Authors: Andrew Taylor
“Oh, right. Fill her up.” Henry held out the fifty.
“Pay at the counter.”
Henry looked back towards the shop window and the empty seat by the till. The old man stared into space as he began to fill the tank. The numbers on the pump ticked up agonizingly slowly. Henry
shuffled in the heat as a second vehicle, a sandy-coloured police cruiser, drove onto the forecourt. It pulled up by the shop and a trooper who seemed as tall and wide as a door emerged from the
front. He wore a light-brown uniform and a wide-brimmed hat that gave him something of the look of a cowboy, albeit one without a horse. The biggest handgun Henry had ever seen rested in a holster
on his hip.
“Be with you in just a minute, Dan,” the old man said in an altogether more pleasant fashion than when he’d spoken to Henry.
“Take your time, Clyde,” Trooper Dan drawled. “Ain’t no hurry.”
Henry became aware of the cop casting his professional gaze over the Toyota and bringing it to rest on him. The trooper stared right at him, like he could read thoughts. Henry looked back at the
expressionless mouth and mirrored shades. The cop kept staring at him.
The moment stretched on…
I haven’t done anything wrong here,
Henry thought indignantly, but found himself looking away all the same. The trooper made a little noise, something like a snigger. From the
corner of his eye, Henry saw him lean against the hood of his cruiser and pop a stick of gum in his mouth.
Jesus,
Henry thought.
Could that guy be any more of a cliché?
The
trooper started staring at him again.
“Do you have a bathroom?” Henry asked the old man for an excuse to get away from the cop’s X-ray gaze.
“Yep.”
It became clear the old man wasn’t going to say anything else.
“Can I use it?”
“Yep. Round the back.”
“It’s not locked?”
The old man looked at him as if he was crazy. “Now why would I want to lock the toilet? You think there’s somethin’ in there worth stealin’?”
Henry shrugged. “I guess not.”
“You guessed right.”
The old man turned his attention back to the pump. Henry walked round the side of the shop, ignoring the cop‘s eyes following him all the way. Out back, a small building made of corrugated
iron stood on the far side of a dirt yard. Someone had written
RESTROOM
on the side in big white letters.
Nice,
Henry thought as he walked across the yard, scuffing up little clouds of dust as he went.
This dump has got real character.
Six months before, when his mom had lost her job, she’d warned him that they might have to move from the city in order for her to find work. It was the recession – apparently people
had to relocate. At the time Henry had imagined another city, or at least a large town. She was the manager of an IVF lab, helping couples who couldn’t have kids get pregnant. Then the job
with Malcorp came up – a job that involved moving to live at its facility in the isolated north of the state. The nearest big town was thirty kilometres away from the place they’d be
living for the next year at least…
Newton County. Aka Hicksville.
Henry had spent the weeks since his mom got the job praying that something else would come up. He didn’t mind moving, even though it would mean starting all over again at a new
school…new friends…new teachers… No, there was actually something exciting about that. He could keep in touch with his old friends online and visit from time to time. But the
thought of being an hour’s drive from a sports stadium or a games store was pretty hard to bear. And although Mom wasn’t letting on, Henry knew she was thinking the same thing (no doubt
wondering when she’d ever get another of those skinny lattes that she’d once bought every morning from the coffee shop directly under their city apartment).
But a different job hadn’t come up. So here they were, driving through the sweltering heat to one of the most deserted parts of the state… Getting eyeballed by bored local cops and
about to sample the delights of rural plumbing…
Henry pushed open the toilet door with some effort. The hinges had come loose, making the bottom scrape on the floor. Inside it was dark and hot. Flies buzzed and there was an acrid smell of
urine in the air. Wrinkling his nose, Henry reached out and flipped the light switch on the wall. A fluorescent tube in the ceiling flickered into life, revealing a single cubicle and a
disgusting-looking urinal against the wall.
“Man, this is nasty,” said Henry as he pushed the door shut behind him. But the decision of whether to use the urinal or risk the stall was cut short as something moved in the
corner. Henry spun round, expecting to face anything from a trapped bird to a rat…
It was a girl. About his age.
