12
Abra didn’t go under completely; she still heard the truck’s motor, but it was far away. It seemed to be above her. It made her remember when she and her parents went to Lake Winnipesaukee on hot summer afternoons, and how you could hear the distant drone of the motorboats if you ducked your head underwater. She knew she was being kidnapped, and she knew this should concern her, but she felt serene, content to float between sleep and waking. The dryness in her mouth and throat was horrible, though. Her tongue felt like a strip of dusty carpet.
I have to do something. He’s taking me to the hat woman and I have to do something. If I don’t, they’ll kill me like they killed the baseball boy. Or something even worse.
She would do something. After she got something to drink. And after she slept a little more . . .
The engine sound had faded from a drone to a distant hum when light penetrated her closed eyelids. Then the sound stopped completely and the Crow was poking her in the leg. Easy at first, then harder. Hard enough to hurt.
“Wake up, Goldilocks. You can go back to sleep later.”
She struggled her eyes open, wincing at the brightness. They were parked beside some gas pumps. There were fluorescents over them. She shielded her eyes from the glare. Now she had a headache to go with her thirst. It was like . . .
“What’s funny, Goldilocks?”
“Huh?”
“You’re smiling.”
“I just figured out what’s wrong with me. I’m hungover.”
Crow considered this, and grinned. “I suppose you are at that, and you didn’t even get to prance around with a lampshade on your head. Are you awake enough to understand me?”
“Yes.” At least she thought she was. Oh, but the thudding in her head. Awful.
“Take this.”
He was holding something in front of her face, reaching across his body with his left hand to do it. His right one still held the hypodermic, the needle resting next to Mr. Freeman’s leg.
She squinted. It was a credit card. She reached up with a hand that felt too heavy and took it. Her eyes started to close and he slapped her face. Her eyes flew open, wide and shocked. She had never been hit in her life, not by an adult, anyway. Of course she had never been kidnapped, either.
“Ow! Ow!”
“Get out of the truck. Follow the instructions on the pump—you’re a bright kid, I’m sure you can do that—and fill the tank. Then replace the nozzle and get back in. If you do all that like a good little Goldilocks, we’ll drive over to yonder Coke machine.” He pointed to the far corner of the store. “You can get a nice big twenty-ounce soda. Or a water, if that’s what you want; I spy with my little eye that they have Dasani. If you’re a bad little Goldilocks, I’ll kill the old man, then go into the store and kill the kid at the register. No problem there. Your friend had a gun, which is now in my possession. I’ll take you with me and you can watch the kid’s head go splat. It’s up to you, okay? You get it?”
“Yes,” Abra said. A little more awake now. “Can I have a Coke and a water?”
His grin this time was high, wide, and handsome. In spite of her situation, in spite of the headache, even in spite of the slap he’d administered, Abra found it charming. She guessed lots of people found it charming, especially women. “A little greedy, but that’s not always a bad thing. Let’s see how you mind those Ps and Qs.”
She unbuckled her belt—it took three tries, but she finally managed—and grabbed the doorhandle. Before she got out, she said: “Stop calling me Goldilocks. You know my name, and I know yours.”
She slammed the door and headed for the gas island (weaving a little) before he could reply. She had spunk as well as steam. He could almost admire her. But, given what had happened to Snake, Nut, and Jimmy, almost was as far as it went.
13
At first Abra couldn’t read the instructions because the words kept doubling and sliding around. She squinted and they came into focus. The Crow was watching her. She could feel his eyes like tiny warm weights on the back of her neck.
(Dan?)
Nothing, and she wasn’t surprised. How could she hope to reach Dan when she could barely figure out how to run this stupid pump? She had never felt less shiny in her life.
Eventually she managed to start the gas, although the first time she tried his credit card, she put it in upside-down and had to begin all over again. The pumping seemed to go on forever, but there was a rubber sleeve over the nozzle to keep the stench of the fumes down, and the night air was clearing her head a little. There were billions of stars. Usually they awed her with their beauty and profusion, but tonight looking at them only made her feel scared. They were far away. They didn’t see Abra Stone.
When the tank was full, she squinted at the new message in the pump’s window and turned to Crow. “Do you want a receipt?”
“I think we can crutch along without that, don’t you?” Again came his dazzling grin, the kind that made you happy if you were the one who caused it to break out. Abra bet he had lots of girlfriends.
