Liar! I wanted to shout. My parents had done their Crythe research on their own time, with their own equipment. Rona had no right to their work. Their mistake was in telling her anything. But I couldn’t defend my parents without giving away everything.
“You’re supposed to settle those problems in court, not with guns,” Lynne said boldly behind me. I turned around to give her a quick grin of gratitude.
“Oh, I forgot. They teach idealism in school nowadays.” Rona chuckled. “You’ll learn. The way the real world works—sometimes you just have to take what belongs to you.”
I knew I could trust Lynne to debate that. I was glad we’d managed to distract Rona from trying to figure me out. But my arms were trembling from holding the computer aloft for so long. This wasn’t going to work.
“Stand up, Lynne,” I said quietly while Rona was still chuckling.
Lynne scrambled up instantly. Rona stopped laughing and tightened her grip on the gun.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I announced. “Lynne’s going to hold the computer now!”
I didn’t give Rona time to object. It was only a second before Lynne had the computer held high over her own head, her eyes locked on Rona’s.
Could we do this for the next several hours—pass the computer back and forth whenever we got tired?
No.
I bent my head toward Lynne’s ear, pretending I was just reaching out to steady the computer.
“Jump into the bathroom the same time as me and we’ll lock the door,” I whispered.
Lynne flashed me a startled look that Rona had to have noticed. I watched the suspicion play over Rona’s face as Lynne and I inched backward, in unison, toward the bathroom.
“She’s protecting me,” I told Rona. “We’re just making sure you don’t shoot either one of us.”
“I could kill you both with one shot,” she countered. “Stop right there!”
We were on the threshold to the bathroom. I responded by jerking Lynne around behind me, slamming the door, and flattening myself against the wall, all in one smooth move. Lynne stumbled and sprawled across the length of the floor.
“I said to stop!” Rona screamed.
I turned the lock on the door. Seconds later a bullet whistled through the middle panel of the door.
Lynne rolled over and dove into the bathtub. I figured she knew what she was doing. I jumped after her.
“Is this tub porcelain or ceramic?” Lynne whispered.
“I don’t know—it’s old, that’s all,” I said, irked that she could ask such a stupid question when all I wanted to do was listen for the next bullet.
“But will it protect us, or should we hide behind the toilet?”
“I don’t want to risk getting shot while I’m switching places,” I replied.
The bathtub did seem safe. It was off to the side, not in the direct line of fire if Rona shot at the door again. I never thought I’d be looking at anything with claw feet as a safe haven.
“That didn’t hit you, did it?” Lynne asked.
I hadn’t even thought to check. I looked down. All my skin cells seemed to be connected to one another, unpunctured.
“No. What about you?”
“I’m fine. And the computer—” She held it up, and both of us stared.
Rona’s bullet had gone right through the center of the computer.
Thirty-Nine
MY FIRST REACTION WAS UTTERLY RIDICULOUS. MY EYES FILLED WITH tears, and I wanted to whimper, Papa. Mama.
That computer had been my parents’ most impressive invention, and now it was destroyed. For a second I felt the surge of nostalgia that I’d claimed Mom had felt for this computer.
Lynne didn’t have the same kind of emotional connection to waylay her.
“Hey, hey!” she shouted out to Rona. “Don’t shoot again. I know you don’t care about us, but you might hit the computer! Just leave us alone, and we’ll come out as soon as we hear Sophia’s voice.”
“You’ll climb out the window,” Rona said.
“From the second floor? We’d be killed. Send Jacques out to watch for us if you’re so worried.”
“You might as well come out of there. I’m going to pick the lock,” Rona said.
“Can she do that?” Lynne whispered frantically to me.
Silently, I shook my head.
“I don’t think so,” I said. One advantage of living in such an old house was that all the locks on the doors really worked. At Lynne’s house all we needed was a bent bobby pin and we could break into any room in the house. “And there’s not a key anywhere. One time we locked ourselves out, and we had to borrow Mrs. Steele’s ladder and break the window to get in.”
“What if Rona does something like that?” Lynne asked, panicked.
“She’d attract too much attention. Wouldn’t she?” I asked.
Outside the bathroom, Rona yelled again: “Maybe I’ll take the door off the hinges.”
“Oh no,” I moaned. “I’m so stupid.”
But Lynne didn’t look worried.
“The hinges are on this side!” she yelled back to Rona. Then she whispered to me, “Didn’t you know that when you decided to lock us in here?”
“Oh, sure,” I muttered. “Of course.” But my heart pounded because I hadn’t thought about hinges. Even my parents had never had to lock themselves in a bathroom to protect themselves from a gunslinging maniac.
“Don’t feel bad,” Lynne said, seeing right through me. “I probably shouldn’t have told her where the hinges were. Then she would have wasted time looking for something to take the door off….”
I ignored Lynne’s apology.
“What else could go wrong?” I asked desperately.
“Nothing, unless she tries to shoot off the lock,” Lynne whispered back. That was something else I hadn’t thought of. Lynne saw from my expression that she had to take charge.
“Just leave us alone,” she shouted out at Rona. “It’s not worth the risk for you to do anything else. If you try to get us out of here, we’ll throw the computer out the window and we’ll flush the notes down the toilet. Got it?”
