Стивен Кинг - If It Bleeds

The man in the other vehicle was nice enough about it, nodding and agreeing with everything Charlotte said, but it involved an exchange of insurance cards, and by the time they were on their way again (Holly was quite sure the man whose fender they’d bumped dropped her a wink before getting back into his own vehicle), it was ten o’clock, and the visit turned out to be a total bust, anyway. Henry had no idea who either of them were. He said he had to get dressed for work and told them to stop bothering him. When Holly kissed him goodbye, he looked at her suspiciously and asked if that was a Jehovah’s Witnesses thing.

“You drive back,” Charlotte said when they were outside. “I’m far too upset.”

Holly was more than happy to do that.

She had left her traveling bag in the front hall. As she slung it over her shoulder and turned to her mother for their usual parting salute—two dry pecks on the cheek—Charlotte flung her arms around the daughter she had denigrated and belittled her whole life (not always unknowingly) and burst into tears.

“Don’t go. Please stay another day. If you can’t stay until Christmas, at least stay through the weekend. I can’t stand to be on my own. Not yet. Maybe after Christmas, but not yet.”

Her mother was clutching her like a drowning woman and Holly had to suppress a panicky urge not just to push her away but to actually fight her off. She endured the hug as long as she could, then wriggled free.

“I have to go, Mom. I have an appointment.”

“A date, you mean?” Charlotte smiled. Not a nice one. There were too many teeth in it. Holly had thought she was done being shocked by her mother, but it seemed that wasn’t the case. “Really? You? ”

Remember this could be the last time you see her, Holly thought. If it is, you don’t want to leave with angry words. You can be angry at her again if you live through this.

“It’s something else,” she said. “But let’s have some tea. I have time for that.”

So they had tea and the date-filled cookies Holly had always hated (they tasted dark , somehow), and it was almost eleven before she was finally able to escape her mother’s house, where the scent of the lemongrass candles still lingered. She kissed Charlotte on the cheek as they stood on the stoop. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too.”

Holly got as far as the door of her rental car, was actually touching the handle, when Charlotte called to her. Holly turned, almost expecting her mother to come leaping down the steps, arms spread, fingers hooked into claws, screaming Stay! You must stay! I command it!

But Charlotte was still on the stoop with her arms wrapped around her middle. Shivering. She looked old and unhappy. “I made a mistake about the bathrobe,” she said. “It is my size. I must have read the tag wrong.”

Holly smiled. “That’s good, Mom. I’m glad.”

She backed down the driveway, checked for traffic, and turned toward the turnpike. Ten past eleven. Plenty of time.

That’s what she thought then.

Her inability to discover the cause of the holdup only adds to Holly’s anxiety. The local AM and FM stations tell her nothing, including the one that’s supposed to have turnpike traffic info. Her Waze app, usually so reliable, is totally useless. The screen shows a smiling little man digging a hole with a shovel above the message WE’RE CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION BUT WE’LL BE BACK SOON!

Frack.

If she can make it another ten miles, she can get off at Exit 56 and take Highway 73, but right now Highway 73 might as well be on Jupiter. She feels around in her coat pocket, finds the last cough drop, and unwraps it while staring at the rear end of the dumptruck where a bumper sticker reads HOW’S MY DRIVING?

All these people should be at malls, Holly thinks. They should be shopping at malls and downtown small businesses and helping the local economy instead of giving their money to Amazon and UPS and Federal Express. All of you should get off this fracking highway so people with really important business could…

The traffic starts to move. Holly gives a cry of triumph that’s hardly out of her mouth before the dumptruck stops again. On her left, a man is chatting on his phone. On her right, a woman is freshening her lipstick. Her rental car’s digital clock tells her she now cannot expect to arrive at the Frederick Building until four o’clock. Four at the earliest.

That still would leave me two hours, Holly thinks. Please God, please let me be there in time to get ready for him. For it . For the monster.

Barbara Robinson puts aside her copy of the college catalogue she has been perusing, turns on her phone, and goes to the WebWatcher app Justin Freilander has put on her phone.

“You know that tracking someone without their permission isn’t exactly kosher, right?” Justin had said. “I’m not sure it’s even, like, totally legal.”

“I just want to make sure my friend is okay,” Barbara had said, and gave him a radiant smile that melted any reservations he might have had.

God knows Barbara has her own reservations; just looking at the little green dot on the map makes her feel guilty, especially since Jerome dumped his own tracker. But what Jerome doesn’t know (and Barbara won’t tell him) is that after Portland, Holly went to Pittsburgh. That, combined with the web searches Barbara looked at on Holly’s home computer, makes her think Holly’s interested in the Macready School bombing after all, and that interest seems to focus on either Charles “Chet” Ondowsky, the reporter from WPEN who was first on the scene, or Fred Finkel, his cameraman. Barbara thinks it’s almost certainly Ondowsky Holly is interested in, because there are more searches for him. Holly has even jotted his name on the pad beside her computer… with two question marks after it.

Barbara doesn’t want to think her friend is having some kind of mindfuck, maybe even a nervous breakdown, nor does she want to believe Holly might have somehow stumbled on the trail of the school bomber… but she knows that’s not beyond the realm, as they say. Holly is insecure, Holly spends way too much time doubting herself, but Holly is also smart. Is it possible that Ondowsky and Finkel (a pairing that inevitably reminds her of Simon & Garfunkel) somehow stumbled across a clue to the bomber without knowing it, or even realizing it?

This idea makes Barbara think of a film she watched with Holly. Blow-Up , it was called. In it, a photographer taking pictures of lovers in a park accidentally photographs a man hiding in the bushes with a pistol. What if something like that happened at the Macready School? What if the bomber had returned to the scene of the crime to gloat over his handiwork, and the TV guys had filmed him as he watched (or even pretended to help)? What if Holly had somehow realized that? Barbara knew and accepted that the idea was farfetched, but didn’t life sometimes imitate art? Maybe Holly had gone to Pittsburgh to interview Ondowsky and Finkel. That would be safe enough, Barbara supposes, but what if the bomber was still in the area, and Holly went after him?

What if the bomber went after her ?

All of this is probably bullshit, but Barbara is nevertheless relieved when the WebWatcher app tracks Holly leaving Pittsburgh and driving to her mother’s house. She almost deleted the tracker then, certainly doing so would have eased her conscience, but then Holly had called her yesterday, apparently for no reason other than to tell her she’d be staying over at her mom’s on Saturday night. And then, at the end of the call, Holly had said, “I love you.”

Well, of course she does, and Barbara loves her, but that was understood, not the kind of thing you had to say out loud. Except maybe on special occasions. Like if you’d had a fight with your friend and were making up. Or if you were going on a long trip. Or going off to fight in a war. Barbara is sure it was the last thing men and women said to their parents or partners before leaving to do that.