Home Before Dark (6 page)

“Nectar of the gods, my friends,” he announced, took a long gulp, then let loose with an impressive belch.

Turning around to the back seat, Lila clinked cans with everyone. “Cheers,” she said, and downed a third of the beer in one pull. She honestly didn't care for the fizzy, bitter taste of it. But after the first beer, the second went down with ease, spreading its blurry chill through her limbs, softening the edges of the world and making her mouth tend toward smiling for no reason.

“Double your pleasure.” Heath handed her a joint, and she used the cigarette lighter to spark it, inhaling and holding her breath and battling the urge to cough as she passed it to the back. The sight of the four of them sitting there, with Kathy in Dig's lap because there weren't enough seat belts, cracked Lila up. She opened her third beer to celebrate the moment. There was nothing like the soaring joy of knowing she had friends like these four and Heath, who understood her even though she didn't have to say a word, who liked her even though her mother was lame, even though she didn't seem to
know her father anymore, even though her brothers drove her crazy. They just
knew.
Sometimes she thought they existed in her life for the sole purpose of reminding her that every night could be a party.

The headlights of the Jeep threw a long cone of light along the empty road, the beam sweeping over scrub oak and mesquite and critters scuttling in the underbrush. The whole vehicle seemed to be buoyed along by beer and pot and laughter. When Heath reached out with his free hand to touch her cheek, she nearly burst with happiness.

“Where to, chief?” asked Dig, his voice croaking as he held in a toke.

“Seven Hills!” Lila shrieked, and Kathy took up the cry, too. “Seven Hills!”

Heath kept his eyes on the road as a priceless grin slid across his face. “You got it.” He cracked open another beer, took a swig and set the can in the drink holder.

Lila felt a thrill of anticipation. Seven Hills was their favorite place to go ramping, and Heath's Jeep was the best vehicle for the job. His dad was loaded, and since the divorce he'd given Heath the best of everything, including a late-model Jeep, perfect for four-wheeling. And for launching.

The sport had grown so popular that they'd devoted an entire safety assembly at school to the topic. The principal and a DPS officer in mirrored sunglasses had stood at the podium, ignoring laughter and heckling as they expounded on the dangers of hill-hopping by crazed teenagers who drank and smoked weed. The tight-assed adults missed the point. It wasn't about danger and rebellion. It was about flying.

“Ready, gang?” asked Heath as they approached the roller coaster series of seven hills near an abandoned rock quarry in the middle of nowhere. The popularity of the place had increased lately as word got around, in the mysterious man
ner that things got around to teenagers. A few other SUVs and trucks were already out hill-hopping. She recognized Judd Mason's battered Bronco. There was an old pickup that might have belonged to anyone, but the flames painted on the sides and the
yee-haw
issuing from the open window were unmistakably Leif Ripley's.

Heath double-checked his seat belt. The back seat had only three belts, so he told Dig to let Kathy have the third one. “Brace your hands on the ceiling, man.
Hard.
You too, Lila honey.”

With a sweet surge of admiration, she leaned over to kiss his cheek. He really was a safe driver. But safe didn't have to mean boring. Heath was proof of that. He revved the engine, blinked his lights to let the others know he was ready for takeoff and then punched the accelerator.

“Yeah!” Dig shouted from the back seat. “Go, Heath-man.”

The Jeep shot up the hill like a bullet toward the sky, a perfect launch. Sierra and Kathy screamed, but Lila was mute with wonder at the breath-stealing speed. She pushed her hands flat against the roof, bracing herself.

And then it happened. The launch. At the crest of the hill, the Jeep took off, all four tires leaving the ground. The windshield formed a perfect frame for the endless night sky. It was like looking out of the Starship
Enterprise.
For a moment, everything slowed—time, breath, heartbeat—and even the shrieks from the back seat faded to the awed silence of shock and wonder.

Then came the inevitable bone-jarring landing. Heath managed it beautifully, with all the skill of a Hollywood stuntman in a Vin Diesel movie. Everyone celebrated with high-fives, and Dig, the idiot, decided to open a beer in celebration. The agitated beverage sprayed everywhere.

“Way to go, Dig.” Travis cuffed his brother.

“My neck hurts,” Kathy said. “My butt went three feet in the air.”

