Save Me (21 page)

Chapter Forty-eight

Rose was in the driver’s seat with Melly in the backseat, unhappy. John was gurgling in his car seat, transfixed by his amazing plastic keys, and Princess Google was curled up next to him. They were an hour from the lake house, stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in rush-hour traffic when Melly announced that she wanted to call Kristen back. But Rose had left her cell number on the scrap of paper at home.

“Why didn’t you bring it with you?” Melly asked, frowning.

“I forgot, and it’s not in my phone because she called us on the house phone. Why do you want to call her back anyway?”

“I want to tell her about the Kristenburgers and a drawing I made for her.”

“We can tell her later, or email her.”

“Do you have her email?” Melly asked, with hope.

“No. It’s on the paper at home, too.” Rose couldn’t remember the email, which was an incomprehensible combination of letters and numbers, more password than email address. “We can write her when we get back.”

“Can’t we turn around?”

“No, honey. It’s too far.” Rose gestured at the traffic, red lights in a line like an airport runway, heat broiling from their hoods in wiggly waves. The clouds had cleared for another unseasonably hot day.

“I really want to talk to her, Mom. She loves Kristenburgers. I told her I would make them.”

“We can tell her another time.”

“And the picture I made for her, it was of Albus Dumbledore, and she loves him. I never got to give it to her.”

“We can send it to her when we go home.”

Melly looked out the window, quieting.

Rose felt a pang. She knew it wasn’t really about the drawing or the Kristenburgers. Melly was having a hard time saying good-bye to Kristen. “You okay, sweetie?”

“Fine.”

“Wait, I have an idea.” Rose reached into her purse and extracted her cell phone. “I don’t need her cell phone. I have her parents’ number and I can call her at the house.”

“Good!” Melly looked over, smiling. “But not while we’re driving.”

“We’re stopped now.” Rose double-checked. They were not only stopped, they were practically parked. She thumbed to her phone log, got the Cantons’ home number, pressed CALL, and let it ring. The call was picked up almost immediately by an older woman, probably Kristen’s mother. Rose said, “Hello, Mrs. Canton?”

“No, I’m sorry, who’s this?”

“Rose McKenna, the mother of one of Kristen’s students. We spoke with her this morning, and I wanted to tell her one more thing. Is she in?”

“Oh, you must be the woman leaving those messages.”

“Yes, sorry, that’s me. Thanks for giving them to her.”

“I didn’t. Is she the daughter?”

Rose didn’t understand. She felt like they were having a conversation of non sequiturs. “Do you know where Kristen is?”

“No, I never met her or the Cantons. I’m the housesitter. I was sent by the agency. They do the interviewing.”

“Is this her parents’ home, the Canton residence?” Rose asked, confused. The address she’d written down the other day at school popped into her mind. “Roberts Lane, Boonsboro, Maryland?”

“Yes, this is the Canton residence, but the professor and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Canton, are on sabbatical in Japan. I don’t know the family.”

“But isn’t Kristen living there?”

“No. Nobody lives here this year, but me and two cats.”

Rose felt mystified. Kristen had said she was home with her parents. “Do you have any address or number for Kristen?”

“No. You’re the second person who called for her today, though. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of something.”

“Sure, thank you.” Rose pressed END, and Melly looked over, frowning.

“What’s the matter? Did she go out?”

Rose didn’t understand, and she didn’t want to tell Melly that Kristen had lied. “The woman said she wasn’t there.”

“Maybe she went to her other house.”

“What other house?”

“Her house in Lava Land.”

“What’s Lava Land?” Rose looked over, confounded. “Is Lava Land a real place? Is this a Harry Potter thing?”

“No, Mom.” Melly giggled. “It’s real, it’s near a beach.”

“Ms. Canton has a house at the beach? Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Rose gave up. It didn’t matter where. “How do you know about her beach house?”

“She told me. She loves the beach. We talk about it. I like the lake, and she likes the beach. She says I’m a lake person, and she’s a beach person.”

