Desert Crossing (7 page)

I couldn't believe they were telling her this, or that she was finding it funny.

I'd always thought flirting was something obvious, like those things people said in movies, with raised eyebrows and long sexy stares. But with Kit and Jamie, it was different, a way of paying attention to someone, turning a normal conversation into a private spark of connection.

Toronto scrambled to her feet, ears pricked. I stood up and looked out the kitchen window. “Hey,” I said.

They all stopped talking and turned toward me. I pointed. A police car was rolling toward the house, its hood flashing in the sunlight.

12

The sudden silence in the kitchen was strange after their noisy stream of conversation. Jamie's face lost all expression. He stared at the floor.

Beth stood up. “I wonder what they want.”

The dogs started barking and bounded past us toward the entryway. Beth hauled them back by their collars. She swore at them, herding them into the room where I'd slept.

Sheriff Durrell stood on the porch. His metallic sunglasses hid his eyes. All I could see when I looked at him was my own distorted reflection: a wide, wavy face over a tiny, diminishing body.

“Hello, folks,” he said. “Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”

Jamie nodded, quiet now, and we stepped blinking, barefoot, into the yard. The sun was high and the red sand glared back at us, brassy and unforgiving.

“We took samples from your car,” the sheriff said. “We should have results in a couple of hours. The rain washed it down pretty good, but we got something off the bumper.”

What was it? What did he find? I could feel a shift in the air, a friction that hadn't been there before.

He was looking at Jamie. “I want you to tell me again what you saw. Where the impact was.”

He led Jamie away from us. All I could hear was a muffled exchange, no words. Beth stood next to me, fiddling with the pen in her hair.

When they came back, Jamie's face looked pinched.

“You won't be going anywhere. Understand?” the sheriff said. He turned to Beth. “They'll need to make other arrangements for a place to stay.”

Beth was watching Jamie. “It's okay,” she said finally. “They can stay here for another night or two. It doesn't matter.”

“Thanks,” Jamie said softly.

The sheriff frowned. I wondered what he was thinking. That we'd try to take off? Nobody knew us here.

“All right,” he said. “I'll be in touch later this afternoon.”

As the sheriff drove away, Kit shielded his eyes with his hand and watched. I thought of the beer cans scattered in the brush somewhere. I wondered if you could see them from the road.

“Man, it's hot,” Kit said. “Jamie, you want to go out for a while? Get some lunch?”

Jamie nodded. “Sure, but we don't have a car.”

Beth glanced at him, then shrugged. “You can take the truck, I guess.”

Jamie grinned. “Really? Thanks. Is there a restaurant around here?”

“Yeah, about ten miles west, on the left.”

I climbed the porch stairs, brushing off the soles of my feet. “I have to get my sandals.”

Kit looked at Jamie, making a face that he thought I couldn't see, but of course I could. “Uh … why don't you just hang out here,” he said to me. “We'll bring you something.”

My cheeks were hot. I felt stupid. “Okay,” I said quickly. “Get me a turkey sandwich.”

Jamie seemed not to notice. “Beth? You want anything?”

She shook her head, tossing Jamie the keys. “Drive carefully.”

*   *   *

Inside, Beth went back to painting and I rested my chin on the back of the couch, watching them leave. I could see the two of them laughing in the cab of the truck.

“Do you want a soda?” Beth asked.

She was trying to be nice. But I was embarrassed that she'd seen how they treated me. “No, I'm okay,” I said.

I got my sketch pad from the hallway and propped it against my knees, looking at the drawing of the girl. I'd finished her hair and her neck, the shape of her face. I started to work on her eyes.

“You like to draw?” Beth asked, after a while.

I nodded.

“What kinds of things?”

I shrugged. “Animals, people. Sometimes places.”

“What's your favorite thing to draw?”

I thought for a minute. “Faces, I guess.”

“Yeah?” Beth set down her brush, wiping her hands on a towel. “Show me something you've done.”