Heath laughed and headed for hill number two. “Space,” he said in a deep TV announcer voice. “The final frontier.” Then he slammed his foot down on the accelerator. For a moment the back tires spun, filling the air with the harsh burn of rubber. Then the Jeep roared forward. They took the hill doing seventy, clearing the crest and bottoming out on the landing. Sparks shot from the undercarriage as the car careened along, bouncing crookedly. Lila felt a Fourth of July fireworks thrill as her shoulder slammed against the passenger-side door. Who cares if there's a bruise, she thought as she shouted with glee. This was the essence of life, and she was grasping it with both hands.

The next hill was her favorite, a long, straight shot up a sharp rise, followed by a landing on a steep slope. “One more,” she begged. “Please, one more.”

Heath gunned the engine. “That's what I like to hear,” he said, and her heart burst with pride, because he was so special and he'd given her a compliment.

“This is the bomb,” yelled Dig.

“I feel sick,” Sierra whined from the back seat. “I bit my lip, and it's bleeding.”

“Keep your mouth shut on the next jump,” Travis said, tucking his arm protectively around her.

“Let's go, Heath. Hit it, man!” Dig said.

The Jeep raged forward. Lila had the sensation of leaving her stomach behind, like a feather on the wind. As they sped up the hill, the sky opened up before them, deep black and endless with possibility. She sensed everything with a heightened awareness—the sharp reek of rubber and road, the sound of her friends laughing, the rhythm of Second Wind pounding
from the stereo, the crash of blood in her ears when the Jeep's four wheels left the pavement.

The vehicle flew higher than they had ever gone before. She knew it. She knew this launch was different when Dig pounded his knees and yelled,
“Awriiight!”
And when Kathy whispered, “I'm scared” and when Lila saw the sky begin to spin. And when Heath gripped the steering wheel and said, “Oh, shit.”

Something was wrong, bad wrong. The knowledge flashed through everyone like an electric current, swift and shocking. Lila opened her mouth, but she didn't know if she was screaming or not. Her hands flailed, then she clutched at the armrest. Someone's—everyone's—screams filled the Jeep, the night, the world, the universe.

Time slowed and the car seem to float, suspended by terror and wishful thinking, and by prayers dredged up from Sunday school, over the road that wasn't there anymore.

 

It was over in the time it took to blink. Somehow, they'd taken off at a crazy angle, and there was no way they could land on the road. The Jeep crushed down to the ground, veering out of control, the windshield popping out like a contact lens. The car bounced and then rolled, and it was like the time Lila went kayaking on the Guadalupe River, and learned to roll the kayak, hanging upside-down underwater, so close to drowning that she saw stars until her mother had rescued her, hauling her to the surface by the scruff of the neck.

But there was no one to rescue her now. She was drowning in unspeakable pain, screaming pain, and the Jeep simply wouldn't stop rolling, kicking up a storm of caliche dust and tumbleweeds. Lila heard screaming and crying and
oh God oh shit
from the others—from Heath, from Kathy who was so scared and from Dig who thought all of life was such a joke.
Someone flew out of the car—she couldn't tell who—and bounced like a rubber ball and disappeared. A lifetime flashed by before the Jeep finally shuddered to a stop like a dying dinosaur. Pain and fear and prayers pulsed with the music from the stereo, which played on as though nothing had happened.

The song ended and the DJ gave a rundown of the weather at the top of the hour. Lila wondered what hour. Thoughts drifted past and swam away from her like little colorful fish in an aquarium. She heard crying unlike anything she'd ever heard before. A thin, keening wail, not quite human. The sound of a creature in unspeakable agony, begging to be released from its misery. Her eyes were full of dust and grit, crushed glass and blood.

A beer commercial burbled from the radio:
Here's to good friends…make it a Michelob moment…
She smelled piss and shit and wondered if it was her and sort of hoped it was, because at least that would mean she was alive.

Lone Star Ford puts you in the driver's seat…

Move. She had to move somehow. She realized then that she was upside-down, hanging, held in place by the seat belt cutting into her. She swiveled her head, and pain burned like wildfire. The milk-white moon threw streams of light through the spiderweb cracks of the passenger-side window. The glove box hung open, having disgorged its contents, and a small lightbulb glowed within.

Heath. She couldn't see his face. It was turned from her, and his shoulder was jammed against the steering wheel. His silky blond hair looked like liquid gold. His hand hung limp and was flecked with dark spots. Blood.

Lila shut her eyes. Why was I mean to Scottie? Rude to Dad? Why didn't I keep my room clean? Please God, I'll do all those things, I'll be perfect if you just make this not be happening.

“I'm scared…” The tiny whisper came from somewhere else in the car.

