All The Stars In Heaven (8 page)

“Archer’s a lucky guy,” Jay said as he followed Trish into the building. Behind them, the door closed slowly before he could notice Archer, a short distance away, his arms folded and a scowl on his face as he watched the couple disappear inside the house.

Chapter Eleven

Sarah set her books on top of the piano and slid onto the bench. No index cards were waiting for her on the stand, she noted with keen, though silent, disappointment. Apparently Jay had believed her at the museum when she’d told him they couldn’t see each other.

It’s for the best,
she told herself.
Feels lousy, but it’s for the best.

With an inaudible sigh, she set out her music, hoping she’d be awake enough to play it. Her new schedule was making school and playing for the ballet difficult. She just had to make it through the next few weeks until they started rehearsing with a full orchestra and wouldn’t need her anymore.

As she arranged the pages, one of the dancers approached the piano.

“Hi Sarah, I’m Trish.” Her brow furrowed. “Did you color you hair?”

Sarah’s hand went to her braid, now strawberry blond thanks to the
temporary
hair dye, as she fumbled for an explanation. “I was experimenting.”

“Oh. Looks good.” Trish nodded. “Well, anyway, there’s a big costume party this Friday. Jay’d like you to come.”

Sarah’s heart gave a funny little leap. “He knows I can’t.”

“Sure you can,” Trish said, frowning at her. “At Boston Costume on Broadway you’ll find outfits reserved for you
and
your cousin. They’re paid for and everything. All you have to do is convince him to come with you. Once you get to the party, we’ll—” She glanced toward the stage and the dozens of dancers warming up. “Take care of the rest. I promise you’ll get to be alone with Jay.”

“I can’t go,” Sarah said again, though her mind was already whirring through possible ways to explain such an event to her father.

Trish sat on the bench, forcing Sarah to scoot over. “Listen, Jay’s a really good guy. Any girl would be lucky to have him. And don’t tell me you aren’t interested. I can tell you are. So give him a chance.”

If only I could,
Sarah thought. “I can’t go,” she said again, more forcefully this time. “Please tell him no for me.”

* * *

Jay parked his motorcycle along the curb and took off his helmet. Glancing at his watch, he saw he had about seven minutes until Trish would be out of rehearsal. He’d offered to give her a ride because Archer was staying late to work on an article, and her car still wasn’t running—and because he was eager to hear if she’d convinced Sarah to come to the party.

The sounds of the marching band drifted toward him from the stadium. Posters were plastered all over campus, advertising the game with Princeton. He’d only been to a couple of football games in his two years at Harvard—law school plus an internship and a night job didn’t leave a lot of time for leisure activities. But Jay felt a sudden desire to go to the game, to grasp every last minute of his college experience that he could. All too soon it would be over, and he was fairly certain life would take him far from the charmed world of Cambridge. The northeast was beautiful, and he’d loved living here, but Seattle was calling him home with increasing persistence. Come June, he knew that’s where he was headed.

But for now he was here and wanted to savor the experience. For a brief minute, Jay allowed himself to fantasize about going to the game and taking Sarah. Since it was a night game it would probably be cold, but he’d buy one of those crimson blankets he’d wanted for a while. He’d wrap it around the two of them as they stood, cheering the team. He doubted she’d ever been to a game, and it was something every student ought to experience at least once. They’d share a hot chocolate. The overhead lights would shine down on the field and the top of her blond head. He’d coax a smile from her before the night was over.

The image seemed so real that for a second he imagined Sarah coming down the sidewalk toward him. Jay blinked and saw that it w
as
her. And she was alone. She held her books clutched to her chest, and her head was cast downward. It was a pathetic picture, and Jay felt a surge of sympathy. Something was really messed up in her life, and he wished he could fix it.

He waited until she was almost in front of him. “Hey, stranger.”

She looked up, a brief smile lighting her face before the old worry was back. She glanced toward the street.

“Lose your cousin?” Jay asked hopefully.

She shook her head. “He went to get the car. It’ll just take him a minute.”

“Too bad.” Jay set his helmet on the seat and stepped up on the sidewalk.

Sarah’s arms tightened around her books. Her eyes were worried, but she didn’t leave.

“I’ll be quick,” Jay said. “I had a great time with you at the museum. I’d really like to see you again, and there’s this party—”

“Trish told me,” Sarah broke in. “I can’t, Jay. My father would never let me go. And if by some miracle he did, Carl would have to come too, and he’d watch me like a hawk.”

