The mood of reverence broke, and Bea regarded her with a comical skepticism.
“They are nothing like ducks, little one. What about those stacked rocks reminds you of a duck?”
“That’s not what I meant. Not real ducks. I mean ducks, like cairns. People use them as trail markers. If it’s not clear which way to go, hikers stack rocks to mark the trail. To point the way.”
Still Bea was staring at her, eyes squinted with doubt. Or maybe that was just the wind.
“They taught you this in school, too?”
“No, my dad and I used to hike. Sometimes. On the weekends, or when we were on vacation. But that was a long time ago.”
Back when we had less money and more fun, Allie thought. But she didn’t say it.
“Hmm,” Bea said. “So if one of these little stacks means ‘go this way,’ then what do a hundred of them mean?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe that we’re here? That all roads lead here?”
“No idea,” Bea said. “But we’ll still need to stop at some lighthouses on the way down. Because this is one stunning beach. Damn it.”
They had almost reached the parking lot when Allie heard it. A sound that froze her blood and made her heart pound in her ears: the static of a transmission over a police radio.
She stopped. Bea stopped, but maybe only because Allie had.
“What’s wrong?” Bea asked.
“Did you hear that?”
“No. Hear what?”
So maybe it was only Allie’s paranoid imagination. Or maybe Bea’s ears weren’t what they had used to be.
Allie took a handful of cautious steps. Bea followed behind, seeming to catch the fear as if by contagion.
The van was where they had left it in the parking lot. Parked in front of it and blocking its exit sat a white Washington State Patrol car. Allie’s heart pounded harder, then skipped a beat. She couldn’t see a patrolman, but she could hear him talking on his radio.
She was eighty percent sure she heard him say, “But no sign of the girl.”
She reached a hand around and touched Bea’s collarbone, pushing her back into an area mostly obscured by trees.
“It’s a little late for that,” Bea hissed. “He knows we’re here, now doesn’t he?”
Allie’s brain scrambled for footing like a spooked wild animal. “He doesn’t know just from looking at the van that I’m still traveling with you.”
“So what are our options?”
Allie looked into Bea’s face as she spoke. The old woman looked every bit as scared as Allie felt.
“We could go back to the beach on foot and find another way out of here.”
“I can’t walk anymore! It’s too much. And I can’t just leave the van behind. It has everything I own in it. And what about Phyllis?”
“Oh. Right. Phyllis.” A pause, while Allie tried to organize her thoughts. “Okay. You go back to the van alone. Tell them I was riding with you down in Southern California, but you let me out days ago, and you haven’t seen me since, and you have no idea where I am.”
“And what will you do?”
“Take off on foot.”
For a moment, no one spoke. No one moved. Allie wasn’t sure either one of them was breathing.
“Okay.” Bea took a step toward the lot.
Allie grabbed her sleeve.
“No, wait, Bea. Don’t.”
They stood still together in the middle of the panic. The moment seemed to drag on. To stretch out. All panic and time, and not much more.
“Don’t lie to them for me,” Allie whispered. “Because if I get caught they’ll know you lied and that could get you in trouble. Lying to an officer. Could be an obstructing justice kind of thing.”
“So what do we do?” Bea asked, sounding quite desperate.
In that moment, Allie knew exactly what she should do.
When had she stopped being Honest Allie? her brain asked within a muddle, a swarm of uninvited thoughts. The Allie people teased and criticized for her unbending ways? And now here she was telling someone to lie for her while she made a desperate dash to evade her own consequences.
So this is how it happens, she thought. You’re in trouble, so you lie and run because you think you have to. Because you think you don’t have any other choice. But there must always be two choices. At least two. Right?
“I need to do what I should’ve done all along.”
She marched through the parking lot and straight up to the uniformed officer, who was now standing by Bea’s driver’s side door. He looked up, his dark brown eyes meeting her own. He seemed surprised to see her.
“And you would be Alberta Keyes,” he said. “Am I right about that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve got quite a few people sick with worry down in Southern California, young lady.”
“Yes, sir. I know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not me you need to apologize to. But anyway, there’s time for that later. Let’s start by getting you back where you belong.”
As Allie slid into the back of his patrol car, without having to be put there by force or even supervision, she was aware of a painfully familiar feeling. The paralyzing grip of fear had returned.
It was surprising, if only because Allie hadn’t realized it had been gone.
They rode in the back of his car together, Allie and Bea. Going where, Allie didn’t know. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask.
“You really need to leave her out of this,” Allie said to the back of the patrolman’s head. “She had nothing to do with any of it. She didn’t know I wasn’t eighteen. She didn’t know I was a runaway. She just gave me a ride, that’s all, and there’s nothing illegal about that.”
“Right,” he said, meeting her eyes for a split second in the rearview mirror. “So you told me the first ten times. And I told you, also ten times, that the police just want to ask her some questions.”
“And then she can go?”
“Depends on the answers to the questions.”
“If you do charge me with something,” Bea said, “what will happen to my van? And my cat?”
“Oh,” he said. As if just waking up. “The cat is in the van? So that’s what you were trying to tell me.”
“Yes,” Bea said. “The cat is in the van. That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
“If things don’t go your way, ma’am, the vehicle will be impounded. If there’s a live animal inside, it’ll be given over to the department of animal services, who’ll hold the pet until you’re able to reclaim it. But you ladies are getting ahead of yourselves. Alberta, we need to get you back to California. As to your friend here, we just want to ask her some questions.”
They drove in silence for several minutes. North, Allie guessed by the angle of the sun. The ocean had disappeared from view again. Allie stared out the window and tried to think no thoughts at all.
“Alberta?” Bea asked after a time. “I always figured Allie was short for Allison.”
“I wish. My parents named me after my grandfather. Albert.”
“Oh,” Bea said.