The engine was still running and Lila could smell gasoline and exhaust. A clatter rattled through her head—the chattering of her own teeth. She tipped back her chin, feeling excruciating pain as she tried to make out the others in the back seat. Slitting open her eyes, she caught a glimpse of Kathy, who stared straight ahead without seeing and kept whispering, “I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared.”

Someone else spoke. She wasn't sure who, but it came out as a distant, monotonous chant. “Please God please God please God…” A truncated plea from someone whose skill at praying was rusty.

She heard a distinct dripping sound and twisted to look, defying the screaming agony in her shoulder. Bodies lay strewn outside the car, but some were still strapped in. The back seat was a tangle of arms, legs, crushed beer cans, rumpled clothing, patches of dark, slick wetness she couldn't identify. She could see one face clearly. It was Dig, who'd given up his seat belt. His face shone like the moon, pale and round and distant and mysterious. His eyes were shut. A viscous black ribbon trickled from the corner of his mouth, another from his ear.

The clatter started up again inside Lila's head, only faster, harder. And through the steady rattle of her teeth, she managed to make a noise, sending through her pain and terror the only word that made sense to her, the only thought she had:

“Mommy.”

Even before she answered the phone, Luz knew. It was the phone call every mother fears with the special dread reserved for people whose entire world is made of love for others. The call that signals her life has changed while she was sleeping.

She came instantly awake, grabbing the phone in the middle of the second ring. Adrenaline flushed all the grogginess from her by the time she had the receiver in hand. She mentally flipped through the gallery of possible horrors. Ian's plane had crashed. Mom had had a heart attack. Jessie… That had to be it. Simon was calling to grovel, and had no idea what time it was in the States. At least it was a school night, and the kids were safe in bed.

As she clicked on the phone, she glanced at the clock. The blood-red digits read 1:36 a.m.

“Hello?”

“Is this the parent of Lila Benning?”

Everything inside her turned to ice. “Yes,” she said in a
deceptively clear, calm voice. “This is Lucinda Benning.” She almost never used her hated given name, but then again, she'd never had a phone call in the middle of the night.

“Ma'am, this is Peggy Moran. I'm a nurse at Hillcrest Hospital. Your daughter has been brought in…”

“Not my daughter. She's asleep in her room.”

“…level two Trauma Center…”

Luz's mind seized on the information even as she burst into motion, tucking the cordless receiver between her shoulder and chin, bounding out of bed, throwing on clothes. “I don't understand. Lila's in bed.”

“Ma'am, there was a motor vehicle accident involving a group of teenagers…”

“A group of…then there must be some mistake.” Dizzying relief flowed through her like a drug. “It's a school night. She's here at home.” Clutching the phone, she rushed into Lila's room, just in case. In case the nurse was wrong. In case Lila was actually safe and sound in her bed and this was all a horrible nightmare. But no. The room was messy, but unoccupied.

“Ma'am, I'm afraid she's here. We ID'ed her from the learner's permit in her pocket.”

The relief dried up, blew away like a child's lost balloon. Luz grabbed her purse from the doorknob as she passed. “Is she conscious? Can I talk to her?”

“She's in the radiology suite now.”

“Is she—” Luz couldn't draw the words from the well of horror inside her. “I'm on my way. You understand, I'm forty miles from you. Do you need some sort of permission for treatment or surgery or—” She paused, reeling against the stair rail. She couldn't believe she was saying these things.

“It's too early to say for certain, ma'am.” The nurse couldn't give her any more information, so Luz hung up.

What to do? What to do? She needed to get on the road.
Now.

For the first time in her life, Luz wished for a cellular phone. Ian had one for work, but Luz had never cared for them, electronic umbilical cords that made it impossible to hide, even when you wanted to. Now she would give anything for one. She wanted to be able to drive down the road and tell Ian what was going on as she hurtled through the night toward her daughter. Instead, helplessly pacing the floor, she had to call the Huntsville TraveLodge, where he stayed when one of his clients was down to the wire.

Other attorneys' wives had warned her for years,
Never call your husband in the middle of the night when he's away on a case.
Death-row lawyers typically had any number of eager interns at their beck and call, and the ones with Ian's looks had plenty of becking and calling options. Interns tended to be young, earnest, idealistic, dedicated…and horny. All this flashed through her mind as a hotel operator took forever to pick up, then ring Ian's room.

“Ma'am, there's no answer. Would you like to leave a message?”

While she let the dog into the house, she spoke the unspeakable and left the name of the hospital. She rang off and alerted his pager. Then she tried his cell phone. He didn't answer, so she left the same message on his voice mail.
Damn you, Ian. Where the hell are you?

