The Classy Crooks Club (26 page)

Betty is my anaconda. Flailing and screaming isn't going to get me anywhere. I need to let her think she's in control until the right moment arrives to whip up my machete hand and cut her crazy plans right in half.

I take a deep breath and try to calm down. “A cabin in the woods
does
actually sound kind of nice,” I say. “Tell me more about it.”

Betty starts talking about a fireplace and a woodpile and a nearby stream, and her driving starts to even out. I don't know if she's describing a real place or one that exists only in her deranged mind, but it doesn't matter as long as it's keeping her busy and calm. The shoulder I'm lying on feels like it's being wrenched out of its socket, so I brace my taped feet against the door and wriggle onto my back so I can relax and focus and make an escape plan. I'm lying on top of something lumpy, and I try to shift it aside with my hip, but it won't budge no matter how I squirm. It's almost like it's attached to me or something.

My lock-picking kit!
For the first time, I feel the tiniest ray of hope.

“That sounds beautiful,” I say to Betty. “Tell me more about the house. What does it look like inside?”

As she slips further into her daydream, I arch my upper body as much as I can, and I'm able to worm the tip of a finger under the closure of my lock-pick pouch. I fake a bunch of sneezes to cover the noise of the Velcro pulling apart, and Betty pauses. “Are you okay, dear?”

“I'm fine,” I say. I try not to move too much under the blanket as I struggle to pull out a pick. It turns out to be one of the blunt ones, so I drop it on the seat behind me and strain for another. “What were you saying about the bathtub?”

The second pick I grab is one of the sharp, hooked ones, like what a hygienist uses to scrape your teeth. I turn back onto my side so I'll have more room to maneuver and start trying to poke it through the tape. The way I have to contort makes my shoulders and wrists ache, but the pick does its job, and it takes me only a few minutes to make a small hole. Betty's still talking, and I don't think she's noticed a thing. When I feel the tape start to give, hope expands in my chest like a helium balloon. I can do this. I'm going to get out of here.

After what is probably less than ten minutes but feels like hours, Betty says, “Doesn't that sound wonderful, dear?”

I've been so focused on the tape that I haven't been listening at all, but I say, “Yes, it really does . . .
Grandma Betty
.”

The words have exactly the distracting effect I'd intended, and Betty lets out a happy sigh as the final strands of duct tape snap. “Oh, AJ,” she says, her voice choked and teary. “We're going to be so happy together. This is everything I've ever wanted.”

“Me too,” I say as I pull my cramped wrists apart and rotate my hands behind my back. “You're right about Grandma Jo. She never appreciated me the way you do.” I feel around in my shorts pockets for my phone before I remember Grandma Jo confiscated it days ago. The only thing in any of my pockets is a stiff, thick piece of paper folded into quarters: Brianna's birthday party invitation. Great. Like
that's
going to do me any good.

Concentrate on getting your feet free
, I tell myself.
You'll think of another plan
.

Careful to stay under the blanket, I roll onto my back, bend my knees, and start picking at the tape on my ankles. It goes much faster now that I have full use of my hands, and before long, I'm totally free. For a moment, all I feel is pure joy, but then I realize I have no idea what to do next. I can't exactly throw myself out of this speeding car and onto the highway. I hook the toe of my sneaker around the door handle and tug, figuring Betty will have to pull over if the open-door alarm goes off, but nothing happens—she must have the child locks on. I could lean over the front seat, grab the wheel, and crash the car into the median, but without a seat belt, I'd probably fly through the windshield. I'm not going to get very far with broken arms and legs.

I need to play into Betty's weaknesses somehow and make her stop the car. But what
are
Betty's weaknesses? If the last hour has taught me anything, it's that I don't really know her at all.

And then something so obvious occurs to me that I almost groan out loud.

I
am Betty's weakness.

It takes me a few minutes to come up with a solid plan. I practice each motion over and over in my head until I'm sure I can do them without hesitating, the way I sometimes review soccer plays before I fall asleep. I'm going to get only one chance at this, so I have to get it right.

When I'm sure I'm completely ready, I snake a hand out from under my blanket, pop one of the tennis balls off the leg of Betty's walker, and wedge it deep between the seat cushions, remembering what she told me about how hard it is to walk when it's uneven. Then I start to cough violently, the way I used to when I was little and wanted to convince my mom I was too sick to go to school.

Betty breaks off in the middle of a sentence. “Are you
sure
you're all right, dear?”

I wheeze like something's caught in my throat. “Water,” I choke between coughs. “Help!”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Betty sounds incredibly alarmed, and I hear the turn signal flip on. “You're okay,  AJ. Don't worry. Grandma's here to help you.” My throat is starting to hurt, but I keep up the fake coughing until I feel the car pull onto the shoulder and roll to a stop.

Perfect.

Betty grabs a water bottle from her cup holder and opens the driver's-side door. The minute I see her struggle into a standing position, I sit up and scramble into the passenger's seat. My head swims and black dots dance at the corners of my vision—the drugs Betty gave me are probably still in my system—but I manage to grab the keys out of the ignition.

“What the—” Betty starts to say as she notices what I'm doing. She lunges for me, claws at my shoulder, and tries to catch hold of my Coke-stained shirt, but her cotton gloves make it impossible for her to get a good grip. I twist violently and wrench the fabric out of her hands, then snatch her glasses right off her face. She cries out and tries to catch my wrist, but I grab her enormous handbag from the passenger's seat and use it as a shield, and she rears up and bumps her head on the doorframe. Something tumbles onto the driver's seat, and I seize it automatically—the more potential weapons I can take from her, the better. Then I throw open the passenger's door, and in seconds I'm out on the asphalt on my own two feet, glorious open highway stretching away from me in every direction.