The traffic loosened, and Rose fed the car some gas, then braked, checking John in the rearview mirror. His pacifier had dropped out, and he was gnawing on his keys, but he looked happy.

“Ms. Canton said we could come visit her in Lava Land, in the summer.”

“Really.” Rose kept her foot on the brake. The traffic had stopped again. There must be an accident somewhere; lately, there was always an accident somewhere. Something had gone wrong with the world, and now Kristen was behaving strangely.

“So how can we talk to her?” Melly asked.

“I don’t know if we can. Let me think a sec.” Rose tried to process what was going on. She hadn’t realized how close Melly had gotten to Kristen. “You miss Ms. Canton, don’t you?”

Melly turned her head away, to the window. “I’m fine.”

“It’s okay to miss people.”

“You told me that, about Daddy.”

“Right.” Rose flinched. Melly could be so direct, sometimes it came out of left field. “Someone doesn’t have to die for you to miss them. It’s a loss for you, just the same. You don’t get to see that person, or hear their voice.” She was thinking of her father, whom she barely remembered, except for his voice. Low, deep, and gentle. “When you lose someone, it’s a sad thing, and it helps to talk about it.”

Melly remained silent, and Rose drove forward.

“Mel, what do you like about Ms. Canton? What will you miss?”

“Everything. We like to talk in class, and at lunch.”

“Lunch?”

“Yes, like when she saw me in the handicapped bathroom. She would tell me to come eat and talk, with her.”

“Over Kristenburgers, like on Fridays?”

“Yes.” Melly nodded, still facing away. “She doesn’t have anyone to eat with then, and she’s left out.”

Rose seized the proverbial teaching moment. “You don’t have to be a kid to be left out, huh?”

“No.” Melly looked over, breaking into a rueful smile.

“You don’t have to talk funny or have special needs or wear glasses. Anybody can get left out for any reason, anytime. Or even for no reason.”

“Or a
dumb
reason. Like Ryan. Josh won’t play with him and calls him Rye Bread because of his name. How dumb is that?”

“Dumb. Ryan can’t help his name, and he can’t change it.”

“I know, right?” Melly rolled her eyes. “He teases you if you have diabetes, like Sarah. She has to wear a pump, she showed us. And he teases Max because he can’t eat peanut butter. He has an EpiPen all the time.”

“See what I mean? That’s just dumb. We can’t control what people do or say, even if it’s dumb.” Rose hit the gas as the traffic started to move. They’d had some of their best talks in cars, and she knew other moms felt the same way. All across the country, kids were captive when that door locked, and cars became family therapy on wheels.

“That’s what Ms. Canton says. I made a picture for her. Wanna see? It’s in my backpack.”

“Sure.”

“Wait.” Melly got her backpack from the foot well, extracted her binder, and slid out a drawing on a piece of yellow construction paper. “Look. It’s me, Albus Dumbledore, and Ms. Canton.”

“Wow,” Rose said, looking over. Melly had crayoned two smiling girls, one big and one little, and they were holding hands with a figure in a peaked hat. “That’s a great drawing.”

“Thanks. I made it for Ms. Canton, but I didn’t get to give it to her. The fire happened, and I didn’t see her.”

“Oh, right, you see her in the afternoons, so you didn’t see her that day.”

“Also she was sick. Mrs. Nuru said she wasn’t going to be in, and we’d have a substitute.”

“Oh.” Rose had known that Kristen was sick the day of the fire, but she hadn’t focused on it before. Now she put two and two together. Marylou Battle, the substitute teacher who was killed, must have been called in to substitute for Kristen.

“I’m worried I made Albus’s beard too long. It isn’t that long in the books.”

Rose’s mind went elsewhere. “Melly, let me ask you something. When you and Ms. Canton eat the Kristenburgers, is it in the teachers’ lounge?”

“Yes.”

“It’s just you and she, because it’s on Friday and she’s on a different schedule from the other teachers?”

“Yes.”

