You Can Run (17 page)

I
didn't think about rats on the way down the stairs. I didn't think about how angry I was that my father had probably helped Carl Hanover trick me. Instead, I thought:
Hurt how? And how badly?
I stepped into the gloom below, panicked until I found the loose board, squeezed out of the building, and raced down the alley to the nearest street. When I got there, I started waving frantically, desperate to flag down a taxi. I didn't even think about money until I was in the back seat and the taxi was making its way through midday Saturday traffic to the hospital. I rummaged in my purse, worried that I wouldn't have enough to pay the driver. I started to panic again, imagining the taxi driver locking me inside the car and calling the cops while my father was inside the hospital. It turned out I needn't have worried. Henri Saint-Onge was standing outside the emergency entrance. She dashed over to the taxi as soon as it pulled up and paid the driver.

“Your mother's inside,” she said, opening the door for me. “Come on.”

Henri (short for Henrietta) is Vern's girlfriend. She's small and round and has a quirky, totally unique wardrobe. She's an artist.

“What happened?” I asked her. “Is my dad okay?”

“I don't know. The police called, looking for Vern, but he's up north on a job. He won't be able to get a flight back until late tonight. They told me your father had been pretty badly beaten up. He was unconscious.” I swallowed hard. Unconscious wasn't good. Unconscious could mean a serious injury. “They told me they'd called an ambulance and that he was on his way to the hospital. They asked who they should notify, so I told them your mother.” She looked a little worried. “I hope I did the right thing. She seems pretty shook up, considering.” Considering a three-year separation and a year-old divorce, she meant.

She was right. My mother's face was pinched and pale. Her eyes were watery, as if she had been crying.

“Mom, have you heard anything?” I said. “Is he going to be okay?”

“I haven't been able to get any information yet,” my mother said. She sounded angry. “They keep telling me they'll let me know as soon as there's any news.”

“I'll go and ask again,” Henri said. She headed to the nurses' station.

I sat down next to my mother.

“I'm not even going to ask why you weren't where you were supposed to be,” she said.

“Henri said he was beaten up,” I said. “She said. . . .” I didn't mean for tears to start dribbling down my cheek. Nor did I mean for my lips to start trembling, but they did.

My mother slipped an arm around me and held me tight. “Once, when you were just a baby, your father got a call. It was a bar fight. Most people break it up when the police arrive. But there were a couple of guys who were too drunk, I guess. One of the guys came at your father with a bar stool. Your dad ended up with a broken nose and a broken jaw. He was unconscious for hours. I was really scared. But he bounced right back. He's like that, Robyn.” Even so, I could tell she was worried too.

Henri came back with a man in a suit. The man smiled at my mother.

“Patricia,” he said. “It's been awhile.”

“Hello, Jim,” she said.

Jim looked at me. “You can't possibly be Robyn,” he said.

“Robyn, this is Detective Harwood.”

“Actually, it's sergeant now,” Sergeant Harwood said. “I used to work with your father.”

“What happened, Jim?” my mother said.

Sergeant Harwood sat down. “We won't know for sure until we can talk to Mac. He was found in an old industrial park. His wallet is missing. His car isn't anywhere in the vicinity. We don't know whether he was out there for some reason or if he was taken there. We don't know if it was a mugging or a carjacking or if it was something else. About the only thing we do know is that he's lucky a security car that patrols the area drove by when it did. The two guys who were beating up Mac took off. The guard didn't see where they went. He called it in and stayed to give first aid to Mac.”

“What do you mean, you don't know if it was something else?” my mother said.

“It's possible it was related to something he's working on. Vern says he's been looking into that fire up at the Doig place.”

My mother did not look pleased. “And to think I used to worry about him when he was with the police,” she said.

“We're going to find out what happened, Patricia,” Sergeant Harwood said. “Don't worry.”

But we did worry. And the longer we waited there, the more we worried. It seemed like forever before a woman wearing scrubs and a white lab coat came over to talk to my mother.

“Mrs. Hunter?” she said.

“It's Ms. Stone,” my mother said. “We're divorced. This is our daughter Robyn.” Then, sounding like someone who wasn't even remotely divorced, she said, “How is he?”

The woman sat down beside my mother. She introduced herself and explained, “He's suffered a concussion. He also has a ruptured spleen and a couple of cracked ribs.” My mother's face went pale. I bit my lip to keep from crying. “We have everything more or less under control. His condition isn't critical,” the doctor said,“but it is serious. We're going to keep him here overnight.”

“May I see him?”

“For a few minutes,” the doctor said. She gestured to a nurse. “He's sleeping.”

 

. . .

I think my mother was hoping that my father would wake up while she was there. I think she would have loved to see him grin, even though normally his grinning drove her crazy. She said it was something he did to convince you he was innocent or sincere when, in actual fact, he was hiding something.

He didn't wake up. I thought maybe my mother would want to stay until he did. She stood beside his bed, watching him intently, frowning, as if she were trying to decide something. Then she said, “Come on, Robyn. We'd better get home.”

“But—”

“You heard what the doctor said. He's going to be okay.”

“Yeah, but—”

“He's sleeping. He'll probably sleep all night.”

“But, Mom—”

“You can come back tomorrow,” she said.

Henri was waiting out in the hall. She asked if we wanted a ride home. My mother said no, she had her car. Henri said, “Are you sure you should be driving?”

