“I followed the police car.” It’s funny, but I can’t remember much about it. I wonder what happened to the man in the pickup truck. The policemen must have his name.
“I’ll have to call Mrs. Cardenas,” I add.
“Detective MacGarvey did that for you.”
Detective MacGarvey comes into the room. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he says. “I’ve been matching descriptions given by robbery victims in a number of nearby states, and they seem to add up to William Kaines. It looks like he committed a couple of robberies here in the city a week before he died in that car crash.”
“Did you find out if he murdered Julie’s father?”
“She had that story wrong,” he says. “Maybe her mother told her that her father was dead. Maybe she jumped to the wrong conclusion. About three years ago a Gordon P. Gambrell was taken to a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, pretty badly beaten after a fight.”
“She said Sikes fought with her father!” I interrupt.
“When Gambrell got out of the hospital, his family was gone. There was something put out on his wife and child, but that information wasn’t on the computer printout I got on Kaines last week.”
“Can you call her father? Tell him about Julie?”
He nods. “It might take a day or two to track him down, but we’ll let him know Julie is here in San Antonio.”
The question I’ve been so afraid to ask: “They won’t arrest her for murder, will they?”
Dr. Lynn puts an arm tightly around my shoulders. “Julie will get the help she needs. Isn’t that right, Mr. MacGarvey?”
“It’ll come down to that,” he says. He gives me a pat on the shoulder. “If you want to go home now, you can.” He shakes hands with Dr. Paull and strides from the room.
“Can we sit here for just a few minutes?” I ask them. “I’m still shaking inside.”
“Of course,” Dr. Lynn says. “Julie’s doctor is with her now. It will be a little while before they’ll let me talk to her.”
We settle on the bench, one of them on each side of me.
“There’s something else I have to tell you,” I say.
“About Julie?”
“About me. I was fighting for my life.”
“We heard about that,” Dr. Paull says. “It must have been a terrifying experience.”
“You aren’t listening to what I’m saying,” I tell him. “I was fighting to stay alive. When it came right down to it, I must have wanted to live.”
Dr. Lynn grips my hand tightly.
“I’ve decided to work at those odds,” I say. “I suppose I’ve been doing it all along, but I couldn’t see beyond the anger.”
“Good for you,” Dr. Paull says. Then he gives kind of a scratchy little cough and takes my other hand.
Dr. Lynn smiles at me. “Why don’t we drive up next weekend so you can give this news to your friend Holley Jo?” she asks.
“I’d love to,” I answer. “And can I bring someone with me? His name is Dave.”
JOAN LOWERY NIXON has been called the grande dame of young adult mysteries. She is the author of more than 130 books for young readers and is the only four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel. She received the award for The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore, The Séance, The Name of the Game Is Murder, and The Other Side of Dark, which also won the California Young Reader Medal.
Specter (9780307823403) Page 14