Rose thought a minute. The substitute teacher had been killed in the teachers’ lounge, and the cans of polyurethane had been there, too. If Kristen had been at school that day, she would have been killed in the lounge. And if Melly had been with her, they both would have been killed. Rose’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

“Do you think his beard is right, Mom?”

“Perfect,” Rose answered, but she felt unsettled, uneasy. Kristen had lied about where she was and had left Reesburgh in a hurry, claiming she was upset about the fire and the reporters. But maybe that wasn’t the real reason.

“She’ll love this picture.” Melly placed the drawing back in her binder and slid it into her backpack. “We can mail it to her.”

“Sure we can,” Rose said, preoccupied. The scenario was fishy, and a series of strange what-ifs popped into her mind. What if Kristen had known the explosion was going to happen? What if she’d made sure she wasn’t in school that day? What if she’d been involved somehow, and she’d quit and run away, to avoid being caught?

“Are we almost there?”

“Almost.” Rose returned to her thoughts, confused. It made no sense. A devoted teacher wouldn’t blow up a school full of children. But then again, Kristen would have known that the kids would be outside the building, at recess, at the time.

“How long will it be?”

“About an hour.” Rose would have thought it was crazy, except for the fact that Kristen had lied. Why would Kristen lie about where she was? And if she’d lied about that, what else had she lied about?

Rose had an odd sensation that something was wrong. She couldn’t stop the questions from coming, and she couldn’t deny that there was one person who would know the answers.

Kristen.

Chapter Forty-nine

Rose pulled into the driveway next to their cabin, a charming, three-bedroom Cape Cod with cedar shakes, which was nestled next to the Vaughns’ in the middle of an autumnal woods. Leo had bought the place as a getaway, and when they’d married, he’d called it his dowry. The memory made Rose smile, but she put it out of her mind. She didn’t want to think about Leo now.

She cut the engine, parked the car, and waved to Gabriella, who was in front of her house, kneeling as she worked in a garden overflowing with pink asters, poppy-red anemones, and tall black-eyed Susans, their black centers like so many punctuation points. It made a gorgeous sight, but Rose was still preoccupied, her mind on Kristen.

“Hey, Mrs. V!” Melly hollered through the open window, and Gabriella stood up, leaning on a bulb planter with a long handle.

“Melly!” Gabriella smiled, and her hooded eyes followed the car. Her silvery hair was in its chic wedge, and her baggy work shirt and gardener’s pants hid a slim body that she kept fit, making her look more forty than sixty-five.

“Girl, you cannot look this good!” Rose called to her, opening the car door. She got out of the seat and stretched, breathing in fresh mountain air. Up here, the sun felt warm and the breeze was balmy, but all she wanted to do was get to her laptop.

“You’re wonderful for my ego!” Gabriella came toward the car, tugging off her patterned gloves, black with soil at the fingertips. “What a treat to see you again. I was so glad when you called.”

“We’re here!” Melly flew out of the car and ran headlong into her arms, followed by Princess Google, caught up in the spirit.

“Melly!” Gabriella gave Melly a big hug and managed to pat the dog, jumping onto her pants in a bid for attention. “How are you, dear?”

“We’re on another vacation!” Melly let her go and picked up the bulb planter. “What’s this, Mrs. V?”

“A tool for planting bulbs. Give it a whirl, over there.” Gabriella pointed to an open patch on their lawn, already raked clean of leaves. “Hold it by the handle, press down, and twist, then drop a tulip bulb inside the hole.”

“Like this?” Melly ran over and jumped on the planter, like a pogo stick.

“Perfect.” Gabriella beamed.

“Really?” Rose hoisted the sleeping John to her shoulder. “She’ll break it that way, won’t she?”

“I hope so, I hate that thing.” Gabriella chuckled. “Mo got it for me, and I don’t have the heart to tell him I’d rather use my hands.”

“Ha! So good to see you!” Rose gave Gabriella a hug, breathing in the smells that clung to her work shirt, L’Heure Blue and Merit Lights.

“You, too.” Gabriella hugged her back, then stroked John’s small back, in his T-shirt. “He’s gotten bigger since June.”