My mother seemed surprised by the question. She said, “We're divorced, Henri,” as if that had anything to do with it. Henri just nodded and said she was going to stick around and wait for Vern, if that was okay with my mother. My mother said, “Why wouldn't it be?”

She was quiet all the way home.

 

. . .

The phone rang almost as soon as we got home. My mother stared at it as if it were rattling like a snake poised to strike.

“Get that, will you, Robyn?” she said. Her voice sounded funny, as if she were holding her breath at the same time she was talking.

I held my breath, too, as I picked up the phone. Mostly I was thinking,
Don't let it be bad news about my dad.

“Oh, hi, Ted,” I said when I heard the voice on the other end of the line. I grinned, as relieved as if a math test had just been cancelled. But my mother was shaking her head. She fumbled on the kitchen counter for a pen. She was still shaking her head and mouthed, “I'm not here” as she scribbled on the back of an envelope. “Uh, no, she isn't here,” I said. My mother held up the envelope:
Don't tell him about Mac
. “No, I don't, Ted,” I said. “Sure. Sure, I'll tell her.” I hung up and looked at my mother. “He said to ask you to call him when you get a chance,” I said.

“I'll make us something to eat,” my mother said. “I don't know about you, but I didn't have any lunch. And look at the time.”

It was after six. I followed her into the kitchen and watched her stare into the fridge. Food didn't appear to be the number one thing on her mind.

“How about grilled cheese?” she said.

I said sure. Then I said, “Are you going to marry Ted?”

My mother set down the block of cheddar cheese she was holding and reached for a loaf of bread. She dug a frying pan out of the cupboard before she said, “Why are you asking?”

“He told me he proposed to you.”

“He told you that? When? Just now?”

“I talked to him the other day.”

“Oh.” She started slicing cheese and setting the slices on pieces of bread.

“He said you won't take his calls. He looked hurt.”

“Robyn, it's really none of your business what. . . .” She stopped and looked at me. “Well, I guess that's not true.” Her voice was softer now. “His proposal took me by surprise.”

I waited.

“He's a sweet man,” she said.

“Do you love him?”

She cut a few more slices of cheese. “I don't know,” she said. “I just don't know.” She was silent for a few moments. Then she said, “Where were you today, Robyn?”

I had been hoping she'd let that one go.

“You were grounded, you know. You were supposed to be cleaning out the garage.”

I thought about the trick Carl Hanover had played on me, how it had probably been my father's idea. I thought about how my mother would react if I told her that I had been helping my father find Trisha. She would not be pleased.

“I was with Nick,” I said. At least it was the truth.

“Oh.” My mother had a lot of what she called “reservations” about me spending time with Nick. “When I called you that first time—”

“I was downtown.”

She didn't look angry so much as disappointed. “You lied to me, Robyn.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You know, I'm not sure it's such a good idea. . . .” She stopped, sighed, and then tried again. “Robyn, that boy....”

“I like him, Mom.”

She peered deep into my eyes. “Robyn, there are so many nice boys around.” She shook her head. “Is that where you were on Thursday night after you left your father's? With Nick?”

“No,” I said. But I could tell she didn't believe me.

“If you want me to trust you, Robyn, you have to be honest with me.”

“I am being honest,” I said. “I'm being honest about Thursday night. After I left Dad's place, I went to the high school where Ted was coaching. If you don't believe me, you can ask him. He drove me home.”

She weighed this and must have decided that I was telling the truth. “You're supposed to be grounded for the weekend,” she said. “But I know you'll want to see your father tomorrow. You can go to the hospital after you finish the garage.”

“What about you?” I said. “Aren't you going too?”

“I have work to do.”

“But Dad—”

“It's a big case, Robyn. I have to be prepared.”

After we ate—in silence—she called the hospital. She told me what a nurse had told her—that my father was sleeping, that his vital signs were good, his condition was stable. Then she went to the den to work.

The phone rang. I answered it. It was Nick.

“I didn't know,” I said.

Silence.

“Nick, I swear. I didn't know what was in that envelope. I didn't know what Trisha's father was going to do.”

“I believe you,” he said. “But what about your dad?”

“What about him?”

“Mr. Hanover got that tracking device from somewhere. Was it from your father? Did he know what was going to happen?”

I said I didn't know. I didn't tell him that I sure had my suspicions.

“Didn't you ask him?”

I told him what had happened.

“Wow,” Nick said. “Is he going to be okay?”

“The doctor says he is. Nick, did you see Beej? Has she calmed down?”

“She was still pretty worked up when I left her,” Nick said. He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “She didn't look angry, Robyn. Did you notice that?”

“She looked angry enough to me. She slapped me.”

“I don't mean Beej. I mean Trisha. When her stepfather showed up, she didn't look like she was mad at him, you know, like, ‘get lost, I don't want to see you.' She looked scared. Did you notice that?”

I hadn't. I had been too stunned by what had happened. I had seen the fury on Beej's face and the disappointment on Nick's. But I hadn't especially noticed how Trisha looked. I tried to remember her face.

“She sounded scared too,” Nick said.

“Her stepfather says she's a real drama queen,” I told him. “The first time she ran away and the police brought her home, she made all kinds of crazy accusations about him and her mother.”

“Well, if that was an act, she sure had me convinced. If you ask me, that girl was scared of something, and I think it was something more than the possibility that she was going to be grounded.”

“She fights with her mother a lot. And I guess she doesn't like her stepfather much right now,” I said.