She refused to think about that—about anything—except getting to Lila. Upstairs, she paused outside the boys' room, opening the door a crack to assure herself of what she already knew—they were fast asleep. The sound of their breathing, the smell of their sleeping bodies, filled her.

Jessie, she thought. Thank God she was here. She could look after the boys. Then Luz hesitated. Jessie didn't have the first idea how to get a gang of boys off to school. She would have to take it on faith that her sister could figure things out. The boys knew the routine.

Luz went outside, flung her giant purse into the car and started the engine. Leaving it idling, she made her way to Jessie's cabin, nearly tripping several times in the dark. “Jessie,” she said, knocking at the door. “Jess, wake up.” She pushed the door open to find her sister emerging from the bedroom, blinking in sleepy confusion.

“I'm sorry to wake you but something's happened,” said Luz.

The sleepiness sharpened to concern. “What?”

“There was a car wreck. Lila's at the hospital. I need to get there right away.”

Jessie's face turned pale. “Lila!”

“They just called. Hillcrest Hospital. I've already left word for Ian, and I'm on my way there now.”

“Jesus. I can't believe this is happening.” Jessie's voice shook, and she clutched at the door frame. “A car wreck? But that can't be. She—”

“Look, Jess, the boys are still sound asleep in the house. I let Beaver in. Can you go over and stay with them?” Luz realized her mind was jumping around, out of control. She was having trouble focusing. “And if I'm not home soon, can you get them up around seven and give them some breakfast? The school bus picks up Owen and Wyatt at the top of the hill at seven forty-five. Would you—”

“Go, for heaven's sake.” With uncharacteristic bossiness, Jessie took charge. “Call me the second you know something.” Jessie gave her a hug, then pushed her toward the door. “I'll take care of things.”

Jessie's words rang in Luz's mind as she drove at a rampantly illegal speed, exerting a cold and perfect control over the car. She felt nothing during the endless drive. The mysterious yellow eyes of nocturnal creatures flashed now and then, and she knew she'd neither slow down nor swerve for the occasional deer or armadillo. It was as though she had given her mind a shot of novocaine, numbing herself to the soul-shredding terror that would seize her as soon as the body's natural anesthetic wore off.

She parked crooked at the hospital in a space marked Visitor. What else would there be at a hospital—a permanent resident? Then she rushed toward the main entrance under a grand porte cochere that made the hospital look incongruously like a five-star hotel.

Except for the ambulance bay on one side. Luz didn't permit herself to look, because if she did, she would be forced to imagine her daughter there, mummified in a cervical collar, backboard and fireproof blanket. Helpless, needing her mother.

The automatic doors swished open to a semicircular foyer swarming with people—highway patrolmen, EMS workers, hospital personnel in Easter-egg-colored scrubs. Women weeping in their husbands' arms, older people patting the hands of younger women, bewildered kids milling around in pajamas, everyone half-dressed and unkempt. Bad news left no time for good grooming, even in Texas.

As she jostled through the crowd toward a horseshoe-shaped reception counter, Luz recognized Kathy's parents and Heath Walker's mother and stepfather. She couldn't recall their names. When had she stopped knowing the parents of Lila's friends? They used to be the women she would sit with by the lake while their kids played in the shallows; the families they would invite over for barbecue and volleyball on Sun
day afternoons. Parents used to stand on the sidelines during swim meets and soccer games, cheering each other's kids on. But as the kids got older, the parents drifted apart, needing each other less. Now they were simply people she nodded to politely at PTA meetings or church.

She leaned across the counter, which was littered with papers and charts, little containers of cheap plastic pens and paperclips. “Lila Jane Benning. I'm her mother.”

“Yes, ma'am.” A harried-looking receptionist clicked the keys of her computer. “Let's see. She's out of the Resuscitation Bay. They've moved her to exam room four. She's stable. You can go see her. I'll get an orderly to take you back, and—”

Luz didn't wait for the orderly but simply took off, passing a room labeled Trauma. With a swift glance, she saw doctors, nurses and technicians clustered around a draped gurney, their gowns spattered like butchers' aprons, the floor littered with bloody gauze and crumpled blue-and-white packaging. A branch off the main hall bore the ominous designation of Resuscitation Area. Hurrying past that, she found her way to a large oblong room surrounded by walls of wire mesh glass. Four beds were set up, all occupied and surrounded by a forest of rolling trays laden with instruments, IV poles hung with bags of some mysterious elixir, monitors punctuating all the activity with electrical blips. She spied her daughter immediately, an unmoving, supine figure shrouded in sheets, a limp curtain obscuring the upper half of her body. Only one slender hand showed, two of its fingers connected to some sort of monitor with clear clothespins and white Velcro. Luz knew that hand. Small and neat, like her own. Lila's eyes were closed, her face pale but unmarked, an alien-looking oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth.

