The girl did exactly the opposite of what Bea expected. She jumped right into the path of the moving van.
Bea slammed on the brakes to keep from hitting her. Phyllis rolled forward a few inches and bumped the windshield. She struggled to right herself, shot Bea a resentful look, and jumped down into the litter box, slithering under the passenger seat.
Bea looked up to see the girl leaning over the short, compact hood of the van, pounding on the windshield.
Bea powered the passenger window down to better express her rage.
“What on earth are you doing? You could have been killed!”
Much to Bea’s surprise, the girl reached through the open window and pulled up the lock button. She opened the passenger door and jumped in.
Oh, good God, Bea thought, I’m being carjacked!
“What are you doing? Get out of my van!”
“Ah!” the girl cried. “Why am I stepping in kitty litter?”
“Because you’re someplace you have no right to be! Get out of my van!”
The girl didn’t get out of the van. She slammed the door behind her, then threw herself between the seats and landed on the metal floor of the vehicle, inches from Bea’s recliner. She scooted along on her belly to the back window.
“Drive!” the girl shouted. Shouted! It was alarming. “Please, please, please, I’m begging you! It’s life or death. Drive!”
Bea perhaps heard all of the girl’s words—after all, they were uttered close by, and quite loudly—but did not receive each with the same weight. After the first word, which came off as a barked order, Bea was seized with the idea that this intruder might have a weapon. What if she had a gun? Even the young ones often did these days.
Bea floored the gas pedal, and the van leapt forward. She could hear and feel the blood roar in her ears as her heart pumped faster. Could her heart survive a violent carjacking? Would the old organ hold?
She watched in her rearview mirror as the girl inched along the floor on her belly. When she reached the back window, she lifted her head cautiously, as if it might draw fire. The curtains were open, but they covered a sliver of the window at both outside edges, and the girl made a tiny space between the bunched curtain and the edge of the window. A space no wider than an eye. She pressed her face to it.
Bea could hear the air rush out of the child, even from the driver’s seat.
Then they rounded a bend in the street, and the girl stood—as much as the low roof allowed—and walked to the front of the van.
“Don’t come near me!” Bea cried. “I’ll crash this thing! Don’t think I won’t do it!”
The girl stood frozen a moment, just a foot or two behind Bea’s shoulder. They each watched the other, their gazes locked in the rearview mirror, but neither said a word.
Bea glanced in both side mirrors to be sure there were no other cars to hit. Then she swerved the van sharply, first to the left and then to the right, tires squealing. The girl went flying, hitting her head on the side of the van and sliding to the floor.
“Ow,” the child said. It sounded strangely mournful and weak to Bea’s ears.
“I mean it. You lay a hand on me, I’ll send us both into a crash. I have less life ahead of me than you do, so I have less to lose. I’d end it all right now for both of us before I’d let you hurt me.”
Silence. For several seconds.
Then the girl sat up—gingerly—and plunked into the passenger seat, her feet stretched into the center of the cab to avoid the litter box.
“Why would I try to hurt you?”
Bea glanced over at the girl’s face, and her heart calmed slightly. The child no longer appeared to be on drugs. She was breathing deeply in and noisily out, as though shaking off fear. Her face looked lost. Young. Scared. She looked more scared than Bea felt.
“Well, I don’t know,” Bea said sharply, still dealing with the dregs of adrenaline. “Why would you throw yourself in front of my van? And then jump in against my will? It’s all very strange behavior if you ask me. I thought you were on drugs. I thought I was being carjacked.”
“Carjacked?”
“Yes. Surely you’ve heard of it.”
“With what?” The girl lifted her arms, showing her empty hands. Her clothes did not appear baggy enough to hide anything like a weapon.
“Well, I don’t know,” Bea said again. “How was I to know what you do and don’t have to hurt me with?”
Bea pulled off onto a side street and over to a curb. Even though it was a red curb. She would take her chances with that. She shifted the van into “Park” and set her forehead against the steering wheel.
“You scared the bejesus out of me,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I said it was life or death. I said please.”
“You did?”
“Yes. I did.”
“I must have been too scared to notice.”
“I was in a lot of trouble. You were my last chance. Or I thought you were, anyway. I thought if I didn’t get into the first car that came by, he might come running out and catch me. But then I looked out the back window, and he never came out. He must still have been down.”
“I have no idea what you’re babbling on about,” Bea said.
“I was being kidnapped. I was about to be . . . well . . . kind of . . . sold. Or maybe I already had been sold. I’m not sure.”
“You can’t sell a person,” Bea said. “This is the United States of America.”
“You shouldn’t be able to,” the girl said. “But it seems people still do.”
Bea raised her forehead from the steering wheel. Shook her head as if to toss all this foolishness away.
“Jump out now,” she said, still jangling in her fear. Needing her quiet world back again. Needing to feel safe herself.
But then, after a moment of stunned silence, Bea braved a glance at the girl’s face. Whatever had gone on, the poor kid was genuinely scared. That much this intruder was not fabricating.
“No, please. He might still be out looking for me. Please. Just take me up to the next town. Just far enough away that I know he can’t find me. And then if you still want me out, I’ll go.”
“Oh, I’ll still want you out.”
Bea shifted the van into “Drive” and made an awkward three-point turn on the side street, then a right on the main drag—the Route 1 stretch of town, going north.
This piece of travel coming up would be her first chance in a long while to drive along the water. For most of the drive north to San Luis Obispo, Highway 1 and Highway 101 had run inland, and often together. Bea had been looking forward to the roads splitting again—to driving along the coast with the ocean on her left. It had been a luxury worth anticipating. And now, instead of enjoying it, she had this mess to deal with.