Lisa Scottoline - Save Me

“You’re right. But if you ask me, it’s time to tell the truth.”

“No.”

“Try it. It works, and maybe I can help.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Kristen.” Rose lowered her voice. “You’re pregnant and hiding it from everybody. That sounds like a girl who needs help.”

“Okay, so I’m pregnant.” Kristen’s eyes brimmed, but she blinked her tears back. “My boyfriend Erik’s in Reesburgh, in the insurance business. He broke up with me, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to tell my parents, and they’re away anyway, so I came here to get back on my feet. That’s why I was out of school the day of the fire. I had morning sickness.”

“So you didn’t know the fire was going to happen?”

“No.”

“And you had nothing to do with it?”

“Of course not.” Kristen laughed, sadly, and Rose felt relieved and puzzled, both at once.

“So your boyfriend doesn’t want the baby?”

“It’s not that. He doesn’t know I’m pregnant. He broke up with me before I found out, and I’m not about to tell him, now.”

“He does have a right to know. I bet he’s the one trying to find you. Somebody called your parents’ house for you, the housesitter told me.”

“It was him. He calls my cell all the time, but he doesn’t want me back.” Kristen wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “He wants his stupid truck keys, which I threw in the ocean.”

“Aw, I’m sorry.”

“Me, too, but not about the truck.”

Rose smiled. “Why don’t you tell your parents? I’m sure they’ll help, and they’d want to know.”

“You don’t know my dad.” Kristen shuddered.

“What are you going to do about the baby, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I think I’m keeping him, or her,” Kristen answered, confident. “I think I can do it on my own.”

Rose’s heart went out to her. “What are you living on?”

“Savings, and I have money I inherited from an aunt. I’m fine, thanks.” Kristen’s lower lip buckled with regret. “I’m sorry I left Melly in the lurch, I really am. That’s why I called you this morning.”

“I know.” Rose got up, went over, and gave her a hug. “Eat crackers every morning, first thing. Old-school Saltines. You won’t feel so sick.”

“Thanks.”

“I’d better be going. It’s a long drive.” Rose went to the door, then stopped. “Let me just ask you something. Do you remember seeing cans of polyurethane in the teachers’ lounge, recently?”

“Yes. They were varnishing the cabinets. I remember there were WET PAINT signs everywhere, and it reeked.”

“When?”

“Thursday, the day before the fire. Why?”

“Somebody told me that the polyurethane is partly the reason for the explosion. It was left there, and it blew up.”

“So?”

“So I don’t get it.” Rose shrugged. “Why does anybody varnish cabinets in October, a month after school opens? Especially if it smells and is going to ruin peoples’ lunch. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t know. Maybe a second coat?” Kristen got up, walked to the door, and held it open. “You won’t tell anyone I’m here, will you?”

“No, but you should.” Rose went into her purse. “Here, take this.” She found her wallet, pulled out a hundred bucks, and handed the money to Kristen, who put up her hand like a stop sign.

“No, I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you have to. Please.” Rose put the money in Kristen’s hands. “Good luck, sweetie.”

“Thanks. This is so nice of you.”

“Oh, wait. Take this, too.” Rose pulled a folded paper from her purse, opened it, and showed it to Kristen. “This is Melly’s drawing of the two of you. That’s Albus Dumbledore in the hat.”

“I knew that,” Kristen said, with a newly teary smile, and Rose gave her a good-bye hug.

“Call me if you need me. And Melly wants you to know we eat Kristenburgers.”

“They’re yummy, right?”

“Not in bulk.”

Kristen laughed. “Can I keep the picture?”

“Sure.” Rose went to the door. “I told Melly I mailed it to you, and that’s the last lie I’ll ever tell my daughter, except for Santa Claus.”

It was dark when Rose hit the street, but before she went back to the car, she walked to the beach and took off her shoes, enjoying the sensation of the cool sand as she went down to the shoreline and stood at the edge of the very continent. She still had a blister on her ankle, and the chilly wavelets rolled over her feet, healing and good. The gray foam made pale, shifting lines, one after the other all the way to the black horizon, where sea blended with sky. The stars shone bright white, encrusting heaven, and the full moon was a perfect circle, like a paper hole left by a hole-puncher in school. She breathed in the salty smells and the cool wetness of the air, standing at the intersection of summer and autumn, and at a crossroads in her life, too.

She thought of Leo, hoping she hadn’t left him behind, because she wasn’t sure where she was going. And she didn’t know what to do or think about the school fire, either. She stared into the blackness at the horizon, looking for answers, knowing a line was surely out there, but she couldn’t see it. Still, she looked hard and tried to find it, and she found herself thinking of Kurt Rehgard. He was gone, and she didn’t know where he was going, either. Or where her mother had gone, or her father.

She thought about death, and life starting anew, in Kristen. And she thought about the place between life and death, where Amanda slept, waiting to wake up, or not. She said a silent prayer for her, and realized that Thomas Pelal had been there, too, in her mind. She had kept him alive, in death, for so long, and it was time to let him go. She realized that letting someone go was setting them free. So she set him free, letting his spirit soar over the great churning sea and up, up, up into the heavens.

The wind blew her hair back from her face, and she breathed in deeply, inhaling one lungful after another, letting it energize and renew her. She kept an eye on the horizon, or where she thought it was, and understood that not everything that existed could be seen. Not every border was clear. She kept thinking of Kurt and the fire, sensing that something still seemed out of whack. She didn’t know the answers, and she didn’t even know the questions, but they were out there.

As surely as earth met heaven.

Back at the cabin, Rose sat over her laptop at the farm table, watching videotapes of the school fire. She’d done it before in her darkest moments, but now she had a new purpose. She was looking for something that could give her a clue about what had happened last Friday at school. She took a sip of fresh coffee, but didn’t need the caffeine to keep going, though it was after midnight. Melly and John were sleeping over at the Vaughns’, which was their babysitting routine when she and Leo were out past ten o’clock.

She hit PLAY on the most recent link, which was the thirty-fourth new viewer video. She was amazed at how many more there were, from cell phones, flip cams, iPods, and videocameras, made in a world where everybody filmed everything that happened around them, even as it happened, becoming observers in their own lives.

She was having a similar sensation as she watched the video, visualizing herself out of her own body, hunched over the laptop. The only light fixture was the lamp over her head, casting a cone of brightness onto her crown, like Dumbledore’s peaked hat. She couldn’t help projecting outward into the dim cabin and through its walls to the dark night, its blackness obliterating the outlines of the cabin roofs and the jagged tops of the tall evergreens, cutting into a blanket of dense clouds like so many hunters’ knives. The full moon lurked behind, leaving the night opaque and inscrutable.