Don't Cry Now (19 page)

She finally located the phone book on the floor by the water cooler next to several large blue bottles, two empty, one full. Bonnie pushed herself out of her chair toward it and bent down, hearing her knees snap, like dry twigs.
Suddenly the room was spinning. For one terrifying second, Bonnie couldn't differentiate between the ceiling and the floor. “God, help me,” she whispered, her fingers grabbing for something to hold on to as she closed her eyes, tried desperately to maintain her delicate balance. “Stay calm. Don't panic. This will pass.” Bonnie counted to ten, then slowly opened her eyes.

The room had stopped dancing, although, like lovers not ready to part, it was still swaying. Bonnie waited, the fingers of her right hand digging into the thin phone book, twisting and tearing its edges. She wondered whether her eyes would be able to focus, whether she would be able to read the tiny print. She had to get out of here. She had to get home and into the comfort of her own bed. Damn Rod anyway. Where was he?

Bonnie pushed herself up, the phone book in her hand serving as an anchor, steadying her in place. Slowly, she returned to the phone, reaching for it with one hand as she flipped to the yellow pages with the other. The loud buzz of the receiver vibrated against her ear like a pesky insect, as she located the listing for the cab company and punched in the first few numbers.

It was then that she became aware of other sounds—a door shutting in the distance, footsteps in the hall. Slow and deliberate, the footsteps were coming this way.
You're in danger
, Joan shouted through the phone wires. Bonnie dropped the phone, heard it crash at her feet.
You're in danger
, Joan cried again from the floor.
You're in danger
.

“And you're an idiot,” Bonnie said angrily, not sure if she was addressing Joan or herself, her heart pounding, her head spinning. “You're making yourself crazy, that's what you're doing.”

The footsteps drew closer, hovering just outside the staff room door. Bonnie held her breath, unable to move. It's just the custodian, she told herself, come to lock up. Maybe he'd noticed her car was still in the parking lot and was checking up on her, making sure she was all right.

Was it just a coincidence that her car had failed to start?

Or had someone tampered with it?

“Oh God,” Bonnie said out loud. Much too loud, she realized, as the staff room door pushed open. “No!” Bonnie screamed as a man appeared in the doorway.

The man jumped three feet in the air. “Jesus Christ,” he gasped, spinning around, head jerking warily over his shoulder, as if afraid someone was behind him. “What's the matter? What's going on?”

“Mr. Freeman?” Bonnie asked, steadying herself long enough to allow his features to sink into her conscious mind.

“Mrs. Wheeler,” he acknowledged, as if he should have known. “What's the matter? Why did you scream?”

“You scared me,” Bonnie admitted, after a pause. “I didn't know who it was.”

“Who'd you think it was, for Pete's sake? The bogeyman?”

“Maybe.” Bonnie collapsed into the chair behind her. Josh Freeman stared at her with puzzled eyes.

“Are you all right?”

“I'm feeling a little dizzy.”

Josh moved directly to the water cooler, poured her a cup of water, brought it to her side. “Have some of this.”

Bonnie took the paper cup from his hand, brought it to her lips, finished the contents in one gulp. “Thank you.” He had a kind face, she thought, surprised, as she'd been at Joan's funeral, by the wondrous clarity of his eyes.

“Feel better?”

“Hopefully. Sorry if I frightened you.”

“No harm done,” he said.

“I didn't realize you were still here.”

“I guess we're the last ones.”

“My car won't start. I was just about to call a cab.”

He hesitated. “Do you live far from here?”

“No. Just over on Winter Street. A couple of miles.”

Another hesitation. “I could give you a lift.”

“Really?”

“Is the idea so shocking?”

“It's just that you've been avoiding me for some time now,” Bonnie said.

“I guess I have,” he admitted. “Have the police made any arrests yet?”

Bonnie shook her head, trying not to appear too startled by his abrupt change in thought.

“Why don't we talk on the way home?” he suggested.

