Shadowland tm-1 Page 12

  Unfortunately, Father Dominic ended up taking the weight of the falling cross himself. It pinned him to the office floor, smashing most of his ribs and breaking one of his legs.

  Mr. Walden and a bunch of the sisters tried to get us to go to class instead of crowding the breezeway, watching for Father Dom and Bryce to emerge from the principal's office. Some people went when Sister Ernestine threatened everyone with detention, but not me. I didn't care if I got detention. I had to make sure they were all right. Sister Ernestine said something very nasty about how maybe Miss Simon didn't realize how unpleasant detention at the Mission Academy could be. I assured Sister Ernestine that if she was threatening corporal punishment, I would tell my mother, who was a local news anchorwoman and would be over here with a TV camera so fast, nobody would have time to say so much as a single Hail Mary.

  Sister Ernestine was pretty quiet after that.

  It was shortly after this that I found Doc pressed up pretty close to me. I looked down and said, "What are you doing here?" since the little kids are supposed to stay way on the other side of the school.

  "I want to see if he's all right." Doc's freckles were standing out, he was so pale.

  "You're going to get in trouble," I warned him. Sister Ernestine was busily writing people up.

  "I don't care," Doc said. "I want to see."

  I shrugged. He was a funny kid, that Doc. He wasn't anything like his big brothers, and it wasn't because of his red hair, either. I remembered Dopey's teasing comment about the car keys and "Dave's ghost," and wondered how much, if anything, Doc knew about what had been going on lately at his school.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, they came out. Bryce was first, strapped onto a stretcher and moaning, I'm sorry to say, like a bit of a baby. I've had plenty of broken and dislocated bones, and believe me it hurts, but not enough to lie there moaning. Usually when I get hurt, I don't even notice. Like last night, for instance. When I'm really hurt all I can do is laugh because it hurts so much that it's actually funny.

  Okay, I have to admit I sort of stopped liking Bryce so much when I saw him acting like such a baby....

  Especially when I saw Father Dom, who the paramedics wheeled out next. He was unconscious, his white hair sort of flopped over in a sad way, a jagged cut, partially covered by gauze, over his right eye. I hadn't eaten any breakfast in my haste to get to school, and I have to admit the sight of poor Father Dominic with his eyes closed and his glasses gone, made me feel a little woozy. In fact, I might have swayed a little on my feet, and probably would have fallen over if Doc hadn't grabbed my hand and said confidently, "I know. The sight of blood makes me sick, too."

  But it wasn't the sight of Father Dom's blood seeping through the bandage on his head that had made me sick. It was the realization that I had failed. I had failed miserably. It was only dumb blind luck that Heather hadn't succeeded in killing them both. It was only because of Father Dom's quick thinking that he and Bryce were alive. It was no thanks to me. No thanks to me whatsoever.

  Because if I had handled things better the night before it wouldn't have happened. It wouldn't have happened at all.

  That's when I got mad. I mean really mad.

  Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. I looked down at Doc. "Is there a computer here at school? One with Internet access?"

  "Sure," Doc said, looking surprised. "In the library. Why?"

  I dropped his hand. "Never mind. Go back to class."

  "Suze – "

  "Anyone who isn't in his or her classroom in one minute," Sister Ernestine said, imperiously, "will be suspended indefinitely!"

  Doc tugged on my sleeve.

  "What's going on?" he wanted to know. "Why do you need a computer?"

  "Nothing," I said. Behind the wrought iron gate that led to the parking lot, the paramedics slammed the doors to the ambulances in which they'd loaded Father Dom and Bryce. A second later, they were pulling away in a whine of sirens and a flurry of flashing lights. "Just... it's stuff you wouldn't understand, David. It isn't scientific."

  Doc said, with no small amount of indignation, "I can understand lots of stuff that isn't scientific. Music, for instance. I've taught myself to play Chopin on my electronic keyboard back home. That isn't scientific. The appreciation of music is purely emotional as is the appreciation of art. I can understand art and music. So come on, Suze," he said. "You can tell me. Does it have anything to do with ... what we were talking about the other night?"

