The Last Cheerleader

by Meg O'Brien

  I turned and he seemed to be looking into my eyes for any sign that I might back out. Change my mind.

  “In the morning,” I said. “What time?”

  “Nine o’clock? I’ll swing by your office?”

  “Sure.” I gave him a hug at the door and smiled at him. “Sorry about the handcuffs comment. I really thought we’d use them for something fun one of these days.”

  “We will,” he said, hugging me back. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  You betcha, I thought. Everything’s going to be fine.

  After Dan left, I fiddled around for a while in the kitchen, cleaning out the fridge, wiping off the stove, scouring the sink. There were four chocolate chip cookies in a bag on the counter that were so hard I could have used them to knock off a gaggle of gulls. Or was it a flock? I didn’t know, and since I wasn’t inclined to knock off gulls anyway, I tossed the cookies into the trash.

  When Dan had been gone a half hour, I figured the coast was clear. I threw some things into a canvas book bag I’d acquired at the last writers’ conference I’d attended. Taking only that and my purse, I locked up, got into my car and took a route that could be leading to my office but didn’t. Through some backtracking and U-turns, I was finally on my way to LAX, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t been followed.

  Parking in the short-term lot, I walked as fast as I could through the terminal, but not fast enough to attract attention. At the Alaska Air counter I grabbed a ticket on a flight out within the hour, and didn’t stop to breathe till the plane was in the air.

  It was late afternoon when I landed in San Francisco. I rented a car and chose a nondescript gray model that looked like every other car on the road. I knew the cops could find me through the credit card I’d used, but I hoped that by the time they caught up to where I’d been, I’d be gone.

  Next I checked into a shoddy motel where no one would ever think to look for me. No gym here, no room service, not even a telephone in the room. There was a sixties-style nineteen-inch black-and-white TV on a rusty bracket nailed to the wall, and it had one of those old security devices that set off an alarm if anyone tried to heist it. The view out the window was the side of a brick building less than ten feet away.

  Perfect.

  There was nothing to do now but hole up here until I heard from Lindy that she’d arranged to be at the house tomorrow. If she hadn’t been able to pull it off for tomorrow…well, I could be in for a long haul.

  But where better for “Lorelei Lee” to hide from the cops? The clerk downstairs might have looked askance at the name, but he probably figured I was a hooker. Which was fine with me.

  I turned on the TV to catch up on the evening news, but since there was no cable and half the screen was snow, it was hard to tell who was killing or crashing into who. I finally just turned it off and stretched out on the lumpy bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking.

  The cops could trace cell-phone calls now. It took a while, but they could do it. I could use the pay phone in the hall to phone Lindy, but if they had put a trace on her cell, I was pretty sure they could find me here once she’d called me.

  I’d just have to stay on the move. Dan would start looking for me after nine in the morning, and it would take him some time to find me. Especially if, when I left here in the morning to go to Lindy’s house, I didn’t come back.

  The timing was close but not impossible. I just needed to get Lindy’s baby out of the house and get her and Lindy to a safe place before they caught up with me.

  I wasn’t sure, yet, where that safe place might be. Certainly not my house in Malibu. The El Segundo cops would be all over it by noon, if not before. When they didn’t find me there, they’d put out an APB, and every cop up and down the coast, if not the country, would be looking for me: Mary Beth Conahan, mass murderer.

  I’ll admit my plan wasn’t perfect. A lot of it had been put together when I’d talked to Lindy. Now I had the added fun of dodging the law and keeping myself out of the pen until Lindy and Jade were okay.

  To calm my nerves, I ate a Hershey bar that I’d grabbed at the airport so I wouldn’t have to go out for dinner. Even before I opened it, I heard my mother say, That’ll keep you up all night, young lady. There’s caffeine in it, you know.

