Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(35)

Mumbling some belligerent under-his-breath answer Scooter continued on.

“I’m warning you,” she said.

Although he was not generally a man to be ordered around, he knew better than to cross Emma. Maybe given some time, she’d simmer down and he’d find a way to convince her that such suspicions were pure nonsense, but for now he wasn’t going to stick a single toe over the line. Of course, if the boy was still awake—he tiptoed up the stairs and cracked open the door to what was now Ethan’s room, but the boy appeared to be huddled under the comforter, sound asleep.

Scooter returned to the second floor and climbed into bed, making sure to position himself smack in the middle of the mattress. He was still awake when Emma came to bed and for several hours afterward. Finally, just minutes before the first ray of sun lit the horizon, he dropped into an exhaustive sleep.

It took Ethan almost two hours to walk from the Cobb place back to his own house. It was a forty-five minute drive, but that was following the road which circled around half the farms on the Eastern Shore. Ethan boosted himself up and over the chain link fence at the far edge of the Kramer farm, then he traveled as the crow flies, tromping through pitch black cornfields and row after row of soybeans. He stayed back from the houses and moved silently as a shadow. With any luck he’d get what he needed and be long gone before Scooter Cobb discovered him missing. In the woods south of Miller’s pond, Ethan heard the growl of something in the underbrush and took off running. It was rumored that rabid wolves had been spotted in the area and any other time Ethan would have turned back or gone off in another direction; but on this night there was no time to waste. He’d seen what Scooter Cobb could do; and it was a hell of a lot worse than any wolf—rabid or not. He zigzagged his way through the Morgan’s overgrown orchard; then cut through a field of cabbages which had been left to rot. Two minutes later he arrived at the place that for the whole of his life had been home. The front door of Susanna’s car was hanging open although Ethan Allen could swear he’d seen the policeman close it.

“Mama,” he shouted and darted across the yard. For a split second, he’d slipped back to yesterday or the day before or possibly some time weeks ago, and imagined she’d be there, sitting behind the wheel, ready to twist the key in the ignition and head off to work. Then that moment of thought disappeared and he remembered how the men from coroner’s office had carried Susanna away in a black plastic bag. Ethan Allen didn’t want to cry; he didn’t have time to cry—but that didn’t stop the tears from coming. He slid into the driver’s seat of his mama’s car, then leaned forward and banged his head against the steering wheel over and over again. Sitting there and remembering back on how Susanna had said she’d drive all the way to New York City if she had to, he came up with the idea for a new plan.

Ethan knew how to drive, at least he sort of knew how. He’d done it sitting in Susanna’s lap a dozen times, maybe more. Okay, there was the problem of his feet falling short of the pedals, but if he scooted forward far enough, well then… The new plan was formulating itself inside his head. He’d headed home with every intention of putting Dog in his bicycle basket and pedaling all the way to Wyattsville, but driving would make considerably more sense. For one thing, it was faster. Before sunup he could be clear to the ferry, maybe even to Norfolk. By noon he could be in Wyattsville. On the other hand, there was the chance he’d run into some policeman who’d arrest him for being too young to drive a car. Ethan sat there for five minutes, wrinkling his brow, scratching his head and twisting his mouth first to one side and then the other. Finally he stiffened his back and jutted his chin forward in a way that made him look remarkably like his mama, and came to a decision. Of course, before he went anywhere, there were things he had to get hold of—the cookie jar money, Mister Charles Doyle’s address and the ignition key.

As the boy started toward the house, the dog suddenly trotted out of the woods and followed along at his heels. “Good thing you came back,” Ethan said, “else, I’d leave you behind.” Despite his words, Ethan knew he had no intention of doing such a thing, Dog was all he had. Dog, and a grandpa he hadn’t heard from in over a year. A grandpa who apparently figured a boy of eleven didn’t need a dollar, because this year he hadn’t sent a card for Ethan’s birthday or Christmas. A grandpa who, according to Susanna, had no use for his own son; a grandpa who Ethan hoped would feel more kindly about having a grandson.

A police order telling people to keep out was posted on the door of the house, the same door Ethan had banged in and out of millions of times. “Like hell,” he grumbled. He took hold of the knob and tried to turn it, but the door was locked tight. And, the key his mama kept under the geranium pot for just such an occasion was gone. He gave the door an angry kick then stomped around to the back. That door was also locked. “Damn,” he moaned. He then tried window after window, but every one of them was locked. Luckily the sky had remained cloudless and a white moon was shinning down brighter than ever. Ethan supposed it could be midnight, perhaps later; but he was running out of time. In a few hours they’d discover he was gone and come looking for him—likely as not it would be Officer Cobb, possibly even Scooter. A trickle of sweat rolled down his back as he thought, maybe they already know. Maybe they’d checked the bed and found nothing but a rolled up bunch of clothes. Maybe they were right now rounding the bend at Klausner’s Corner, maybe they’d be here in a matter of minutes! Ethan scooped up a rock and hurled it through his bedroom window. The sound of breaking glass crashed through the night, louder than he figured possible, loud enough to maybe be heard for miles. For the third time that evening, he began calling for the Lord to lend a hand. “Please, God,” he prayed, “let me get gone before Scooter comes.” He didn’t allow the praying to slow him down as he climbed onto the sill and went through the window feet first. The sweater he’d taken from Sam Cobb’s closet caught on the jagged edges of glass, but Ethan slid out of it and kept moving.