بخش 03 - فصل 37

37

Pete takes a deep, trembling breath and closes his cell phone. Everything is going around in his head like some nightmare amusement park ride, and he’s sure he sounded like an idiot. Or a murderer scared of getting caught and making up any wild tale. He forgot to tell Mr Hodges that Red Lips once lived in Pete’s own house, and he should have done that. He thinks about calling Hodges back, but why bother when he and those other two are coming to pick him up?

The guy won’t go to the house, anyway, Pete tells himself. He can’t. He has to stay invisible.

But he might, just the same. If he thinks I was lying about moving the notebooks somewhere else, he really might. Because he’s crazy. A total whack-job.

He tries Tina’s phone again and gets nothing but her message: ‘Hey, it’s Teens, sorry I missed you, do your thing.’ Beeep.

All right, then.

Mom.

But before he can call her, he sees a bus coming, and in the destination window, like a gift from heaven, are the words NORTH SIDE. Pete suddenly decides he’s not going to sit here and wait for Mr Hodges. The bus will get him there sooner, and he wants to go home now. He’ll call Mr Hodges once he’s on board and tell him to meet him at the house, but first he’ll call his mother and tell her to lock all the doors.

The bus is almost empty, but he makes his way to the back, just the same. And he doesn’t have to call his mother, after all; his phone rings in his hand as he sits down. MOM, the screen says. He takes a deep breath and pushes ACCEPT. She’s talking before he can even say hello.

‘Where are you, Peter?’ Peter instead of Pete. Not a good start. ‘I expected you home an hour ago.’

‘I’m coming,’ he says. ‘I’m on the bus.’

‘Let’s stick to the truth, shall we? The bus has come and gone. I saw it.’

‘Not the schoolbus, the North Side bus. I had to …’ What? Run an errand? That’s so ludicrous he could laugh. Except this is no laughing matter. Far from it. ‘There was something I had to do. Is Tina there? She didn’t go down to Ellen’s, or something?’

‘She’s in the backyard, reading her book.’

The bus is picking its way past some road construction, moving with agonizing slowness.

‘Mom, listen to me. You—’

‘No, you listen to me. Did you send that money?’

He closes his eyes.

‘Did you? A simple yes or no will suffice. We can go into the details later.’

Eyes still closed, he says: ‘Yes. It was me. But—’

‘Where did it come from?’

‘That’s a long story, and right now it doesn’t matter. The money doesn’t matter. There’s a guy—’

‘What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? That was over twenty thousand dollars!’

He stifles an urge to say Did you just figure that out?

The bus continues lumbering its laborious way through the construction. Sweat is rolling down Pete’s face. He can see the smear of blood on his knee, dark brown instead of red, but still as loud as a shout. Guilty! it yells. Guilty, guilty!

‘Mom, please shut up and listen to me.’

Shocked silence on the other end of the line. Not since the days of his toddler tantrums has he told his mother to shut up.

‘There’s a guy, and he’s dangerous.’ He could tell her just how dangerous, but he wants her on alert, not in hysterics. ‘I don’t think he’ll come to the house, but he might. You should get Tina inside and lock the doors. Just for a few minutes, then I’ll be there. Some other people, too. People who can help.’

At least I hope so, he thinks.

God, I hope so.