Bonnie nodded, rising unsteadily to her feet and following him out of the staff room into the long hallway. So, they were finally going to talk, and on his initiative, no less. She couldn't have planned it any better herself, she thought, a sudden twinge poking her in the ribs, like a finger. Maybe it
had
been planned, the twinge warned her. Only not by her. Maybe Josh Freeman had deliberately tampered with her car. Was it just a coincidence that he was here waiting for her just when her car wouldn't start?

Except why would he do that? Bonnie wondered impatiently, forcing herself to keep up with his pace. Why would he tamper with her car? Unless he'd had something to do with Joan's death, unless he was the danger Joan had been trying to warn her against. But what kind of danger could Josh Freeman possibly be to her? And why should she have reason to fear him?

If anything were to happen to her, she realized as they neared the end of the corridor, no one would know where she was. No one would know where she had disappeared. No one had seen her with Josh Freeman. No one had seen them leaving the school together. No one would know who was responsible should anything happen to her. She should run from his side immediately, scream for the police. At the very least, she should return to the staff room and call for a taxi. Common sense dictated that she go nowhere with this man.

“Coming?” he asked, opening the door to the outside, waiting for her to catch up.

Bonnie took a deep breath, then followed him outside.

“S
o, what made you want to be a teacher?” he asked unexpectedly as he turned his car onto Wellesley Street.

Bonnie was pressed against the passenger door of the small foreign car, her right hand gripping the door handle, in case she had to make a sudden, unscheduled exit. “It's just something I always wanted to do,” she answered, trying to be reassured by his awkward attempt at conversation. “From the time I was a little girl, I just always knew I wanted to teach. I'd get all my dolls together and arrange them in rows, teach them to read and write.” What was she jabbering about? Was she afraid that if she stopped talking, he might pounce? “Of course, I was a better teacher back then,” she said.

“Something tells me that you're a very good teacher right now.”

She forced a smile. “I like to think I am. Of course you can't reach everybody.”

“You sound like you have someone particular in mind.”

Bonnie thought of Haze, of her frustrating encounter with his grandparents. No wonder he was so angry all the time, she thought.

“How did it go tonight?” Josh asked, as if able to read her thoughts. “Were you very busy?”

“Pretty much,” she answered. “What about you?”

“Full house,” he said, an engaging smile appearing unexpectedly on his face. She'd never seen him smile before, she realized. He looked nice when he smiled. “A far cry from the school I used to teach at,” he was saying.

“In New York,” she stated. Were they actually making small talk? Was he really confiding in her something about himself?

He nodded, the wavy half smile vanishing into a thin straight line, like the line on a heart monitor after the patient has died.

“What made you come to Boston?” she asked.

“I needed a change,” he said. “Boston seemed as good a place as any.”

“Do you like it here?”

“Very much.”

“And your family?” She suddenly recalled that his wife had been killed in some kind of horrible accident. At least that was the rumor, she remembered, a feeling of dread seeping into her veins like an intravenous drip. Maybe it hadn't been an accident at all. Maybe he'd murdered his wife, just like he'd murdered Joan, just like he was about to murder her. Maybe all this small talk was simply a way of relaxing her before the kill.

“I'm alone” was all he said.

“It must be hard to start over in a new city when you don't know anyone,” she ventured, her voice quiet, strained. It was hard to carry on two conversations at once, even if one conversation was all inside her head.

“I didn't expect it to be easy.”

“Have you made any friends?”

“Some.”

“Did you consider Joan a friend?” She'd meant the question to sound casual, but her voice stuck on Joan's name, underlining it and dislodging it from the rest of the sentence, sending it bouncing off the car windows.

“Yes, I did,” he said, eyes resolutely on the road ahead.

“Were you having an affair?” Bonnie asked, throwing
caution to the proverbial wind. What the hell, she reasoned. If he'd killed Joan, if he was planning to kill her, she might as well die knowing
something
.

“No,” he said, after a pause. “We weren't having an affair.”

“Would you tell me if you were?”

“Probably not,” he said, the wavy little half smile temporarily reappearing.

“What exactly was your relationship?” Bonnie asked, knowing she'd asked the question before, wondering if, once again, he'd tell her it was none of her business.

“We were friends,” he said instead. “Kindred souls, you might say.”

“In what way?”

