cups.”

  Mom is young in the school photo on the screen, probably around my age. She looks dim somehow, sad. In contrast, the photo of Derek Abbott is a vibrant, laughing candid of him sailing. He’s handsome, with sun-kissed hair and skin. The reporter shows more photos of him, describing him as warm and friendly, painting a portrait of a young man with a bright future cut tragically short.

  “Derek’s parents told police the infatuated teenager didn’t take it well when their son failed to return her feelings. They say she broke into his family’s house one night when he was there having dinner, and was found waiting for Derek upstairs in his old room—in his bed.” Footage is shown of the grand Abbott estate, where the incident took place. “Derek asked her to leave, and she refused. His parents threatened to call the police, and she grew enraged, demanding that Derek admit he invited her there. When he denied it and tried to move her away from his parents, she attacked him and pushed him down the stairs. The coroner’s report says he died instantly. Tiffany Jablonski fled the scene.”

  My stomach bottoms out, and I’m ready to click the video off when it cuts back to a live shot of the reporter standing in front of the Airstream, identified as Mom’s childhood home. The door bangs open, and a man with shaggy gray hair and deep bags under his eyes emerges.

  “Get the hell off my property!”

  The reporter’s eyes light up, and she pushes her microphone into his face. “Mr. Jablonski, did you know your daughter was obsessed with Derek Abbott?”

  My fingers rise up to cover my mouth. That’s my grandfather. He died just before I was born, so I’ve never even seen a picture of him. Mom always said there was nothing about her childhood she wanted to remember. But now he’s right there. Or he was, I remind myself. For a moment, I feel an ache because I never knew him, but I shove it aside.

  He makes a failed grab for the reporter’s microphone, but she nimbly dodges him and returns it to his face.

  “Have you been in contact with her since the night Derek died?”

  “She didn’t do anything wrong. You condemned her because some rich boy’s family pointed a finger. You can rot in hell, every last one of you.”

  “So you didn’t think it was wrong for her to—”

  “Seen enough?” Malcolm’s arm reaches around me to stop the video.

  “What? No. That’s my grandfather. He doesn’t think she killed him. He—”

  But Malcolm has already closed the browser, and a few keystrokes later, the check-in software is back on the screen. I’m pushing to get back in front of the computer when the bell above the front door chimes and the disgruntled manager walks back in with his toolbox. He halts when he sees us behind the desk.

  “Hey, you can’t be back there,” he says, a slight waver in his voice betraying his unease.

  In a flash, I remember the easy smile Mom slapped on for Mr. Guillory, and I quickly hitch one onto my own face. “Oh, I’m sorry. There was no one here, so we were just looking around in case there was a note on the computer or something.” I might have been able to sell that story if I’d been alone, but with Malcolm’s face looking like he just went twelve rounds with a battering ram, beads of sweat begin to dot the manager’s bald head, and his feet shuffle ever so slightly backward.

  I shift so that my torn jeans and cut hip are facing away. Then, impulsively, I lean into Malcolm, linking my arms around his waist. I feel him wince. “Jake is an amateur boxer, welterweight, and believe it or not, he actually won tonight.” I brighten my smile at the manager.

  Malcolm slings his arm over my shoulder and drops a kiss on my forehead. “Baby, with you, I always win.”

  My smile falters for a split second when his lips touch my skin, reminding me of Aiden. Aiden, who has no idea where I am—because of Malcolm. I want to fling away, to grab for my knife and make a threat I could actually follow through on. Instead, I force my smile back to its full wattage and pray that the manager buys our story, that he can’t see how tightly I’m gritting my teeth.

  The manager’s gaze darts between us a couple more times before his shoulders relax and he sighs. “I don’t give discounts. I don’t care what you won. Now get out from behind my desk.”

  We move quickly, and I’m careful to still keep my hip facing away.

  “Rooms are sixty-five dollars.”

  Before I can think of something to say, Malcolm leans forward and lowers his voice. “Hey, man, you sure about that discount? ’Cause I’ve only got fifty on me right now.”

  With a flat expression, the manager invites us to get out.

  * * *

  I make good on my earlier desire to fling myself away from Malcolm the second we’re out of sight. And it’s only the ashen color that sweeps over his face from the abrupt movement that keeps me from pulling out my weapon.

  “Don’t do that again,” I say.

