Dead Wrong (15 page)

“I’m sorry, Blue. I should never have let this happen.”

“True. But this is the way it turned out. We need to pick up my dad and keep him safe.”

Lynnette couldn’t help but laugh. “With us?”

Blue glanced at her sharply, then realized what she’d said. “What are we going to do, Lynnette? How do we get rid of these men? Shouldn’t we take our chances with the FBI? They’re not going to do anything bad to Grace if her father’s an agent too.”

Grace slapped her hands onto the top of Lynnette’s headrest and said, “Stop.”

Blue checked the rearview mirror and started to put her foot on the brake.

“No,” Grace said. “I mean stop talking about all that stuff.” She began to cry and talk at the same time, jumbling her words and sobs so Lynnette could barely understand her.

“Maybe you better find a place to pull off,” Lynnette told Blue.

Lynnette put her hand on Grace’s shoulder, but Grace pulled back and bent over her lap, her head cradled in her arms. She cried as though her heart would break.

Blue pulled into a supermarket lot and parked under a light. Lynnette opened her door and stepped out into the swirling snow. She got into the back seat with Grace and slid close to her, then began to gently stroke the child’s back.

“What’s wrong, Grace,” she whispered. “What haven’t you told us?”

Blue stretched her arm over the seat back and put her hand on Grace’s head. “You’re okay, kid,” she said. “We’ll be okay.”

In an obvious effort to bring her tears under control, Grace sat up straight, rubbed her eyes, and took a deep, shuddering breath, then another.

Blue rummaged in the center console and produced a travel packet of tissues. She opened the package and handed it to Grace.

After wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, Grace leaned against the seat and clenched her hands in her lap.

“What’s up, Grace?” Lynnette said.

Grace didn’t turn her head to make eye contact with Lynnette. Instead, she looked at Blue and said, “I lied.”

“Join the crowd. What did
you
lie about?” Blue said.

“My dad.”

“You mean . . . he’s not in the FBI?” Lynnette said.

“Not exactly.”

Lynnette felt the skin prickle along her arms. The skin on her face felt hot. This was going to be something bad, real bad, she thought, almost afraid to ask. But she had to know. “What exactly does your dad do, and when is he coming back?”

As she watched Grace’s face, she saw tears welling up again in the girl’s eyes. Lynnette’s heart seemed to sink toward her stomach.

“Oh, Grace,” Blue said. “Your dad . . . he’s—”

“Dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I told you he was in the FBI and you thought he might be able to help us.” Grace’s words began to mix with her hiccups and sobs and her next words were almost unintelligible. “I’m sorry I went to get your case and the man saw our license and now Blue’s dad might be in trouble, too.” She wailed the next words, “It’s all my fault.”

Lynnette leaned against the door and stared at Grace, not knowing what to say or do. She had never completely trusted the girl’s story about why she traveled alone, where she had come from and where she was going, but she had never doubted the existence of Grace’s father who would be home from Afghanistan on Sunday. She shifted her gaze to Blue, who watched Grace with her eyebrows raised.

Blue made eye contact with Lynnette, shook her head and said, “Buckle up, ladies. We’ll work this out after we get to my house.”

It took another thirty minutes before Blue eased onto a steep road heading up the hill on the west side of Fort Collins. She crept upward, the snow crunching beneath the tires, until she took a sudden turn onto an even steeper driveway. Blue accelerated to fishtail through the snow, barely avoiding the trees that lined the path. When she braked and slid to a stop, the car rested sideways in front of a two-story brick home. Using the remote opener that rested in a cubbyhole below the radio, Blue raised the three-car garage door and pulled the car inside. A burgundy-colored sedan sat in the next bay, and beyond that, a large pickup truck with a snow blade attached to the front end. The garage door slid closed behind them.

Before she opened the driver’s-side door, she looked over her shoulder at Lynnette and Grace. “Before we go in,” she said, “I want to warn you not to lie to my father. He has a built-in bullshit detector. If you don’t level with him, he’ll call the cops and turn you over without a second thought.

“Also . . . Lynnette . . . before we picked you up, when Grace went to the bathroom at the house in town, I watched the headline news. I already knew about your problem.” She glanced at Grace, who seemed to take a sudden interest in the conversation.

