Desert Crossing (15 page)

I could hear Lara's voice. “Kit? Kit?”

I lifted the phone. “His name is Frederick,” I said.

I clicked it off and threw it back at him, straight at his chest. His hands came up to catch it, and I walked away before he could say anything.

26

I didn't turn to see if he was following me. I walked as fast as I could. Past the shining sides of the big trucks, past the diner, past the car. I walked back the way we came, on the shoulder of the road, into the basin of land. It was stupid, of course. There was nothing in that direction. I should have gone toward town, but I wasn't thinking, and by the time I realized it, I couldn't turn around. I had to get as far away from Kit as possible.

It hadn't meant anything to him. None of it. Why did I think it would? He was the same person he'd always been, and the only thing surprising about the phone call was that the girl was Lara Fitzpatrick, who was much too nice to end up with Kit.

But if she was his girlfriend, why had he never mentioned her? On the way down, he and Jamie had talked about one girl after another, but I didn't remember ever hearing him say her name. Although I hadn't really been listening. On Saturday, I didn't care. It seemed so long ago. I'd just assumed he wasn't seeing anybody. But a guy like Kit was always seeing somebody.

It was hot on the road. Little waves of heat rose in the distance and made the asphalt shimmer like a river. I could feel the sun beating on my scalp, slicing through my hair like a red-hot blade.

I heard a car behind me. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Kit swerve across the road, slowing down next to me, the car's tires scattering the gravel.

His arm hung out the side and he brushed his fingers over the door. “So that was a nice move,” he said. “Telling her my real name.”

I kept walking, not looking at him.

“Come on, Luce. Don't be mad.” He drove alongside me. “I mean, what did you expect? You didn't think we were going to…” Don't say it, I thought. Don't make it worse.

“You didn't think we were going to go out, did you?” His voice was full of amazement. “You're a
freshman.
You're Jamie's sister, for chrissake.”

He reached out to touch my arm, but I jerked away and stepped off the shoulder, onto the hard red ground.

“Hey, where are you going?” he called. “There's nothing out here. You should have walked the other way, you know.” I could hear the smile in his voice and it just made me madder. I started to run.

The car rolled after me. “So, what? You're never going to talk to me again? Come on. Will you just get in the car?”

In the distance, I saw a car coming toward us. A horn blared.

Kit sighed. “Are you going to get in the car or not?”

I didn't answer. The other car was getting closer, honking repeatedly.

“You know what? I'm not doing this. You're on your own.” Kit accelerated off the shoulder and back into the right lane, the tires spitting stones at my shins just as the other car roared by. I watched him pull ahead of me and turn around, heading back toward town.

*   *   *

I kept walking. I lifted my hair off my neck with one hand, tugging my shirt away from my skin. High above, the sky was blue and cloudless. Sometimes a huge semi thundered by, and once a truck driver honked at me, raising his hand out the window as he passed. But then it was quiet again. No cars, no houses, no people. Just a few cattle, moving far away in the field.

Up close, I could see that this place wasn't empty at all. It was cluttered with boulders, little gray-green bushes, the occasional brittle, twisted trunk of a tree. Lizards streaked across the sand, darting under rocks. Birds flitted from bush to bush, chirping raucously. Something rustled behind a boulder and I saw a thin tail lash the ground.

I walked on. The mindlessness of it was soothing somehow. I was so hot and tired I couldn't even think about Kit. Sweat trickled down my cheeks and ran into the neckline of my shirt. I tucked my hair behind my ears. My throat was dry. My eyes ached from the glare on the road.

Finally I stopped. I hunched over my knees for a minute, resting. I might as well turn around. It was a long walk back to Kilmore.

I heard the distant sound of an engine and looked up. Far away, coming toward me, I could see a car … no, a truck. But not a big one, some kind of pickup. I squinted. It was blue.

A blue truck.

My breath caught in my throat. Okay, I thought. There must be a lot of blue trucks.

But she said he lived around here. She said he came to the diner every day.

