The Accident Read online

  “Oh, right.” Juliet shook her head. “I don’t think he’d pay that much attention. It’s just a drawing. Someone with a sick sense of humor could have drawn it. It’s not proof of anything.”

  Justin doesn’t know about the other two drawings. I never had the chance to tell him. But Juliet does. Why isn’t she telling him?

  When Justin went to pay the bill, Megan finally had a chance to speak to Juliet. “Juliet, you have to get back home before Dad notices you’re gone.” Juliet jerked upright with surprise when Megan spoke to her. “If he gets mad enough, he’ll cancel the party. And it’s not safe out here, anyway.”

  As the words registered, Juliet’s heavily mascaraed lashes fluttered with alarm. “Cancel? He can’t do that.”

  “Yes he can. You’d better go home, now.”

  Immediately contrite, Juliet whispered, “I’ll go right now Megan. I couldn’t stand it if your party was canceled.” She sighed heavily. “I guess I’ve been a real pain. I’m sorry. I’ll try to shape up, I promise.” She waved a hand in dismissal. “Now go away, quick, before Justin gets back.”

  Justin arrived, saying with a grin, “Talking to yourself, are you? They say that’s the first sign of old age.”

  Megan stayed just long enough to witness Juliet gifting him with a brilliant smile. Then she went home, where she checked on her sleeping family and waited anxiously for Juliet’s return. They had things to talk about.

  To Megan’s great relief, Juliet managed to get back into the house without waking either parent.

  “Whew!” Juliet exclaimed when she entered the bedroom and realized that Megan was present. “I made it! See, Megan? Nothing terrible happened. Your father doesn’t even know I was gone.”

  Megan wasn’t interested in talking about Juliet’s little escapade. “Why didn’t you tell Justin about the other drawings? If he knew there were three, I think he’d agree that you should take them to Sheriff Toomey.”

  “Oh, Megan, they’re just pictures. The sheriff would think I was crazy if I came waltzing into his office with a bunch of crayon drawings. Anyway,” she added with a shrug, “I don’t want to spend my time with Justin talking about creepy stuff like that. It’s not very romantic.”

  “You promised you’d help.”

  “And I will, Megan. I’ll pay strict attention to everyone I meet tomorrow. If I sense anything from anyone, I’ll tell you about it, I promise. Okay?”

  “Juliet, listen, you have to be more careful,” Megan said. “I’m not talking about upsetting my best friend and cutting classes. I’m talking about taking so many chances with your … my … safety. You’ve got to be more careful. Can’t you see how important it is?”

  Juliet sighed and nodded. “You’re right, Megan. I guess I was just so excited, I … I freaked out. It’s not a very good way to pay back a favor. I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful, I promise.”

  “Thank you.” Megan drifted toward the window, intending to go outside, when she spotted a small white card on the dresser. According to its bright blue printing, Megan Logan had a hair appointment at Cut It Again, Sam, a hair salon in the mall, on Saturday afternoon at one o’clock.

  “Juliet, what is this? I don’t have a hair appointment.”

  Juliet looked up from the bed in dismay. “Oh, Megan, it was supposed to be a surprise! You forgot to put it on your list, so I made the appointment for you.”

  “But I don’t want to have my hair done.”

  Light laughter. “Of course you do. Megan, you can’t go to your Sweet Sixteen party with” — she lifted a hand and gave a black curl a careless toss — “this.”

  “Yes, I can. I like my hair the way it is,” Megan said. “Just don’t make plans without asking me first, okay? And cancel the hair appointment.”

  Visibly disappointed, Juliet agreed to cancel the appointment. “I can’t do it tonight. I’ll do it tomorrow. But I still think your hair should look special for your Sweet Sixteen party, Megan. I wouldn’t have dreamed of not going to the beauty parlor before my party.”

  “Well, you’re not me, are you?”

  That struck Juliet as being very funny, since, for the moment, she was Megan. She was still laughing to herself when she went to brush her teeth.

  Megan hadn’t found it that funny.

  When Juliet had fallen asleep, Megan went outside. The lake and the surrounding area looked deceptively peaceful.