“I think we’ve got the Carl problem solved—for the party, anyway. Go ahead and bring him. Trish has promised me he’ll be
plenty
distracted.” He glanced toward the rehearsal hall and saw the dancers starting to trickle out.

“It’s not just that. If I defy my father, he’ll be even more strict. He’s already looking for a reason to pull me out of school.”

“I
want
to understand this,” Jay said. “But you’re an adult. You don’t have to follow your father’s wishes when they’re ridiculous. Unless, of course, that’s an excuse. I’ve been around long enough to know the games women play. I really hope that’s not what this is.”

“It’s not,” Sarah said, looking hurt. “I wish—I haven’t been able to stop thinking about our hour at the museum—or about you.”

“Thinking will only get you so far.” Jay gave her a wan smile.

“But that’s as far as I can go. It would be a mistake for us to try to see—Jay!” Her mouth opened in a scream as she grabbed his hand, yanking him away from the bike. Behind them tires squealed, and an engine roared.

Sarah held on, pulling him across the sidewalk with more force than he’d have guessed her to have. Surprised, he stumbled forward, bumping into her as she tripped and fell back toward the grass. Her hand flailed in the air as she tried to catch herself, causing her books and papers to fly everywhere. Jay reached for her and missed. She hit the grass, her head snapping back sharply. His own fall continued, and he barely avoided landing on top of her, only just catching himself when his knee hit the ground beside her leg.

“Watch out!” a girl next to them shouted a warning. “He’s going to jump the curb.”

Jay twisted to follow the sound and saw a truck, less than ten feet away, barreling straight for them. There was no time to move, but instinctively he crouched over Sarah, hoping to somehow shield her with his body. Her eyes fluttered open, and she was gasping like she’d had the breath knocked out of her when she fell.

Jay squeezed his eyes shut, tensing for the moment they’d be hit. A deafening crash sounded behind them. The awful screeching of metal grinding on metal filled the air. Sparks flew up from the street. Glass shattered, spraying across the sidewalk and the people on it. What felt like rocks pelted his back. He lowered his face closer to Sarah’s and cupped his hands over her head, trying to protect her from the flying debris.

An engine revved and tires squealed again.
We’re not hit,
Jay realized. Miraculously the truck had missed them. He looked up and saw the twisted remains of his bike less than two feet away. The truck was backing up.

“Come on.” He reached for Sarah’s hands as he got to his knees. “We need to move before that lunatic comes back for a second pass.”

“So—sorry.” She looked around, dazed.

“This isn’t your fault.” He pulled her to her feet as she held her head and tried keeping her glasses, broken on one side, on her face. “Sarah, are you okay? Is your head—”

“I’m fine—can’t believe he’d do something like this.” She took one wobbly step before Jay put his arm around her.

“Who would? What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Is she okay?” another student asked, looking as concerned as he felt.

“I think so,” Jay said. “But she hit her head when she fell.” He looked around and saw a few other people getting up from the ground and staggering away in stunned silence.

“The truck’s coming back!” someone yelled. Jay glanced behind him and saw that it was. Wrapping his arm tighter around Sarah, he started to run with the others toward the closest building, Lowell House. Reaching the doors, he gently pushed her inside. “You’ll be safe in here,” he called over the head of another student, hurrying to get in the building.

Jay turned away from Lowell and ran a few steps back, scanning the lawn for anyone else who might have been hurt. The truck neared the sidewalk and went barreling past, toward the end of the street.

With adrenalin pumping and without stopping to think what he was doing, Jay sprinted after it. A sharp pain stabbed his foot, and he looked down to see a piece of his side mirror embedded in his shoe.

He yanked it out, ignored the pain, and kept running after the truck. “Someone get his license,” he called to the bewildered students standing around in various states of shock.

A couple of students responded to his plea and joined the chase, running alongside him. One woman pulled out her cell phone.

“He’s turning down Plympton,” a guy called. Jay sprinted toward the corner, straining to make out the letters on the back plate. But the truck was too fast, and by the time Jay reached the corner, it was too far away.

Anger surged through him as he stood there another second, then finally turned around.

“You all right?” the man who’d run with him asked.

Jay nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Sarah’s words after the crash finally registered, and he had a hunch about who was behind the wheel of that truck. If he was correct . . . It was one thing for the guy to punch him in the name of watching out for his cousin, but nearly running them down was another thing entirely. The nutcase belonged in jail.

Realizing he’d left Sarah without really making sure she was okay, he started to jog again. It only took him a minute to get back to Lowell, but he couldn’t find her inside. He went outside and saw that her things were gone from the lawn. Walking up and down the curb, he called her name and asked the other students if they’d seen a girl with broken glasses. Only one woman recalled seeing Sarah gathering her books and walking back toward the main campus.