She had long, blonde hair that looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in a week. Her face was smeared with dirt, as were her clothes – a plain white smock and a pair of boots that were
two sizes too big for her. She stood, pressed into the corner by the sink, unmoving and wide-eyed. Henry’s gaze flicked to a plastic bracelet on her left wrist, the type they give you in
hospital.
“Oh,” he said a little stupidly as he backed towards the door. “I’m sorry…”
The girl’s mouth fell open. “No!” she cried, rushing towards him. Before he could grab the handle, she placed herself against the door so he couldn’t exit.
“Don’t leave me.”
“Okay,” Henry said, holding up his hands. This girl was strung out. “Are you alright?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“It’s okay,” he said. She was clearly in some kind of trouble. A runaway, maybe? She certainly didn’t look as if she belonged at the gas station. Beyond the mess of hair
and the dirt on her face, Henry could see she was pretty. Beautiful, even.
“Really?” she said with an edge of pure desperation to her voice. “
Can I trust you?
”
He nodded. “What’s your name?”
The girl looked at him blankly, as if confused by the question. He read the tag on her wrist.
“
Gabrielle Henson
,” he read. “That’s you, huh?”
“Yeah,” she replied, holding his gaze intently.
“My name’s Henry Ward…”
“Do you have a car?”
“Uh… Yeah.”
“I need to get out of here.”
“You’re hitch-hiking?”
The girl rubbed her temple violently with the heel of her palm, revealing a series of needle marks along her inner arm. “I just need to get away. Will you help me? Take me with
you?”
“Sure,” Henry said, wondering at the same time what his mom was going to say when he turned up with a strange girl out of the blue. But of course she would see that the girl needed
help and would know what to do. He wondered how long she had been hiding in the heat and stench of the gas station toilet. There were scratch marks on her exposed knees and lower legs, as if
she’d been running through brambles.
“Thank you,” said the girl. She placed a slender hand on his shoulder and leaned against him as if exhausted. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t
shown up.”
“We’re going to Newton,” Henry said, “perhaps you can get a lift with us and then—”
“No!” she said, pushing away from him so forcefully he almost fell back. “Not Newton!”
“It’s okay…”
She shook her head emphatically, backing into the darkened corner once more. “
Not Newton…
”
Henry was about to argue that if she wanted a lift, that was where they were headed, when a fist banged twice on the other side of the door.
“What’s going on in there?” It was Trooper Dan’s deep voice.
The girl stifled a gasp. She shook her head violently at Henry and held her hands together, as if praying for him to stay quiet. Suddenly everything began to make sense to him:
the hospital
gown, the bracelet, the track marks on her wrist…
He’d known students like her at his last school. Usually rich kids in trouble with drugs who got shipped off to secluded and very
expensive rehab clinics for months at a time. Was she an escapee from some private hospital hidden away in the woods? And if so, shouldn’t he tell the cop so she could be taken back?
Please,
the girl mouthed and there was something so desperate about her that he couldn’t betray her trust. He’d get the trooper away from the toilet, and then talk to his mom
about it… She’d know what to do…
Okay,
Henry mouthed back at her and a pathetic look of relief passed over the girl’s face.
The trooper banged on the door again. “Open up right now!”
“Alright!” Henry called through. “Just washing my hands!”
He gave the girl a final look. The sheer terror in her eyes was something he wouldn’t forget for a long time. What was she afraid of? The cop? Getting dragged back to rehab? From what
he’d heard, those places were glorified holiday parks – everyone sitting around the pool drinking juice. Henry pulled the door open, flicking off the light to hide her from view as he
did so. The trooper towered in the opening, hands on his gun belt.
“Is there something wrong, officer?”
The trooper looked him up and down like he was a bug. “What’s going on in there?”
Henry raised an eyebrow and said, “It’s a toilet?” He’d been questioned by cops before – city cops, not some hick deputy either – and he wasn’t about to
fold like a little kid. Obviously this guy had come looking for him, hoping to find him up to no good in the outhouse. Well, he’d be out of luck there.
“Don’t be smart, son.”