  My mom was a wonderful woman, but she had a lot of fears. She died when I was twenty, and I suddenly inherited a lot of those fears. It was as if they’d been left behind in a box with a black mourning ribbon around it, and once I opened the box I couldn’t stop hearing the warnings. Watch out for this, watch out for that. I think I drank and partied in my early years to stop those voices, or at least muffle them. Then, when I became pregnant and I gave up partying, I began to rationalize those voices away. The last thing I wanted was for my baby to grow up full of fears that she might catch, like a virus, in the womb.

  They still popped up now and then, though, and at the most inconvenient times.

  I’d brought my notebook computer, and I opened it and went into Craig’s manuscript to finish reading it. Scanning the final pages, I knew I had enough here for the police to arrest Roger, his father and at least two of the research scientists at Courtland. Craig had included the names, addresses and phone numbers of people he’d interviewed, some of them ex-employees of Courtland. Long before they told him what was going on there, some had left voluntarily, unwilling to work for the company any longer. Others had been terminated for a variety of reasons that sounded as if they were mere excuses to get rid of “troublesome” employees. I wondered if they’d asked too many questions.

  Craig had felt certain that most of the ones who’d quit weren’t holding grudges and would make good witnesses. Personal notes to himself read, “This is going to be the biggest book of the year. New York Times, here I come.”

  I finished up and closed the document, turning off the notebook. My elation over finding the evidence the police would need to arrest Roger was dulled somewhat by the fact that Craig wouldn’t be around to accept his accolades for this book. He could have been a millionaire, and this would have won him awards by the bucketful.

  Unfortunately, Lindy and I would still have to get Jade out of that house first. Showing this evidence to the police and getting them to arrest Roger would take time. Roger’s lawyer would get the trial delayed over and over, and Roger might be ninety before he ever landed in jail.

  Meanwhile, if he thought Lindy had anything to do with his downfall, he would still carry out his threat to have Jade taken to some secret place and hidden from her. It was his ace in the hole, that threat to separate her from her child forever, the one thing he could still use to hurt Lindy now that he’d stripped her of everything else. And I had no doubt he’d use it.

  I was overly tired from the night before and my little adventure in El Segundo. Before I knew it I’d drifted off for a while, despite the chocolate bar. When my cell phone rang an hour or so later, I jumped a mile. I grabbed it, pushing the Talk button but remembering at the last minute that the caller could be Dan. I waited until I heard Lindy say, “Mary Beth?”

  “Here.”

  “It’s set. We can go tomorrow.”

  “Good. What time?”

  “Two o’clock.”

  “I think that instead of going to your motel, I’ll be at the house at one forty-five, and I’ll hang out in the car until I see you go in the back door. Five minutes later, I’ll follow you in.”

  “Okay…Uh…Mary Beth?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m really scared. I just keep thinking, what if Roger comes home and catches us?”

  “We’ll be in and out within minutes,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  I had been hiding my own anxiety for Lindy’s sake, but I was a bundle of jitters as I sat in the car the next day, waiting for her to arrive. What if she never came? Chickened out at the last minute? Maybe I should have told her I was about to be arrested and this was our last chance to go through with our plan.

  Finally
, she arrived. Ten minutes late, but better than never. How many times had she said that when we were in school? Better than never, Mary Beth.

  After I saw her enter the gate into the garden as before, I waited five minutes and then went to the back door. As instructed, Lindy had left it unlocked. I paused in the hallway, hearing voices from somewhere. The kitchen, I remembered, was to the left, and the dining room was on the right side of the hall, at the rear end of the living room. That’s where voices were coming from—Lindy’s and Irene’s. The door to the hall was closed and they were talking softly. I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  I continued to the front of the house and up the left-hand stairs to the second floor. The bathroom, Lindy had said, was right across from Jade’s room.

  But which one was Jade’s room? Damn! I hadn’t even thought to ask. I didn’t want to risk opening doors one right after the other because I might wake Jade. She might start crying, and if she did, the nanny might insist on checking on her.

  No, I thought. I could trust Lindy to make sure the nanny was busy elsewhere.