She came toward the couch and I flipped the pages backward, quickly. I didn't want her to see the girl. I found a picture I'd drawn of my mom reading. “Here,” I said, turning it for her to see.

She took it from me. I felt nervous suddenly. Everybody always said I was good at drawing: my parents, my art teachers, everybody. It didn't matter what Beth thought. But it did somehow. I waited.

“It's good,” she said. “Technically very good. The shadows, the proportions.”

I relaxed. “Thanks.”

“Who is it?”

“My mom.”

“Hmmm.” She tilted her head, still looking at the sketch.

“What?” I started to take it back.

“Nothing. It's good, but I wouldn't have known it was your mom.”

“Well, how could you?” I said, settling it back on my knees. “You've never met her.”

Beth picked up her brush and knelt by the sculpture again. “No. But that's the next step. Drawing what you feel, not just what you see.”

I didn't say anything. I didn't know what she meant, but it sounded like she didn't think I was that great at drawing after all.

Beth started painting again. “If you draw what you feel,” she said, “anyone who sees that sketch should be able to tell it's your mom. You know?”

I stared at the paper. “I guess.”

I flipped the pages back to the drawing of the girl and started sketching her lips, slightly open, glistening the way they did in the rain. The room was quiet again. The late-afternoon sun warmed my shoulders.

Jamie and Kit were taking forever. “How far is that restaurant?” I asked.

Beth pursed her lips, shooting a quick glance out the window. “They've been gone awhile, haven't they?”

I wondered if she was worried about her truck. She dipped the paintbrush and wiped it deftly on the edge of the can. “Your brother and Kit don't seem very much alike. How long have they been friends?”

“A long time. Since third grade.”

Too long, I wanted to say. I thought about the two of them having lunch. I knew exactly what they were doing. Those hours in the car, listening to them talk about girls, then sitting by myself at the restaurants. I was mad at them all over again. I thought about Kit making fun of me, making me stay here while they went out to lunch. Then I remembered the look on Jamie's face: that intense, eager look whenever he caught Beth's attention or made her smile.

Suddenly, I knew exactly what to say next.

“Yeah, they've been friends for a long time, but they've only been, you know, a
couple,
since last year.”

13

Beth stopped painting. “What?”

I couldn't look at her. I kept my eyes on my sketch pad. “You know,” I said again. “They're, like, together.”

I could feel her staring at me. “They're
together
? You mean they're gay?”

I looked at her quickly. She was standing in front of the sculpture, dangling the paintbrush, her face full of surprise. “Wow. I didn't get that from them at all.”

I ran one finger along the windowsill, leaving a thin streak through the dust. “Well, they're pretty private about it.”

“Is that why they wanted to go to lunch by themselves?” she asked.

I hadn't even thought of that, but now I nodded firmly. “I guess they wanted a little time alone.” It was almost hard not to laugh.

“Huh,” Beth said. She swirled the paintbrush in the can at her feet. “I'm just … I'm really surprised. I'm usually pretty good at picking up the signals. Jamie—actually, both of them—well, whatever.” She went back to painting, but then stopped again. “That must be hard for them, being in high school. And in Kansas, too.”

I could feel myself losing control of the story. I was never good at lying. And for some reason—even though they were such jerks, even though this was the perfect way to stop whatever might be happening between Jamie and Beth—I felt a stab of guilt.

“They're not really out yet,” I said. “So they probably wouldn't want you to know.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Just then the phone rang. Beth motioned with the paintbrush, so I picked it up. “Hello?”

“Beth?”

“No. Would you like to talk to her?”

“Oh. Is this Miss Martinez?”

Now I recognized the voice. “Yes,” I said warily.

“Sheriff Durrell here. I've got some good news for you and your brother, Miss Martinez. We just got the preliminary report from the coroner's office. We have an estimated time of death for the victim.”

I looked down at my sketch, at her quiet, staring face. How was that good news? “Oh,” I said.

“It's two p.m.”

I didn't understand. “But it was at night,” I said. “It was dark when we hit her.”

“We don't think you hit her, Miss Martinez. We think that girl died five, six hours earlier.”