“Sorry, sir,” Henry replied, bringing it down a little.
Have to play him just right.
He moved forward, pulling the door shut behind him.
“Been smoking in there?”
“No, sir.”
“Takin’ drugs?”
“
No!
”
“Someone else in there?”
“Uh, no.”
“You don’t want to lie to me.” Henry could almost feel the cop’s eyes boring into his skull from behind those mirror shades.
“No one,” Henry said and immediately regretted it…
The corners of the cop’s mouth twitched and he moved forward swiftly, kicking the door open with his boot. Before Henry could protest, the trooper grabbed a little torch from his belt and
started shining it around the darkened toilet.
“Well now, what’s this?” the trooper said as the beam fell on the girl cowering in the corner. There was a grim satisfaction in his tone now he’d proved he’d been
lied to.
“Hey, she’s sick,” protested Henry, stepping forward.
The cop pointed a finger in his face without even looking round. “Two paces back
right now
or I will put you
on your ass
.”
There was something so hard in the trooper’s voice that Henry found himself stepping back immediately. The man might be a small-town cop, but Henry didn’t doubt he could knock him
down with a flick of his little finger.
“Get yourself out here,” the trooper commanded, aiming the torch beam right in the girl’s face. When she didn’t move, he added, “Don’t make me come for
you.”
Ever so slowly, the girl walked towards the door, her head bowed. When she got within a metre, the trooper reached out and grabbed her arm, as if worried she’d try to bolt past him.
Without another word, he began marching his prisoner across the yard towards the gas station.
“Where are you taking her?” Henry demanded, following after them. “What’s she done wrong?”
“Stay out of this,” the trooper snarled without looking back. “Or I’ll have to take you in too.”
They rounded the side of the building and the cop headed straight for his cruiser, pulling open the rear door with his free hand. By this time, Jennifer Ward was out of the Toyota and walking
towards them. Henry ran over to her.
“She’s in trouble,” he said, indicating the girl as she meekly got into the back of the patrol car. Since the cop had banged on the toilet door, all the fight seemed to have
drained from her. “We have to help!”
Henry’s mother gave him a hand motion that said
cool down,
before turning her attention to the trooper. “Excuse me, officer. Is there a problem here?”
Trooper Dan slammed the back door of the cruiser shut and replied, “No problem, ma’am. Nothing for you to concern yourself over.”
“That girl asked for our help,” Henry persisted. “She’s scared.”
“Please,” Jennifer Ward said to the cop, “what’s going on here?”
“She’s a runaway,” said Trooper Dan, the bored tone in his voice making it clear he didn’t have to tell them anything at all. “Danger to herself and others.
I’ve been chasing her all over these woods for the last two days. Now I can take her back to her family.
No thanks to some people…
” He directed his gaze towards Henry.
Henry glanced at the girl in the back, wishing that she would try to get out of the cruiser or something, but she merely stared at her lap. He turned towards his mother. “She was hiding
out back.” Then added in a whisper, “
She’s terrified of this guy.
”
Unexpectedly, the trooper reached up and whipped off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of piercing, blue eyes. He was an incredibly handsome man, like some kind of model or old-time film star,
but Henry thought he’d seemed more human before he removed the shades. His blue eyes were now locked on Jennifer Ward. They had all the warmth of an iceberg.
“I asked your son a question pertaining to this troubled young lady,” he said, “and he lied to me. That’s a no-no in my book. Interferin’ in a police investigation,
we call it.” He said the word
police
with heavy emphasis on the first syllable:
poh-leece.
Henry began to protest, but Jennifer Ward placed her hand on his shoulder. “Henry, it’s okay. She’s going back to her family.”
“Mom…”
“
Henry.
” Her tone left Henry in no doubt that the discussion was at an end.
“Are we finished here?” asked the trooper.
Jennifer Ward looked at him, annoyance flashing in her eyes for the first time. “I’m sorry, officer. Is answering a few questions too much trouble for you?”
Trooper Dan’s blank expression didn’t waver. “You’ve got a full load there, ma’am,” he said, staring at the boxes piled in the back of the Toyota. “Are
you moving to Newton County?”