Frustrated, Jay returned to the wreck of his bike. Angrily, he kicked a piece of tail pipe aside as he worried about Sarah.

If her cousin would do something like this out in public, what would happen when Sarah was alone with him?

Chapter Twelve

“Jay!” Trish stepped over the glass on the sidewalk and made her way to his side.

He looked up from the mangled remains of his motorcycle.

“You’re bleeding.” She pointed to his head.

Jay pressed his fingers to his temple and winced as he touched something sharp. He pulled his hand away and saw that it was covered with wet, sticky blood. For the first time he felt the trickle down the side of his face.

“What is it?” he asked Trish.

She moved closer, and he bent his head so she could see. “It looks like—” She reached up, fingertips carefully removing a piece of glass. “A mirror maybe?”

Jay glanced at the quarter-inch piece she held. “Yeah.” He touched his head again but couldn’t tell how bad the cut was. He tried to recall how long it had been since his last tetanus shot. “Stitches you think?”

“I can’t tell. But use this.” Trish pulled the scarf from her hair and held it out to him.

“No—I’m fine,” Jay reassured her. “I’d ruin your—”

“Shh.” She leaned closer, pressing the cloth to his head with shaking fingers. “Hold it tight there until we can get something better.”

“Thanks.” Jay felt ridiculous holding a woman’s scarf to his forehead.

“What happened?” Trish asked. “I heard the crash on my way out here.”

“Some idiot ran over my bike—and almost me—on purpose. He got away before I could get the license, but I’m pretty sure I know who can give it to me.”

It took a second for Trish to understand. “You think it was Sarah’s cousin?”

“One and the same.”

A campus police officer arrived on a bicycle and came over to get Jay’s information. He looked down at the wrecked motorcycle. “Wow. You okay?”

“I wasn’t on it at the time,” Jay assured him.

“Good thing,” the officer said. He took out a notepad and pen.

“He thinks he knows who did it,” Trish piped up. “And the guy’s a creep. He should—”

“I didn’t get a license plate, so there’s no point in making accusations.” On the other side of the officer, Jay shook his head.

“But—” Trish protested.

“What I really need is to do is get this cut taken care of and call my insurance company.” Jay looked around for his backpack and spotted it, still intact, on the sidewalk a few feet away.

“Can you describe the vehicle that hit your bike?” the officer asked.

“It was an old truck—Ford, I think,” Jay said. “The way the guy was swerving, he might have been drunk.”

“But no license?”

“Nah. The guy was too fast. Though maybe somebody else caught it.”

Jay groaned as an ambulance roared up the street. He looked around to see if anyone else was injured and spotted two girls sitting together on the curb about twenty feet away. “Hey, I think you should go see if they’re all right,” he said to the officer. “Some of the pieces flew pretty far, and one of those girls might be hurt.”

“Fill this out,” the officer said, handing him a small clipboard. “And don’t leave yet.”

“No worries. My mode of transportation has been slightly altered.” Jay attempted a lighthearted remark, but looking at the wreck all he could think of was Sarah. He scrawled his information across the form as a sense of urgency filled him. He needed to know she was okay.

“You’re still bleeding.” Trish leaned up on her tiptoes, wiping the drops of blood that had escaped the scarf and trickled down the side of his face.

Jay grabbed her hand, annoyed with the attention when Sarah was likely hurt as well or in continued danger. “I’m fine.”

Trish looked up at him, her honey-colored eyes brimming with tears. “I know, but a second earlier, a foot closer, and you’d have been”—she gulped but was unable to stop the tide of emotion
—“killed.”
She brought her hands to her face.

Trying to set his annoyance and worry aside, Jay pulled her close with his free hand. He held her as she cried. “I’m fine,” he reiterated. “It’s a scratch. Nothing serious.” He patted her back awkwardly.

Down the street the officer was talking with other students. One of the two girls Jay had seen sitting on the curb was being attended to by a paramedic. Jay glanced the other direction and saw several people milling around, but no sign of Sarah.

Where did you go so fast? Are you okay?
He didn’t want to think about her getting in the truck with that maniac.

The officer returned. He took the clipboard from Jay. “You didn’t write a time down,” he said as his eyes scanned the paper.

“Sorry,” Jay said. “It was—” He glanced at his watch. “About seven minutes ago. It happened so fast. One second we were talking, the next the truck was practically on top of us.”

“It jumped the curb?”