He thought for several long seconds. “We shared an inner emptiness, if you will,” he said finally, a trifle self-consciously. “We'd both known great tragedy. It drew us together, gave us some common ground.”

Bonnie phrased her next statement carefully. “I understand that your wife died in an accident—”

“A car accident, yes,” Josh said quickly. “She and my son.”

“Your son?”

“He was two years old.”

“My God. I'm so sorry.”

Josh nodded, gripped the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles growing white with the strain. “It was winter. The roads were bad. Her car hit some black ice and skidded into oncoming traffic. It wasn't anyone's fault. It's a miracle really that more people weren't killed.”

“That's so awful.”

“Yes, it was.” There was a long pause. “So, you see, I understood something of the grief Joan carried around inside her all the time. I knew what it was like to lose a child. I knew what she was going through.”

“When you were together, what did you talk about?” Bonnie asked.

“What do friends talk about?” he mused. “I don't
know. Whatever was uppermost in our minds at the time, I guess. The real estate business, teaching, her kids, her mother….”

“Her mother?”

“That surprises you?”

“What did she tell you about her mother?”

“Not much. That she had a drinking problem, that she was in a nursing home.”

“You knew Joan's mother was in a nursing home?”

“Was it a secret?”

“Have you ever visited her?”

“No. Why would I?”

Bonnie stared out the front window, consciously trying to slow things down. The conversation was moving too rapidly, was in danger of getting away from her. She needed time to digest everything he had told her, time to organize her thoughts. He was giving her too much information too fast. Why, she wondered, when he'd been so unwilling to talk to her before?

“What about Sam?” she asked.

“Sam? What about him?”

Hadn't she just asked that? “I understand he's in your art class.”

Josh Freeman nodded. “He is.”

“Is he a good student?”

“Very good. He's quiet, works hard, keeps mostly to himself.”

“Has he talked to you at all since Joan was killed?”

“No. I tried to approach him once, but he made it pretty clear he wasn't interested.”

Bonnie's eyes traveled across the dark road, expecting to see the familiar side streets—DeBenedetto Drive, Forest Lane. Instead she saw Ash Street and Still Meadow Road. “Where are you going?” she asked, bracing herself in her seat.

“What?”

“I said, where are you going? Where are you taking me?”

“I'm taking you home. Where do you think I'm taking you?”

“This isn't the way to my house,” she told him, her earlier panic surfacing. She debated whether to open the car door, whether to throw herself out of the moving vehicle.

“You said to turn west on South Street.”

“This isn't west,” she told him. “It's east.”

“Then I guess I turned the wrong way,” he said easily. “I've always had a lousy sense of direction.” He slowed the car, but instead of turning it around, he pulled it over to the side of the road.

Bonnie's hand tightened on the door handle, her eyes frantically scanning the road for other cars, other people. There was no one. If she tried to run, he'd chase after her. How long before his hands were across her mouth, muffling her screams?

“Do you want to tell me what you're so afraid of,” he said.

Bonnie's eyes continued searching the side of the road. “Who said I'm afraid?”

“Do you always react so violently when someone turns the wrong way?”

Bonnie swiveled around in her seat to face him. “Did you kill Joan?” she asked directly, deciding she had nothing to lose.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I'm serious.”

“Of course I didn't kill her. Did you?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I'm serious.”

“Of course I didn't kill her.”

And suddenly they were laughing. It started as an im
promptu burst of giggles and ended with great whoops of glee. Tears streamed down Bonnie's face.

“I think that was probably the most ridiculous conversation I've ever had,” he said.

“I wish I could say the same thing,” Bonnie told him, thinking that she'd had her fair share of ridiculous conversations of late.

“You honestly think I might have killed Joan?”

“I don't know what I think anymore,” Bonnie admitted. “Your name was in her address book, I saw you at her funeral, you wouldn't talk to me, you deliberately ignored me. Why? Why wouldn't you talk to me?”

“I was scared,” he said flatly, his turn to stare out the front window. “I move to a new city to try and put my life together, and the first real friend I make gets murdered. Not only that, but I find myself being questioned by the police. Pretty scary stuff, even for a native of New York.”

