Chasing the Skip (17 page)

When Ian was out of sight, I walked carefully back to the trailer and lifted the door handle quietly. I managed to get myself in and the door shut behind me before the damn floor uttered a mighty groan under my toes.

“Hmm?” Dad said, shooting up in bed.

My hand went to my pocket, but the keys weren’t there.

“I was just going to the bathroom,” I said quickly, checking my back pockets, too. No keys.

What had I done with them? Were they on the floor of the truck, with the chains? No, I distinctly remembered putting them back in my pocket.

Ian. He must have taken them. But why would he do that
after
I let him go?

Dad blinked at me, hair standing up at all angles, and then looked me up and down. For a horrified moment I wondered if Ian had left marks on my neck or my face.

“You put on your shoes to go to the bathroom?” Dad asked. He raised a hand to his hair, scratching the back of his neck.

“Um, I thought I heard a noise outside,” I said. “I was just checking, but I didn’t see anything. It’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

He reached for his pants and pulled them on. “You don’t check if you hear a noise. You wake me up so I can check.” He rose to his feet, reaching for his shoes.

“Really, it’s fine,” I said. I should have made something up about my feet being cold, rather than raising Dad’s suspicions. Ian probably hadn’t had the chance to get far yet.

But Dad was already headed for the door. I stepped to the side.

Dad walked outside, and I heard him swear.

“Lock the trailer and stay inside,” he yelled.

I heard his footsteps crunch through the gravel as he headed away.

I checked again in my pockets for the keys. Would Dad remember where he’d left them? Would he realize I must have taken them to Ian?

Movement caught my eye, over by another camper. Ian stood in the shadows. He leaned into the light, flashing a bit of metal in my direction. The keys. Maybe I’d dropped them. Was he bringing them back to me?

I stepped out the trailer door, closing it behind me and hurrying to the shadows before Dad could see I hadn’t locked myself in.

Ian ducked behind a neighboring trailer, and I followed him out of Dad’s sight. He grabbed me by my belt loops and pulled me into him, stuffing the keys into my back pocket. The keys jabbed my butt, and I reached to adjust them.

“Ouch,” I said. “I would have taken them.”

Ian didn’t respond, just pulled my hips against his and kissed me hard.

My insides squirmed. I didn’t want Dad to catch us, but more than that, I didn’t like the way Ian was holding me, like he wouldn’t let me go. The panic I’d felt in the truck crept back through me.

“Hang on,” I said. “You need to get going.”

Ian shook his head, wrapping his other arm around my shoulders and pushing my head into his chest. My neck tweaked, and I slammed my fists against him, trying to break away.

That’s when the cold metal hit my temple. I gasped. Ian wrapped me tight against him, holding my arms so I couldn’t fight.

“Don’t make a sound,” he said in my ear. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you make me.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see a gun held next to my face—Dad’s handgun from the utility box on the truck. Of course Ian had stolen it. The keys were on the same ring.

“I was going to let you go,” I said.

“Your old man wouldn’t have,” he said. “I’m not going to jail.” Ian’s voice sounded cold, vibrating from his chest to mine as he pulled me tighter.

Here came reality, raining down around me in cold, wet sheets. This wasn’t the way I thought things would go.

Before all this was over, I might not be able to think anything at all.

Dad must have heard us, because his boots crunched closer. Ian spun me around, holding me tight to his side, the gun jabbing into my head. Dad stepped around the corner, and his whole face melted. All my doubts that he cared about me melted with it.

“Don’t move, bounty man,” Ian said. “Or I swear to God I will shoot her dead.”

White flashes edged my vision, and I wondered if I was going to pass out. Breathe, I told myself, but my body wouldn’t respond. Dad said not to point a gun at anything you don’t want to shoot. Any moment now that gun might fire. Any moment now.

Dad stretched his arms into the air, pale street lighting illuminating only half his face. “I’m not armed,” he said. “You can leave. Just let her go.”

I stared stupidly ahead. Dad was willing to give Ian up for me. He probably had been all along.

Ian spit off to the side and pushed the barrel harder against my head. My temple gave an angry throb, and I wondered if he could kill me from pushing too hard.