“What?” Grace asked. “What was on the news? What problem?”

“We’ll talk about it inside,” Blue said. She opened her door and got out.

“What?” Grace turned to Lynnette. “What’s she talking about?”

“Something bad happened to my husband in Florida, Grace. I don’t know very much about it yet.”

“Is he dead?”

Lynnette nodded.

Blue opened the back door and motioned Lynnette out. Grace slid across the seat and stepped out behind her. As Lynnette followed Blue to the door that led inside the house, she felt Grace take her hand and hold on. Lynnette pulled the girl close to her side.

Near Fort Collins, Colorado
Friday, January 24

Blue led them into the kitchen from the garage and stopped when she saw the man sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of steaming liquid cradled between his hands. “Daddy, what are you doing up?”

Lynnette glanced at her watch, then at the man she presumed to be Blue’s father. He was fully dressed. A set of car keys lay on the table not far from his right hand.

He stood up to hug his daughter. “I stayed up late to watch an old movie on TV and decided to check my voice mail before turning in. I heard the weather reports and watched the ten o’clock news. Cars off the road, half a dozen accidents. After I got your message and realized you were out in this weather, I wanted to be ready in case I received a call from the police or a hospital.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Blue stepped away from his embrace and touched Lynnette on the arm. “This is Lynnette Foster. The young ’un is Grace.”

Blue’s father shifted his gaze to Lynnette and sucked in his breath when he saw her discolored eye and cheek. “I’m Thomas Young,” he said. “What happened to you?”

Lynnette took his hand, felt comforted by its warmth, sensed safety when he placed his left hand over hers.

“Teresa said you were in trouble and she had to save you. What kind of trouble are we talking about?”

“It’s a mess, Mr. Young. I’m afraid I’ve made the situation worse by coming here.”

“Please. Call me Thomas.” With a sweeping motion of his hand, he gestured toward the chairs around the table. “Sit down. Tell me what happened.” He fetched the coffee pot and two more cups and brought them to the table. “Grace, would you like a cup of hot chocolate?”

“Yes, please.”

He heated a cup of water in the microwave and stirred in a packet of cocoa mix as Lynnette related what had happened in Denver and why they might need to leave Fort Collins. When she reached the part where Grace had announced her father’s death, they all turned to look at the girl.

“Is there anything you want to tell us, Grace?” Thomas asked.

She squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. “I guess.”

He gave her a firm but sympathetic, fatherly look. “Just the truth, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

Lynnette glanced at her watch again. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning.

Grace looked at Lynnette first. “I’m sorry I lied, but if I’d told you the truth, you wouldn’t have believed me. I know I should have stayed on the plane, but I felt sick and that creepy fat guy stared at me, and I thought the flight would get cancelled and I wouldn’t get to Los Angeles in time . . .”

“In time for what?” Thomas asked.

Grace started to cry again, but she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and coughed, then looked directly at Thomas. She cleared her throat. “In time for my father’s body to arrive. If I’m not there, he won’t have anyone.”

By then, Lynnette was tearing up, but noticed Blue’s eyes narrow. The older girl didn’t seem touched by Grace’s story. Lynnette looked at Grace and watched her more closely.

Thomas said, “I’m so sorry, Grace. I realize this is hard, but we need to know the truth. If there’s any way we can help, we will. You’re telling us your father’s body is being flown into Los Angeles on Sunday?”

Grace nodded.

“Was he in Afghanistan, like you said?”

“Yes.”

“Was he really in the FBI?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what he was doing in Afghanistan?”

“No. It was secret.”

“What about your mother? Where is she?”

“I don’t have a mother.”

Thomas looked at Lynnette and raised his eyebrows. She shrugged. “Grace told me her mom took her to the airport and then left for a vacation with her new boyfriend.” Lynnette turned to Grace and stretched her arm across the table.

Grace took her hands out of her lap and clasped them on the table in front of her but did not touch Lynnette.

“If you don’t have a mom,” Lynnette said, “then how did you buy a ticket and get through Security and board that plane by yourself? It’s not possible for a kid to do that these days.”