I looked behind me. The road was deserted. All around me, dry grasses hummed and whispered. I was alone.

The truck was getting closer. There wasn't time to do anything. I stepped off the road onto the sand. This is stupid, I thought. It's just somebody going to Kilmore.

But the truck was slowing down.

It braked noisily and pulled onto the shoulder about twenty yards ahead of me, its metal grillwork flashing in the sun. My heart thumped in my chest. I could see the dark silhouette of the driver, but not his face. I stood still, watching. I didn't know what to do. It was too late to run away or hide. I squeezed my hands into fists and waited.

The driver's door swung open. “You need a ride?”

The voice was flat but oddly high-pitched, like it should have belonged to someone smaller than the man who got out of the truck. He was tall and heavy, with short graying hair and a black net trucker's hat shadowing his face. I couldn't see his eyes.

“Where you going?” He stood next to the truck, one hand resting on the door.

I swallowed. “I was just walking.”

I watched his hand slide off the door, casual but deliberate. He took a step toward me. “Too hot for walking.”

“It's not so bad,” I said quickly. The banging of my heart filled my ears. I stepped backward.

He glanced behind him, then squinted over my shoulder. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just walking,” I said again. “I'm … I'm turning around now anyway.”

“Going back to Kilmore?”

I nodded.

“That's where I'm heading. I'll give you a ride.” He gestured toward the truck and I stepped backward, not knowing what to do.

“No, that's okay. I'd rather walk.”

He was close to me now, a few arm's lengths away. I looked up into his face and his eyes were small and pale, a milky blue. I could hear the low, steady rumble of the truck's engine. He smiled, but the smile never reached his eyes. “Come on,” he said. “Don't you want a ride?”

Suddenly, I saw the girl's face, wet with the rain.
Help me,
I thought.

And then the man's expression changed. He frowned, looking past me. I turned and saw a car coming, small in the distance but getting larger, a familiar bronze color that almost matched the dirt.

Kit.

“That's my boyfriend,” I said quickly, turning away from him. I started to run, my feet pounding the gravel, half expecting him to come after me, even though I knew that he wouldn't, not with Kit there.

“Kit!” I yelled, waving my arms. “Kit!”

Kit slowed down in the opposite lane and rolled down his window. “Are you talking to me now?”

I ran across the road, lunged at the passenger door and grabbed the handle.

Kit was looking at the man. “Hey,” he said.

“How you doing?” the man said in his flat voice. “It's too hot for her to be walking. You can't do that around here when the weather's like this. People get heatstroke, you know. Die from it.”

“Really?” Kit looked over at me, scanning my face, his eyes questioning. “I'll tell her to be more careful.” He shrugged. “But it's not like she listens to me.”

“They never do,” the man said, his mouth twisting. He walked back to the truck.

Kit turned to me. “You okay?”

I nodded, blinking back tears. My arms were shaking so hard I had to press them against my stomach to hold them still.

“What happened?” His voice was worried. “Did that guy do something?”

I shook my head.

The truck pulled back into the road, and the man looked straight at me as he drove by. His pale eyes showed no expression at all.

“Huh,” Kit said. “Blue truck.”

27

“It was him, it was him, it was him.” I rocked back and forth in the seat, hugging myself.

Kit put his hand on my shoulder. I flinched, not wanting him to touch me, but at the same time wanting it more than anything. The weight of his hand steadied me. I tried to stop shaking.

“Hey,” he said. “It's okay. What happened back there?”

I swallowed. “He asked me if I wanted a ride.”

“Well, it's hot out.”

I looked at him. “It wasn't like that. He wanted me to get in the truck.” I shivered, and Kit slid his hand down my arm, cupping his fingers under my elbow.

“Luce,” he said gently. “Maybe he was just offering you a ride. You heard what he said. People get heatstroke.”

“No. It wasn't like that.”

“How do you know?”

I took his hand off my arm and sat straighter, willing myself to be still. “I could feel it.”