  How am I going to keep an eye on Juliet and on Thomas and Dad? Even in this form, I can’t be in three different places at the same time. But any one of them could be attacked at any time.

  The thought of anything bad happening to her father or brother sickened Megan.

  But a threat to Juliet was even more terrifying.

  What do I do if something happens to my body and I can’t return to it? Oh, God, I can’t think about that. I won’t!

  But the question wouldn’t go away. It pounded at her relentlessly, slapping at her, demanding to be answered. What would she do if something interfered with the exchange Saturday night?

  She found no answer in the thick gray mist. Or in the night sky, black as coal. No answer in the smooth, glassy surface of the lake.

  There was no answer anywhere.

  Chapter 15

  FOR THE NEXT TWO days, Megan stayed close to Juliet. She had decided, after a lot of agonizing, that since two of the drawings had been placed in her art box at Philippa, Juliet was in more danger at school than her father in his office or Thomas in his elementary school.

  Each day seemed to pass more slowly than the one before it. Every minute became an hour, each hour an eternity. How could this week ever have seemed short to her? “Such a little thing” she had called it. How wrong she’d been!

  And each day, anxiety clung to her like the furry cobwebs in her spider nightmare until her brother and her father arrived home safely.

  Juliet did shape up as promised. She attended all of Megan’s classes, helped around the house, visited Jenny in the hospital, and seemed content to stay home in the evening as long as Justin joined her there, and sometimes Barb and Cappie and Hilary, with whom Juliet had spent twenty minutes on the phone Tuesday morning in apology. Hilary had forgiven her.

  There were no more notes.

  But Megan reminded herself that the warning in the last drawing, the tom-tom, hadn’t been fulfilled yet.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe whoever had been doing such cruel things had repented and given up. That was possible, wasn’t it?

  Anything was possible.

  Wednesday afternoon, Donny Richardson joined them at lunch. Although he said little, nervously tugging on his skinny little mustache the whole time, Megan noticed Juliet watching him carefully. His bright pink shirt gave his skin a yellowish cast, and he chewed on his lower up while he listened to the conversation.

  Why was Juliet watching him like that?

  “There’s something about him,” she told Megan later, at home. “I’m not sure what. Maybe he’s just a creep. But I definitely felt something. I’m going to keep my eye on him.”

  “You think it’s him? Hurting people, I mean?”

  Juliet shrugged. “I’m not sure. But I’ll keep my eye on him, Megan, you can be sure of that.”

  She would have to, because Megan couldn’t add one more person to her list of people to watch. It was hard enough keeping track of three.

  When Megan’s feeling of isolation became especially overpowering, she tried to focus on the fact that, in spite of everything, Juliet seemed happy with her week. The thought wasn’t enough to lift Megan’s spirits, but it kept her from drowning in despair. She was glad she was making someone happy, especially someone who had once known her grandmother.

  Juliet talked a lot about the changes in the world in forty-six years. Although she was careful not to express amazement around other people, with Megan she was more open.

  “You have so many fun things now. Stereos and videos and MTV, and your supermarkets are unreal! When I l
ived here, the lake was our only entertainment.” Juliet shuddered. “I never liked it here, but my father did. He wouldn’t move back to the city, even though we were much happier there.”

  “The accident must have been horrible for him.”

  “Yes, it was. He was devastated. He loved me very much. And I him.” Juliet was silent for a moment. Then she added softly, “I warned him about this place. Martha told me there had been deaths here. But he wouldn’t listen.” With a regretful sigh, she changed the subject to more pleasant things like compact discs and hot rollers.

  Megan’s mother continued to improve and was up and around, relieving Juliet of the heavy house-work burden. Although that allowed her more free time, Megan’s father stuck to his rule about no one leaving the house in the evening.

  “Sheriff Toomey hasn’t learned anything new,” he said when Juliet begged for permission to go out for pizza. “You can order pizza in and eat it here.”

  “It’s so frustrating!” Juliet complained later, sitting on the bed with a pizza box at her side. “I think your father’s being silly. Nothing’s happened since Saturday night. And I don’t think anything is going to. Whoever did all that stuff must have decided it was too risky.”

