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Rob, across the room, smiled at the eye-roll I gave him behind my mother's
back. Then he mouthed, "Call me."
Then he very tactfully, I thought left.
But not tactfully enough, since my dad went, "Who was that boy over there?
The one who just left?"
"No one, Dad," I said. "Just a guy. Let's go home, okay? I'm really tired."
"What do you mean, just a guy? That wasn't even the same boy you were with
earlier. How many boys are you seeing, anyway, Jessica? And what, exactly,
were you doing out with him in the middle of the night?"
"Dad," I said, taking him by the arm and trying to physically propel him and
my mother from the station house. "I'll explain when we get to the car. Now
just come on."
"What about the rule?" my father demanded.
"What rule?"
"The rule that states you are not to see any boy socially whom your mother
and I have not met."
"That's not a rule," I said. "At least, nobody ever told me about it before."
"Well, that's just because this is the first time anyone's asked you out," my
dad said. "But you can bet there are going to be some rules now. Especially if
these guys think it's all right for you to sneak out at night to meet with
them "
"Joe," my mother whispered, looking around the empty waiting room nervously.
"Not so loud."
"I'll talk as loud as I want," my dad said. "I'm a taxpayer, aren't I? I paid
for this building. Now I want to know, Toni. I want to know who this boy is
our daughter is sneaking out of the house to meet...."
"God," I said. "It's Rob Wilkins." I was more glad than I could say that Rob
wasn't around to hear this. "Mrs. Wilkins's son. Okay? Now can we go?"
"Mrs. Wilkins?" My dad looked perplexed. "You mean Mary, the new waitress at
Mastriani's?"
"Yes," I said. "Now let's "
"But he's much too old for you," my mother said. "He's graduated already.
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Hasn't he graduated already, Joe?"
"I think so," my dad said. You could tell he was totally uninterested in the
subject now that he knew he employed Rob's mother. "Works over at the import
garage, right, on Pike's Creek Road?"
"A garage?" my mother practically shrieked. "Oh, my God "
It was, I knew, going to be a long drive home.
"This," my father said, "had better have been one of those ESP things, young
lady, or you "
And an even longer day.
C H A P T E R
14
Ididn't get to school until fourth period.
That's because my parents, after I'd explained about rescuing Heather, let me
sleep in. Not that they were happy about it. Good God, no. They were still
excessively displeased, particularly my mother, who did NOT want me hanging
out anymore with a guy who had no intention, now or ever, of going to college.
My dad, though & he was cool. He was just like, "Forget it, Toni. He's a nice
kid."
My mom was all, "How would you know? You've never even met him."
"Yeah, but I know Mary," he said. "Now go get some sleep, Jessica."
Except that I couldn't. Sleep, that is. In spite of the fact that I lay in my
bed from five, when I finally crawled back into it, until about ten thirty.
All I could think about was Heather and that house. That awful, awful house.
Oh, and what Special Agent Johnson had said, too. About Douglas, I mean.
All Douglas's voices ever do is tell him to kill himself, not other people.
So it didn't make sense, what Special Agent Johnson was suggesting. Not for a
minute.
Besides, Douglas didn't even drive. I mean, he had a license and a car and
all.
But since that day they'd called us last Christmas, when Douglas had had the
first of his episodes, up where he was going to college and we went to get
him, and Mike drove his car back, it had sat, cold and dead, under the
carport. Even Mike who'd have given just about anything for a car of his own,
having stupidly asked for a computer for graduation instead of a car, with
which he might have enticed Claire Lippman, his lady love, on a date to the
quarries wouldn't touch Douglas's car. It was Douglas's car. And Douglas would
drive it again one day.
Only he hadn't. I knew he hadn't because when I went outside, after Mom
offered to give me a lift to school, I checked his tires. If he'd been driving
around out by that pit house, there'd have been gravel in them.
But there wasn't. Douglas's wheels were clean as a whistle.
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Not that I'd believed Special Agent Johnson. He'd just been saying that about
Douglas to see if I maybe knew who the real killer was and just wasn't
telling, for some bizarre reason. As if anybody who knew the identity of a
murderer would go around keeping it a secret.
I am so sure.
I got to Orchestra in the middle of the strings' chair auditions. Ruth was
playing as I walked in with my late pass in hand. She didn't notice me, she
was so absorbed in what she was playing, which was a sonata we'd learned at
music camp that summer. She would, I knew, get first chair. Ruth always gets
first chair.
When she was done, Mr. Vine said, "Excellent, Ruth," and called the next
cellist. There were only three cellists in Symphonic Orchestra, so it wasn't
like the competition was particularly rough. But we all had to sit there and
listen while people auditioned for their chairs, and let me tell you, it was
way boring. Especially when we got to the violins. There were about fifteen
violinists, and they all played the same thing.
"Hey," I whispered, as I pretended to be rooting around in my backpack for
something.
"Hey," Ruth whispered back. She was putting her cello away. "Where were you?
What's going on? Everyone is saying you saved Heather Montrose from certain
death."
"Yeah," I said modestly. "I did."
"Jeez," Ruth said. "Why am I always the last to know everything? So where was
she?"
"In this disgusting old house," I whispered back, "on the pit road. You know,
that old road no one ever uses anymore, off Pike's Quarry."
"What was she doing there?" Ruth wanted to know.
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