Deliver Her: A Novel (7 page)

Mom Haircut handed the bag back without comment. Relieved, Alex found her suede boots under her bed and pulled them on.

“You might want something waterproof.”

“These are fine.”

When Alex was dressed, the woman opened the door. Alex glanced toward Jack’s room. “Can I at least say good-bye to my brother?”

“Jack’s not here,” the man said.
He knew her brother’s name.
Wasn’t it like, six in the morning? Where was Jack? Where was everybody?

“We need to go, Alex.” The harsh hall light illuminated the woman’s gray streaks.

“Wait! I forgot something.”

The two exchanged a glance, and with Camo Man blocking the stairs, Alex dashed back and grabbed the purple scarf, looping it around her neck.

Murphy walked downstairs first. Carl motioned for Alex to follow. At the bottom, they each took an arm.
Tell me they’re not really going to walk me down the street like I’m a prisoner.

“You don’t have to hold me.” She licked sweat forming over her lip.

“We want to keep everyone safe,” Carl said.

What was safe about two strangers dragging her off to no-man’s land? Her house was eerily quiet. Maybe by some miracle her father was asleep in the basement. “Dad,” she yelled.

Camo Man tugged her toward the front door. “He’s not here either, Alex.”

She cringed as they walked three abreast up her street—her own personal walk of shame. This must be how criminals felt. On the right, the Arnolds’ house. She used to babysit their two little girls. Past the Mitchells’ and their twin varsity-basketball-player sons. Not that she was big on jocks, but those guys were hot. How mortifying.
Please, please don’t be up yet.

After an eternity, they stopped at a regular black car. Camo Man opened the back door, and the two formed a human wall behind her.

Light-headed, Alex stared into the car’s interior. This was not happening. If her mom had staged this crazy show to scare the crap out of her, it was working. She spun and faced them.

“You have to talk to my mom. Tell her I’m trying. I swear.” Alex reached into her bag and produced a scrap of notebook paper. “See? Geometry problems. I went for extra help yesterday.” She dove in again for
The Giver
and fanned the pages, stopping at a folded-down corner. “And I’ve been reading. I stopped right here. I even went to a study group to bring my grade up.”

“It’s too late, Alex.”

“It can’t be. I get what my mom’s doing. I’ll do anything she says.” She spun, squelching back the tears that threatened. The woman Murphy had to have some sympathy. “Please. Tell her I’ll go back to the shrink. To school every day if she wants me to.” Alex thought she glimpsed a flicker of emotion behind the glasses. “I’m begging you. Don’t make me go.”

They pressed closer to her. Without warning, last night roared up into Alex’s throat, and she threw up beside the car, vomit splattering the man’s boots and the tail of Cass’s scarf. Alex hung there, sweating and spitting out the sourness. Mom Haircut shoved a tissue under her face.

“I can’t go. I’m too sick.”

“You’ll be fine, Alex,” said Camo Man. “Take some deep breaths.”

Were they made of stone?

“Let me grab that scarf, Alex. It’s dirty.”

Alex swatted away Murphy’s hand. “Don’t touch it.” They wouldn’t take that from her, too.

Too queasy to argue, Alex let him shut her in the backseat. He stood guard until Murphy got in the other side, then he slid into the driver’s seat. Surely they’d just drive around the block to scare her. “My school’s really close. You can drop me there. Watch me. I’ll totally go in, I swear. And stay the whole entire day.”

Murphy buckled her seat belt, motioning for Alex to do the same.

Camo Man started the car. The GPS glowed into action. “Three hundred and one miles to destination,” the computer-generated voice chirped.

Trapped in the backseat, Alex watched the thick blue line creep across the dashboard screen, like the heart line spanning her palm, mapping her destiny. She unclenched a fist, recalling the palm reader pressing her hand open the night of her Sweet Sixteen, tracing the light line from pinky to pointer with a roughened index finger. “Your heart line is quite long, even a little curvy,” she had observed.

“Ask her what that means.” Cass poked her from behind.

“I
know
.” Alex elbowed her back.

“You feel very free to express your emotions and thoughts.” The reader glanced up at Alex. “Maybe sometimes too free?”

Cass howled. “Ha. That’s so you, Alex.”

“Very funny.”

One line remained to interpret: Alex’s health line, from pinky back up to thumb, stretching like a smile across her palm. “That little square there is a good thing. Protection.”

“Protection? Why would I need protection?” Turning to Cass, Alex saw her friend’s face had paled. “Let’s just go,” Cass whispered.

“Why? This is cool. You love this stuff.”

“I know, but not this time. She’s freaking me out.”

“What’s to freak out about? She’s telling me I’ll be safe.”