“Fuck you,” Ian said. “You’ve followed me everywhere. You’re not going to let me go now.”

“I swear I will,” Dad said.

I could feel Ian shake his head, his chin bumping into my hair. I could feel his body shaking, his breath coming fast. The white flashes expanded, encompassing more of my vision. My own voice in my head wailed at me to breathe, but I couldn’t bring my body to do it.

“You don’t want to do this,” Dad said. “You don’t want to add murder to the charges. You’re not in that deep yet, son.”

“I’m not your son,” Ian said, his voice as cold as the steel against my head. “Don’t follow us. She can call you when I drop her off. Until then, you don’t move. If I see or hear you, I’ll blow her brains out.”

Chills ran over my body as he stepped back. I stumbled a bit, instinct telling me to run. Ian kept the gun on me, though, holding me to him with his arm. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you if you do what I say.”

I wanted to believe that Ian wasn’t a murderer, that this was all for show, that he’d dumped the bullets out of the gun. But I let him pull me around the trailer, out of Dad’s sight.

When we rounded a building, Ian pushed me out in front of him, making me walk before him with the gun pressing the back of my head. My vision still flashed white, but I stumbled toward the parking lot behind the park office.

I couldn’t keep track of my own feet, so I tripped over a parking divider and stumbled forward. Ian watched Dad’s direction, still holding the gun on me. I thought about tackling him, about wrestling the gun away from him, but couldn’t even put one foot in front of the other in a straight line. Tackling him would be the action-movie thing to do. Here in the real world it was more likely to get me killed.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked. “I tried to help you get away.”

“Yeah, but you were really bad at it.”

“What about taking charge of my life, like you said? Maybe we could run off together.”

“I’m not taking you with me. He’d never leave me alone then.”

For the first time, I was sure that was true. Whatever had changed for Dad in the last eighteen months, he wasn’t going to let me go again.

Ian ducked around another trailer, pushing me along with him. I swallowed hard. All this time I’d been flirting with him, he’d been capable of aiming a gun at my head.

“So do you do this a lot?” I whispered.

“What?”

“Armed kidnapping.”

“No, sweetie,” he said. “You’re my first.”

The way he said that made it sound dirty, and my abdomen clenched. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Shut up and you’ll be fine.”

I kept my head down, doing as he said. A few minutes ago I’d been the one with the keys, and him the one in chains. I thought I’d been in the position of power. But maybe I never had. Maybe the gun didn’t make Ian more dangerous. It just made the danger easier to see.

As we entered the parking lot, Ian stepped up to an SUV. He kept his gun pointed at me as he lifted a rock and knocked it through the window, breaking the glass. I expected an alarm to sound, but none did.

I looked around at the building, a pine tree, the streetlight, anywhere but at the gun. My whole body shook, my breath coming in short gasps.

Motion flashed in the corner of my eye, and my neck jerked toward it out of reflex. Dad came around the corner of the building, moving quietly, headed toward Ian.

I swallowed hard. Ian had told Dad not to follow or else he’d kill me. Would he follow through on his threat?

I looked around the parking lot, trying to find something to put between me and Ian. The only thing I could think of was to duck behind the car, so I leaned in that direction, looking back at Dad.

I flinched as Ian noticed my movement, glancing at me and then following my gaze in Dad’s direction. His face hardened, and his gun hand jerked.

I lunged around the front of the car, hitting ground on my hands and knees and huddling down behind it.

Dad sprinted past me, shoving me out of the way. I fell flat in front of the car, asphalt gritting into my palms. I heard the thud of Dad slamming Ian against the car.

Ian’s gun hand appeared over the hood, flailing, and I stayed pressed against the ground. Dad’s hand wrenched the gun away from Ian and threw it to the ground. It bounced against the asphalt, landing just a few feet away from me.

I wanted to grab it, to have some way to defend myself, but I knew from practicing with Dad that I couldn’t shoot straight. I’d probably shoot Dad instead of Ian. I crawled away, trying to run but not sure if I could stand. I looked back in time to see Dad elbow Ian in the face, throw him to the ground, and reach for the gun. Ian sank to the ground as Dad stood over him, pointing the gun at his head.