No. He just has one. The hat woman is his girlfriend. Rose. If he had another one, Rose would kill her. Probably with her teeth and fingernails.
She trudged back to the truck and got in.
“That was very good,” Crow said. “You win the grand prize—a Coke and a water. So . . . what do you say to your Daddy?”
“Thank you,” Abra said listlessly. “But you’re not my daddy.”
“I could be, though. I can be a very good daddy to little girls who are good to me. The ones who mind their Ps and Qs.” He drove to the machine and gave her a five-dollar bill. “Get me a Fanta if they have it. A Coke if they don’t.”
“You drink sodas, like anyone else?”
He made a comical wounded face. “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?”
“Shakespeare, right?” She wiped her mouth again. “Romeo and Juliet.”
“Merchant of Venice, dummocks,” Crow said . . . but with a smile. “Don’t know the rest of it, I bet.”
She shook her head. A mistake. It refreshed the throbbing, which had begun to diminish.
“If you poison us, do we not die?” He tapped the needle against Mr. Freeman’s leg. “Meditate on that while you get our drinks.”
14
He watched closely as she operated the machine. This gas stop was on the wooded outskirts of some little town, and there was always a chance she might decide to hell with the geezer and run for the trees. He thought of the gun, but left it where it was. Chasing her down would be no great task, given her current soupy condition. But she didn’t even look in that direction. She slid the five-spot into the machine and got the drinks, one after the other, pausing only to drink deeply from the water. She came back and gave him his Fanta, but didn’t get in. Instead she pointed farther down the side of the building.
“I need to pee.”
Crow was flummoxed. This was something he hadn’t foreseen, although he should have. She had been drugged, and her body needed to purge itself of toxins. “Can’t you hold it awhile?” He was thinking that a few more miles down the road, he could find a turnout and pull in. Let her go behind a bush. As long as he could see the top of her head, they’d be fine.
But she shook her head. Of course she did.
He thought it over. “Okay, listen up. You can use the ladies’ toilet if the door’s unlocked. If it’s not, you’ll have to take your leak around back. There’s no way I’m letting you go inside and ask the counterboy for the key.”
“And if I have to go in back, you’ll watch me, I suppose. Pervo.”
“There’ll be a Dumpster or something you can squat behind. It would break my heart not to get a look at your precious little buns, but I’d try to survive. Now get in the truck.”
“But you said—”
“Get in, or I’ll start calling you Goldilocks again.”
She got in, and he pulled the truck up next to the bathroom doors, not quite blocking them. “Now hold out your hand.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Very reluctantly, she held out her hand. He took it. When she saw the needle, she tried to pull back.
“Don’t worry, just a drop. We can’t have you thinking bad thoughts, now can we? Or broadcasting them. This is going to happen one way or the other, so why make a production of it?”
She stopped trying to pull away. It was easier just to let it happen. There was a brief sting on the back of her hand, then he released her. “Go on, now. Make wee-wee and make it quick. As the old song says, sand is a-runnin through the hourglass back home.”
“I don’t know any song like that.”
“Not surprised. You don’t even know The Merchant of Venice from Romeo and Juliet.”
“You’re mean.”
“I don’t have to be,” he said.
She got out and just stood beside the truck for a moment, taking deep breaths.
“Abra?”
She looked at him.
“Don’t try locking yourself in. You know who’d pay for that, don’t you?” He patted Billy Freeman’s leg.
She knew.
Her head, which had begun to clear, was fogging in again. Horrible man—horrible thing—behind that charming grin. And smart. He thought of everything. She tried the bathroom door and it opened. At least she wouldn’t have to whizz out back in the weeds, and that was something. She went inside, shut the door, and took care of her business. Then she simply sat there on the toilet with her swimming head hung down. She thought of being in the bathroom at Emma’s house, when she had foolishly believed everything was going to turn out all right. How long ago that seemed.
I have to do something.
But she was doped up, woozy.
(Dan)
She sent this with all the force she could muster . . . which wasn’t much. And how much time would the Crow give her? She felt despair wash over her, undermining what little will to resist was left. All she wanted to do was button her pants, get into the truck again, and go back to sleep. Yet she tried one more time.
(Dan! Dan, please!)
And waited for a miracle.
What she got instead was a single brief tap of the pickup truck’s horn. The message was clear: time’s up.