“I don’t care, Al. I’m getting weird vibes. Look. I’m all goose-bumpy.” She held out her arm, pimply like chicken skin. “Sorry, Al. I know this was my idea. But I’m out of here.” Cass jumped to her feet, brushing her head against the tent roof, and melted into the dancing throng, her violet wrap billowing behind her like a sail.

MEG

Pulling the van into the convenience store parking lot, Meg knew she would never forget the pain in Alex’s voice as she rushed out of her daughter’s room twenty minutes ago.

She checked her watch again. When would Carl contact her? Maybe she should just go back and call the whole thing off.

In front of her, early-morning commuters darted in and out of the market. She wanted their agendas, their petty worries.

Jack stirred in the backseat, Angel curled next to him. The boy had barely protested when she lifted him out of bed a little before six, all warm Spider-Man pajamas, wrapping wiry legs around her waist, so groggy he didn’t even question his aunt’s presence in the van.

Melissa had been a lifesaver to come early and wait with Jack while Meg led the transporters to Alex’s room. Once Meg came out, Melissa headed home. She didn’t think she could bear the sight of the transporters escorting her niece out of the house, she said.

Angel leaned his paws on Jack’s shoulder and licked him into full alertness. Meg handed him a Styrofoam cup topped with a whirl of whipped cream.

Jack frowned. “You never let me have chocolate in the car. Only Dad does.”

“Can’t Mommy bend the rules sometimes?” She followed the cup with a handful of napkins.

He sipped, mocha foam rimming his mouth. “Is this a holiday?”

“Nope.”

He glanced down at himself. “Pajama day?”

“Nope. Just a regular day.” Meg’s phone thrummed in the cup holder.
Finally.
She peered at the screen:

On our way. Next contact from rest stop.

Sighing, Meg dropped her head back against the headrest. Step one accomplished: bedroom door to car door, the most vulnerable time. Wasn’t that what Carl had said?

“Mommy, you OK?”

She straightened up and swiped tears from her cheeks. “I’m fine, Jack.”

“Was that Daddy?”

“Nope.”

“When’s he coming home?”

“Not sure, bud.”

Jack let Angel lick chocolate from his cup. “Look, Mom. I’m Angel.” He made exaggerated lapping sounds while the dog watched, entranced.

“Great. Now I have two doggies to take care of.” She reversed the van, ignoring the middle finger of the contractor whose truck she nearly clipped, confident she’d done the right thing.

With Alex safely in Carl Alden’s care, the hardest part was behind her.

ALEX

Camo Man glanced at Alex in the rearview mirror. He outlined the day’s itinerary like a bus driver on a class trip. Their ETA was around four o’clock, he said; they’d stop for lunch in Massachusetts, halfway to Silver Mountain. “After that, it’s pretty much all mountains. There will be some amazing views.”

Like I give a crap about the scenery,
Alex thought.

They were headed north on Boston Post Road, her high school up ahead on the right. Some ass-kissers streamed in, for extra help or for the prayer group that met every morning at the crack of dawn. Alex slouched down until they were well past the building.

She turned away more tissues from Mom Haircut, who wouldn’t let up, sticking a basket in her face. “Something to eat? Might make you feel better.”

Sneaking a look, Alex saw chocolate-cherry energy bars, her favorite. Had her mother given them a shopping list, right down to her musical tastes? She felt like Jack, being bribed into good behavior. Sniffling, Alex stared out the window. Murphy leaned between the seats, murmuring something to Carl that Alex couldn’t catch. Probably some secret agent language.

They were on Midland Avenue now, passing her store. (
Old
store, she corrected herself.) The surf-shop window was strung with bright bikinis and sundresses,
harbingers
of spring. The SAT prep-class word popped into her head unbidden:
anything foreshadowing a future event; omen.
Alex’s immediate future was looking pretty bleak, given this ride to nowhere.

The window display was meant to be all hopeful and optimistic, but right now, it only made her sad. Alex had been stoned that last day when her manager Joanna called her into the stockroom. She hadn’t meant to smoke before work. Shana was giving her a ride straight from school. But then that song had come on the radio: Alex and Cass’s go-to getting-ready anthem. A block from the store, Alex began sobbing like a crazy person. There was no way she could go to work like that. So she and Shana made a little detour. She’d only been, like, twenty minutes late? But Joanna was pissed.

“I like you, Alex. I know you’ve had a rough time,” Joanna said. “But I need somebody I can count on.”

Alex blinked and tried to concentrate. Joanna had really big lips.

“I know. I’m sorry.” She genuinely was. The work gave her something to focus on for a few hours. But her boss’s patience had run out. Joanna could have the stupid job, Alex had thought, alone in the stockroom. Somebody else could fold their dumb rash guards and hoodies. Her final paycheck was still at the store; she’d been too humiliated to pick it up.