“Get up,” Dad barked. “Let’s move.”

I trailed far behind as Dad walked Ian back to the truck, gun trained at the back of his neck just like Ian had done to me. When they got there, he slammed Ian against the truck door and searched him. Looking for the keys, I realized. The keys that were now in my back pocket.

Dad searched the seat, keeping the gun pointed at Ian the whole time. Ian stood with his hands behind his head, expression blank. He didn’t even glance at me. The cold horror of what I’d done ripped through me. He was looking for the keys, for the way that Ian had done all of this. But it wasn’t Ian who did it. It was me.

I edged toward the trailer as Dad fished around in his utility box—which was open and unlocked.

Tears seeped into my eyes, but I barely noticed them. I’d brought Ian the keys that let him get that gun. I deserved everything that came to me—losing Mom, losing Jamie. In a second Dad would be gone too. I’d almost lost him tonight. I’d almost lost myself. It was only a matter of time before Dad gave up on me. I’d be lucky if he didn’t dump me with the state first thing tomorrow morning.

“Get inside,” Dad shouted at me. “Stay in the trailer. I’ll come get you when I figure out what we’re going to do.”

I ducked away, glad for the opportunity to escape. When I got back inside, I dropped the keys onto the floor. I couldn’t stand to touch them. Maybe Dad would think they fell out of his pocket. Maybe he would never have to know that I had them at all. But I would know. I’d have to live with what might have happened.

I curled up on the bench next to the table, pulled my knees into my chest, and tried to stop shaking. But instead my breath came ragged, and I started to sob. The tears came fast. My whole body quaked, and I could feel the trailer trembling with it.

When I’d sat on the fence with Ian, looking at the field, I’d felt safer than I ever had with Dad. Now I understood why. It was because I knew all along he would leave me. I could predict it, like predicting a coming storm by the approaching dark clouds.

But I couldn’t predict Dad. With Dad there was the possibility for hope, and in it the possibility for much more pain. I’d been using Ian every bit as much as Ian was using me—to keep Dad at arm’s length, to keep him from hurting me any more than he already had.

And I’d almost gotten us both killed. Dad was right. Him, Mom, and me—we did have something in common. In the end, we all screwed over the people we loved.

I stared at the keys on the floor, glinting with gold light from the streetlamp outside. I couldn’t undo what I’d done any more than Dad could take back my childhood and give me a different one. I’d betrayed Dad one too many times, and now that I’d realized that, I didn’t know how to fix it. This time, maybe there wasn’t a way.

North Platte, Nebraska.

Hours since the betrayal: .75.

Distance from Denver, Colorado: 265.98 miles.

17

When Dad came into the trailer to get me, I was still curled up, shaking. He stood in the doorway, backlit by the streetlamp. My face was puffy from crying, and my nose ran. Dad didn’t keep any tissues in the trailer. I wiped it on my sleeve.

“Ricki?” Dad said. “You okay?”

“Fine,” I said, even though I was clearly not fine, and we both knew it.

Dad looked at me, and I knew that even in the dim light from outside I must look like a wreck. I turned my face away, but it was too late. He’d seen.

He stood quietly for a long minute, like he was trying to figure out what to say.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” he said finally.

My breath shuddered. “Me too,” I said.

Dad came closer, and for a moment I thought he was going to hug me, but he just sat down across the table from me and folded his hands in front of him.

“I got a mechanic to fix the brake pads. The RV attendant agreed this was an emergency, and he knew a guy he could drag out of bed. We’ll get the rest done in Denver.”

“This late?” I asked.

“We need this to be over with.”

“Okay,” I said. I still didn’t move.

“I’d rather you stay here,” Dad said. “But it’s going to be a long drive. I wouldn’t be able to get back for almost a full day.”

I wished Dad would turn Ian over to the cops, but I knew he needed to get paid. I shouldn’t have been here. In a hundred ways I should never have been here.

“Don’t leave me alone,” I said.

“Okay. But that means you’re going to have to ride with us in the truck.”

Dad had his spare keys in his hand. He hadn’t even seen the set on the floor. I didn’t know what Dad would do with me once he knew what I’d done, but the only way to tell something you don’t want to say is to get on with it.