  I stood another few moments trying to figure out where a bathroom would be placed. Surely at the top of the stairs, where guests could easily find it during parties. But there were two doors, one at the top of the left-hand stairs, and one at the top of the right-hand ones. Between the stairs was the long balcony tying them together.

  Good God. Why hadn’t Lindy been more explicit? And why hadn’t I made sure she was?

  I held my ear to the door on the left-hand side, and didn’t hear anything. Moving as quietly as possible, I then stood at the door across from it, listening. There was music playing softly in this room. Quiet, easy music, the kind that might lull a baby to sleep.

  Just then I heard Irene’s voice grow louder, as if she was heading toward the foyer below.

  “Wait, Irene,” Lindy said, loud enough for me to hear.

  I ran softly to the other door, opened it, and heaved a sigh of relief when it turned out to be the bathroom.

  Then I heard Lindy say from the foot of the stairs, “I’ll go up, Irene. I want to spend every moment I can alone with her. Do you think you could make Jade some warm milk? Cookies, too. Could you warm them in the microwave?”

  I couldn’t hear Irene’s response, but I thought the footsteps on the stairs must be Lindy’s. They were. I opened the door a crack and she saw me and came over.

  “That was close,” she whispered nervously. “I think she’ll be busy long enough for us to get Jade out, though. Is everything okay? I forgot to tell you which door was the bathroom, and I was worried you wouldn’t know where to hide.”

  “Everything’s fine,” I said. “Maybe I should come in the room and help you pack, though. We really need to hurry.”

  “Okay. Just let me make sure first that Jade is all right, before she sees you. And don’t get too close, okay? She’s afraid of strangers sometimes, and of course, there’s the problem with her immune system.”

  I followed her over to Jade’s room, and hung just inside the door as she crossed the room.

  My first feeling was one of disorientation. The room was quite large, with a hardwood floor, and the bed at the far end wasn’t a crib, as I’d expected, but a full-size bed with a canopy. The canopy was draped in pink lace, and what I could see of the covers looked like the kind that would make any little girl feel like a princess. The bed, though, was far too big for a baby.

  The room was full of tall plants and potted flowers carefully arranged with stuffed animals and other toys. The thing that caught my eye, however, was a large photograph on a stand. The object of the photo was a little girl of about four or five, in an old-fashioned dress like the ones you see in photography studios for little kids to dress up in. It was dark green velvet with a high lace collar, and cuffs. The white of the collar made her hazel eyes stand out, and her dark chestnut hair was upswept. She was beautiful, but looked fragile, like a porcelain doll.

  I grabbed Lindy’s arm and pulled her back. “Who is that?”

  “That’s Jade, Mary Beth, a few years ago. When she was four.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “Dammit, Lindy, I thought she was a baby! An infant.”

  “No, that’s her,” she said, laughing nervously again. “I just call her my baby because she’s always needed taking care of, you know? She’s way too young and innocent to have gone through so much in her short life.”

  “But my God, Lindy! You should have told me. I expected to be traveling with an infant. I didn’t realize we’d have a child this age to hide, someone who might be afraid and who will want to know what’s going on.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be a problem, Mary Beth. Despite her age and condition, Jade is a strong little girl. Besides, as long as I’m with her, she’ll be all right. She won’t cause any trouble.”

  I relented. “I wasn’t worried about trouble, Lindy. I just don’t want to scare her to death, running out of here with her.”

  “We can bring some of her dolls,” Lindy said. “She’ll be okay. Let’s go, Mary Beth. I thought we had to hurry.”

  She walked swiftly over to the bed and bent down, saying, “Hi, honey. It’s Mommy.”

  “I thought you couldn’t come today,” a little voice said.

  “Well, here I am,” Lindy said. “And I’ve brought a friend.”

  I walked over and stood about five feet from the bed, looking down at Jade. She was lying on her side, curled up with a rag doll.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Mary Beth. Your mom and I thought it might be nice to take a ride. Is that okay with you?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked at Lindy. “What if Daddy comes home?”