Pressing herself into the corner of the backseat, she tugged at her scarf. Cass’s scarf. Camo Man’s itinerary didn’t include a stop at the cemetery, way on the other side of town. Her mother had no idea she spent so much time there. She would probably think it was unhealthy. Who would take care of Cass while Alex was gone? Shana would never go there without her.

They were at the highway now, merging into I-95, sucked into a nauseating blur of tractor-trailers and buses. The car’s overpowering strawberry deodorizer caught in Alex’s throat. She covered her mouth, praying her stomach wouldn’t revolt again. The Murphy woman watched her, alert as a deer, practically twitching.

With every mile, Alex’s life receded into nothingness. They had no right to do this to her. Evan and Shana would be wondering what was up. She had to get her act together and blow off this whole New England adventure her mother had planned for her.
This
was what she meant that day on the promenade, Alex realized, heat flushing her cheeks—the “new start” she had hinted at. No matter what Camo Man said earlier about her “parents’” wishes, this expedition had her mom all over it.

Watch out, Mom. Paybacks are rough.

CARL

Not long after they settled in on I-95, the girl appeared to fall asleep, head rolled back on the seat, open-mouthed and snoring. She’d likely be out for a while. The kids he picked up were usually in pretty bad shape; their parents wouldn’t have hired him otherwise.

All in all, the bedroom-to-car segment had gone well, if you didn’t count the flying soda can. The verbal abuse came with the territory. These kids were terrified, cornered. Words were their only weapons.

Restraints had not been necessary.

Behind him, Murphy leaned her head back and opened her mouth, imitating the girl. “I hope she doesn’t choke on that gum.”

Alex gave no sign of having heard her. They took nothing for granted, however. Kids frequently feigned sleep in the car: to avoid conversation, to stew, to plot. Murphy knew never to take her eyes off Alex, no matter how authentic the snoring.

“Jamie still enjoying karate?” Carl asked. Murphy’s daughter was ten, a quiet, bookish type. The two lived with Murphy’s mother in the mother’s Queens apartment.

“Got her yellow belt last week. She was so proud. Her dojo says it’s really boosting her self-confidence.”

“You’ve got a good kid there, Murph.” Not for the first time, Carl was impressed by the way she juggled single parenting with her full-time job and Begin Again assignments.

They were about a half hour into the drive now. The traffic moved steadily; opposite them, the day’s commuters headed into Manhattan from Westchester and beyond. They should have a fairly easy go of it for most of the day, he estimated, with an off chance of catching early weekend traffic around two or three o’clock. He’d built a buffer into his timetable just in case, booking rooms for himself and Murphy tonight near the main highway in New Hampshire. They’d get an early start tomorrow, be back in the city by midafternoon. With any luck, Randall would have his car ready to roll for Sunday’s transport.

“Didn’t you say the Carmodys were married?” Murphy asked.

“Yes. Why?”

“No reason. Just something Alex said in her room.”

Murphy had good intuition. It was one of the reasons Carl had relaxed the rules a bit when he hired her. Murphy more than met most criteria he set for guides: law enforcement training, experience with at-risk youth. Many came from residential-treatment backgrounds, having worked at places like the one they were headed to now and others far more regimented.

But at thirty-seven, Murphy was younger than the usual female guides he hired. Besides their professional qualifications, Carl preferred mothers with teenage children. These women were in the trenches personally; they understood that no matter how developed the client was physically, a sixteen-year-old was still a child. They responded appropriately. As he witnessed almost daily, there was no animal worse than a teenager wronged: all the strength of an adult, minus the maturity.

So Murphy was a little green. Jamie wouldn’t show those colors for a few more years—maybe never, if she was lucky.

But Murphy brought other assets to the table. She had proved herself a tech-savvy and skilled investigator during jobs like the one out of Maryland last month, a no-show. The parents were frantic, worried they’d have to abandon their plan. Cool as a cucumber, Murphy flipped open her laptop at the family’s home. In a few keystrokes, she had called up the kid’s cell phone records, crossmatched some numbers to street addresses and had the transporters knocking on a few doors. By noon, she’d tracked down the boy, who was crashed on a friend’s floor. They woke him and ran their drill, transport delayed only a few hours.

Yes, Murphy was a valuable guide. And besides that, there was Jimmy—Jimbo, as he had been known in their platoon. They were tight. Carl had made him a promise.

Movement in the backseat caught his eye, the girl thrashing in her sleep. Murphy clasped her wrist in a light hold. Alex appeared to settle under her touch.

“Bad dream?” Carl raised an eyebrow at her.

“Who knows? I got her.” Murphy was facing Alex, primed to react. Carl trained his guides to pick up the slightest nonverbal cue: an eye movement, the way a child sat, a hesitation before answering a question. Each spoke volumes.

Like right now. Even in sleep, the girl’s hands were clenched in fists. It didn’t take an expert to predict Alex Carmody would wake up in a fighting mood.