  I turned to gaze down at him in surprise. He shrugged. "It was a logical conclusion. I made a cursory examination of the statue – cursory because I was unable to approach it as closely as I would have liked thanks to the crime scene tape and evidence team – and was unable to discern any saw marks or other indications of how the head was severed. There is no possible way bronze can be cut that cleanly without the use of some sort of heavy machinery, but such machinery would never fit through – "

  "Mr. Ackerman!" Sister Ernestine sounded like she meant business. "Would you like to be written up?"

  David looked irritated. "No," he said.

  "No, what?"

  "No, Sister." He looked back at me, apologetically. "I guess I better go. But can we talk more about this tonight at home? I found out some stuff about – well, what you asked me. You know." He widened his eyes meaningfully. "About the house."

  "Oh," I said. "Great. Okay."

  "Mr. Ackerman!"

  David turned to look at the nun. "Hold on a minute, okay, Sister? I'm trying to have a conversation here."

  All of the blood left the middle-aged woman's face. It was incredible.

  She reacted as childishly as if she were the twelve year old, and not David.

  "Come with me, young man," she said, seizing hold of David's ear. "I can see your new stepsister has put some pretty big city ideas into your head about how a boy speaks to his elders – "

  David let out a noise like a wounded animal, but went along with the woman, hunched up like a shrimp, he was in so much pain. I swear I wouldn't have done anything – anything at all – if I hadn't suddenly noticed Heather standing just inside the gate, laughing her head off.

  "Oh, God," she cried, gasping a little, she was laughing so hard. "If you could have seen your face when you heard Bryce was dead! I swear! It was the funniest thing I've ever seen!" She stopped laughing long enough to toss her long hair and say, "You know what? I think I'm going to clobber a few more people with stuff today. Maybe I'll start with that little guy over there – "

  I stepped toward her. "You lay one hand on my brother, and I'll stuff you right back into that grave you crawled out of."

  Heather only laughed, but Sister Ernestine, who I realized belatedly thought I was talking to her, let go of David so fast you'd have thought the kid had suddenly caught on fire.

  "What did you say?"

  Sister Ernestine was turning sort of purple. Behind her, Heather laughed delightedly. "Oh, now you've done it. Detention for a week!"

  And just like that, she disappeared, leaving behind yet another mess for me to clean up.

  As much to my surprise as, I think, her own, Sister Ernestine could only stare at me. David stood there rubbing his ear and looking bewildered. I said as quickly as I could, "We'll go back to our classrooms now. We were only concerned about Father Dominic, and wanted to see him off. Thanks, Sister."

  Sister Ernestine continued to stare at me. She didn't say anything. She was a big lady, not quite as tall as me in my two-inch heels – I was wearing black Batgirl boots – but much wider, with exceptionally large breasts. Between them dangled a silver cross. Sister Ernestine fingered this cross unconsciously as she stared at me. Later, Adam, who'd watched the entire event unfold, would say that Sister Ernestine was holding up the cross as if to protect herself from me. That is untrue. She merely touched the cross as if uncertain it was still there. Which it was. It most certainly was.

  I guess that was when David stopped being Doc to me, and started being Da
vid.

  "Don't worry," I told him, just before we parted ways because he looked so worried and cute and all with his red hair and freckles and sticky-outy ears. I reached out and rumpled some of that red hair. "Everything will be all right."

  David looked up at me. "How do you know?" he asked.

  I took my hand away.

  Because, of course, the truth was I didn't. Know everything was going to be all right, I mean. Far from it, as a matter of fact.

  CHAPTER 15

  Launch was almost over by the time I cornered Adam. I had spent almost the entire period in the library staring into a computer monitor. I still hadn't eaten, but the truth was, I wasn't hungry at all.

  "Hey," I said, sitting down next to him and crossing my legs so that my black skirt hiked up just the littlest bit. "Did you drive to school this morning?"

