In Too Deep (7 page)

“Thank you, Tal,” Wilson said. “That wasn't so difficult, was it?” He turned back to me. “The offer stands. Some of these boys are better than any mechanic you'll find in town.”

Tal looked at me with sullen eyes, and I thought about what had happened outside the record store. I also thought about how some people regarded Nick, purely based on his background.

“Thank you for the offer, Mr. Wilson,” I said. “I'll call you when I have time to bring my car back. And I appreciate what you did for me tonight.”

“No problem,” he said.

I turned to go to my car but found Bruno blocking my path. He handed me a piece of paper. There was a small map sketched on it and a set of directions printed neatly below.

“So you don't get lost again on your way back to town,” he said.

I thanked him. It was only after I had gotten in the car and started the engine that I realized there was something written on the other side of the paper. I turned it over. My cheeks burned as I glanced out the window and saw Bruno looking at me. He was grinning. He had written the directions on the back of the note I had left in the glove compartment.

  .    .    .

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” Morgan said. “For all you knew, he could have been an axe-murderer.”

The directions that Bruno had given me turned out to be excellent. I made it back to town without a hitch, parked in the marina parking lot, and boated across the water under the moon. I'd found Morgan waiting anxiously for me on the dock. We'd retreated to the veranda, where I told her what had happened.

“Yeah, but he wasn't an axe-murderer,” I said. “He's nice. The guys out there are all like Nick. They've been in trouble, but they're getting their acts together.”

“What about Nick?” Morgan said. “What's he doing there?”

“I have no idea.” All I knew was that he hadn't trusted me enough to tell me the truth.

“Well, look on the bright side,” Morgan said. “At least you know where he is.”

Somehow, that didn't help.

  .    .    .

The next day Gloria kept me busy making invoices for all the people who had placed classifieds in the paper. It was late afternoon before I had a chance to tackle the story about the camp opening. By the time I was on my third and hopefully final draft, there was only one other person still in the office—Tom Matheson. He was talking on the phone and working on his computer at the same time. When he hung up, he shut down his computer, leaned back in his chair, and looked across the room at me.

“How's the story coming?” he said. “Want me to take a look at it for you?” Before I could answer, he'd propelled his wheeled chair across the room to where I was working. I scooched aside so that he could take a look. “Hmmm,” he said as he read. I couldn't tell if that was good or bad. He nudged me gently aside and started to type. “There,” he said ten minutes later, pushing his chair away from the desk. “I didn't change much—just punched it up a little.” He grinned at me.

I skimmed the revised story. It read much better.

“Thanks, Tom.”

Tom was the oldest person on staff—he was in his late sixties—but he'd insisted right from the start that I call him by his first name. Mr. Hartford had told me that Tom had been a reporter at a major daily newspaper for most of his life. He had been laid off ten years ago and had moved up here, supposedly to retire and take it easy. At least that's what Tom had promised his wife. “But he has ink in his veins. Tom's wife, Lucy, asked me to hire him part-time so that he wouldn't drive her crazy moping around the house. Part-time somehow turned into full-time. Lucy usually has to call him to remind him to get home for dinner.”

“It's a good article, Robyn,” Tom said to me. “All the facts, a little human interest—the quotes from those kids and their parents are terrific. Are you considering a career in journalism?”

“Me?”

“You sound surprised.”

“It's just that I'd never thought about it.”

“For what it's worth, I think you'd be good at it.” He shot himself back to his own desk and stood up.

“Can I ask you something, Tom?”

“Shoot.”

“It's about Mr. Wilson.”

“Larry?”

“You know him?”

“I've interviewed him a few times. More than a few. He generates a fair bit of controversy around here. He and those kids of his.”

“A lot of people don't seem to like them.”

Tom shrugged. “Part of it's a NIMBY thing. Most people would agree that kids like that—kids who have been in trouble—need some help turning their lives around. In principle. But given a choice in the matter, they all tend to say the same thing—Not In My Back Yard. Part of that's 'cause of the kids themselves. They're not exactly angels. Some of them have gotten into trouble up here. A couple instances of recreational drug use, one kid got pinched for a couple of B and Es ... then there's the issue of the local girls.”

“What about them?”

“Apparently some of Larry's kids are considered hot commodities—so I've been told. They've generated a lot of anxiety on the part of parents who don't relish the thought of their darling daughters taking up with juvenile delinquents—their term, not mine. It's been more than two years now since Larry started his group home, and there's still a sizable group of people lobbying to shut him down and get the kids shipped back to where they came from.”

“Do you think that will happen?”

Tom shrugged. “From what I've seen, Larry rides those kids hard. He's fair, but he's tough on them. If they get in trouble, he sees to it that they make restitution. If all else fails, they know they could get shipped back to a detention facility in the city—”

The phone rang. Tom reached for it and for a pen at the same time.

“
Lakesider
,” he said, his hand poised over a reporter's notebook. “Is it? Already?” He thrust out a hand to check his watch. “I must have lost track of the time. No, no, don't throw it out. I'll be walking through the door in five minutes.” He hung up and reached for the hat that covered his balding head outdoors. “The wife is threatening to pitch my dinner into the garbage. Gotta run. Lock up, will you, Robyn?”

I was just finishing up when I heard footsteps coming down a flight of stairs. A side door to the office opened and a head peeked in.

“Oh, I was hoping someone was still here,” said a cheery voice. “I'm Margie Harris. I'm with the local historical society upstairs. Actually, I am the historical society.” She was a plump woman with close-cropped grey hair. “I was just preparing a grant proposal, and my printer ran out of paper. Doug usually doesn't mind if I borrow a few sheets.”

