Specter (9780307823403) (17 page)

“Here you go. Can you manage to get in? Let me help.”

She lies on the seat, curling into a ball, knees almost to her chin, her eyes squeezed shut. “Hurry up, Dina,” she says.

I scramble into the driver’s seat, drop the keys, fumble them into the ignition, and guide the car from the parking lot. How do we get out of the park? There’s a sign—Broadway. I know that will take me to Hildebrand.

As we pull onto Broadway, she says, “You have to go on the freeway to get to the hospital, don’t you?”

“Yes.” I try to see her in the rearview mirror, but she’s too low. “Will that bother you?”

“It’s faster. I want you to drive fast.”

“I’ll do the best I can. Are you in pain?”

She doesn’t answer, just makes little mewling noises. At the stoplight I check the map again to get my bearings. Hildebrand to I-10. “Okay, Julie,”
I say, trying to sound confident, “we’ll be on the freeway in a few minutes. And then it’s not far to the hospital.”

There’s not much traffic on I-10 this time of day, and it’s moving at a fairly fast clip. I try to keep my speed around sixty, but I’m nervous. Each time Julie gives a little moan, my foot becomes heavier on the accelerator.

I swing around a pickup truck, pulling into the right lane ahead of him, and realize I’m going much too fast, so I pull it down to sixty again.

There’s a movement in my rearview mirror, and I look into it, startled. Julie looks back at me. She’s sitting right behind me, leaning on the back of my seat.

“Are you feeling better?” I ask her.

“I have to tell you something,” she says.

“Sure, Julie. What is it?”

“I hated Sikes because he killed my father and ran away, taking my mother and me with him. And I hated him more when he hurt me. And I hated Nancy because she didn’t stop him.”

“Oh, Julie.”

“You said you would stay with me, Dina. You promised. And then I found out that you didn’t mean it, that you’re going to die and leave me all alone. So I hate you, too.”

“Listen, Julie. It’s not like that. I—”

“When the car crashed, we were all supposed to die—Sikes and Nancy and me. Sikes is angry because I didn’t.”

“Julie, let’s talk to Dr. Lynn. She can help you.”

“Do you know how I did it? I put my arm around Sikes’s neck—like this!”

My head is jerked back. There’s a steel vise around my windpipe. I can’t breathe! I can’t see!

I slam on the brakes, and Julie flies forward against me, breaking her grip. There is a loud screech of tires behind us. I grapple with Julie, pulling her into the front seat. And at the same time I brace myself, waiting for the crash.

But instead, the door on Julie’s side is flung open, and someone dives into the car. He grabs Julie, trying to pull her away from me. “Put on your brake!” he yells.

I manage to get the car into park and yank the keys from the ignition. For a few moments we are a tangle of struggling bodies in the front seat. When I can manage to look up, still gasping for breath, he is on his knees, wedged between the dashboard and the front seat, pinning Julie down.

He’s a fairly young man, black felt western hat shoved to the back of his head. “I saw what happened from my pickup,” he says. “Then your car went all over the road. Sure give you credit for smarts, girl. Or else dumb luck. Now we got to get us off this damn freeway.”

An eighteen-wheeler pulls up in front of us. The driver comes back to check, then runs to his truck and radios for help. It doesn’t take long for a police car to arrive.

“She needs a doctor,” I tell them. “Oh, please
help her.” And I give the nearest policeman some of Julie’s background information. “Detective MacGarvey will know all about it.”

Julie doesn’t cry. She doesn’t make a sound. She just stares at me.

“Don’t hate me, Julie,” I tell her. “Look—I’ll take care of your treasure box for you. I’ll put it in the closet at Mrs. Cardenas’s house and keep it for you until you want it again.”

But she doesn’t answer.

It’s an hour and many questions later when Dr. Lynn and Dr. Paull come together into the small brown office where I’ve been waiting. I’m so glad to see them that I lean against Dr. Lynn, holding her tightly. MacGarvey has called and given them most of the story.

“After all that you drove here to the police station by yourself?” Dr. Paull asks.

“I followed the police car.” It’s funny, but I can’t remember much about it. I wonder what happened to the man in the pickup truck. The policemen must have his name.

“I’ll have to call Mrs. Cardenas,” I add.

“Detective MacGarvey did that for you.”

Detective MacGarvey comes into the room. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he says. “I’ve been matching descriptions given by robbery victims in a number of nearby states, and they seem to add up to William Kaines. It looks like he committed a couple of robberies here in the city a week before he died in that car crash.”

“Did you find out if he murdered Julie’s father?”

“She had that story wrong,” he says. “Maybe her mother told her that her father was dead. Maybe she jumped to the wrong conclusion. About three years ago a Gordon P. Gambrell was taken to a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, pretty badly beaten after a fight.”

“She said Sikes fought with her father!” I interrupt.

“When Gambrell got out of the hospital, his family was gone. There was something put out on his wife and child, but that information wasn’t on the computer printout I got on Kaines last week.”

“Can you call her father? Tell him about Julie?”

He nods. “It might take a day or two to track him down, but we’ll let him know Julie is here in San Antonio.”

The question I’ve been so afraid to ask: “They won’t arrest her for murder, will they?”

Dr. Lynn puts an arm tightly around my shoulders. “Julie will get the help she needs. Isn’t that right, Mr. MacGarvey?”

“It’ll come down to that,” he says. He gives me a pat on the shoulder. “If you want to go home now, you can.” He shakes hands with Dr. Paull and strides from the room.

“Can we sit here for just a few minutes?” I ask them. “I’m still shaking inside.”

“Of course,” Dr. Lynn says. “Julie’s doctor is with her now. It will be a little while before they’ll let me talk to her.”

We settle on the bench, one of them on each side of me.

“There’s something else I have to tell you,” I say.

“About Julie?”

“About me. I was fighting for my life.”

“We heard about that,” Dr. Paull says. “It must have been a terrifying experience.”

“You aren’t listening to what I’m saying,” I tell him. “I was fighting to stay alive. When it came right down to it, I must have wanted to live.”

Dr. Lynn grips my hand tightly.

“I’ve decided to work at those odds,” I say. “I suppose I’ve been doing it all along, but I couldn’t see beyond the anger.”

“Good for you,” Dr. Paull says. Then he gives kind of a scratchy little cough and takes my other hand.

Dr. Lynn smiles at me. “Why don’t we drive up next weekend so you can give this news to your friend Holley Jo?” she asks.

“I’d love to,” I answer. “And can I bring someone with me? His name is Dave.”