  He’s panting a little and leans some of his weight on a nearby car. “Do what? Follow the act you started and convince that guy not to call the cops?”

  “Would that have been so terrible? You’re not tied up anymore. I wouldn’t have to explain a
nything. You would.” I realize for the first time that I don’t need a weapon to scare him. I don’t even need the threat of his coworker, the bounty hunter, finding him again. “Why haven’t you told me to call the police? If all you care about is bringing a killer”—I trip a little over the word but push on—“to justice, then why wasn’t that the first thing you said?”

  He’s glaring at me, and it takes him a moment to smooth the expression from his face. “Calling the police is just going to bring a whole lot more heat down on your mom.”

  The frigid air hasn’t thawed in the slightest, but the cold that had been seeping into my bones recedes a little. “And you suddenly care about me and my mom, is that it? What exactly were you hired to do, and how much are you getting paid to do it?”

  “Nothing if it doesn’t lead to your mom.” He swallows before continuing, his reluctance clear. “Finding your mom through conventional methods failed for nearly twenty years. I was hired to try unconventional ones.”

  “You mean illegal ones.”

  He doesn’t deny it. “I did what I had to do.”

  Disgust ripples over me. “What happened to you, getting beaten and tied up, that’s what could have happened to my mom and me if we hadn’t gotten away—or worse. That’s what could still happen to my mom.” I will not let myself think that something like that has already happened to her. “All that so you could, what, pay off some student loans? Buy a car with a trunk that opens from the inside next time?”

  Narrowing his eyes, he reaches into his back pocket, and I leap back until I see it’s only his wallet he grabbed. I instinctively catch it when he tosses it to me.

  “Open it.”

  The leather is buttery smooth in my hands. Inside, I find his driver’s license, his Penn State student ID, a handful of other cards, and tons of concert ticket stubs. But I also find pictures, dozens of them, all featuring the same older woman with Malcolm’s dark skin and deep-set eyes. He’s in a lot of the photos with her. In one, he’s blowing out five candles on a homemade birthday cake the woman is holding, and in another, he’s standing in a cap and gown while the much-frailer-looking woman beams up at him. The most recent photo is of him planting a kiss on her cheek as she lies in what is clearly a hospital bed.

  “That’s Gran. She took me in when I was six. She’s the reason I’m in college. When she got sick, I lost my scholarship, taking care of her, and when she needed more, I took a job to find a woman accused of killing someone, and I made damn sure I found her.”

  He’s still glaring at me, almost daring me to find fault with his motives. “You think I would have signed on if I knew I was gonna end up in a trunk, probably on my way to a shallow grave somewhere?”

  “But you were fine securing that fate for my mom and me? Ignorance is not the same as innocence.”

  He grits his teeth. “No, are you even listening? I didn’t know about you. I didn’t know anything about your mom beyond what I read in the police report or found online. A name and some pictures, a bunch of random facts, and that’s it.” He waits for me to lean back and slow my breathing. “I was supposed to send a notification when I found her, but I hesitated when I”—he pauses—“found out about you. And that’s when our friend showed up at my place, threatening to kick my teeth in if I didn’t give him everything I had….” His voice fades. “You and your mom were gone when we got to your house. He dragged me in with him, thought I could find something on your computer. I didn’t. I wouldn’t even go in your room, so he grabbed it for me.”

  That’s when I realize he thinks he’s giving me an excuse, something that exonerates him.

  “So you just waited in the hall while he ransacked my room and brought you my laptop? I guess that gave you just enough time to steal that photo of me and my mom I found in your pocket.”

  “I wasn’t thinking. I just…didn’t want him to have it.”

  My voice is ice-cold. “You led him to the motel.”

  “He would have killed me if I hadn’t. I hacked into traffic and security cameras, and it took a couple days, but there are only so many places to hide.”

  “And my mom? Did you tell him where to find her too?”

  He shakes his head, his eyes so close to mine. “I don’t know where she is. I thought she was here with you. That’s the truth.”

  The problem isn’t that I think he’s lying to me anymore. I believe him. And if he doesn’t know where my mom is, then I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

  “Could you find her, like you found me?”

  “Honestly? The only reason she was found this time is—”

  “Because of me. I’m the one who created the dating profile for her and uploaded that photo.” I blink away the sting in my eyes when I feel Malcolm’s gaze, but he doesn’t look away.

