Kitabı oku: «Strange Bedfellows Part 3»

Chapter Fifteen

Cassandra drove through the dark night, heading toward Vanderbilt Memorial, a disturbingly intense and quiet Sean in the front passenger seat. It had begun to rain, and the only sound inside the car was the soft swish-swish of the windshield wipers—and the beating of Cassandra’s heart.

She could feel Sean’s fear, his anxiety, his need to be with his son. She also sensed his anger at himself for believing Jason to have been at fault when, as she had pointed out, no one yet knew what had happened.

As if reading her thoughts, Sean said quietly, “He said he was all right. But what’s all right? I remember a friend of mine, from college. He was injured in a sledding accident one winter, but swore he was fine. And he looked fine. He got up, he walked around, he talked. And then, about ten minutes later, he just fell down. He—he was dead by the time the paramedics arrived. Internal bleeding, they told us later. Cassandra, if anything were to happen to Jason, I—”

“Jason said he was fine, so he’s fine,” she told him quickly, reaching across the small space that divided them, the chasm that divided her from his parental pain. “We’ll be there in ten minutes, all right? Damn, hasn’t it rained enough in this past week?”

“Do you want to pull over, let me drive?”

Cassandra shook her head, looking out onto the rain-bright street, the reflection of the streetlights on the macadam. “I can manage. Oh—look up there, ahead of us, to those blinking lights. Do you think—?”

“Pull over behind that cruiser, Cassandra,” Sean said, both his hands braced on the dashboard. “That’s my car they’re loading onto the flatbed tow truck.”

Cassandra, her lips caught between her teeth, did as Sean asked, pulling the car to a stop behind a shiny white police car whose red, white and blue lights were still blinking out their warning, streaking the rainy night with color, with a sense of urgency that sent a sickening knot to tighten in the pit of her stomach.

They were both out of the car and running toward the tow truck before any of the policemen or firemen who were on the scene could stop them, Sean calling out who he was and that he was the owner of the Mercedes.

Or what used to be a Mercedes, Cassandra thought as she stopped in her tracks, looking at the car in horror. There was barely anything left of the passenger side of the car. She walked forward more slowly, wiping raindrops from her face, squinting as she took off her wet glasses and taking in the sight of the deflated passenger-door air bag that had deployed when the car was hit.

The dashboard air bags hadn’t deployed, which meant that the impact had all been from the side, and Cassandra looked around, hunting for the source of that impact. She counted up the three police cruisers, the single fire truck—with half a dozen firemen busy washing down the street with hoses they’d pulled from the pumper truck. Cassandra could smell gasoline fumes and looked at the street, seeing the oily rainbows of color that told her at least one of the vehicles involved in the accident had leaked gasoline from its fuel tank.

“Thank God there wasn’t a fire,” she said as one of the policemen approached her.

“You with Mr. Frame, ma’am?” the officer inquired, and Cassandra nodded.

“Where’s the other car?” she then asked, wondering if it looked as bad as the Mercedes. If it did, there may have been more injuries, even a fatality.

“We’re looking for it now, ma’am,” the officer told her, motioning for her to step back. The tow truck was ready to move out, Sean’s twisted car perched on the flatbed like some sort of horrible modern art. “It was a hit-and-run, according to the kid. And there’s white paint on his rear bumper, so we believe him. Someone hit him from the rear, at least twice, and he went spinning out on the wet street. Ended up sliding against that light pole over there, at the entrance to the intersection. It was quite an impact, which happens when a car is thrown into a spin.”

Sure enough, the light pole was leaning drunkenly over the street, something she hadn’t noticed at first. The damage had all been to the Mercedes. The gas that had spilled on the street had been from the Mercedes.

Jason and Becky had been attacked! And they could have been killed!

“Somebody—somebody did this deliberately?” Cassandra looked toward Sean and saw him striding in her direction, the cold, concentrated look on his face telling her that one of the other policemen had already given him the information she’d just heard. “My God. Why? Sean?”

He took hold of her outstretched hand. “Come on, Cassandra, we’re going to Vanderbilt to talk to Jason. The officer told me he swears he didn’t recognize the other car, but I want to hear it from his own mouth, while he’s looking into my eyes. Into your eyes.”

She ran to the driver’s side of her car and slid inside, already turning the key in the ignition. “I don’t get it, Sean,” she said as she carefully pulled around the cruiser, avoiding the area where the firemen were just finishing hosing down the street, then heading for the hospital once more, this time with more than worry and fear riding along with her. Now she was also angry. Very, very angry!