  “That’s why we have to hurry, honey. I’m going to pack a few things for you and then I’m going downstairs while Mary Beth looks after you a few minutes. She’ll bring you down when it’s time, okay?”

  “I guess,” Jade said. But she didn’t look as if it was okay.

  “I’m not here to hurt you, Jade,” I said. “I’m just trying to help you and your mom. If you don’t want to come, it’s okay.”

  “No,” she said after a moment, “I guess it’s okay. Daddy doesn’t usually let me go out, but—”

  She broke off. “That’s Daddy.”

  “What, honey?” Lindy said.

  “That’s Daddy.” She looked toward one of several windows that spanned a back wall. “He’s here. Didn’t you hear his car in the driveway?”

  Lindy shook her head. “No. Are you sure?” She looked at me, fear in her eyes.

  “What shall we do?” she whispered.

  “Go down and meet him,” I said. “Irene will tell him you’re here, anyway. I’ll get Jade ready, and the first chance we get, we’ll go. You’ll have to get rid of him and signal me somehow.”

  “I…I don’t think I can do that,” Lindy said, her voice shaking. “I don’t know how to explain what I’m doing here.”

  “Lindy, for heaven’s sake!”

  “I think you should talk to Daddy,” Jade said as if she were the mom and Lindy the child. “You should ask him if we can go for a ride.”

  For a moment, Lindy just stared at her. Then she turned to me. “Okay, I’ll go. Maybe I can get him to leave.”

  I watched her slight form, her shoulders bowed as she went into the hall. Then I heard her footsteps heading slowly down the stairs.

  God help us if she couldn’t stand up to him. He would almost certainly call the police. Or worse.

  Turning to Jade, I said in what I hoped was a reassuring voice, “Well, now. Let’s just assume we’ll be going for that ride. What would you like to take with you? Your rag doll? We can’t take too much, because we have to hurry.”

  “Why do we have to hurry?” she asked, getting up and sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Because it’ll be dark soon,” I said reasonably. “We wouldn’t be able to see anything in the dark.”

  “I think you’re lying,” J
ade said.

  Oh, great. Despite having Lindy for a mother, the kid was pretty smart.

  She also had a fever, I thought. Hair curled over her face in damp wisps, and it looked wet where it trailed down her neck to her shoulders. Besides that, her cheeks were too pink.

  I couldn’t help touching her forehead lightly, confirming my suspicion.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Hot,” she said matter-of-factly. “I probably have a fever. But I have one most of the time, so I’m getting used to it.”

  Hearing her say that as if it were an everyday natural occurrence dissolved the last of my qualms about taking her out of here.

  I looked through the closet quickly for an overnight bag, and settled for a worn but large Winnie the Pooh tote. Several shelves held clothes, neatly folded. I shoved some shirts, pants, underwear and socks into the tote. There was a stuffed rabbit on one shelf that looked like the Velveteen Rabbit, as if it had been loved so much its eyes had fallen out. I put that in the tote and went back into the room.

  “Did you know my mommy doesn’t live here anymore?” Jade asked.

  “Yes, I did. We’re going to fix that, though.”

  “You are?”

  “We are.” I stuck out my little finger and smiled. “Pinkie promise,” I said, just as I had so many times with her mother years before.

  She smiled shyly and hooked her finger with mine. “Pinkie promise.”

  Her finger was very hot, though. “I’m going to get your clothes together now,” I said, “so we—”

  Before I’d finished the sentence, I heard voices raised as if in argument downstairs. At the same time, I was certain someone was outside in the hall.

  “Shh,” I said to Jade, putting a finger to my lips.

  Stepping back quickly, I went to the closet. Opening the door, I slipped inside.

  And none too soon. The door from the hallway opened and closed, and I heard Irene say, “So we’re awake now, are we, missy? Well, here, let Nanny fix your pillows. Would you like a snack? I could make you a nice bowl of fruit.”

  “Why are Mommy and Daddy fighting again?” Jade asked.