The Drifter(43)

“I’m fine, Tom,” she said. “Honest to God. It’s just with the reporters crawling all over the place, and classes being canceled, and you know, a guy on the loose who is murdering young women . . . I . . . I have to go. Now. So the only thing you can do to help me right now, if you want to help like you say you do, is to pay me a couple of days early, and give me today and tomorrow off.”

He stood there for a moment, leaning on the doorframe, still suspicious of the car. He pulled a handful of bills from his wallet.

“I’ve got a hundred on me. We can figure out your hours when you get back, OK?”

“Thanks, Tom,” she said, shrinking a little with gratitude. When she reached to take the money, he took her hand.

“But, Betsy, be careful. I’m serious,” he said. She nodded, fighting her tears. “If you need anything, for real, let me know.”

Back in the car, Gavin attempted a joke.

“What, no fresh-baked sesames?” he said. She didn’t laugh.

“I’ve got to tell you something, and I think now is the perfect time,” he said.

“What?” asked Betsy, her stomach knotting again. “What is it?”

“I hate bagels,” he said. “Hate ’em. They’re gummy and thick, and generally disgusting. Nobody needs that much bread. I’m more of a toast guy.”

“Can I ask you a question?” she said. “I mean, two questions?”

“Shoot.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Well, I didn’t realize you’d left for a while,” he said. “I saw Newland stumble in and Teddy confront him, and before I knew what was what he dove over the drum kit swinging at me, I mean, like a lunatic. It got pretty ugly.”

“Oh God.”

“They finally pulled him off of me, but not until he trashed Bobby’s drums. He was pissed.”

“Jesus, are you serious? I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It was my fault. I should have said something to him about it, about you,” he said. “But you know what a hothead he is. I was just waiting for the right time. I never imagined he would snap like that. No offense, but he told me he hated you. I didn’t think he’d care if we were together.”

“No offense taken,” she said. Gavin said they were together.

“By the time he settled down and Teddy told me what happened, you were long gone. I went to your place first, but you clearly weren’t there. Then I went back to my place for a minute thinking you might show up. But then I remembered you told me about staying with Ginny over at Williamsburg, and I took a guess.”

Before they left town, Betsy requested one more stop. They made a right turn on 10th Street and she directed Gavin to pull into a dark driveway nearly overgrown with an ornery, untamed hedge.

“Give me a second,” she said. She got out of the car and crossed through the headlights, stepped lightly onto the sagging front porch of Rich the Geek’s house, reached into her pocket to retrieve Godzilla, still deep green and bumpy like an avocado and warm from her pocket, and placed it near the door.

“What’s going on?” asked Gavin.

“Just something I forgot to do before.”

BACK IN THE car, they started on the eight-hour drive to New Orleans. Gavin had friends there who they could stay with for a day or two. Once they were on I-75, she drifted in and out of sleep. When she was awake, she circled the events of the night in her head in a deep panic, convinced one minute that the worst of her suspicions were true, and then the next that she’d let her fear get the best of her. She’d barely noticed that she was in a moving car, let alone that Gavin, heretofore known as the guy from the record store, a friend of her psycho-ex-boyfriend, was in it with her. They’d known each other, formally, for less than three days. It seemed like so much longer.

But there they were, at the Circle K near Live Oak. They stopped for gas, gas station coffee in a foam cup, and original Corn Nuts at a convenience store in such a desolate place, even the dimmest lights drew hordes of moths and flying roaches as big as a toddler’s hand. As she was shaking the last clotted flecks of Coffee-mate into her cup it occurred to her that it was the kind of place where one might not be entirely surprised to bump into people who were fleeing a possible crime scene.

“You should get some rest,” she said, her voice dry and cracked from booze and adrenaline. “I’m OK to drive for an hour or two. It’s the Corn Nuts. Tough on the dental work, but they keep me awake.”

“You sure?” he asked, putting his hands on her shoulders.

She nodded, staring at the asphalt, inspecting a splatter of thick red ooze that she hoped was day-old Slurpee.

“Wake me up in an hour,” he said, as he moved his palm to the side of her face.

“I know this is weird—all of it,” he said, not in an unkind way. “Everybody’s leaving town. Classes were canceled, remember? We’re just changing the scenery. Getting a little distance. You’re gonna love these guys we’re staying with in New Orleans. It’ll be OK.”

“I know,” she said. “I think I know.”

The last time she made this drive north was when she was ten. She and her dad made a mostly silent journey north to Connecticut, in his off-white Buick LeSabre with brown velour interior, for his mother’s, her Grandma Young’s, funeral. Why did people have to die in order for her to leave Florida?