Rona didn’t answer.
Lynne and I listened, our hearts beating wildly. No more threats, no more gunshots, no tugs at the doorknob.
“Maybe Rona and Jacques left,” Lynne finally whispered.
“No,” I said. “They’re just waiting.”
“So what are we going to do?” Lynne asked. “When your mom gets here, I mean. What are we going to do about the computer?”
“We’d better start praying,” I said glumly. “It’s our only hope.”
That’s when we heard the tapping at the window.
Forty
IF THE SOUND HAD BEEN ANY LOUDER, I WOULD HAVE PANICKED, convinced that Rona or Jacques was going to break the window and that we had only a few minutes before Rona would discover the destroyed computer and kill us both. But the tapping was so faint, I wasn’t sure I could trust my own ears.
“Shhh,” I whispered to Lynne.
I stood up and crept over to the window. This was the only room in our apartment that had good blinds. I was lucky that they were pulled down. I slowly moved them away from the window, just enough to peek out.
A man’s face stared back at me.
“I’m Officer Lanur, miss,” he said through the glass. “Are you okay?”
Did he mean apart from having been kidnapped? Apart from practically having a heart attack from the shock of seeing a face at a second-story window?
He was motioning for me to raise the window. I unlatched it and opened it just a crack. I still had the notion I shouldn’t do anything I couldn’t hide quickly if Rona stormed into the bathroom.
“Did that shot hit either you or your friend?” the man asked.
Mutely, I shook my head.
“Then let’s get you out of there,” he said.
I stared at him as stupidly as if he’d suggested sprouting wings and flying.
> “Unless you like being locked in a bathroom and getting shot at,” the man said.
I pulled the blinds back farther so I could see him better. He was clinging to a rope hanging down from the roof.
“They’re going to see you,” I whispered. “I just told her to send the guy out to look. She was worried we’d climb out the window.”
I’m not sure how much sense that made. Office Lanur didn’t seem the least bit concerned.
“Your two kidnappers are in the kitchen right now, having a snack,” he answered. “Don’t worry. We’re watching. We set up a stakeout, oh, ten, fifteen minutes ago. We don’t like innocent teenagers hanging out with trigger-happy freaks, so we thought we’d rescue you before we did anything else.”
Mrs. Dotson, I thought. She didn’t wait until eleven to call the police.
She had saved my life.
I decided I should think better of the Willistown police, too, since they’d been able to spy on us all along without anyone noticing.
“What’s going on?” Lynne whispered behind me. She joined me at the window and then jumped back in surprise at the sight of an unfamiliar face.
“It’s the police,” I hissed. “They found us!”
“Pleased to meet you,” Officer Lanur said to Lynne. “How about if we continue this conversation on the ground, after I get you out of there? I’m getting a little tired of impersonating a spider.”
Beside me, Lynne was beaming. I hadn’t seen her look so happy since the school officials agreed to let her do an independent study on binary numbers.
“But my mom—,” I started to protest.
“You tell us exactly where they’re holding her, and we can get her, too,” Officer Lanur said. “But let’s get you two to safety first.”
I was still working that one out—did I deserve to be safe when Mom wasn’t yet? But I knew I wanted Lynne out of danger. She was already pushing up the window, palms firmly hoisting at the bottom. The window surged up three inches, then ground to a halt. She bent down, shoved her right shoulder under the window, and pushed. The window didn’t budge.
“Why—won’t—this—open?” Lynne grunted.
It’s funny how, if you’re terrified enough, you can forget something you’ve known all your life.
“That’s as far as this window ever opens,” I said dully. “Remember?”
Lynne looked crushed and stopped pushing. I could tell she knew what I was talking about. But Officer Lanur still looked puzzled, so I had to enlighten him.
“It’s designed that way. One of the kids of the original owner fell out a window and was killed, so the father made it so none of the second-or third-floor windows in the house could open more than four or five inches. When Mrs. Steele bought this house, she had all the other windows replaced. But she didn’t bother changing the windows in the bathroom.”
I was babbling, but neither Lynne nor Officer Lanur stopped me.
“Okay,” Officer Lanur said slowly. I could tell he was having trouble letting go of some little fantasy about effortlessly rescuing two helpless teenage girls from certain death. “Um, is it a mechanical thing? How do we get around this?”
“I don’t know” I snapped in frustration.
Lynne was prying at all sides of the window frame with her fingernails, as if she could dig her way out. Tears blurred my eyes as I watched her. I was so tired all of a sudden.
Officer Lanur began talking quietly into a headset I hadn’t even noticed he was wearing.
“Um, I’m going to go back up to the roof here for a few minutes,” he told us. “I’ll bring back some tools to break in without making any noise. I’m sure we’ll have you out of there in no time at all.” I wondered if that was a white lie, the same kind that police officers told all the time in the movies—like, Yes, yes, of course you’ll live. You’ll be fine, to a person who was obviously bleeding to death.
We watched Officer Lanur rise and disappear over the edge of the roof. Lynne sank down to the floor and slumped against the wall.