Kit didn't say anything for a minute. “Everybody has a pickup truck around here. There must be plenty of blue ones.”

I turned in the seat to look at him. “Kit, it was him. I
know
it.”

Kit kept his eyes on the road. He let out a long breath and then nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.” He put his hand on my shoulder again, rubbing his fingers over the back of my neck.

“You can't do that,” I said, shrugging free. “I mean it.”

He took his hand away, but the imprint of it tingled.

“So what do you want to do?” he said. “Call the police?”

I bit my lip. “What would we say?”

We were nearing Kilmore again, passing the diner. I jolted forward. The blue truck was parked in front. “Look! He's right there.” I turned to Kit. “Quick, pull in.”

Kit veered into the parking lot and slowed the car. “Okay, Luce. Now what?” He looked over at me, shaking his head. “Suppose it is the guy. How are you ever going to prove that? Do you think you can just walk up and ask him?”

I pulled my feet onto the seat and rested my face against my knees. He was right. How could we prove anything? And what had the guy done, anyway? He'd left the girl on the road, but she was already dead. Was that even a crime? It had to be.

I remembered his voice:
Don't you want a ride?
Is that what he'd said to her, too?

I rubbed my forehead. “Listen, I know it's him. We just need some reason for the police to … you know … question him.” I stared at the blue truck. If the girl had ridden in it, maybe she'd left something behind. “Let's look in his truck.”

Kit raised his eyebrows. “Look for what?”

“I don't know.”

“Just walk over there and search his truck?”

“Yeah.”

“That is a really dumb idea. And probably illegal.”

I frowned at him. “Then you should be happy. Didn't you say everything fun is illegal?”

“Okay, well, I was wrong. Because that is not fun, and probably illegal, and totally pointless.”

I kept looking at the truck. She'd been inside it, I knew it. Maybe it was the last place she'd been alive. “I'm going to do it.”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you coming?”

“No.”

I got out of the car and slammed the door. The diner windows faced the gas pumps at an angle. You could see this part of the parking lot from the corner tables, but not easily. I shielded my eyes with one hand and tried to see who was sitting there. But the sun was too bright. The windows reflected the image of the road, the motel on the other side, the giant cactus.

I walked toward the blue truck. Part of me couldn't believe I was doing this. What if it was locked? But no, when I tried the handle, the passenger door opened easily. I looked around to make sure no one was watching, then climbed inside.

The cab had a stale, old-food smell. The carpet was dark with stains and littered with junk: two beer bottles, a crumpled Coke can, a half-empty bag of potato chips. I kept checking the door of the diner. No one went in or out. The parking lot was quiet, baking in the sun.

I got up on my knees and peered between the seats: a ballpoint pen, some change, a folded newspaper. I flipped down the visors. A pair of sunglasses.

What was I looking for? I didn't even know. Some sign the girl had been here, sitting on this very seat the day she died. But it was all so ordinary. This was the kind of stuff in anybody's car.

I opened the glove compartment and took out the sheaf of papers inside. Car stuff mostly, the manual for the truck, an insurance card. An insurance card. It had his name on it. And an address.
Wesley Wicker, R.R. #7, 4420 Brick Road, Castle, NM.

“Hi.” I heard Kit's voice in the parking lot, sounding unusually loud. I jerked around and saw the man—the man!—coming out of the diner. I ducked down in the seat and tried to shove the papers back into the glove compartment, my fingers fumbling and almost dropping them.

“Did you see my friend in there?” Kit said. “I lost her again.”

Holding my breath, I pushed the door open, an inch at a time. I squeezed out, crouching next to the truck.

“Nope, didn't see her.” A short nasal laugh. “You better keep an eye on that one.” As quietly as I could, I pressed the door shut.

“Yeah, well, thanks anyway.”

Still crouching, I ran in front of the two other cars and around the corner of the building.
Wicker, 7, 4420, Brick, Castle,
I kept whispering to myself.

I stood with my back against the wall, breathing hard. A minute later, Kit rounded the corner, swearing.