“Help yourself,” I said.

She smiled absently at me, collected some paper from a cupboard near the stairs, and shuffled back upstairs. I printed out my article and left it on Mr. Hartford's desk.

  .    .    .

It took me forever to fall asleep that night. I kept thinking about Nick and wondering when he was going to get in touch with me. I envied Morgan. Billy called her every night after his campers were tucked into their cabins, and they talked for ages. Morgan always looked relaxed when she was on the phone with him. She didn't have to worry about what he was doing or if he was okay—ever. I, on the other hand ...

I know that I finally drifted off to sleep because I almost had a heart attack when someone grabbed me and shook me awake.

“Robyn,” a voice hissed.

“Jeez, Morgan, you scared me. What are you—”

She shushed me. “I think I heard something. Outside.”

“Define something.”

“A noise. And rattling. You don't think it's a bear, do you?”

“You said bears never come around here,” I reminded her.

“There's a first time for everything. What if ...”

After a thump somewhere downstairs, we both stiffened.

“Ohmygod,” Morgan whimpered. “What if it is a bear?”

“You saw me check the doors and windows before we came upstairs,” I said. “They're all closed. And locked.”

Morgan whimpered again. “I was hot. I went outside for some air before I came upstairs. I don't know if I locked the door again.”

“Terrific.”

The stairs creaked.

“It's coming up here,” Morgan said. Her face looked silvery white in the moonlight that was streaming through my window. “Where's your phone?”

I had left it on my bedside table. I fumbled for it in the darkness—and accidentally knocked it onto the bare wood floor. It landed with a clunk.

We both froze.

For a moment we heard nothing.

Then something banged against the door to my room. Morgan screamed.

“Robyn?” an alarmed-sounding voice said. “Robyn, are you okay?”

It was Nick.

N

ick was standing in the door to my room, wearing nothing but a surfer-style bathing suit. His black hair was plastered to his head, and he was dripping water all over the floor.

“You scared us to death,” I said. My heart was still hammering in my chest, but I was glad to see him. I untangled myself from Morgan, who had thrown herself at me in terror.

“I need to talk to you, Robyn,” Nick said. “I don't have much time.” His teeth were chattering.

“You need to dry off.” I ran down the hall to the bathroom and brought him back some big bath towels. He wrapped one around his waist and used the other one to dry his hair and torso. As he toweled off, I saw Morgan staring at two nasty scars on his back. Nick caught her doing it and immediately draped the towel over his shoulders.

“I heard about your ankle,” he said, nodding at the cast on Morgan's foot. “I know what that's like.” Nick had broken his ankle last fall.

“Nick, what's going on?” I said.

Nick glanced self-consciously at Morgan. I was pretty sure he didn't want to talk in front of her. I nodded at the door.

“Oh no you don't,” Morgan said. “This is my house. You scared me, Nick. If you're going to tell Robyn what's going on, you'll have to tell me, too, because I'm not leaving.”

Nick looked pleadingly at me, but it didn't do any good. Next to Nick, Morgan is the most stubborn person I know. All I could do was shrug.

“I didn't mean to wake you,” he said to Morgan. “And I'm sorry I scared you.” He turned to me. “Is it okay if I sit down?”

I nodded.

He pulled a chair from the corner of the room. I perched on the edge of the bed.

“What are you doing up here, Nick? And why didn't you tell me where you were going?”

“I thought if I told you, you'd try to stop me.” I'd heard that before, usually about the same time I found out how much trouble Nick was in.

“So you decided to lie to me instead?”

“I'm sorry, Robyn. I really am.” He glanced at Morgan again, but there was no way she was going to leave. “You were going to be out of town all summer anyway. I thought I could just take care of things and be back before you and everything would be fine.”

“Take care of what things?” I said.

“I promised to do something for this guy I know.”

The guys Nick knew tended to be guys who had been in trouble.

“What guy? Do what?”

I was expecting him to be evasive—Nick wasn't always direct with me—but he surprised me by answering right away.

“His name is Seth Richmond. I've known him my whole life. His mom and my mom were friends. He lived on our street before my mom married Duane.” Duane was Nick's stepfather. He was the one who'd given Nick the scar on his face. He was also responsible for Nick being an orphan. “He's about ten years older than me. He's been looking after his brother, Alex, since their mom died in a work accident. Alex was a year younger than me, but we used to hang out. About the same time as my mom hooked up with Duane, Seth was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. It's a kind of cancer.”

“I thought it had a pretty good recovery rate,” Morgan said. Morgan knew a lot about medical stuff on account of her parents. Her mom is a psychiatrist. Her dad is a surgeon.

“Maybe,” Nick said. “I didn't study up on it or anything. All I know is that Seth got really sick. He couldn't look after Alex anymore. So Alex got sent into foster care. It didn't work out. Alex didn't like his foster parents—any of them. He'd always get into trouble, and then he'd run away.

“Seth was really worried about what was going to happen to Alex if he ... you know. He started checking into options for Alex besides foster care. Someone told him about this guy up here who runs a group home and who trains kids to be mechanics.”

“Larry Wilson,” I said.

Nick nodded. “It sounded good. So Seth arranged for Alex to come up here. Things seemed to go okay for a while. Seth said Alex liked working with cars. He seemed to get along okay with Larry and the other kids. Then, out of the blue, Seth got a call from Alex—Alex didn't want to be at the home anymore, he wanted to go back to the city. But he wouldn't tell Seth why. He just said that he didn't like it and that he couldn't explain it over the phone. Seth told him to give it a little more time.”