“What sort of questions did the police ask you?”

“Their questions were mostly about you, actually.”

“Me?”

“What my impressions of you were, if I thought you were mentally stable, if Joan had ever said anything to me about being afraid of you.”

“If Joan was afraid of
me
?”

“They made it quite clear you were their prime suspect.”

Bonnie laughed. “No wonder you didn't want to talk to me.”

“It was a bit unnerving.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You,” he said, the soft wave of his smile growing bolder, threatening to linger. “The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous the notion of you shooting anybody seemed. And then when I saw you in the staff room tonight, looking so scared and vulnerable, I decided I was being silly, and that Joan would have been quite angry with me.”

“Joan? What do you mean?”

“She liked you. She once said that if the circumstances had been different, she thought the two of you could have been great friends.”

“I doubt that,” Bonnie said, uncomfortable with the notion.

“You're not that dissimilar, you know.”

“Joan and I were nothing alike,” Bonnie insisted, her good spirits quickly evaporating, her nausea hovering.

“Physically, no, but in other more important ways…”

“I've never had a problem with alcohol, Mr. Freeman.”

“I wasn't alluding to Joan's drinking,” he said, as Bonnie squirmed in her seat. “I was thinking more of her honesty, her persistence, her sense of humor.”

“Did Joan ever say anything to you about my daughter?” Bonnie asked, changing the subject.

“Just that she was a beautiful little girl.”

“Anything else?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“What about my brother?”

“Your brother?”

“Nick Lonergan.”

He looked puzzled. “The name doesn't ring any bells.” He paused, his head tilting toward her, forcing her eyes to his, like a slow magnet. “What are all these questions about, Bonnie? What are you afraid of?”

Bonnie took a deep breath, releasing it slowly, watching it form a thin patch of film on the car's front window. “I'm afraid that whoever killed Joan might be after me and my little girl. I'm afraid that nobody believes we're in any danger, and that they won't believe it until it's too late.” She started to cry.

In the next second, his arms reached out for her, drawing her toward him, hugging her tightly to his chest while she sobbed. “It's okay,” he was saying, soothing her as if she were a child. “Let it out. It's okay. It's okay.”

“I'm so scared that somebody is going to hurt my
baby,” she sobbed, “and there's nothing I can do to stop them. And I'm so tired and I feel so sick, and I never get sick, goddamn it. I never get sick.”

“Nobody's going to hurt your little girl,” Josh Freeman told her, smoothing her hair with repeated strokes of his hand.

She looked up at him. “Do you promise?” she asked, feeling foolish, but needing to hear the words.

“I promise,” he said.

 

By the time he pulled into her driveway, Bonnie's tears were dry. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I had no right to lay that on you.”

“Don't be sorry,” he told her. “Are you all right?”

Bonnie nodded. Rod's car was in the driveway, although Sam was still out in Joan's red Mercedes. “I think I'll make myself a cup of tea and get right into bed.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

Bonnie pushed open the car door. “Thanks for being there,” she told him sincerely, climbing out of the car as the front door to her house opened and Rod appeared in the doorway.

“Anytime.”

Bonnie closed the car door and Josh backed out of the driveway. In the next second, Rod was at her side. “Who was that?” he asked, folding her inside his arms, kissing her cheek. “Where's your car?”

“In the school parking lot,” she told him. “It wouldn't start. Josh gave me a lift home.”

“Josh?”

“Josh Freeman, Sam's art teacher.”

“That was nice of him.”

“He's a nice man,” she said.

“Wasn't he at Joan's funeral?”

“They were friends,” Bonnie said, about to say more when Rod interrupted.

“Bonnie, you're not sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Let the police deal with Joan's murder, Bonnie. You're an amateur. You could get hurt.” He led her inside the house.

“Josh wouldn't hurt me,” Bonnie said, more to herself than to her husband, amazed at her change of heart. Less than half an hour ago, she was afraid the man was about to kill her. Now she was convinced he'd never hurt her. “Where were you tonight?” she asked, as they entered the kitchen. “I called to see if you could pick me up, and Lauren said you'd gone out.”