“Yeah. See the tire marks?” Jay tried to move toward the sidewalk, but Trish was still clinging to him.

“You say the driver might have been intoxicated. Any chance he’d blacked out? Did you get a look at him at all?”

“No,” Jay said. “But he was awake enough to know what he was doing. After he hit the bike, he backed up and came in for another pass, but the second time he swerved close by and then went on down the street.”

“And this young lady was with you?” The officer looked at Trish, who was quickly going into meltdown mode.

“Uh, no,” Jay said. “She’s just upset.”
About this, and what else?
he wondered. It didn’t seem normal for a girl to go on like this over her boyfriend’s roommate’s near-death experience.

The officer made some additional notes, and Trish continued to cry all over Jay’s shirt while he stood there worrying about Sarah. It seemed to take forever before Jay was free of them both and could finally collect his backpack and call his insurance company. After that the paramedics insisted on checking him, and it took another ten minutes to get both his head and foot looked at and bandaged. Fortunately the cut on his foot wasn’t too bad, but it looked like he’d be heading to the medical center to get a tetanus shot and stitches for his head. He’d do that as soon as his bike had been hauled away. And by then . . . well, Sarah was already long gone. The best he could do was hope she was okay—and worry.

Once the paramedics left, he walked over to Trish, who was sitting on the sidewalk near his bike.

“You okay now?” He hoped he wasn’t going to inspire a new flood with that question.

“Yeah.” She gave him a shaky smile. “Girls always feel better after they cry.”

“That’s because all their angst transfers to the guys they’re with.” He thought suddenly of Jane and all the crying she’d done—both happy and sad—last September during the day and a half they’d spent together in Washington, D.C. “I feel awful right now,” Jay said. “Didn’t know you had so much water in you. I’d hate to see you at a funeral, Trish.”

“Sorry.” She looked down at the ground, nudging a leaf with the toe of her shoe. “It’s been a rough week.”

“You and Arch?” Jay guessed.

She nodded. “You’re pretty perceptive for a guy.”

“For a guy.” Jay smiled. “Don’t give up on him yet. Arch’s been moping around the apartment the last couple of days. I figured something might be out of sorts with you two.”

“He has?” Trish looked up, a hopeful smile lighting her face.

“Yep. He’s been a real crab. So kiss and make up already,” Jay teased.

“Wish we could.” Trish sighed. “But I did a terrible thing.”

“Let me guess.” Jay stroked his chin. “Did you suggest he might make his own dinner?”

“Worse,” Trish said.

Jay raised his eyebrows. “Come on. Spill it.”

“I threw away his moose steak and lied about it.”

“You did?” Jay held his hand out for a high-five as he laughed out loud.

Trish slapped his hand.

“Heck. Arch ought to be thanking you. You probably saved both your lives by not eating that thing.”

“That’s what I thought. You should have seen it—completely green. And the
smell
.”

“You actually
opened
the package?” Jay asked.

Trish nodded. “I was going to try to cook it, but it was soooo bad. I bought a steak from the store instead and told Archer it was the moose. I should have known he’d be able to tell the difference since he’s hunted and eaten so many different animals.”

Jay nodded in agreement. “I can see where you got in trouble there.”

“The worst part is that Archer was out working on my car all afternoon. He was trying to do something nice for me, and I threw away his moose. Oh, Jay. He was
so
furious with me.”

“This
is
bad,” Jay agreed. “But if anyone can soften Archer’s heart, it’s you. I know he misses you, and I bet if you planned a nice evening for just the two of you, all would be forgiven. Oh, and you might have to go hunting with him.”

Trish rolled her eyes. “I was afraid of that.” But her smile was back. “Thanks, Jay. For letting me cry about everything, and for listening. You’re a great friend.” She stood up, leaned in, and gave him a hug.

“Anytime,” Jay said.

“And this is for you.” Trish pulled some papers from her bag. “I found these on the ground over by that tree. I thought maybe they belonged to Sarah. There’s an address on the back.” She placed the papers in Jay’s hand and turned to go. “See ya.”

Jay turned the papers—a choral arrangement—over and looked at the gold sticker on the back.

Summerfield Community Church

359 W. Mallory Avenue

Summerfield, MA 98110

“Thanks,” he called to Trish.

She turned and waved.

Pulling his eyes from the paper to his wrecked motorcycle, Jay thought again of the close call with the truck. Sarah had likely saved his life. But what of hers? He kicked at a bent tire and stared at the scattered scraps of metal—evidence that something in Sarah’s life was very, very wrong.