The Edge of Nowhere (18 page)

Suddenly, Becca covered her ears. She cried out, “Stop it! I’m sorry! I’m
sorry
!” and she began to scramble around on the floor next to the bed. Seth could tell she was looking for something, but what she found made his vision go red. She grabbed an earphone and slammed it into her ear and turned up the volume on what looked like some kind of iPod. Seth thought,
What
? She’s listening to
music
? And then he began to rant.

“What are you
doing
? Give me a break. We have to
talk
. I got taken to jail. You know that? They’re asking questions. Then your cell phone started to ring, and my grandfather found it and . . . Would you take that stupid thing out of your ear and
listen
to me?”

She said, “It was ringing? The cell phone was ringing?” and unaccountably she began to cry.

Seth said, “It was the cops. They were trying to trace it. My granddad’s taking it up to them. Or they’re coming for it. Hell, I don’t know. Will you
stop
listening to that music for a minute?”

“It’s
not
music,” Becca cried. “It’s the only way I can hear you when you’re mad like this. See for yourself.” She pulled the earphone out of her ear and handed it to him. He received a blast of static that made him wince. Hell, who
was
this chick? was what Seth thought. Was she from another galaxy or something?

She was really crying now, Seth saw. She’d grabbed a pillow and she was clutching it. When she tried to talk, the words came out in big gulps of air.

From the gulps, Seth was able to piece together the story that Becca had no choice but to tell him. Without the cell phone, she’d lost her ability to phone her mother. Without the cell phone, she was so far into being on her own that she knew she would die without telling someone at least part of the truth.

Her stepdad had probably murdered his partner and
he
knew that
she
knew he’d done it. Plus he’d been using her to help him get money from old folks looking for secure investments, only Becca hadn’t
known
how much money was involved and what Jeff Corrie was doing with it and how much more he wanted of it and how
this
was why he’d murdered his partner. But she couldn’t go to the police about any of this because they wouldn’t believe her because of how she knew it. And when it all became clear to her, she and her mom had gone on the run. Only Jeff Corrie was going to come after them soon. That was a given.

“I could tell what they wanted, see?” Becca gulped as she talked to Seth. “I could tell what they needed. I could see how . . . if Jeff said the right thing . . . I could tell what he
needed
to say to them and I thought it was
helping
them with their investments. Jeff said people sometimes are afraid of change so they don’t do the right thing to help themselves when they start so I was the person who could guide him in what he had to say . . .”

Seth felt like one of those cartoon characters who needed to bang himself on the side of the head to make sense of all this.
What
was she saying?

The part he got clearly was the part about her mom. Her cell phone was the link to her mom, the cell phone was gone, and that was bad. But the way Seth saw, there might be something worse. This chick could be completely nuts.

“The phone,” Becca said. “I need that phone.”

“Cops are going to trace it,” he told her. “If they get their hands on it, they’re going to trace it.”

He sat on the bed. Becca got herself up and sat next to him. Carefully, cautiously, Seth put his arm around her shoulders.

“I don’t think they c’n trace it,” Becca said. “We got the phones at a 7-Eleven.”

“And how’d you pay for them? Did your mom use cash?”

“I think . . . She never used cash. It was her credit card.” That was all Becca knew aside from the fact that when the phone was handed to her, her mother had programmed it with the only number she needed: the number that went with Laurel’s own newly purchased phone.

“If she used a credit card,” Seth said, “the cops’ll find her.”

Becca swallowed. She felt defeated. She’d let herself down, she’d let her mom down, and it even seemed that she’d let Seth down. She said to him, “What happened to
you
? I don’t get how you ended up in jail.”

Seth told her the CliffsNotes version of his adventure. This was the version that dealt with the unpaid traffic tickets and his grandfather making bail for him. He left out Gus and he left out Hayley, and he left out a few other details as well. But then Becca asked a question that brought nearly everything into the open.

“You’ll be able to pay the tickets, won’t you? I mean, they won’t lock you up if you pay them.”

They wouldn’t lock him up in the regular course of things, but there was something more that she didn’t know. He said as carefully as he could, “I can pay the tickets. Grand’ll help if I ask him. But there’s something more.”

“What?”

“Derric Mathieson. There’s this thing between me and him.”

“What thing?”

“A Hayley thing.”

“Hayley Cartwright?”

“He’s why we broke up. Her and Derric hooked up one night. I caught them at it.”

Becca was silent for a moment as she took this in. She said slowly, “But he’s only a freshman and—”

Seth shot her a scornful look. “Uh . . . like that’s actually
important
? He’s sixteen anyway. So is she. And big deal that she’s a junior. It doesn’t matter to Hayley. Lots of things don’t matter to Hayley. Would it matter to
you
if that dude wanted . . . Forget it. Anyway, it’s why me and her—”

The door flew open. Debbie Grieder stood there.

Seth dropped his arm from around Becca’s shoulders. He put three feet between them as fast as he could. But he could see from Debbie Grieder’s expression that this was too little, and it was way too late.

FIFTEEN

D
ebbie’s face was flaming. Her forehead scar was a bolt of white. She came into the room like a tractor rolling over a field. She was talking in a fierce low tone because there was an occupied room to one side of Becca’s, but there wasn’t any need for her to shout because her expression was doing the shouting for her.

Becca had not returned the AUD box earphone to her ear, so she flinched from the assault of Debbie’s whispers. They blended in with Seth’s whispers and with what they both were saying aloud. The result was chaos in Becca’s head. She dropped her gaze to the floor, which only made her look guilty.