“I feed and water, as needed.”

“Give him to Grandma. I need a fix.” Gabriella held out her arms. “I won’t wake him.”

“An earthquake wouldn’t wake him. Please take him, then I can unpack the car. We stopped before we left and got some groceries.” Rose handed John over and went around to the back of the car, and Gabriella followed, cuddling him against her cheek.

“I can’t say I’m surprised to see you, after what I’m reading about you and this fire at the school.” Gabriella eyed her with sympathy. “My heart goes out to you, and thank God Melly’s okay.”

“No matter what the papers say, I didn’t leave that child—”

“Don’t even say it.” Gabriella raised a hand. “It goes without saying. You’ll tell me all when you get a chance, but we know you better than that. We tried to send our love, but we could only leave a message and our email bounced.”

“Thanks for trying, but it’s a long story.” Rose chirped the trunk open and took out three shopping bags, then the tote that held her laptop. “Let’s get some lunch and catch up. I have fresh cold cuts.”

“Good. Mo can keep Melly occupied. By the way, I’m down to three cigarettes a day. That’s why I’m planting bulbs, like mad.” Gabriella gestured at a cloth bag of bone meal and a lattice sack. “If this keeps up, we’re Holland.”

Rose smiled. “Let me get this stuff inside. I’ll come out for the rest.” She left the trunk open and walked on fallen leaves to the cabin’s front door.

“I’ll stay out here with Melly. Is Leo coming up?”

“No, he’s on trial,” Rose answered, and across the driveway, the Vaughns’ front door opened and her husband Morris stepped outside, squinting in the sunlight. A former corporate banker in Princeton, he was tall and lean, with the permanent tan of a lifetime sailor and the elegant manners of a Yale grad. His craggy face broke into a broad grin when he spotted Melly.

“Is that Melly The Younger?” he called out, shielding his eyes, and Melly jumped off the bulb planter and went running to him, followed by Princess Google.

“Mr. V!” she squealed, and Rose grinned at him on the way to the front door.

“Hey, Mo!”

“Welcome back!” he called to her, just as Melly caught him in the waist.

Rose unlocked her front door, juggling the keys and bags, then hurried inside, greeted by a cedar smell. The first floor was one great room, which Leo always called the not-so-great room, with an old plaid couch and chairs, a small TV with bookshelves stuffed with old puzzles, board games, and paperbacks on the right, and on the left, a small kitchen with builder’s-grade appliances. She hustled to the kitchen area, dumped the bags on the large farm table, and set the tote bag down, then slid out the laptop.

She opened it up, hit POWER, and waited for it to come to life and connect to the Internet. They were in the middle of nowhere, but Leo had made sure his wilderness came equipped with wireless. In minutes, the laptop connected to the web, and she went to MapQuest, clicked to Maps, and plugged in Lava Land, in Pennsylvania, taking a flyer.

We did not find an exact match for your search. Try again.

She knew it couldn’t be Lava Land, but it had to be something similar. It sounded like LaLa Land, but nobody around here had a beach house in L.A. Instead she plugged in Lava Land and Maryland, because that was where Kristen’s parents had their main house. She hit ENTER, and a box popped up,
We did not find an exact match for your search, but we found a similar location, LaVale, MD.
She clicked on the link, bringing up the region with LaVale starred, but the town was inland, not near a beach.

She typed in Lava Land, PA, and the window came up,
Lavansville, PA,
so she clicked. Lavansville was inland, too. She tried Lava Land, NJ, then clicked the mouse. A window popped up that suggested
Lavallette, NJ.

“Lavallette,” Rose said aloud, and it sounded almost like Lava Land. She clicked the link, and a map filled the screen. Lavallette, NJ, was on a narrow spit of land on the Jersey shore, near Toms River and Seaside Heights. It had to be a beach town. She went to whitepages.com, plugged in Canton and Lavallette, NJ, and in five seconds, she had a street address and an apartment number on Virginia Avenue. There was no phone number, but Rose didn’t need one.

She had other plans.