Grace sighed. “I told you about my Aunt Maxie. She’s real. She’s my mom’s sister. I live with her. None of the stuff I said about my mom is true except what Aunt Maxie says, that Mom is a slut. She left when I was a baby. I don’t know where she is.”

“So your Aunt Maxie took you to the airport and sent you to Los Angeles all alone to meet your dad’s flight? Grace, that doesn’t make sense,” Thomas said. “Who was supposed to pick you up in L.A.?”

Grace took a deep breath, then blew it out. “A friend of hers.”

“Does your aunt know where you are now?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ve been calling her. She’s mad. I keep calling her and telling her I’m okay and she keeps yelling at me to tell her where I am and who I’m with and threatening to call the police.”

Lynnette’s stomach clenched at the thought of Grace’s aunt calling the cops. “What about all those calls you left for your dad? The messages I left?”

Grace lowered her head to her hands. “I don’t know. His number is still working, but I guess nobody answers it.” She raised her head and glanced at Thomas, Blue, and then Lynnette. “I’ve only got two days left. I have to get to Los Angeles.” Tears were once again streaming down her cheeks.

“You’re sure not the same kid I met in the bus station in Denver,” said Blue.

Grace raised her head and stared. “What?”

“The kid I met there was smart and tough and had everything under control. Now you’re like a street kid. You change your story and your plan depending on the circumstances and who you think you can fool. When one plan fails, you come up with another one. What went wrong between Denver and here, Grace?”

“Teresa,” Thomas said. “Don’t.”

Blue ignored her father. “Seriously, Grace, nobody changes this fast. First you’re strong and now you’re all weepy? Will the real Grace please stand up?”

Grace stood, her hands clenched at her side. “What do you know about it, Blue? You pretend to be someone you aren’t all the time and act like it’s all for school or something. It’s still lies.”

She turned to Lynnette. “You aren’t what you pretend to be, either. If you were, you wouldn’t be running away and you wouldn’t have all these scary people after you.” She looked at Thomas. “Did you see anything on the news about Lynnette? Are the police looking for her? Do they think she killed her husband?”

Grace backed away from the table. “I don’t care about any of you. I only want one thing. I want to get to Los Angeles by Sunday. How can I do that?”

“We’re not finished here, Grace. Please sit down.” Thomas turned to Lynnette. “Your turn. What’s Grace talking about?”

Lynnette started with Carl’s unexpected temper tantrum on Wednesday and briefly touched on all the events that followed. Blue seemed to sigh in relief when Lynnette explained that she didn’t know of Carl’s death until she got on the Internet at the library. Even Grace visibly relaxed as she heard Lynnette out. By the time Lynnette had answered all their questions, it was after five o’clock.

Thomas remained silent for a few minutes. Then he pushed his chair back and stood. “We’re not going anywhere until this storm lets up. Last I checked, we were getting over an inch of snow an hour. The weather report said the winds should die by mid-afternoon and the snow change to light flurries. The security system is on, we have electricity and heat, and there’s plenty of food. I suggest you all try to get a little sleep.” He studied Lynnette’s bruised face for a moment. “Did you take pictures?”

“No.”

He picked up his phone and aimed it at her face from several angles. “You might need these later,” he said. “Always take pictures.” He put the phone in his pocket. “What else do I need to know?”

Lynnette pulled Sammy Grick’s phone out of her pocket and showed it to him. “They’re probably using this phone to find me,” she said.

Thomas took the cell phone and looked it over. He turned it off and removed the battery. “It might be too late,” he said, “but it’s worth a try. If you need to make a call, put the battery in and turn it on.” He handed it back.

“Are you sure that’s the way it works?”

“Not one hundred percent. The technology changes too fast for me to keep up.”

“What do we do if the guy from the library shows up here?”

Thomas pointed to a narrow, locked cabinet tucked between the refrigerator and the pantry door. “Do you know how to handle a shotgun?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Sack out on the couch if you want. I’ll let you know if I need you.”

Denver, Colorado
Friday, January 24

In the Denver hospital, Albert awoke to the clatter of rolling gurneys and supply carts. His elbow pain had been reduced to a deep, intense ache. Apparently he’d be released with only a sling because his left arm was bandaged with his elbow bent.