The Edge of Nowhere (33 page)

The room above was large. Here, Seth said, was where she was going to set up shop. He began to unpack the duffel, and Becca saw that he’d brought her camping supplies. A small propane stove, cooking utensils, collapsible water bottle, some packets of dehydrated food. He even put together a stool from various parts that toppled from the bag. From all this Becca realized that her stay in the Dog House was not intended to be a single evening’s affair.

She said, “Seth, no! Am I gonna have to stay
here
?”

He looked up. “No place else. You go to someone’s house and their parents are going to ask questions. Maybe not the first night, but after that? Oh yeah, they’re gonna want to know what you’re doing there. You want that?”

“But what’ll I do for food when I run out? What’ll I do for . . . It’s
freezing
in here.” Becca could, indeed, even see her breath. She wondered how much colder it was going to get as the night wore on, not to mention how much colder it would get as time itself went on. She thought about going to Diana Kinsale and asking for her help, but how could she? She would have to tell Diana Kinsale about everything, including the whispers and how the whispers had caused the trouble she and Laurel had been fleeing in the first place. Becca couldn’t do that. She absolutely couldn’t.

She swallowed. “I guess I’m here, then.” Then she looked around for the rest of her belongings, the things she had left at the Cliff Motel, but none of them was among what Seth had brought.

She said, “But my stuff . . . the motel?”

Seth shook his head. He was blowing up an air mattress that he’d taken from the pillowcase. He said, “Couldn’t get it. I’ll try tomorrow. The undersheriff was in the parking lot talking to that Primavera chick from the high school. No way did I want them to see me going into your room or
any
room.”

“Ms. Primavera?” Becca said. It was worse and worse. For Tatiana Primavera had heard the phone message from Laurel and she would now tell the undersheriff and then the final connection would be made. It would
have
to be made. People weren’t stupid. “What was she
doing
there?” Becca wailed.

“Heck d’I know.” Seth finished with the air mattress and then unrolled the sleeping bag on it. He said, “I’ll try to get the rest of your stuff tomorrow. Meantime, don’t sweat it. You’ll be okay here. There’s even a bathroom. I’ll bring you soap and a towel. I’ll bring some shampoo. Just hang tough. You can do that, can’t you?”

Becca didn’t see that she had a choice. It was hang tough or nothing. For better or worse, the Dog House was going to be her new home.

PART FOUR

The Meadow Loop Trail

TWENTY-NINE

H
ayley Cartwright was driving the farm truck out of the school parking lot when she saw Becca King pushing a bike with a flat tire in the direction of the school. It was the end of a school day, though. Becca was going in the wrong direction.

Hayley recognized the bike. It belonged to Seth. Because of its crazily painted psychedelic handlebars, there couldn’t have been another bike like it on the island. Hayley wondered why the dowdy-looking girl with the thick-framed glasses had it. Obviously, Seth had handed it over to her, but Hayley didn’t know what this meant. She
did
know it shouldn’t be important to her. But it was, somehow. Just as it was also important to Hayley that this girl Becca had put a note into Derric’s hand at the hospital. “Give this back to me when you wake up,”
it had read. That message suggested more than one thing to Hayley, and one thing it suggested was confidence. Confidence in Derric, confidence in his condition, and confidence about other things as well. Hayley told herself she could use some of that confidence. So she rolled down the window and called Becca’s name.

“You need a ride? You’re going in the wrong direction, you know.” She smiled. “School’s over. You aren’t just getting here, are you?”

Becca blinked owlishly behind those weird glasses. She had so much black around her eyes that she looked like a panda. She said, “Oh. Hi,” and she added with a glance down at the bike, “Got a flat. I needed to get some stuff from my locker.”

“Well, if you want, I c’n give you a ride after you get the stuff. There’s a tire place up on the highway. I c’n take you there.”

“’Kay,” Becca said. “That’d be good. I thought I’d fixed this stupid thing yesterday, but I guess I didn’t do such a good job.” She waited till Hayley had pulled to the side of the road and she handed the bike over to her. She said she’d be right back and she hurried in the direction of the school building. She looked around a little furtively as she walked.

When she returned, her backpack was crammed. Hayley said, “Wow. Impressive. You’ve got the homework, huh?” and Becca said, “I had to miss school a couple days. Makeup work. You know.”

Hayley knew that much, at least the part about Becca missing school. For she had been on the reception desk when Debbie Grieder had phoned in a panic. Where was Becca King? she’d demanded. Could Hayley tell her if she was in school? She was missing from the Cliff Motel, but her belongings were still in her room. Debbie Grieder didn’t want to
think
what this might mean. Please, please tell me she’s in school, she’d cried. Hayley had put her through to the attendance clerk. Beyond that, she didn’t know how to help.

She opened the tailgate of the farm truck and loaded up the bike. They set off in the direction of the highway.

Hayley said to Becca, “Debbie Grieder called the school. She said you were gone but your stuff was still at the motel. She’s really—”

“I got my stuff,” Becca broke in quickly. “Well, Seth got it for me. I was staying with Debbie but things didn’t work out.”

“Oh.” Hayley cast around for something else to say to the girl. Seth seemed the logical subject at this point, but she didn’t want Becca to get the wrong idea. Another good subject would be “Where are you staying now?” but—

“Debbie doesn’t like Seth,” Becca announced out of nowhere. “If you see her, don’t tell her he helped me, okay?”

