Night of Fear (5 page)

Brody reached past T.J. to flick the receiver holder up and down. A slow smile formed. “You didn’t call anybody,” he said. “Not on this phone.”

He dropped the receiver. It clanked twice against the back of the phone booth and then dangled helplessly.

Brody yanked T.J. out of the phone booth and shoved him toward the street where the truck sat.

T.J. looked in all directions, hoping another car would come along. The street was deserted.

T.J. got in the truck. Brody closed the door and climbed in the other side.

“That was a stupid thing to do,” Brody said. “You might have got hurt, jumping out like that. You don’t want to get hurt, do you?”

“No.”

“All right, then. You do as I say from now on.”

T.J. nodded.

Brody started the truck. “Down,” he said.

“I won’t jump out again.”

“Down!”

T.J. bent forward and put his head on his knees. Next time, he would think it through before he made a move. He shouldn’t have tried it when there were no other people around. He should have waited until there was another car nearby, or people who would hear his shouts and rescue him.

The truck hit a chuckhole in the street. T.J. bounced, hitting his head on the dashboard.

He wondered what time it was. There was a clock on the dashboard of the truck but it didn’t work. Open House at school didn’t last long so his parents should be getting home soon. Any minute now, they would discover that he and Grandma Ruth were missing. Maybe they already had. Maybe the Open House got over early. His parents might already be looking for him.

He hoped they would call the neighbors first. They might think he had gone over to the Crowleys’ house to collect his pay and stayed to visit awhile, to hear about their trip. Maybe, when nobody answered at the Crowleys’, his parents would
go over there. They would see Salt and Pepper out in the pasture and know something was wrong.

Maybe by now his parents had found the message in the dirt. Even if they didn’t find the message, they might look in the barn, because the kittens were part of T.J.’s job. Or they might hear Grandma Ruth singing.

As soon as his parents opened the barn door and saw Grandma Ruth, they would know T.J. was in trouble. They knew that T.J. would never leave Grandma Ruth there by herself. If his parents found Grandma Ruth in the barn, they would call the police immediately. The cops were probably hunting for him already.

The parents at the Open House talked more about the robbery and murder than they did about their childrens’ progress in school. Everyone was horrified that such a violent crime had happened in their neighborhood.

“We need to organize a Crime Watch program,” someone said. “If we don’t, this kind of thing is going to occur more and more often.”

Several people decided to meet at Denny’s after the Open House, to discuss ways to keep the neighborhood safe. The Stensons were invited to attend.

“We told T.J. we’d be home right after the Open House,” Mrs. Stenson said.

“I’ll call him,” Mr. Stenson said, “and let him know we’ll be late.”

Mr. Stenson went to the pay phone in the hallway near the school office. There was no answer.

“Maybe we should go straight home,” Mrs. Stenson said, “just to be sure everything is all right.”

“T.J. probably has the volume on his stereo turned up again and can’t hear the telephone,” Mr. Stenson said. “I don’t know how he can stand to have it so loud. I’ve told him he’ll ruin his hearing.”

“Sounds like my son,” said one of the other parents.

“He only does it when we’re gone,” Mrs. Stenson said, “and Mother doesn’t mind. She doesn’t seem to notice that it’s full volume. Her hearing isn’t as sharp as it used to be.”

Mr. and Mrs. Ackerley, Craig’s parents, came by on their way to their car. “Are you folks coming to the meeting at Denny’s?” Mr. Ackerley asked.

“I’m a bit nervous about T.J. and his grandmother,” Mrs. Stenson said.

“I know what you mean. We left our two boys by themselves tonight, too, but that’s all the more reason to help start a Crime Watch program. With a good neighborhood plan in effect, there would be less cause for nervousness.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Mr. Stenson said. “Come on, Amelia.”

When the Stensons arrived at the restaurant, the other parents were speculating about where the bank robber might have gone. Mrs. Stenson went to the phone at the front of the restaurant and dialed home again. She let it ring ten times before she hung up.

When she joined her husband and the others, Mr. Stenson gave her a questioning look.

“Still no answer,” she said.

“Remember the day we tried to call him from the airport,
when the plane we were meeting was so late?” Mr. Stenson said. “We called and called and there was never any answer and we were sure something was wrong. When we finally got home, he was right there in the den, listening to his music. He didn’t hear the phone. He didn’t hear us come in the door.”

Mrs. Stenson nodded. She had been so certain that other time that T.J. was sick or injured, and so relieved when he was perfectly all right. No doubt it would be the same tonight; T.J. had his stereo volume cranked up to High and would be surprised to learn that they had tried to call him.