  Adam pounded on his chest. He'd started choking on a Frito the minute I'd sat down. When he finally got it down, he said, proudly, "I sure did. Now that I got my license, I am a driving machine. You should've come out with us last night, Suze. We had a blast. After we went to the Coffee Clutch, we took a spin along Seventeen Mile Drive. Have you ever done that? Man, with last night's moon, the ocean was so beautiful – "

  "Would you mind taking me somewhere after school?"

  Adam stood up fast, scaring two fat seagulls that had been sitting near the bench he was sharing with Cee Cee. "Are you kidding me? Where do you want to go? You name it, Suze, I'll take you there. Vegas? You want to go to Vegas? No problem. I mean, I'm sixteen, you're sixteen. We can get married there easy. My parents'll let us live with them, no problem. You don't mind sharing my room, do you? I swear I'll pick up after myself from now on – "

  "Adam," Cee Cee said. "Don't be such a spaz. I highly doubt she wants to marry you."

  "I don't think it's a good idea to marry anyone until my divorce from my first husband is finalized," I said, gravely. "What I want to do is go to the hospital and see Bryce."

  Adam's shoulders slumped. "Oh," he said. There was no missing the dejection in his voice. "Is that all?"

  I realized I'd said the wrong thing. Still, I couldn't unsay it. Fortunately, Cee Cee helped me out by saying, thoughtfully, "You know, a story about Bryce and Father Dominic bravely battling back from their wounds wouldn't be a bad idea for the paper. Would you mind if I tagged along, Suze?"

  "Not at all." A lie, of course. With Cee Cee along, it might be difficult to accomplish what I wanted without a lot of explaining....

  But what choice did I have? None.

  Once I'd secured my ride, I started looking for Sleepy. I found him dozing with his back to the monkey bars. I nudged him awake with the toe of my boot. When he squinted up at me through his sunglasses, I told him not to wait for me after school, that I'd found my own ride. He grunted, and went back to sleep.

  Then I went and found a pay phone. It's weird when you don't know your own mother's phone number. I mean, I still knew our number back in Brooklyn, but I didn't have the slightest idea what my new phone number was. Good thing I'd written it in my date book. I consulted the S's – for Simon – and found my new number, and dialed it. I knew no one was home, but I wanted to cover all my bases. I told the answering machine that I might be late getting back from school since I was going out with a couple of new friends. My mother, I knew, would be delighted when she got back from the station and heard it. She'd always worried, back in Brooklyn, that I was anti-social. She'd always go, "Suzie, you're such a pretty girl. I just don't understand why no boys ever call you. Maybe if you didn't look so ... well, tough. How about giving the leather jacket a rest?"

  She'd probably have died of joy if she could have been in the parking lot after school and heard Adam as I approached his car.

  "Oh, Cee, here she is." Adam flung open the passenger door of his car – which turned out to be one of the new Volkswagen Bugs; I guess Adam's parents weren't hurting for money – and shooed Cee Cee into the backseat. "Come on, Suze, you sit right up front with me."

  I peered through my sunglasses – as usual, the morning fog had burned away, and now at three o'clock the sun beat down hard from a perfectly clear blue sky – at Cee Cee squashed in the backseat. "Um, really," I said. "Cee Cee was here first. I'll sit in the back. I don't mind at all."

  "I won't hear of it." Adam stood by the door, holding it open for me. "You're the new girl. The new girl gets to sit in the front."

  "Yeah," Cee Cee said from the depths of the backseat, "until you refuse to sleep with him. Then he'll relegate you to the backseat, too."

  Adam said, in a Wizard of Oz voice, "Ignore that man behind the curtain."

  I slid into the front seat, and Adam politely closed the door for me.

  "Are you serious?" I turned around to ask Cee Cee as Adam made his way around the car to the driver's seat.

  Cee Cee blinked at me from behind her protective lenses. "Do you really think anybody would sleep with him?"

  I digested that. "I take it," I said, "that's a no, then."

  "Damned straight," Cee Cee said just as Adam slid behind the wheel.

  "Now," the driver said, flexing his fingers experimentally before switching on the ignition. "I'm thinking this whole thing with the statue and Father Dom and Bryce has really stressed us all out. My parents have a hot tub, you know, which is really ideal for stress like the kind we've all been through today, and I suggest that we all go to my place first for a soak...."