Hayley glanced at her curiously. Becca was looking down at her fingernails, which were dirty. So was the rest of her. She smelled pretty bad. Hayley wondered where on earth she was staying if she wasn’t at the Cliff Motel. She looked like someone who’d been sleeping in a car. Seth’s car, maybe, but that hardly made sense. Wouldn’t Seth just take her home to his parents or to his grandfather’s house if she needed a place to stay?

“Course, he’s not my boyfriend or anything,” Becca went on suddenly. She was looking intently out of the side window. Her face was completely hidden from view.

“Huh?”

“Seth. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just . . . I met him right when I came to the island. Him and Diana Kinsale. Well, I met Diana Kinsale first ’cause I was riding my bike—my other bike?—on Bob Galbreath Road and I didn’t know how bad it was there. I had to stop. She gave me a ride. I met Seth the next day at the Star Store.”

How weird, Hayley thought. Something wasn’t right in all this. She could sense it. Seth, Becca, Diana Kinsale, the Star Store, Debbie Grieder, the Cliff Motel, Becca leaving it, Debbie Grieder not knowing, and now Becca talking about it all with no apparent reason. It almost seemed like—

“It’s drugs, see,” Becca said in a rush. They’d come to the end of Maxwelton Road and were at the light, waiting to go onto the highway. “Debbie thinks Seth’s into drugs.”

“Seth doesn’t do drugs.”

“That’s not what Debbie thinks.”

“Wow. Not fair.”

“That’s what I thought. So . . .” Becca shrugged.

She was making it sound as if she’d cut out on Debbie due to loyalty to Seth, Hayley thought. That was nice, but it didn’t seem exactly probable. How long had she known Seth, after all? No. There was more here than met the eye. She was about to ask Becca what was really going on, but Becca spoke first.

“How’s Derric?” she asked. “I haven’t been able to get up to see him.”

“The same,” Hayley told her. The light changed and they pulled onto the highway, heading south. “I saw that note you put in his hand. Seems like you’re sure he’ll recover. That’s nice.”

Becca finally looked at her, then. Her forehead furrowed. She said, “I just . . . It was dumb, but I wanted him to have something. I didn’t have anything else with me, and I saw all the balloons and flowers and stuff. It just seemed like something . . . It didn’t
mean
anything. I don’t expect him . . . I mean, it’s not like I’m after him.”

“What if you are? He’s a great guy.”

“Gosh,” Becca breathed. “That’s sort of . . .”

“What?”

“Aren’t you guys . . . You and Derric . . . ? You know.”

“Seth told you that, didn’t he?” That figures, Hayley thought. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Oh.”

“He
doesn’t.
Plus, he acts first and he thinks later. If you hang around him much, you’ll see him in action. You’ll do something and he won’t give you a chance to explain and he’ll lose his temper and—” Hayley stopped herself. She
heard
herself. Acting without thinking and there Derric was in a coma from which he would not emerge to point a finger at whoever pushed him over that bluff. If he was pushed, Hayley told herself.
If
he was pushed.

Becca said nothing in reply to Hayley’s words. Hayley went no further with them. But it wasn’t a friendly silence that hung between the two girls at that point. It was a silence heavy with thoughts and suspicions.

So much for learning about the source of her confidence, Hayley thought. So much for thinking she had confidence in Derric’s recovery at all. For if she was thick with Seth Darrow, chances were good that she knew more than she was saying about everything. For all Hayley knew, she’d been at the hospital with Seth for a sinister reason, not an act of kindness toward Derric at all but rather a threat.

“Give this back to me when you wake up”
had an entirely different meaning, then. It was the same as saying, “Call me when you come to because you and I have stuff to talk about.”

It was too horrible to contemplate where all of this was leading. Hayley wanted Becca King out of her truck. Mercifully, the tire store was in view. Hayley sped up to get to it. When they arrived, she braked the truck, hard. She waited for Becca to climb out, get her bike, and get away from her. But instead Becca said the strangest thing of all:

“You know Seth’s sandals?”

“Huh? What about them?” Hayley wanted to push her out of the truck, but it didn’t seem she was in any hurry.

“I saw that kid Dylan had a pair like them. I never saw sandals like that before.”

Hayley stared at her. “So?”
What a weird chick
was what she was thinking.

Becca turned red. “I was just wondering . . . Do you think they came from around here? They’re sort of cool. I’d like to get—”

“There’s no shoe store around, if that’s what you mean. They’re probably from some place over town. Seattle, maybe. And anyway, why d’you want a pair of sandals this time of year? It’s going to get too cold to wear them.”

“I guess,” Becca said. “I never saw . . . I mean, no one else has them.”

Hayley wanted to yell, “And this is important
because
 . . . ?” but she kept quiet, thinking furiously. She could make no connections among Becca’s shifts in topic except the obvious one. And the obvious one had everything to do with Seth, Derric, and what Becca knew about Saratoga Woods.

Hayley said shrewdly, “Are you protecting Seth?”

“From what?” Becca asked her. At last she had her hand on the door handle. At last she was going to get out of the truck. But not before Hayley found out what she knew because she did know something. It was written all over her.

“Come on,” Hayley said. “You know what I mean. Are you
protecting
him, Becca?”

She shook her head.

“You’re lying, aren’t you?” Hayley asked her.

Becca looked at her squarely then. Her gaze was steady and it chilled Hayley from her head to her feet. “Not any more than you are,” she said.