by Dana Cameron
“Good,” he said, relieved. “We’ll stay in touch then. So, how’s your husband?”
I told him, asked after his wife and his two daughters, the oldest of whom was now nearing junior high school age. He turned to Meg.
“So, when’s the big day?”
“Weekend after Labor Day,” she said. Meg had on her game face, the one she reserved for public speaking and other tasks that made her uncomfortable. “That way, everyone will be home from the field, everyone will be back at school.”
“Wow, just a couple of weeks. Less. Got everything all set?”
A thought hit me then, and I think it occurred to Dave, too.
Meg was too preoccupied to pick up on it, though. “I’ve got a bunch of stuff left, but all little things. You’re right, it’s not long.” She looked panicked, then got control of herself, straightened her shoulders, gritted her teeth. “But I can do it.”
“Of course you can,” Dave said. I thought there was just a trace too much forced heartiness in his voice. “Well, I must get back to the office. You all take it easy.”
We all shook hands, and Meg and I finished loading up the truck.
“Wild day, huh?” Meg said, as we found the highway that would lead us back to campus.
“Yeah.” I wanted to chat with her, wanted to pretend that everything was fine, but I couldn’t.
All I could think about was the wedding. And how close it was. And how perfect a target it would be if someone truly wanted to do us harm.
Chapter 7
I WAS PROBABLY TOO DEEP IN THOUGHT ON MY WAY home later that evening, or else I might have noticed the dark-colored sedan behind me a bit sooner. It was just as I was pulling out of Lawton’s center and finding my way down the road that would lead me to my road and the Funny Farm.
It was dark outside—Meg and I’d been delayed by the surprise at the bottom of the pit and Dave’s questions—and I was running late. The streets outside Lawton center are very quiet, apart from rush hour, when some folks cut across country rather than follow the more congested arteries through town. After six or seven o’clock, the only cars I generally see are those of my few and distant neighbors and their visitors.
It will turn at the next intersection, I thought. They’re just late coming home from work. It’s really unlikely they’ll follow me down Harrison Farm Road, down there it’s just us and…
The car did follow me down Harrison Farm Road. I glanced back at the driver, but could hardly see anything behind the tinted windshield. Just a flashing blue light swirling on the dashboard.
I frowned, and began to pull over, simply out of habit, but then something checked me. I continued to move, albeit a bit more slowly, along the side of the road, waiting for him to pass me, if he wanted to. No such luck: He kept on my tail. And yet, something kept me from pulling over and stopping completely.
I didn’t have time to figure out what it was that was bothering me. Suddenly, I found myself jolted violently forward. The other car had bashed into the back of mine.
Omigod, was he trying to kill us both? And yet, he kept right on my tail, dangerously close…why didn’t he back off?
That’s it, I thought. Cops will give you a moment, use the loudspeaker, something, to get you to the side of the road. Without another thought, I shifted into high gear and floored it.
The road was largely unlit—it was too far off the beaten path to warrant many streetlamps—and I knew the area as well as anyone local. I knew what I was going to do. I just needed to keep my head and I needed to keep at least a foot ahead of the other car. If he hit me, and I rolled off the road into the fields that surrounded my house, I would be in big trouble. I couldn’t take my eyes off the road long enough to get any of the plate. Besides, he was too close behind me now.
I tore down the road, past my own house, not even pausing. If this guy wasn’t a cop, then no way was I going to lead him home. I passed the neighbor’s house. He was out by his mailbox and I saw the startled look on his face as he recognized me and realized that I was being pursued at high speed by what looked like an unmarked police car. I hoped that I’d have the chance to explain it all to him later.
The intersection with the other tertiary road came up sooner than I expected—I wasn’t used to traveling this fast on this road. I hit the left directional, and then yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. I didn’t think for a second that he would buy it, but trusting the idea that most people signal as a reflex, I saw that he had to swerve hard around to keep on my tail. Good.