  “What?” I say.

  “I wasn’t lying. The news story told you the same thing I did.”

  No, he wasn’t, but parroting a story doesn’t make it true, and my expression says as much.

  Flinging his arms out as much as his cracked-if-not-broken ribs will allow, Malcolm says, “Then what? That’s all I’ve got.” He gestures back toward the office. “I tell you the truth. You don’t want it, which, hey, I get—it’s not a good truth. So I give you news footage saying the exact same thing and you still don’t want it. And that wasn’t even an old story, that’s from like five years ago and it hasn’t changed. It’s not gonna change, so—” His voice chokes off as I step right into him.

  “Five years ago? Are you sure?”

  “Yeahhh.” He draws the word out and tries to move back, but I’m literally crowding him.

  I don’t even care that this means my mom lied to me again. Because I know what to do now.

  My grandfather didn’t die before I was born.

  And Malcolm is going to help me find him.

  When I tell him my plan, Malcolm laughs.

  “Yeah, right.” When I don’t laugh back, his brows draw together. “Do you have a death wish? Look at my face. This is what will happen if we’re caught. What, you think the bounty hunter’ll take it easier on you ’cause you’re a girl? He’ll do whatever he has to in order find your mom and get his hundred grand.”

  “A hundred thousand dollars?” My knees go a little weak. “That’s how much Mrs. Abbott is paying for my mom?”

  Malcolm side-eyes me. “She’s been waiting for decades to find her son’s killer.”

  My spine snaps tight. “Stop calling her that. You were right there. You heard my grandfather. He doesn’t think she did it, and he knew her better than any of those other people.”

  “It’s called denial.”

  “No, it’s called doubt, as in what I have about you. If you weren’t so obsessed with claiming your reward money, you’d be questioning this too.” For the first time since finding him in the trunk, I turn my back on Malcolm. I’m not afraid of him anymore, and I feel like it has to be an insult to show him that. I bite both my lips, trying to distract myself from the ache in my chest. I face him again. “What I want is to talk to my mom, to hear the truth from her, but I can’t do that. You just confirmed that the only other person who thinks she’s innocent is still alive. And all that research you did trying to find my mom? You know where he is, don’t you?”

  Malcolm stares at me and swears under his breath. “He lives in a retirement facility outside Philadelphia, a heavily surveilled retirement facility. Plus the staff would have been given instructions to call the investigator if anybody so much as gets near him. And, in turn, the call would go out to people like our steel-toed-boot-wearing friend. Wanna guess what happens if you show up? And if I’m with you? I’m betting I bypass the trunk entirely. So, no. Go ahead and pick up your weapon and ask me again.”

  I was holding the makeshift knife again, but as a reflex, not as a means of intimidation. Despite his confid
ence, his eyes are darting slightly, like when we hid under the bed. He’s not incredulous; he’s terrified. “Think about—”

  “Oh, I have. See, there’s not much else to do when you’re tied up in a trunk for days on end. I know exactly what I’m going to do. The way I see it, your mom is going to come back for you as soon as she thinks it’s safe. As long as I stick by you, I’ll be right there when she does, ready to make that call, get my money, move my gran into the best place possible, and forget that any of you ever existed. That’s my plan. Your plan…” His eyebrows climb nearly all the way to his hairline. “Any plan where I voluntarily go near people like that bounty hunter can go to hell.”

  “But that’s just it,” I say. “It’s never going to be safe. I’ll never be safe with her if she’s the one people are hunting. She knows that. That’s why she left, and it’s why she’s not coming back.” My voice goes hollow as the truth of my words pierce through me. For days, I’ve been tormenting myself with scenarios where she was hurt, attacked, desperate to get to me but couldn’t. The truth is somehow worse.

  She was never going to call me.

  She was never coming back for me.

  As long as she’s wanted in the death of Derek Abbott, she has to run, even from me.

  “Then screw it.” Malcolm spits the words out. “I’m sorry about your life and all, but I didn’t do this. You can do whatever you want, Katelyn Reed, or Jablonski, or whoever you are, but I’m not dying for a hundred grand. I’m out.”

  I catch his wrist just as he starts to turn away, panicked at losing this last chance, this only chance, of finding my mom. Because I have to find her, now that I’m certain she’s not going to find me. I drive steel into my voice and lock my fingers tight. “It’s too late for that.”