“Get behind the line,” she heard someone bark.
Susan felt the tears start to slip down her face. “Gretchen Lowell,” she cried. “She sent chocolates to my house.” She looked around frantically for someone, anyone, who could help her. But everyone was focused on the school. “My mother ate one,” she yelled. “I need help.” She looked for Archie, for Henry, for someone she knew. “I need Archie,” she screamed at a Hillsboro patrol cop. “Where’s Archie?” The cop looked back at her blankly. “Please,” Susan begged. She was running now. “Someone. Help me.”
Claire Masland appeared. She was there in an instant, out of nowhere, her arm around Susan’s shoulders.
“Susan?” she said. She took Susan by the shoulders, just as Susan’s knees started to buckle. “Calm down. Tell me what’s going on.”
Susan had to take a deep breath before she could talk. “My mom just called. A heart-shaped box of chocolates came to the house addressed to me. The card said they were from Archie. She ate one. My mom ate one.” She gripped Claire’s shoulder and looked at her hard, so she’d understand. “Archie wouldn’t send me chocolates.”
“Your mom’s at home?” Claire asked.
“I told her to make herself throw up,” Susan said. That would help. That’s what they always made people do on television. “But she never does what I tell her to.”
Claire lifted a walkie-talkie to her mouth. “I need a bus sent to—what’s your address?” Susan told her. Claire repeated it into the walkie-talkie. “Female in her fifties. Possible poisoning.” She turned to Susan. “Let’s go.” She pointed a finger at a white male patrol cop with a dark blond Afro. “You,” she hollered. “Art Gar-funkel.” She shouted Bliss’s address at him. “Follow me.”
They got in Claire’s Festiva and Claire flipped the siren on the hood on. The schoolyard was crowded with parents, cops, emergency vehicles, and news vans, but once that siren went on a path cleared and Claire was able to careen out of the chaos. Susan dialed her mother’s landline, but the phone just rang and rang. Maybe Bliss was busy vomiting. Maybe she was unconscious on the floor. Susan was the target. If anything happened to Bliss, it would be her fault.
She let the phone keep ringing, holding it tight against her ear, her eyes closed so it was the only sensation. Maybe her mother could hear it; maybe she would know that Susan was on her way. “God, I’m stupid. I thought he sent me chocolates,” she said to Claire, hiding her face. She used her sleeve to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Her skin felt clammy and cold. She wanted her mom. She opened her eyes, and looked over at Claire. Claire was steering the car around the fast traffic on 205, past the car dealerships and the malls and the mortgage companies. Her gun was on her lap. She could probably mud drywall and target shoot and change the oil in her car. “Do you have someone?” Susan asked her.
“Yes,” Claire said.
Everyone had someone. “All I have is my mom,” Susan said.
“We’ll get there, sweetie,” Claire said. “I promise.”
The ringing stopped. For a second Susan thought that Bliss had picked up, but then an operator recording came on the line. “The party you are trying to reach is not available. …” No shit. She hung up. The moment she did, her cell phone rang and she snapped it to her ear, expecting to hear Bliss on the other end.
“It’s been ten minutes,” Ian said. “Anything?”
“Nothing,” Susan said.
CHAPTER
27