Run You Down (Rebekah Roberts #2)(70)

“If you know something I highly suggest telling me now,” says Van. “Unless you want to have that baby in prison.”

“I don’t really know anything,” she says softly.

“You don’t really know anything?”

And then, before Mellie can stonewall him some more, my phone rings. Caller ID says: MOM.

“Hello?” I say, standing up, widening my eyes at Saul, who has been sitting quietly at one of the barstools along the diner’s counter.

“Rebekah! This is your mother. This is Aviva. My phone was … Rebekah, you have to help. Sammy has taken my car. Something is happening.”

Her voice is low. Not quiet—she is panicked and practically shouting—but a good octave below most women’s. She has an accent that, if I didn’t know was a product of speaking Yiddish, I might call Russian. Her words come from the front of her mouth.

“Hi,” I say. “Are you okay?”

“Sammy has taken my car! He was tracking Conrad Hall.”

“Tracking him?”

“Rebekah, I am so sorry to talk to you like this!”

“Like…? It’s okay. Hold on, I’m here with Saul. Do you want us to come get you?”

“Yes. I will explain everything.”

She gives me the address and I tell her we will be there as soon as possible. When I hang up, I feel strangely calm. I am conscious of the fact that everything before I picked up the phone was “before Aviva,” and the rest of my life will be after. I am ready.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE





REBEKAH


The morning sky is pink when Saul and I turn on to the street where Aviva is hiding out. Van is behind us in his cruiser. At the diner, I asked him if we could have a little time alone with her before he rolled in. He said he’d give us five minutes.

The driveway leading to the enormous house winds through maybe a quarter mile of woods. Saul and I haven’t said much to each other since getting in the car. I think we are both a little stunned by what Ryan and Mellie told us, and as Aviva looms just ahead, I imagine we’re both having conversations with her in our heads, conversations too intimate to share.

We park and get out. The weak sun is almost warm, and here among the trees and the quiet, it feels like it could be a beautiful day. Aviva opens the front door and she is exactly as I should have imagined her. My height, but thinner, a little too thin. Her hair less vibrantly red than mine, streaked now with bits of gray. She is wrapped in a puffy black winter coat, jeans, off-brand sneakers.

“Rebekah,” she says, stepping outside. I walk toward her, and she walks toward me. When we meet, she grabs my hands. “You are so beautiful.”

“So are you,” I say. Because she is. There are tiny crow’s-feet at her eyes and she is smiling. At me.

“I am so proud of you, Rebekah,” she says, squeezing my hands. “Look at you. A big reporter. And you still have your father’s little ears. Of course!” She is giggling. We both are. I’ve played the moment I meet her in my head all my life but I never imagined us laughing. I never imagined thinking she might be someone I would actually like.

“I will explain everything to you, Rebekah.”

“Okay,” I say. I almost say, it’s okay, because it kind of feels like it is. Or rather, like it will be.

“Can I hug you?” she asks.

I nod and open my arms and we fold together. I have a feeling like I am holding a baby, something delicate and precious. She holds tighter than I do. Less wary, I suppose.

When we part she looks at Saul and blushes. They don’t hug, but they both seem to want to.

“Thank you for coming,” she says, speaking now to him.

“Are you all right?” he asks. “What is happening?”

“Sammy left just before I called you.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing! I woke up and he was gone.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know!”

“Do you have any idea?” I ask.

“He was tracking a man. A Nazi. Sammy put an app on his phone.”

We all turn to the sound of tires on gravel. Van in his Roseville Police car is coming up the driveway.

“Who is that?” says Aviva, stepping back.

“We know him,” I say. “He found Pessie. He’s a good guy.”

She looks at Saul.

“Isaac is in the hospital,” says Saul. “You were right, Aviva. Whoever vandalized your home came back.”

“In the hospital?”

“He will be all right,” says Saul. “But he was badly burned.”

Aviva puts her hand on her forehead and scrunches her face as though she is trying to lift something very heavy. Van pulls right up to the end of the driveway. As he steps out of the car, Saul says, “He left just before she called.”

Van sits back down and grabs the mouthpiece of his radio.

“Is he armed?” asks Van.

Aviva doesn’t answer.

“Aviva,” says Saul, “please tell him.”

“I don’t know!”

“Does he own a gun?” asks Van.

She shakes her head but too quickly. The answer is yes. “Please,” she says. “He is not going to hurt anyone. He wants to help!”