I leaned forward slowly, holding the phone so tightly I thought it would break in my hand. “What?”

Beth put down her paintbrush. “What is it? Lucy, what's the matter?”

The sheriff kept talking. “Those samples we took from the car. There was some kind of animal fur on the license plate.”

“You mean … Jamie was right? It was a coyote?” I couldn't believe it. I was tingly and numb at the same time, as if something heavy was sliding off my body and the feeling was rushing back into my arms and legs all at once.

“Lucy, who are you talking to?” Beth came and stood next to me. I was gripping the phone, straining to hear his answer.

“Well, that's what we think. Your brother said you didn't know the exact spot where you hit whatever you hit. Maybe when you drove back, you went too far, or not far enough. And you found her instead.”

I could breathe now, huge gulps of air. But it still didn't make sense. “But she was near the road. If she'd been there all afternoon, in the daylight, wouldn't somebody else have seen her?”

“Well, two o'clock was the time of death. We don't know what time she was left there.”

When he said that—“left there”—I realized what it meant. Somebody had done this to her. Somebody had left her there, dead, on the highway.

“We'll drop off the car in a little while,” he said. “Okay, Miss Martinez? Can you put Beth on for a minute?”

I passed the phone to her and covered my face with my hands.

“What a relief,” I heard her say. “Jamie especially—well, they'll be so relieved, I know. But how did she die? Yes, I understand. It's terrible.” I spread my fingers, watching her, and she listened in silence, looking back at me. “They've talked to their parents. Sure. I think so. Yes, I think you're right. That's good of you, Stan. Thank you. Okay. Bye.”

She reached out and touched my arm. “Lucy, he's giving you guys a break on the beer.”

I pressed my forehead against my knees, closing my eyes. Was it really over? “Then we can go? Is it okay for us to go now?”

But I wasn't sure even as I said it. I kept seeing the girl's face, feeling the cool bundle of her charm bracelet in my hand. It seemed wrong to leave her. It seemed as wrong to leave her now as it had last night, in the rain, on the road.

Beth shook her head. “Not yet. He wants you to stay through tomorrow, at least.”

The dogs started barking out in the yard, and we heard the sound of the truck rumbling toward the house. Jamie and Kit were back.

We both got up, and the instant they walked through the door, I couldn't wait, I forgot what jerks they'd been and how mad I was, and I grabbed the first one who came in and wrapped my arms around him. It was Kit, and his shoulder felt warm against my face. Then he stumbled backward, his hands on my arms. He looked confused. “Hey, what's going on?”

But I was already hugging Jamie. “The police called. It wasn't us!”

“What?” They were both staring at me.

“We didn't hit her. She was already dead, hours before we even got there. They think it was a coyote! They think we hit a coyote.” The words came out of my mouth in a rush, tumbling over each other. Kit and Jamie just stood there.

But then Beth started explaining, and Kit threw his head back and whistled, long and low. “No way. No
way.
It
was
a coyote!” He punched Jamie's shoulder. “Jamie, it was a coyote, just like you said! Oh my God.” Kit grabbed Jamie and lifted him right off the floor.

Beth stepped aside, smiling. “And Stan—the sheriff is letting you off the hook on the drinking,” she said. “He said this was probably the scare of a lifetime for you guys.”

“Yeah!” Kit was reeling around, flushed and loud, banging the air with his fist. “Yeah, yeah, no kidding. Unbelievable.”

But Jamie just stared at the floor. The color had drained from his face, and he stood there, trembling. “I can't believe it,” he said. “I can't believe it's over.”

Beth touched his shoulder. “Believe it,” she said. “It's over.”

14

The rest of the day blurred past. I couldn't eat the sandwich they'd gotten me, couldn't eat dinner that night when Beth offered it. It was weird to think of doing something normal again. The police brought our car back around sunset. We were elated to see it, our dusty old sedan. It felt like a reunion. Jamie and Kit opened the windows, apologetic in front of the cops. It still reeked of beer.