“I thought we were getting out,” she moaned.
“We’ve got hours,” I said comfortingly. “It’ll be a long time before Mom gets here.”
Secretly, I was almost relieved that Officer Lanur hadn’t been able to rescue us right away. It gave me time to think. Should I refuse to escape without Mom? I could get the police to give me another laptop computer to fool Rona with once Mom got here. I could tell the police to save Mom first. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?
My thoughts got so convoluted, I didn’t hear the phone the first time it rang. But Lynne did.
“Listen,” she hissed.
We crawled over to the door. I put my ear against the wood.
“Do you think that’s safe?” Lynne asked. She pointed. The bullet hole was only a few inches over my head.
“Shh,” I hissed. I peeked out the bullet hole. I could just barely see Rona. “She doesn’t have the gun aimed over here,” I reassured Lynne. “She’s talking on her cell phone.”
Rona walked out of my line of vision. I heard her shout, “No!” Then there was a gunshot.
Lynne and I both dived back into the bathtub so quickly, we rocked it on its claw feet.
Outside our room, I could hear Rona shouting, but my ears were still echoing with the gunfire. I couldn’t make out the words. Then there were more gunshots. Lynne and I cowered in the bathtub like scared little puppies. I think one of us was crying, but I wasn’t even sure if it was her or me.
We heard sirens, the crackle of walkie-talkies, trampling footsteps outside our door. Still, Lynne and I huddled together, without moving, our hands over our heads.
Then we heard a knock on the door.
“Kira? Lynne? Are you all right in there?” It was Officer Lanur. “I think we’ve found a way around the window problem. You’re safe now. Come on out.”
Forty-One
IT WAS A LONG TIME BEFORE THE POLICE TOLD US THAT RONA AND Jacques were dead. I think they thought we were in shock.
Maybe we were.
Lynne’s parents arrived immediately and fell all over her with hugs and kisses and repeated questions: “Are you all right? What happened? Where have you been? Oh, we were so worried!” Her mother clutched Lynne’s right hand and her father clutched her left hand, and I could tell that none of them wanted to let go, ever.
I sat alone.
Lynne’s mom reached over to me, when she remembered, but I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “Stay with Lynne.”
We were in my bedroom, where no one had stepped foot since the night before. That’s because the rest of the apartment was a crime scene. I walked out into the living room, where Officer Lanur was taking pictures of bullet holes in the wall.
“Have you found my mother yet?” I asked. “They were flying her here. She would have left California, oh, about—” I looked at the clock, but I couldn’t make sense of it. I had no idea what time it had been when Rona called Crythe, what time Lynne and I had locked ourselves in the bathroom, what time it was now. Both hands of the clock hung strangely. I hadn’t had such trouble telling time since I was in first grade.
Oh. Someone had shot the clock, too.
“Your mom?” Officer Lanur said, as if he had forgotten there was anyone else involved. “We’ve got the FAA checking out that one. We should be getting word on her location any minute now.”
I looked around the room. Blood stained the carpet and the walls. That will never come out, I thought. We’d have to replace the carpet and the wallpaper. But that wouldn’t be enough to erase what had happened here. The image would stay in my mind forever.
“Why didn’t you just get a crowbar?” I asked in a choked voice. “You could have gotten us out the window. You didn’t have to come in shooting.”
Officer Lanur gave me a hard look.
“The woman—Rona?—she shot the old man,” he said. “Right after the phone call. We just came in to defend him, to protect you. But she w
ouldn’t stand down. She just kept shooting and shooting and shooting.”
I think maybe Officer Lanur was in shock too. He probably wasn’t used to doing anything more dangerous than getting cats out of trees.
“Why?” I asked. “Why’d she shoot him?”
Officer Lanur shrugged. “She was shouting something at the old man, but none of us could understand. It’s all on tape. So’s the phone call, but it’s in some strange language. We’ll have to have it interpreted!”
“It’s Crythian,” I said. “I can interpret for you.”
He probably shouldn’t have given me the tape. A big-city cop would probably have ordered me out of the crime scene, sent me safely into counseling, gone to a professional interpreter who had no emotional involvement. But Officer Lanur went over to the kitchen table and tossed a tape recorder into my hands.
I hit the rewind button.
The police had begun intercepting Rona’s phone signals when she called Crythe to ask for Mom to be flown here. I listened to that call impatiently, pushing fast-forward every few seconds. And then I heard a new voice, someone tripping over his words in excitement or horror or fear.
I gasped. I dropped the tape recorder.
Officer Lanur looked back at me, then rushed to my side. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me.
“Kira! Kira!” he shouted. “Talk to me! What is it?”
His voice seemed to come from farther away than California.
I whispered back, and my voice sounded far away too, as if it belonged to somebody else. Or as if I were a ventriloquist, throwing my voice miles away.
“Mom’s plane,” I said. “It crashed.”
Forty-Two
I MOVED IN WITH LYNNE’S FAMILY THAT NIGHT. I’D NEVER KNOWN IT, but Mom had made arrangements, years ago, for Mr. and Mrs. Robertson to be my guardians if anything ever happened to her.
That was good.
Escape From Memory Page 16