The steering wheel slipped in my hand, and I was going so fast that the Jetta almost jerked out of control. My hands were sweating as I clenched the wheel. I wiped them off, one at a time, on the leg of my jeans, and strained my eyes looking for the shortcut I knew was coming up fast. It was so hard, in the dark, when everything was so overgrown, and if I stopped to think, I’d be too petrified to continue.
Don’t think, act, Emma.
There…I left it for the last possible second, and then turned hard, right. This was a dirt road, an access road for a farmhouse that was no longer in existence, even less traveled than the one I’d just left. Even darker, if that was possible: there were no lights at all, here, just the beams of our headlights. I would have to be very careful, hoping that anyone who might come from the other direction would have their headlights on; it was just too narrow for two cars to pass each other without slowing down. And at these speeds…I pushed away the memory of the two kids who had been killed while drag racing two summers ago.
I was in luck, for the first time in days. There was just one more leg to travel, and then we might find out what was—
I felt another hard smack against the back of the car, but it wasn’t as bad as before; he was having a hard time keeping up with me. Correcting my steering, I realized that his car wasn’t handling as well as mine on the badly repaired road. All I had to do was keep it together for just a few more minutes…
The ambient glow of the lights from my destination made me almost swoon with relief. With any luck, my pursuer wouldn’t have any idea of where I was actually heading. I turned right again, and hit lighted pavement with a jostling bounce. My jaw clacked shut, jarring me, reminding me that I was now breathing through my mouth, as though I was fighting. There were more cars here, and they weren’t pulling over—the guy behind me had no siren. I had to swerve around them, using the suicide lane and breakdown lane to pass. I hated driving so recklessly, but I didn’t want to find out what the other driver was after, either.
There, an open space, a straight shot, and still the sedan behind me didn’t slow down: He didn’t know what I was up to. I turned right, signaling, hoping that he would follow me.
I pulled into the Lawton Police Station, grating undercarriage on asphalt, and the sedan followed. For a moment I believed that I’d been evading a genuine police officer, but then the dark sedan wheeled out of the parking lot with a screech. He made a U-turn, causing several other cars to brake suddenly, and took off in the opposite direction we had been traveling.
I had just enough sense left in me to put my car in park, and then I sat there, shaking like I had a fever, my head on the steering wheel. There was a sharp rap at the window.
Cursing loudly, I jumped, my left hand smacking out against the glass. I saw that there was a uniformed officer outside the car. I lowered the window.
“Evening. You mind telling me what that was all about?”
It wasn’t a request. Dry mouthed, I told him what had happened. At another nonrequest, I handed over my license and registration.
After assuring himself that I wasn’t the real trouble maker, he asked the question that I had been asking myself since I pulled over. “How did you know it wasn’t a real officer following you?”
“I think it was the car,” I said slowly, just working it out for myself. “I thought at first that it looked like an unmarked police car, but there was something about it that wasn’t right.”
“Ho
w not right?”
“It was the way the grill and lights looked,” I said, finally able to identify the problem. “It looked like more like a Japanese-style sedan, rather than an American one. All of the police cars around here are American-made, I’m pretty sure. And the light on his dash, it whirled. Don’t you guys use strobes?”
He cocked his head. “You notice all this when someone is trying to run you off the road?”
“Trust me, the screeming meemies have just caught up with me.” I took a deep breath, swallowed, tried again. “There was also the bashing into the back of me. I’m assuming you give people a fighting chance to pull over before you start trying to ram them off the road.”
“You’re funny.” He nodded, frowning. “Okay. You did the right thing. Did you get any other details?”
“I couldn’t see anything else,” I said, apologetically. “Dark, late-model sedan.”
He nodded, then walked around to the back of my car, where he could see the evidence that I’d been hit. “Well, it sounds like you had your hands full. How about you come in, fill in a report, and then we’ll get you out of here, okay?”