“What’s going on?” Debbie demanded. “I said no sleepovers.”

You’ve been here . . . you think I don’t know . . . how it starts and then . . .

“I said no boys.”

Always happens like . . .

“You and I had an agreement and you’re violating—”

Lying . . . they always lie . . .

“Mrs. Grieder, it’s not what you think.”

You’ve been here . . . who you are . . . you think I don’t know . . . drugs involved . . . like you he was . . . the struggle . . . not this time . . . boys get up to . . .

“How many more girls in this town are you going to try—”

“Me? Hey, I’m not trying anything. I just came by to—”

Totally bananas . . . whoa . . . control . . .

“Show me that cell phone. You show me that cell phone.”

Control it . . . remember . . . God grant me . . . crazy . . . Saratoga Woods like always . . .

“You said you were taking that dog for a run. Well, where’s the dog now? You tell me. Where is he?”

“Gus? He’s with Hayley. When the cops showed up, I asked—”

My God . . . in the forest . . . that’s where the drugs . . .

“Cops? Police? What’ve you been up to? Hayley didn’t work out for you, so you’re after
her
?”

“I’m not after anyone, Mrs. Grieder.”

Stay cool, stay calm, she’s flipping . . . not here . . .

“So why are you here? And why aren’t
you
saying anything, Becca King?”

Because, Becca thought, because because. Because the words were flying around the room like banshees howling for someone’s soul. Because she couldn’t tell whose thoughts were whose. But most of all because she couldn’t take her eyes off the floor, and the reason for this was that she couldn’t move her gaze away from Seth’s shoes. He was wearing the same sandals he’d had on each time Becca had seen him, but she’d never seen the soles before now. Now she saw them, though, because of how he was sitting, and the sight of them and what they looked like and what that meant froze her in place.

Becca couldn’t look away and what she really couldn’t do was reply to Debbie’s question. But then it didn’t seem to matter because Debbie went back to Seth.

“So why are you here? And where’s that cell phone you were so hot to deliver? Or is this a different kind of delivery? What’ve you brought with you? Show it to me.” Then she began flying around the room, a witch looking for her regular mode of transportation. Only she was opening and closing drawers and doing the same to the closet and looking under the beds and—

Not here . . . oh man . . . not again . . . not like this . . . for God’s sake . . . where it always ends . . . just like Sean . . .

“Okay, okay,” Seth cried. “The cops have her cell phone. I wanted her to know. I figured she’d start looking for it, so I came to tell her. All right?”

But
cops
and
cell phone
and
this this this
and
what’ve you done
and
liars
 . . .
liars just like Sean
were bouncing off the walls just like balls in a children’s blow-up house. Becca felt them driving into her brain and knew that she was going to vomit if she didn’t stop them.

She cried out, “It’s Derric. It’s
Derric
. He got pushed off a trail in the forest this afternoon, in Saratoga Woods. Seth was there and I was there and the dog got lost and Derric got taken to the hospital. It’s Derric, okay? It’s
Derric
. I thought he’d fallen but someone pushed him and that’s what happened.”

Then she looked at Seth. He was reading her face, and she
knew
he was reading it, and his expression was both wary and scared. But he didn’t know what she’d seen in the forest along with Derric’s broken body, and she couldn’t tell him. Not here, not now, and possibly not ever.

Seth said on a breath, “I’m out of here.” He made good on his word. A moment after the door closed behind him, they could hear the sound of Sammy roaring away.

In the void left by Seth’s departure, Becca could hear Debbie breathing. Her whispers came like gasps, like her breath. She caught
no way out not again mess up they use it’s the erratic where everything happens
, but only after Debbie turned away. She went for the door saying she had to tell Josh what had happened to Derric. But then she paused before she left Becca’s room.

She said, “I’m not running the No-Tell Motel for a bunch of high school kids. No more boys in here. Is that clear?”

Becca nodded and Debbie left her.

BECCA REALIZED FROM
that moment that her time at the Cliff Motel could be terminated at the least provocation. She had no clue where she could go if Debbie threw her out, but she had a feeling that she might need to start looking for a place. She was also worried that Debbie might betray her at South Whidbey High School, but she decided she had to let that one go. If things got hot over there, she would just have to leave school.

Monday morning after the scene with Debbie, Becca was rolling her bike off the motel porch when Debbie came out from the office. Becca hadn’t yet put the AUD box on, since the ride to school usually had no whispers attached to it. But the sight of Debbie made Becca’s insides quiver, so she fumbled for the AUD box and slipped the earphone into her ear as Debbie approached.

Debbie said, “I’m sorry about the other night. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I shouldn’t have talked like I did.”

Becca tightened her hands on the handlebars of her bike. She wasn’t used to adults apologizing. She said, “It’s okay. I understand.”

“That’s just it, you don’t. How could you?” Debbie glanced back at the office. Soon it would be time to take the kids to school, so they needed to keep their conversation out here brief. Still, there were things that had to be said and Debbie was the kind of woman who knew this since she’d had long experience of saying them, marked by the years since she’d taken her last sip of beer. “There are things from the past that I shouldn’t let affect me. Sometimes I forget and they do. None of this is your fault. I shouldn’t have unloaded on you.”

“It’s okay.” Becca wished she
hadn’t
put the AUD box on because now Debbie’s expression told her that there were whispers here that might have helped her to understand what was going on. Something, for sure, because as usual when it came to personal stuff, Debbie lit up a cigarette.