Kate White - Hush

“That’s okay. They told me I could say a quick hello in the parking lot when the bus gets back.”

“That’s good. He was so mad that he might not see you.”

Lake said goodbye to her daughter, hugging her almost too hard. She had to be careful, she knew, or Amy would once again pick up on her fear and anguish.

“See you in just another two weeks,” Lake said, as lightly as she could. “We’ll have fun shopping for new school clothes, okay?”

Outside it hadn’t started to rain yet, but the sky was now a mass of dark, angry clouds, and the wind was chasing herds of fallen leaves across the campgrounds. Lake made her way to the administrative office, where she thanked Morrison for letting her come and learned that the bus was behind schedule. She didn’t look forward to driving home in the inevitable downpour.

Descending the hill, she checked her BlackBerry. No call back from Rory. As soon as she was in the car, she tried the home number again. This time Rory answered. Her hello sounded anxious.

“What’s going on, Rory?” Lake asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Thanks for calling back, Lake. I’m just feeling really nervous.”

Lake’s body sagged; she couldn’t have Rory getting cold feet.

“Are you worried someone will see you looking through the file drawers?” she asked. “Why don’t you wait and try to do it when most people have left?”

“I’m afraid it’s too late,” Rory said fretfully. “I think someone did see me.”

“What do you mean?” Lake asked.

“I already went through the files. After I met you, I decided to go back to the office. I was anxious about what you’d told me and wanted to see the charts for myself. I knew some of the staff was going to be there for a late procedure and I told them I came back because I’d forgotten something. When I left the storage room, I had the sense someone had been watching me in there.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“No-it was just a sense I had. And then this morning I got this weird hang-up. And then another one a little while later. I’m all alone here this weekend and I’m just really scared.”

Lake’s stomach knotted. She’d put Rory in possible jeopardy and she had to do something about it.

“Is there any way your husband could cut his trip short?”

There was a pause as Rory seemed to consider the option.

“No, I can’t ask him to…It’s-it’s a really important client and so much depends on this trip.”

“Do you have anyone else you can call? Someone from your family-or a neighbor?”

“No, no one. We only moved here about a year ago, and people haven’t been very welcoming. It’s not an inclusive community here at all.”

“Maybe the calls are unrelated,” Lake said, though her alarm was growing. “Just because someone saw you going through files doesn’t mean they think you were doing anything wrong. You might have been just checking out some patient info, right?”

“But they probably saw that the files were missing,” Rory said, almost pleading. “They probably know what I was up to.”

“What do you mean, missing ?” Lake asked.

“I took some files with me. I didn’t dare photocopy them.”

“You have the files with you now?” Lake said, incredulous.

“Yes. About ten of them.”

“ And? ” Lake asked. “Do they show anything?” She held her breath.

“Yes,” Rory said. “They have those letter codes you talked about. Not every file I checked had them, but I took the ones that did.”

With her free hand, Lake ran her hand roughly through her hair. This was exactly what she’d hoped for. She had to see those files-and she owed it to Rory to make sure she was safe.

“Rory, why don’t I come to your place? I’ll take the files so you don’t have to worry about them.”

“Are you sure? I’m all the way up in Bedford Hills. It’s over an hour north of the city. I can make photocopies tomorrow and figure out the best way to get them back in the drawers.”

“I’m actually upstate now-a ways north of you, even. I can leave in a few minutes. Just tell me the address and I’ll use my GPS.”

“Well, if you really wouldn’t mind, that would be great,” Rory said. “I just feel so nervous.”

Rory rattled off the address and Lake said that it would take her at least an hour to get there. She told Rory to lock all the doors and windows and to call her on her cell if she had any problem. And if she felt in danger to call 911.

By five forty-five the bus still hadn’t arrived. Lake was torn about what to do. If she split now, Will would be upset, and yet she was anxious to get to Rory’s. Finally, at six, just as she was firing up the engine of the car, an old yellow school bus waddled into the parking lot. Will was one of the first to trip down the steps, and after scanning the parking lot for his mother’s car, he bounded toward it and climbed in. A counselor waited outside.

Will’s silky blond hair was still damp and his cheek bore the crease from a nap on the bus. He seemed more than happy to see her, and also hyper, on a sugar high from the junk food he’d probably consumed at the water park.

“I went on the log ride five times, Mom. My clothes were soakin’.”

“It was fun, huh?”

“Yeah, awesome.”

“And what about tonight? What’s planned for later?”

“We’re having pizza. They ordered like a hundred pies.”

“Excellent.”

“Yeah, we were supposed to have a cookout but it’s gonna rain. There’s gonna be this big thunderstorm.”

As he glanced out of the car window, clearly wondering what he was missing up the hill, Lake stole a nervous look at her watch.

“Why don’t I let you catch up with your friends now?” she said. “I just wanted to be sure to say hi.”

“Okay, bye, Mom.” He offered her a tight hug and flashed his crooked grin. “Tell Smokey I said hi.”

She’d been on the road just ten minutes when the rain started, big fat drops that pelted the roof of the car and seemed to explode on the windshield. She needed to call Rory with an update but she didn’t dare take a hand off the wheel. At the first chance she pulled off the road and into the parking lot of one of the caboose restaurants Jack had loved to mock. It was growing dark, and through the streams of rain the blue and white lights from the restaurant sign undulated eerily. This was one of the times of year she’d never loved being up here-when the days grew shorter and there was an utter forlornness in the air.

Rory picked up on the first ring. There had been no more hang-ups, she said, but with night coming, she was feeling more and more scared. Lake explained how far behind schedule she was.

As she pulled onto the road again, barely able to see, a sense of dread began to build in her. What if someone had seen Rory take the files? What if Levin-or whoever-decided to dispatch the man with the knife to retrieve them? Lost in her thoughts, Lake jumped in her seat when a clap of thunder rocked the car.

The rain was coming down in torrents now and at times she had to plunge the car through huge pools of water that had formed on the blacktop of the two-lane road. Things were better on the interstate, and yet more than a few cars had pulled onto the shoulder to wait out the storm. Lake kept going, feeling she had no choice. As it was, she wouldn’t reach Rory’s until after eight.

Three-quarters of the way there, the rain stopped as quickly as it had started. She picked up the pace and the GPS recalculated her arrival time. When she was just fifteen minutes away, she peered through the windshield, surprised at what she saw. Rather than the suburban sprawl she’d expected, she was in horse country. The roads were lined with split-rail fences, and occasionally through the dark she caught sight of a huge house set back from the road and lit up like a cruise ship. She remembered that Rory had said she lived in an old gatehouse.