“Lila,” she said, rushing to the bedside. All of a sudden she
was trembling, melting inside. The nurse said she's stable, Luz reminded herself, then said, “Baby, I'm here.”

For a minute, it was just like when Lila was born, a tiny organism in an isolette, too fragile to touch. Luz remembered pressing her whole body over that clear cylinder, embracing it, praying,
Live, please live for me….

She forced herself to stop shaking and held her daughter's hand, studying its wholeness and perfection as she thought about that newborn trapped in a nest of tubes in the NICU. Her tiny hands had been so transparent that every vein showed through, and sometimes Luz imagined she could see the blood flowing along the delicate vessels. So strange and beautiful, the nails clear ovals.

This was some sort of punishment, Luz thought with a sick lurch of her gut. Perhaps this was the retribution she had awaited with secret dread since the day Lila was born.

She had taken her sister's child. Never mind that it had been for all the right reasons and that Jessie had begged her to adopt the baby. Luz had always felt undeserving of such a gift and unequal to being the mother of someone so helpless and perfect and so close to death she was practically an angel already.

But Lila had survived. And thrived. Yet now Luz had almost lost her again.

She's stable.
Luz wasn't sure what that meant. She caressed her daughter's head in a soothing, instinctive gesture. She felt dirt and grit, and something stiff and sticky in Lila's hair. She stank of vomit and blood and gasoline, offensive smells on this child, Luz's fussy little girl, who insisted on making special trips to the drugstore for vanilla-scented deodorant and antiseptic shower gel.

“Lila, can you hear me?”

“Mommy.” The whisper was as thin and faint and sweet as birdsong.

Luz stiffened against a new wave of trembling, this one instigated by relief. “Baby, you're going to be all right. I'm here now.”

Lila didn't open her eyes. Though she lay motionless, she seemed to drift a little, to withdraw.

“Sweetie—”

“You must be Mrs. Benning.” A young man with a subtle accent and dusky skin greeted her. He wore a white lab coat over spotless scrubs, a tag hanging from his pocket identifying him as Roland Martinez. His manner was brisk and competent, his smile a flash of professionalism designed to reassure. “That red hair must be a family trait.”

As he flipped open a chart, Luz felt a beat of panic. Dear God. What if they'd done some sort of test that showed Lila was not her biological daughter? Now was not the time to have to explain things to Lila. “What happened?” she asked.

“Your daughter was in a multiple-victim car accident along with five other young people. Lila was extremely lucky. Extremely,” he repeated. “She was wearing her seat belt and suffered only minor injuries.”

Reading from the legal-sized aluminum-backed chart, he said, “Dr. Raman, the trauma resident, admitted her. She was evaluated in one of the trauma bays and sent to radiology for X rays and a CT scan. There was no evidence of internal injuries. Nothing was broken.” He gestured at a set of films. Lila's bones were fragile white ghosts backlit by the glowing box on the wall.

“She has a small laceration on one leg, a contusion on her shoulder from the seat belt, a few minor scratches from broken glass. You'll want to follow up with a visit to your family
doctor, but the conclusion here is that she's your miracle girl, walking away from a wreck like that.”

“Is that blood in her hair?”

“From one of the other victims.” Dr. Martinez spoke very quietly, holding Luz's gaze with his. She didn't let herself ask about the other kids. Not yet.

“Why is she so out of it? Is she in shock?”

“Her blood alcohol level is 1.2, Mrs. Benning.”

Luz breathed fast, staving off a new wave of panic. Drunk. Lila had been out drinking. Dear God, why hadn't she known? What sort of mother was she?

“Can you tell me how this happened?”

Dr. Martinez settled back on a wheeled stool and tucked the clipboard under his arm. “Mrs. Benning, do you know what hill-hopping is?”

“No.”

“It's also called ramping and launching.”

Numb, she shook her head.

“It's the latest craze in joyriding. The kids pile into a car or SUV and launch themselves at high speeds off the tops of hills. Like in the movies. Only what these kids don't understand is that professional stunts are completely different from launching. According to the preliminary DPS report, the Jeep went eighty feet through the air, then rolled another forty yards on impact. Lila was in the front passenger seat, still strapped in when the EMS arrived.”