I went in, and that’s when the tears started. Officer Franco found me a tissue and waited patiently while I finished, but even then, I couldn’t stop shaking. My knees were like sponges: I’d had the benefits of an adrenaline rush, and now I was deep in the aftermath of the adrenaline dumps. Still, a tiny corner of my mind was active enough to be grateful. I didn’t have time to think, I’d acted on souped-up nerves, muscle memory, and a fast inspiration. I got out of it alive.
I told him the story, as best I could, hesitating when I got to the part where I admitted that I was afraid that it might be Tony, or someone in his hire. I told Officer Franco this, and he stopped chewing his gum.
“Put it in the report and I’ll give this Sheriff—Stannard, did you say?—a call. It sounds unlikely—it could just be some random nut case—but if we get any other complaints, we’ll want to know everything. That light on the dash is worrying. Could be a ruse to get young ladies such as yourself into…a bad situation.”
I nodded, and picked up a pen, willing my still-trembling fingers to be steady. Young ladies such as myself were already in a bad situation.
Chapter 8
IT WAS WITH A STRANGE MIXTURE OF APPREHENSION, vindication, and nerves that I told Brian about the chase when he got home. Apprehension, as if I was the one responsible for the chase and would be rebuked. Vindication, because trouble just kept coming, and sometimes, it still means something to be right, even when it’s your neck on the block. Nerves, because I had to relive the chase yet again with the second telling of it. There’s only so many ways that you can keep something at arm’s length before you have to face the reality of it. Then I realized I had to backtrack and tell Brian about what had happened at the site.
Brian let go of my hand, ran his hand through his hair. The blood rushed back into my fingers.
“Okay, whatever this is, is getting way out of control,” he said. “And this was aimed directly at you. The site, now this asshole in the car. There’s no doubting that.”
I kept my mouth shut and did a fair job of not looking like I’d finally made my point.
He squeezed me in a bear hug. “You’ve done all the right things, going to the cops, keeping your head. I’m so proud of you.”
“And I was right.” Then I blurted, “It is Tony.”
Brian looked at me quizzically. “You’re right, someone is gunning for you. I hate that it’s true, but yes, that’s what seems to be happening. As for that other thing, I don’t know. Even if it isn’t Tony, we need to be careful. I’m glad you went to the cops, glad that Stannard knows now, too. I say that we keep our eyes and ears open, do a little research into the laws about stalking or harassment laws or whatever they’re called in Massachusetts. Maine, too. Start a file, keep track of all this stuff, be extra careful about the house, your office—”
“And your office,” I persisted.
“Okay, sure, whatever.” He said it so quickly, I got the impression that he was doing that male denial thing, where an unpleasant situation is dismissed out of hand.
“I’m serious, Brian.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “This is getting…closer to home. Literally and figuratively, okay? And if it’s getting closer to me, then…you need to worry, too. About you.”
I watched him frown, but held his gaze until he nodded. “Okay. I’ll do my best.” He chewed the inside of his cheek a minute. “What if you take a leave of absence from school, this semester?”
“Brian! I can’t do that! It’s too late…it’s too much.” Talk about going from one extreme to another.
“Okay, okay, maybe that was a little much. What if…I work at home? And you work at home?”
“I can hardly teach classes from home,” I said, frowning. “And you’ve got a project deadline coming up, you know that. It’s all you can do to keep off a death-march schedule as it is.”
“I just hate the idea of someone knowing your schedule. I mean, it’s on the department website and everything, right? I could drive you to work.”
“Brian, you can’t drive me to work—it’s exactly the opposite direction of where you need to be going. And like I said, our schedules won’t allow it.”
“Hey, I’m on your side, remember? I’m trying to make sure you’re, uh, we’re both safe.”
“Yeah, but you can’t do that by locking me in the house. And I’m not going to let anyone curtail my life like that. I just can’t. Plus, I don’t want to be a sitting duck, which I will be if I confine myself to the house.”