Sean was sitting very still, staring straight ahead, water droplets glistening in his hair, his face lit by each streetlight they passed. His jaw was set tight, his shoulders squared. He looked ready to take on the world, and heaven help anyone who dared to get in his way.

“What don’t you get, Cassandra?” he asked tightly as the lights of Vanderbilt Memorial at last appeared in the distance. “That someone would deliberately run someone else’s car off the street? To some minds, that’s what’s known as good, clean fun. And an inexperienced young kid driving a luxury car? Hell, that must have made it twice the fun!”

“So, you think that whoever did this was really after the car? Or, if I get this right, after the kid who they saw driving such a car? That doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t have to, Cassandra,” he shot back tersely, then pointed toward the windshield. “Turn up there, just before that sign pointing out the emergency entrance. The officer said someone will meet us there.”

She put on her turn signal, then began to slow down. She really didn’t like driving at night, especially in the rain, especially when there were so many lights—lights that seemed to turn into bright star bursts as they shone through the windscreen at her, hurting her eyes.

“Are you saying this all happened because a bunch of kids were out joyriding and just happened to see Jason and Becky?” she asked, trying to understand. “That the reason the kids could be injured, your car totaled, the police and fire departments called out—this entire mess—is because a couple of bored kids felt like having a little fun?”

He shot her an intense look as she pulled into one of the specially marked parking spaces for those coming to the emergency room. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Cassandra. Now, can you tell me which of your students—your current kids, or any who graduated, or any who dropped out—you believe capable of considering damn near killing somebody else fun? Think about it, okay?”

She sat in the car, her hand on the ignition key, watching as Sean slammed the passenger door and began jogging toward the emergency room entrance. One of her kids? One of her students? Capable of such stupidity? Such dangerous horseplay? No. No, it couldn’t be. Not one of her kids.

“Oh, God,” she said, and slowly lowered her forehead on the steering wheel, feeling sick to her stomach.

* * *

Sean saw Jason immediately, and stopped himself before he could rush across the room to his son. Taking a deep breath and looking at him, Sean visually assessed him as if for damage. Jason looked completely normal, except for the grayish cast to his skin and the untidiness of his hair which, even as Sean watched, Jason rumpled with his fingers as he sighed audibly.

He looked scared, shaken and about twelve years old. Sean’s heart constricted, and he had to take several more deep breaths before he could force his legs to move.

“Dad!” Jason exclaimed, his eyes shining with relief as he turned in his chair and saw Sean. He jumped up hurriedly, then sat down again, his quick smile gone, his gaze intent on the tile floor.

Sean knew what his son was thinking, what he feared. He believed that his father would be madder than hell and immediately start yelling at him. Which wouldn’t have been far from wrong, Sean supposed, if he hadn’t been with Cassandra when the news first came, and hadn’t had her to yell at, to vent his anger to, when his fear turned to a stupid outburst of impotent fury.

But now he’d had time to think, time for the first jolt of fear to be overcome by reason. And it didn’t matter that he’d already found out that the accident hadn’t been his son’s fault. Nothing mattered right now, damn it, except that his son was all right.

Sean quickly crossed the room, nodding to the uniformed officer who was propping up the wall beside Jason, and then dropped to his knees in front of the boy.

“Jase?” he asked quietly, laying a hand on the boy’s knee. “Have the doctors checked you out? Are you sure you’re all right?”

Jason nodded, still keeping his head down. “Dr. Howell checked me out a while ago. I’m just sore, where the seat belt grabbed at me, I guess. He gave me some muscle relaxant pills, or something like that. Becky’s okay, too. She—she was pretty upset. Crying and stuff. Screaming. But she’s okay. They’re just going to keep her overnight because she might have hit her head or something. The police said the air bag probably saved her.” He slowly raised his head, his eyes shining with tears. “I—I’m so sorry about the car, Dad. I know how much you loved it.”

“The car,” Sean said hollowly, feeling his bottom lip beginning to tremble, feeling the prickle of tears behind his eyes. “Jase, I don’t give two damns about the car. Just as long as you’re all right. Do you understand what I’m saying? I love you, son. I love you so much.”

The next thing Sean knew, a sobbing Jason was draped against him, holding him so tightly he could feel each of his fingertips pressing into his back. “I love you, too, Dad,” he gulped out against his father’s neck as Sean returned his embrace, holding his son as the two of them knelt on the floor, rocking him in his arms, letting him cry.