A Warm Heart in Winter(3)

Pulling the length free, he glanced across to the closed door of his bath. All he needed to do was tie the thing to the fixture in his shower—God knew those water pipes had been run in the good old days when things were strong enough to hold some weight. He even had a chair he could stand up on and then kick out from underneath him.

“I gotta go—”

“Qhuinn? Don’t you hang up on me—don’t you dare hang up on me—”

“Listen, man, I gotta go—”

“I’m coming over right now—” Lot of flapping in the background like Blay was getting his shit together. “Qhuinn! Do not hang up the phone—Qhuinn . . . !”





Present Day

Market Street and 17th

Downtown Caldwell, New York

Oh, shit! Dad is going to kill us—”

“What are you talking about, ‘us’? I’m not driving—”

“You’re in the car, Terrie! And not because I kidnapped you—”

The two Allaine sisters were talking over each other, talking over the radio that was still playing loud enough to be heard in the suburbs they’d left, talking over the accident that had just occurred. They were also going nowhere, the front grille of the burgundy 2018 BMW 5 series embedded in the face of a dirty, downtown snowbank that loomed big as a mountain.

“I know I’m in the car, Ellen,” the twelve-year-old snapped. “But you’re the one who crashed us!”

“It wasn’t my fault, Therese!” Elle punched the radio button, which canned the music and turned up the volume on two things she was so not interested in dealing with: whatever wasn’t ever going to work again under the hood and her stupid sister’s opinion on what had just happened. “Something ran out in front of the car. It was not my fault—”

“It’s your fault where you steered us, and you’re never going to get your full license—”

“You can stop yelling. Anytime.”

No airbags. The airbags hadn’t deployed. Elle pulled herself up by the steering wheel and looked over the hood. Whatever had shot across the icy road was gone, the black shadow scurrying off as strays did. In contrast, the snowbank they were headfirst into was about five feet tall and a whole block long of going-nowhere. Beyond it? Nothing but a warehouse the color of a mud puddle that was covered with graffiti and absolutely no exterior lights.

Two seconds sooner or later and this would never have happened. The dog would have crossed the street before or after them, and right now they’d be elsewhere—although probably not where she’d meant to be going. She’d been trying to get onto Trade Street, and she’d thought, as she’d made a bunch of turns after taking the—hello—Trade Street exit off Northway, that it’d be no problem to find her way. Instead, they were . . .

Cranking around in her seat, she looked past Terrie, who was still talking, her hands all animated, her indignity act on a solid roll. The Northway was down about four blocks, at the Hudson River’s edge, and Elle pictured herself back on the four-laner going out of town, headlights leading the way home. Too bad there was no on-ramp that she could see and no signs to one, either—plus the highway was super-raised up on pylons. But, like, what did she think she’d do if it were on the level? Bust through a guardrail?

On the other side of things there was . . . nothing much. Just a bunch of dark buildings that offered no help. No security lights on them, either. Were they all abandoned?

“—going to tell Dad everything. How you stole his keys and took us downtown—”

Elle turned to her passenger with the big frickin’ opinions. “It’s not like I put a gun to your head. You said you were bored, so you were coming.”

“I’m twelve, you know, I’m a minor and it’s ten o’clock at night, and if you left home I’d be alone there, and that defeats the whole purpose of babysitting, doesn’t it. And where are we.”

Barely a break between words, much less pauses for sentences. If there had even been more than one.

“We’re here,” Elle muttered. “I mean, don’t freak out.”

“Who do we call?” her sister demanded. “We can’t call Dad—”

“Shut up, Terrie. I’ll take care of it.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up! You know, this is just like the time you . . .”

As Terrie got back on the bitch train, Elle couldn’t decide whether she wanted to be home because it was safe and this stretch of Caldwell’s downtown felt anything but that, or because she could not stand to be in an enclosed space with Terrie the Big Mouth. The good news? Now that the shock was wearing off, she realized the engine was still running, the heater was still on, and she couldn’t smell any smoke or anything burning. And hey, “abandoned” meant no one was around to get involved, right?

Get involved = call her father. Or call the police, who would then call her father.

All she had to do was reverse. Reverse was everything. And then she was getting them the hell out of here, and never, ever babysitting her sister again.

“You are such an idiot,” Terrie announced.

“Shut up.”

Putting things in reverse, Elle hit the gas. There was a jerk, and then a whrrrrrrrr. So she pushed down more on the accelerator. Whereupon the whrrrrrrr from the back end of the car just got higher pitched and louder.