“Hey!” I repeat. “I’m with KPD,” I lie. “Step away from my vehicle and state your name.”
Still, no answer, but I hear a shuffle, and this time, for sure, a car door shuts. My muscles lock, my breathing stops.
“Stop!” I yell out again, and as I do, another truck pulls in, lights sweeping across the lot and across both our vehicles before landing on one of the dumpsters on the other side of the U.
I can’t see the mystery vehicle even when the truck’s lights dust across it because it’s still hidden behind mine. Its headlights flash as it starts. Suddenly, it peels out and speeds away, lights off and no illumination on the back bumper. No plate is visible, but I can tell by the shape that it’s a medium-size, dark-colored SUV, like mine.
I have a quick decision to make: stay and watch which way it turns at the end of the drive or run to my car to follow it. I need to know if it will head east or west, so I watch.
As it turns west onto the main road, its headlamps flick on. I can make out its side. It looks like a Ford Explorer but I’m not positive. It could be a Toyota 4Runner like mine.
When I get to my car, I check the back seat with my phone light. It’s vacant. Front seat, ditto. My gun is under the front seat where I left it. I grab it and circle the vehicle, checking to see if my tires are slashed.
I steady the light on each tire and then lift it to the side doors. My blood turns to ice, and suddenly I’m acutely aware of every sound in the oncoming night—the cars in the distance, an owlhoo-hoo-ing from afar, scurrying sounds from a small animal in the dry field behind the nearest dumpster.
My body spools into a tightly knit knot.
In white marker on the side of my passenger door, two words are scrawled:
It’s You.
Chapter 27
Vonda
Goddammit,Vonda cursed. Martha was bringing another walk-in.
She checked her watch. Past 4 p.m.
She wanted to leave a little early, get home and out in her garden before dinnertime. Reply to more of the crazy messages she’d been getting all week from friends saying how much she looked like some stupid sketch a wacko had put out on the internet.
Like she had either the time or inclination to futz around with online games, especially since now there was another student to contend with.
Martha brought the girl, Hannah Jenkins, to Vonda’s office.
With her burgundy-colored hoodie on, Hannah slumped into her chair without saying a word.
The only thing Vonda felt like asking her was,You going to take that goddamn hoodie off your head? You going to sit here in my office all disrespectful like that, hiding in your hoodie, not looking me in the eye?
And yet. And yet:You’re here because you want my help, aren’t you? You’re going to tell me about how you’re depressed, how you miss your mommy and daddy, how the girls in your dorm aren’t treating you right. You’re going to want me to do the impossible: make it all better, give you the confidence your helicopter parents never gave you.
Vonda drew a deep breath. She released it in a sigh she tried to keep quiet. “So,” she began in the sweetest voice she could muster. “What brings you in?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said, shrugging off her question.
And Vonda was off—launched once again on the school counselor’s tiresome dance, trying to pry it out of them, one basic question at a time.Where are you from? What year is this for you?
If their parents had forced the student to come in and see her, this would not be a productive chat.
If they came in on their own, they might talk eventually, but not until she wrestled it out of them because they were always too meek or hazy or immature to simply lay it out.
God, it was exhausting. Vonda dreamed of opening a counseling practice for adults, for halfway functional grown-ups willing to dive into their issues.
But even now, at the end of her flipping rope, there was something about the mix of innocence and arrogance of college students, cheeks still puffy with youth and eyes filled with both uncertainty and determination, that got to her. Even when they thought they were more sophisticated than they were, and it grated on her nerves when they did, she enjoyed the challenge.
She could see enough of Hannah’s face to see she had flawless skin. Her upturned nose was smooth, with none of the pimples inflicting so many of the students from the awful cafeteria food they shoveled down. “Can I ask, was it your idea to come see me?”
“Yeah. I mean, I guess.”