  “You don’t know that, Juliet. Dad isn’t taking any chances, that’s all.”

  Megan felt sorry for Juliet. This week couldn’t be what she had hoped it would be. No one was giving any parties, the mall was deserted, and nothing fun was going on in town. Not that Juliet was complaining. She had Justin.

  “I told you, Juliet, that this wasn’t a good time.”

  Wiping a blob of tomato sauce off the blue print comforter, Juliet sighed heavily. “I know you did, Megan. But I didn’t have any choice. It was either before your birthday or never. Anything is better than never.”

  “I guess.” Megan wished she could believe that Juliet was right about no more harm coming their way. The tom-tom note had been placed in her cubbyhole on Monday. This was Wednesday. If something were going to happen, wouldn’t it have happened by now? None of the other drawings had appeared so far in advance.

  But she didn’t believe for a second that it was over. The sheriff hadn’t arrested anyone. Jenny’s accident and her mother’s attack and Hilary’s fall off the catwalk couldn’t be dismissed just because there were no clues. There had been someone out there when those things happened, and that someone was still out there.

  But what was he waiting for?

  And who would be his next victim?

  Megan got her answer the very next day.

  Chapter 16

  THE LOGAN HOUSE, LIKE other homes facing the lake, backed up to the boulevard. An enclosed back porch with a row of windows across its width looked out over the wide street, Thomas’s route home from school. It was there that Megan went Thursday afternoon when she realized that her brother was fifteen minutes late.

  The tom-tom drawing danced across her mind, taunting her.

  I should have gone to school to follow him home. Justin is bringing Juliet, so I was free to leave her, and Dad is still at the office. I could have gone to Thomas’s school to make sure he was all right.

  Peering out into the drizzle through the faded yellow curtains, she hoped that her mother, peeling potatoes in the kitchen, wasn’t watching the clock. If she noticed that her son hadn’t arrived yet even after repeated warnings to come straight home from school, she’d become frantic.

  Megan saw the truck before she saw Thomas. It was an eighteen-wheeler. They didn’t ordinarily come through the village, preferring instead the open highway circling Lakeside. This one must have had a delivery at the mall. It was huge, its cab bright yellow and shiny black. It wasn’t going very fast, probably only thirty-five miles an hour. But its size alone made it no match for a skinny little boy on a bicycle.

  Afterward, Megan told herself over and over that even if she’d had a voice, even if she’d been able to run, she couldn’t have stopped any of it. It happened too fast.

  The truck heaved its lumbering bulk around a corner just as Thomas came whizzing down the street. Megan thought he was whistling as he turned the handlebars. It seemed to her that his mouth was pursed when he looked up and saw the truck bearing down on him.

  He can stop, Megan told herself. He has plenty of time. All he has to do is use his brakes.

  He tried. She saw him try. She watched as his hands clenched the brake levers again and again, saw the muscles in his thin arms strain as he squeezed with all his might.

  Nothing happened. The new red-and-silver bicycle, Thomas’s tenth-birthday present from his parents, never even slowed down. It aimed straight for the mammoth metal truck as if it were magnetized.

  Thomas, still pumping the brakes frantically, closed his eyes as the truck loomed menacingly over him.

  Sound and time stopped as the truck and the bicycle collided.

  And as Megan silently screamed, No, no, not Thomas! her brother’s skinny little body flew up into the air as if shot from a cannon. It somersaulted twice before slamming back down to the ground, landing on a thin strip of green dividing the boulevard.

  People began running out of their houses to gather in horrified silence at the scene. A woman in a blue bathrobe took one look and ran back inside to call for help. The few cars on the boulevard came to a standstill. A man in a gray suit, a woman in a yellow raincoat, and two teenaged boys in sweatsuits left their cars to run to Thomas’s aid.

  In the kitchen, Megan’s mother heard the truck’s brakes screaming and instinctively sensed that they had screamed too late. Her eyes flew to the clock. When she saw the time and realized that she hadn’t heard Thomas’s familiar back-door slam, her jaw went slack, and her hands went to her mouth. She ran to the back porch windows.