“That pecan pie sounds too good to resist,” Mr. Stenson told the waitress. “I’ll have it warm, with ice cream.”

“I’ll have the same,” Mrs. Stenson said.

One hundred miles east of Pine Ridge, in a service station near the freeway, Mr. and Mrs. Crowley, T.J.’s neighbors, listened while a mechanic explained what was wrong with their car.

“How long will it take you to fix it?” Mr. Crowley asked.

“Not long. An hour or two.”

“Good. We’ll go get a bite to eat and come back.”

“Better not come until after breakfast tomorrow,” the mechanic said. “It won’t take me long to fix it, but I can’t get the part I need until morning.”

Mr. Crowley looked at his wife and sighed. “We’d better find a motel,” he said.

“I’ll have to call T.J. again,” Mrs. Crowley said. “He’ll need to feed the animals tomorrow morning, too.” She put
the call on her credit card and let it ring a long time before she hung up.

“We can try again after we eat,” Mr. Crowley said.

T.J. rode in silence, hoping to hear sirens at any moment. By now, he thought, Mom and Dad are home. Maybe the Crowleys are home, too. They’ve found Grandma Ruth and called the police and every cop in the state is searching for me.

Soon a squad car will pull us over. Soon Brody will see blue lights flashing in his rearview mirror and hear the shrill scream of the highway patrol car’s siren. Soon this nightmarish ride will end.

He listened and listened but he heard only the rattling of the old blue truck.

Grandma Ruth sang “Holy, Holy, Holy” three times. She sang “The Old Rugged Cross” twice. She sang “Nearer My God To Thee.”

She was going to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” again but her throat was getting scratchy. She needed a cup of tea or a drink of water.

She looked around the empty barn. She wondered why David didn’t come. Or had he been here and left? Was he waiting for her at home? She couldn’t remember.

Putting her hat on the floor, she lay down on the hay to rest. Before long, she shivered. It was cold in this church and she couldn’t think why she was here. The preacher had left long ago. She decided to go home and fix herself a bowl of
nice, hot vegetable soup. That would take the chill from her bones.

Grandma Ruth stood, stretched, and walked to the door of the barn. She had to use both hands and push with all her strength to make the door slide open. She stepped outside, surprised to see that it was dark out. She had better hurry. Edward would be home from work and wondering why there was no dinner on the table. Her husband was a patient man, but he did like his meals served on time. She closed the door carefully behind her and set off down the road.

Pound, pound, pound.

T.J. heard a dull, steady noise.

The truck was idling again. Another red light, no doubt. T.J. moved his neck from side to side, trying to work the kinks out.

Pound, pound, pound. He strained his ears, trying to figure out what the throbbing sound was. Pound, pound.

A stereo! The pounding noise was the bass notes of a stereo. Every nerve in T.J.’s body was instantly alert, as if he had just been plugged into an energy socket. If there was music nearby, there had to be people. Kids, probably, walking along with a boom box. Or another car, with the radio volume turned up so high that the bass notes carried right through the closed windows of the truck.

The noise seemed to come from his left. T.J. sat up, looking quickly in that direction. Through the window on the driver’s side, he saw the source of the music. A minivan was stopped beside the truck, waiting to make a left turn. The driver of the
minivan nodded his head and snapped his fingers in time to the music. He didn’t look toward T.J. and the truck.

“Get back down,” Brody said.

T.J. ducked down again. His mind sped faster than a downhill skier in the Olympic Games. He could jump out. He could hitchhike to a telephone and call the police.

But what if Brody whipped the gun out of his pocket the second T.J. opened the door? What if he fired one, fatal shot before T.J. ever had a chance to ask the minivan driver for help?

I’ll have to move fast, T.J. decided. He inched his head up just far enough to see the traffic light turn yellow.

He jumped out of the truck, slammed the door behind him, and, crouching low, ran around the back of the truck. As he went past the back of the minivan, he banged on the rear window.

The music was louder now, a heavy rock beat that swirled in the air around T.J.’s head. The minivan driver swayed in time to the beat.

T.J., still crouching so he was out of Brody’s sight, reached up and thumped on the driver’s window.

The light turned green.

T.J. stood up. “Help!” he cried. “Let me in.” He tried to open the door but it was locked.

The blue pickup drove away.

The startled minivan driver peered through his window at T.J.

T.J. banged again.

“Hey, man!” the driver said. “Knock it off.”