  "Tell you what," I said. "Let's skip the hot tub this time, and just go straight to the hospital. Maybe, if there's time later – "

  "Yes." Adam looked heavenward. "There is a god."

  Cee Cee said, from the backseat, "She said maybe, numbskull. God, try to control yourself."

  Adam glanced at me as he eased out of his parking space. "Am I coming on too strong?"

  "Uh," I said. "Maybe...."

  "The thing is, it's been so long since even a remotely interesting girl has shown up around here." Adam, I saw with some relief, was a very careful driver – not like Sleepy, who seemed to think stop signs actually said Pause. "I mean, I've been surrounded by Kelly Prescotts and Debbie Mancusos for sixteen years. It's such a relief to have a Susannah Simon around for a change. You decimated Kelly this morning when you went, 'Hmm, do angels leave blood stains? I don't think so.' "

  Adam went on in this vein for the rest of the trip to the hospital. I wasn't quite sure how Cee Cee could stomach it. Unless I was mistaken, she felt the same way about him that he evidently felt about me. Only I didn't think his crush on me was very serious – if it had been, he wouldn't have been able to joke about it. Cee Cee's crush on him, however, looked to me like the real thing. Oh, she was able to tease him and even insult him, but I'd looked into the rear view mirror a couple times and caught her looking at the back of his head in a manner that could only be called besotted.

  But just when she was sure he wasn't looking.

  When Adam pulled up in front of the Carmel hospital, I thought he had stopped at a country club or a private house by mistake. Okay, a really big private house, but hey, you should have seen some of the places in the Valley.

  But then I saw a discreet little sign that said Hospital. We piled out of the car and wandered through an immaculately kept garden, where the flower beds were bursting with blossoms. Hummingbirds buzzed all around, and I spotted some more of those palm trees I'd been sure I'd never see so far north of the equator.

  At the information desk, I asked for Bryce Martinson's room. I wasn't sure he'd been admitted actually, but I knew from experience – unfortunately firsthand – that any accident in which a head wound might have occurred generally required an overnight stay for observation – and I was right. Bryce was there, and so was Father Dominic, conveniently situated right across the hall from one another.

  We weren't the only people visiting these particular patients – not by a long shot. Bryce's room was packed. There wasn't, apparently, any limit on just how many people could crowd int
o a patient's room, and Bryce's looked as if it contained most of the Junipero Serra Mission Academy's senior class. In the middle of the sunny, cheerful room – where on every flat surface rested vases filled with flowers – lay Bryce in a shoulder cast, his right arm hanging from a pulley over his bed. He looked a lot better than he had that morning, mostly, I suppose, because he was pumped full of painkillers. When he saw me in the doorway, this big goofy smile broke out over his face, and he went, "Suze!"

  Only he pronounced it "Soo-oo-ooze," so it sounded like it had more than one syllable.

  "Uh, hi, Bryce," I said, suddenly shy. Everybody in the room had turned around to see who Bryce was talking to. Most of them were girls. They all did that thing a lot of girls do – they looked me over from the top of my head – I hadn't showered that morning because I'd been running so late, so I was not exactly having a good hair day – to the soles of my feet.

  Then they smirked.

  Not so Bryce would have noticed. But they did.

  And even though I could not have cared less what a bunch of girls I had never met before, and would probably never meet again, thought of me, I blushed.

  "Everybody," Bryce said. He sounded drunk, but pleasantly so. "This is Suze. Suze, this is everybody."

  "Uh," I said. "Hi."

  One of the girls, who was sitting on the end of Bryce's bed in a very white, wrinkle-free linen dress, went, "Oh, you're that girl who saved his life yesterday. Jake's new stepsister."

  "Yeah," I said. "That's me." There was no way – no way – I was going to be able to ask Bryce what I needed to ask him with all these people in the room. Cee Cee had steered Adam off into Father Dom's room in order to give me some time alone with Bryce, but it looked as if she'd done so in vain. There was no way I was going to get a minute with this guy alone. Not unless ...