Brian was annoyed, I could tell, but he didn’t make any other outrageous suggestions. I was glad, because not only did I not like the idea of being kept under lock and key, I hated the idea that I was responsible for making him uneasy. I also hated the notion that he might be in danger. His earlier denial of the situation was almost preferable to this new attitude, however.
“Okay,” he said finally. “But we’re both going to be extra cautious, right? There’s a weirdo out there.”
“You got it.” I could live with that: I hugged him then, a long time, grateful that I no longer felt so alone in this. Unanchored, it was all too easy to imagine that I might be making things up, seeing connections where there were none, but neither one of us could doubt it now. A gap between us had been bridged or the existing bridge made stronger, but it was terrible to think that I had to convince him of his own danger.
When I let Brian go, there was a thoughtful look on his face. I kissed him again, and went up to my office.
The next day, I got home late from errands, checked my email, and began putting together a batch of chili. I’m not a great cook, but I can do it when absolutely necessary. I even try to avoid using frozen foods, and so by most standards, I was pulling out all the stops. It made a change from working on lectures and fretting, at any rate. I set the table, cracked a beer for myself, and heard a car door slam in the driveway. And then another.
Frowning, I looked out the back door window, and saw my sister’s boyfriend, Joel, getting out of his Beemer, which was parked behind Brian’s pickup truck. There was no sign of Bucky. Strange enough that Joel should stop by unannounced and without my sister; it was odder still to see Brian and Joel do the handclasp–back slap greeting that’s become de rigueur among males of a certain generation.
Brian and Joel don’t get on all that well. I loved them both, but they’d never quite managed to become friends.
As I watched them talking in the drive, I was struck then by the similarity between the men. The physical likeness was limited to similar height and brown hair—Joel’s was blonder, cropped close to his head, his almost stylish small beard was a bit too self-conscious, and he had a slight paunch developing. Brian was looking a little more cut these days from the exercise at Krav, and he needed a haircut to disguise his cowlicks. I couldn’t help but notice that they were both wearing polo shirts, baggy short
s, and sports sandals. Both were geeks by trade, by nature and inclination. Both loved music and were devoted to good food. Both were problem solvers, both tended to be alpha, leader-types…
Maybe that was it: They were far too similar to find it easy to be friends. And then there was this protective thing Brian had going with Bucky: not having any siblings of his own, he’d adopted my sister as his own, and in some ways, the two were close friends, as close as my perennially guarded sister allowed. Brian’d been happy to hear about Joel being in Bucky’s life, but had never warmed to him personally.
And yet, here they were, looking for all the world like…friends.
I opened the door. “Hey, guys! Joel, this is a nice surprise.”
Brian started guiltily.
Joel waved. “Hey, Em. Yeah, well, when Brian called me last night, I figured I should come as quick as I could.”
Now I was really confused. “That was nice of you. What did Brian tell you?”
Brian was now shifting from one foot to another. “Uh, well, I told Joel the whole situation. That we’ve been worried that someone’s been watching the house or stealing our identity, and somehow they knew you’d be at the site. So figured, maybe they might have left bugs or spyware on the computers, or something. I thought maybe he could help me…us find out.”
Joel nodded. “Yeah, and after Carrie told me what happened—”
To me, my younger sister Charlotte was Bucky; I often forgot that the rest of the world not only saw her as a functioning adult, but called her Carrie. I was still surprised that my somewhat asocial sister was living with a guy; I had no idea what she told him, and every time I tried to guess, I got it wrong.
“And what with the fire at the vet clinic and everything? Well, I figured I could sneak out of work early, give you guys a hand. Like I was telling Brian, I’m not sure what I can do, but I’ll have a look, you know? I mean, we computer guys talk a good game and occasionally threaten to hack someone’s credit report, but—really? I’m just a software engineer. I’ve got a few tricks, but I don’t like hackers or what they do, so I’m not all that sure I can do anything much for you.”