Betty holds onto the hood of the car and makes her way toward me as quickly as she can. “Get back here!” she screeches. Her voice sounds incredibly strange all of a sudden, and when I look down at what I'm clutching in my sweaty, shaking fingers, I see why.

Oh my God,
I'm holding Betty's dentures in my hand
.

My stomach lurches with disgust, and I shriek and throw them as hard as I can. They land in the middle of the highway, where an SUV runs over them and scatters individual false teeth all over the road. I throw the glasses next and wait until I see a car drive over them and snap them right in two. And then I run.

When I look back over my shoulder, Betty's trying to follow me, leaning on the median for support and moving faster than I would've expected. She must be running on adrenaline, like those mothers you see on TV who suddenly have super strength for the minute it takes to lift cars off their babies. “You ungrateful little—” she pants.

I don't hear what Betty calls me over the sound of the semi that rushes by on my right, so close that the wind it creates hits me like a wall and almost knocks me over. I scrape my shin as I scramble over the concrete median, and blood trickles down my leg. But I put it out of my mind; I can deal with that later, when I'm safe. The pain actually makes my mind feel sharper.

There's a glowing green gas station sign on the other side of the highway, no more than half a mile away, and I set my sights on it. At the best of times, I could run that distance in three minutes flat, and even semidrugged, I should be able to make it in less than ten. I'm sure I'll find someone there who can help me.

It's amazing how many cars are on the highway this late at night—there's a pretty steady stream of traffic in all three lanes. But the speeding cars feel far less dangerous than the woman behind me, who's now screaming, “
Annemarie, I love you! Don't leave me! 
” When I glance back, she has her walker out and is plowing toward me as its uneven legs totter and tip. Her blue-tinted hair whips around in the cars' slipstream, there's a deranged fire in her eyes, and one of her bony hands is outstretched toward me like a zombie claw.

The moment there's a break in the cars, I rush out onto the highway and sprint for the barrier on the other side. I'm a little woozy, and my adrenaline barely carries me across before a blue van speeds by behind me, tossing a few stray pieces of gravel into the backs of my legs. It lets out a loud honk as it passes. “Thank you,” I whisper to the traffic gods as I press my hands against the cool concrete barrier.

When I turn around to check on Betty, she's still on the other side, standing under a streetlight. She looks so helpless and frail that a small part of me actually feels bad for her. But a much larger part wants to get as far away from her as possible.

I climb over the barrier and fly toward the gas station as if my life depends on it.

I
start yelling for help when I'm a block or so away from the gas station, hoping someone filling up their tank will hear me and rush to my rescue. But nobody comes, and when I finally arrive, panting and sweaty, I realize the station is closed for the night. There's not a single car at the pumps, and the little convenience store is dark and empty. I push on the glass door with all my strength, just to make sure, but it's definitely locked. A sign in the window informs me that it'll open again at six in the morning.

Good thing a locked door has no power to keep me out. I've been preparing for this exact moment all month.

I've got seven lock picks left, and one of them is the squiggly tipped one used for raking the pins. My hands tremble as I fumble the pick and the tension wrench out of my pouch, but I hear Edna's voice in my head telling me I'm a hollow reed, that I should look inside the lock with my third eye and politely ask it to open. “Please,” I whisper into the little silver keyhole. “I really, really need to get inside and use the phone.” I feel completely ridiculous, but there's nobody here to see me, and I'm desperate.

And maybe there really is something to it, because for the first time ever, the pins seem
eager
to pop into place. After I rake them a couple times, four of the five bounce neatly up into the cylinder. Number five is trickier, but in less than three minutes, I get that one, too—a personal record. I wish I could tell Edna. The wrench turns in my hand, and I'm through the door and inside the cool, quiet store, which smells like gasoline and coffee. I can't turn the overhead fluorescents on without giving away my location, but everything glows softly in the light of the humming drink coolers along one wall. I slide the dead bolt into place, and it makes me feel a little safer.

Then again, Betty can probably pick locks too.

The clock above the counter reads 1:18 a.m., only a little more than an hour from when Betty and I started driving, and I'm relieved that we can't be that far out of town. I know from watching movies that there are sometimes silent alarm buttons in gas stations, but I can't find anything like that behind the counter, so I grab the grimy beige handset instead. There are oily orange smudges all over the receiver, as if the clerk had been talking on the phone while eating Cheetos.

I'm about to dial 911, but then I think about the story I'll have to tell them when someone answers.
My grandmother's crazy old-lady friend who can't even walk drugged me with a Slurpee and tied me up with duct tape and tried to take me to a secret cabin in the woods, but I escaped and ran across the highway and picked a lock on a convenience store
. Nobody's going to believe that. If I were a 911 operator, I wouldn't believe it either.

My heart pounds as I glance outside the door, half expecting to see Betty out there. Taking her keys and glasses would've slowed her down for sure, but I'm willing to bet she knows how to hot-wire a car, and any good criminal would keep a spare pair of glasses in her purse. It's only a matter of time before she peels into this Citgo station and finds me.

I can't call my grandmother, since she doesn't have a cell phone, and I don't know Cookie's or Edna's numbers. The only numbers I do know are my parents' and Ben's—all useless—and Maddie's cell number, which seems like my best bet. She won't be able to help me herself, but if she wakes up her parents, I'm sure they'll come get me. I hate to ask Maddie for help, considering how our last conversation went, but I know she'll see that what's happening right now is much more important than our fight. Plus, I can't think of any other options.