  Megan, watching in agony, knew the exact moment when her mother recognized the red-and-silver bike lying on the ground. With a half scream, half moan, Connie Logan raced for the back door and out of the house.

  There was time for him to stop, to get out of the way. And he used his brakes, I saw him. Why didn’t he stop?

  Thomas couldn’t give her any answers. He was unconscious, bleeding from the nose. Although the ambulance attendants said nothing as they gently lifted him onto a stretcher and took him away, accompanied by his weeping mother, their faces were grim.

  As the ambulance pulled away, Megan felt the same horrible wrenching sensation that had torn at her when she’d entered the mirror for the final switch. What was happening to her family? First her mother, now Thomas.

  The sounds of the street, the birds singing as if something terrible hadn’t just taken place, the boat motors out on the lake, the small crowd whispering about the accident, it all seemed vague and distant, as if it were taking place at the far end of some long, dark tunnel.

  Megan cried soundlessly, seeing Thomas’s limp, broken body being lifted onto the stretcher. You have to be okay, Thomas, you have to.

  Although she needed desperately to get to the Medical Center, she stayed behind to wait for Juliet and tell her what had happened. She was about to go into the house to wait when she saw Juliet standing on the corner, watching the ambulance shriek down Lakeside Boulevard.

  “Thomas has been hurt,” Megan said quickly, anxious to get going. “Did you see it happen? Where’s Justin?”

  Juliet nodded. “I saw it. Justin had to drop me off at the library. He had some stuff to do there. I walked the rest of the way. How bad is Thomas hurt?”

  “Bad. I’m going to the hospital. You’d better come, too.”

  “I will. I’ll call Justin at the library. He won’t mind coming to get me when he finds out why.”

  He didn’t. While they were waiting for him, Juliet asked Megan, “Your party won’t be canceled now, will it?”

  Megan was stunned. “The party? Cancel the party? Juliet, Thomas could die! You don’t think I care about that stupid party now, do you? I don’t care if it’s cancelled.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Juli
et protested. “I mean, maybe you think you do now, because you’re upset. But believe me, you’ll be sorry later, when Thomas is okay and you didn’t get to celebrate your sixteenth birthday. I know how that feels, Megan.”

  What was taking Justin so long? “Juliet, I know you were really disappointed about your party, and I’m sorry about that, but I just don’t feel the same way you do. Did. Do. I can have a party any time, but I only have one brother.”

  When she arrived at the hospital, Megan hovered near her distraught parents, awaiting news of Thomas’s condition. Slowly, she went over the accident in her mind. The red-and-silver bike was new. Those brakes should have worked. Why hadn’t they? Had someone deliberately destroyed Thomas’s brakes the way Jenny’s steering mechanism had been destroyed? Or was it really just, a simple, tragic accident?

  No. It wasn’t. Or there would have been no tom-tom drawing.

  Who would hurt a little kid?

  Not Vicki. Even she wouldn’t do something that nasty.

  Unless … unless she was totally crazy. Out of her mind.

  Because that’s what it would take for someone to target an entire family. And wasn’t that just what someone was doing?

  Megan watched Juliet take a seat beside Megan’s mother. She doesn’t belong there. I belong there.

  It seemed years before the doctor arrived to tell them that Thomas would be a patient at Lakeside Medical Center for some time. He had a fractured pelvis, a broken leg, and a concussion. He was out of surgery now and would sleep all night. They might as well go home and get some rest.

  Connie stayed, but she sent her husband and Juliet home, telling them they would have to take her place at Thomas’s bedside the next day, so they needed a good night’s rest.

  When they got home, Megan’s father went straight to bed, while Juliet checked the answering machine in the kitchen to see if Justin had called.

  There were messages from Hilary, from Cappie, and from Mrs. Tweed at Cut It Again, Sam, informing Miss Logan that the operator scheduled to do Miss Logan’s hair on Saturday afternoon had taken ill, but another operator could take care of her beauty needs at two o’clock if that would be all right. If not, could Miss Logan please give them a call?