Driver's Dead (14 page)

“Good start. Okay, turn left.”

Mr. Busk guided her through the nearby side streets, practicing K-turns, starting and stopping, signaling, parallel parking.

Then they went to Sunrise Highway, which ran alongside the commuter train tracks. There, on long stretches of uninterrupted highway, Kirsten practiced lane changing and passing.

“Kirsten, I am shocked,” Mr. Busk said while they were stopped at a light. “I never thought you'd make it. But you know what? I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I'm going to pass you.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Now,” he said, peering over her head to the left, “turn left and go over the train tracks.”

Kirsten was ready to burst. After the last two horrific days, this was the best news she'd heard. She couldn't help smiling as she made the turn.

In the distance, she heard a train approaching.

“Okay, the gate's open, Kirsten. That train isn't as close as it seems. What do you do?”

Kirsten had made the turn. She was crossing the oncoming-car-traffic lanes, where the cars were stopped for a red light. A few yards beyond Sunrise, the tracks crossed the road. She had room enough to stop and wait.

Honnnnk!

She saw a car in her rearview mirror, so close she could swear it was touching.

“Ignore that jerk,” Mr. Busk said. “Just go over the tracks, carefully and
slowly.”

Kirsten put her foot on the brakes. As she approached the tracks, the car slowed way down. The train was getting louder now, but Mr. Busk didn't seem too concerned.

The car behind her whizzed by on the right, careening over the tracks. “To you, too, buddy!” the driver shouted to Mr. Busk as he passed, then swerved to cut Kirsten off, tossing off an obscene gesture.

Kirsten jammed on the brake. She gave Mr. Busk a quick glance. His right hand was out the window.

Kirsten looked ahead. She stepped on the gas but the car didn't move. She checked the gear shift and the emergency brake, and gassed it again.

The engine made a gagging noise, then stopped.

Clack … clack … clack …

Kirsten looked to the left. She could
see
the train now.

Ca-chunk.

The gate in front of her slammed down. Red lights flashed. No other cars were at the intersection.

“Mr. Busk?”

He was running. Bailing out. Slamming the door behind him and racing away. His window, which had been open a moment before, was closed.

Kirsten grabbed the handle of her door. It was locked. She felt around for the lock, but it was electronic. She needed battery power.

She turned the key. Nothing.

She dove across the seat and pulled the handle of Mr. Busk's door.

He had locked it!

HOOOONNNNNNNNK!

The train's horn blasted. Its brakes sounded like a chorus of shrieking witches. The front gleamed silver, growing, filling her window.

Desperately Kirsten looked for an escape. Her eyes passed across the ignition shutoff switch under the glove compartment.

It had been pressed in.

And Mr. Busk had the keys.

Kirsten was trapped.

K
IRSTEN BANGED ON THE
window, the windshield. She screamed. She lay on her back and tried to
kick
out the side window.

She pushed against the floor with her hand to brace herself for a stronger kick.

Her fingers wrapped around the Club.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
—

The train's brakes let out a deafening shriek.

She sat up. She lifted the Club to her shoulder and swung.

It thudded dully against the passenger-side window.

With a cry of desperation, she swung again.

CRAAASSSSSHHHH!

The window shattered. Kirsten dived through it. She heard a ripping noise. She landed on her shoulder and rolled away from the car. Scrambling to her feet, she ran.

She got as far as a scrubby hedge beyond the north side of the tracks when the train hit.

The noise shook the ground. The car crumpled like a toy and shot forward. In a sickening scream of scraping metal, the snub nose of the locomotive pushed the black wreckage along the tracks.

Fifty yards later, train and car finally stopped in a cloud of acrid smoke.

Kirsten stared at the twisted, flattened remains of the car. A moment more, and she would have been in there.

He tried to kill me.

She let the idea sink in. Mr. Busk wanted her dead. He had made her go over the tracks, closed the windows, and pressed the shutoff button.

And he had been careful enough not to ruin a driver's ed car while killing her.

She looked at herself for the first time. Her pants were torn. Her right arm had a bleeding gash along its entire length. Her cheek stung where her face had hit the ground.

But Kirsten felt rooted to the spot. She didn't move until she saw ambulance lights flashing.

The vehicle came to a screeching halt and two white-suited men rushed out toward the smashed car. A crowd of gawkers had already formed. Their eyes were glued to the accident, but it wouldn't be long before someone turned her way.

Kirsten got up. Pain shot from her left ankle all the way up her back. She made tracks away from Sunrise as fast as her aching legs could take her.

“What happened to
you?”
said Nat as she limped into the house.

“I fell,” Kirsten said.

“Where? Into a trash compacter?”

Kirsten went into the bathroom, closed the door, and looked in the mirror.

What she saw was
not
pretty. Her face was scraped, but it had already stopped bleeding. The arm and leg were much worse. She took off her clothes and showered, gritting her teeth against the pain.

Afterward she carefully covered the open wounds with gauze. Then she wrapped a towel around her, went upstairs, and changed.

She hobbled into her parents' room and called Maria.

“Maria, hi, I have to talk to you.”

“What's wrong, Kirsten? Mr. Busk tried to put the moves on you? You attract all the winners, don't you?”

“No! Listen to me,
(boop!)
I—”

Call waiting. Of all the times to be interrupted!

“He took me driving—in another car—and he tried to—
(boop!)
Ohhhhh!”

“Take the call, Kirsten. I'll be here.”

Kirsten clicked the receiver hook. “Hello!” she snapped.

“Kirsten! Thank God you're home.” It was Virgil, speaking in a rushed, pinched whisper. “Meet me right away, at Riverside and West. Don't talk to anybody. Don't let anything stop you.”

“But I'm on the phone with Maria—”

“Get rid of her.”

“But—”

“Kirsten, this involves your life. Get rid of Maria and don't tell her I called.
Now!”

“Okay.” She clicked the hook again. “Hi, Maria? Listen, I have to go. Can I call you later?”

“You're going to leave me hanging like this? What could be so important—”

“See you, Maria. Sorry. Bye.”

Click.

She limped downstairs and out to the garage. Nat was playing Nintendo in the den and ignored her.

As she lifted her right leg over her bike, she grimaced in agony. But the pain was dull and throbbing, not sharp like a bone break. She could make it.

She pushed off with her good foot and began rolling. Girding herself, she pedaled down the driveway and into the street.

Kirsten went straight to Riverside Drive, which ran along the west side of Port Lincoln. Toward the edge of town, the houses she passed were larger and farther apart. Port Lincoln became almost rural here, until it disappeared entirely into forest beyond West Street.

But Riverside Drive kept going, all the way to Fenimore Village. Years ago it was the
only
road that led to Fenimore, until the parkway was built and people could make the trip in three minutes. Riverside had become a cracked, potholed, country road twisting through pines and maples that seemed to grow closer to the blacktop every year. It followed the Sagramore River for a while, then crossed over it on a stone bridge.

It was near that stone bridge that Nguyen Trang had lost his life.

As Kirsten approached West Street, the sun was setting to her left. It had recently burned away the clouds, just in time to make the leaves overhead look like a canopy of flames. Two blocks from the intersection, she could see Virgil's silhouette. He was pacing, looking up West Street.

She was about to shout to him, but she didn't.

A red Jeep appeared, speeding from West Street into the intersection. It squealed to a halt, and Mr. Busk got out.

Kirsten squeezed her hand brake. Quickly she got off her bike and hid behind a nearby hedged

“What are you doing
here?”
Mr. Busk bellowed.

Virgil stammered an answer Kirsten couldn't hear.

Mr. Busk did not seem happy with the answer, and he began looking up and down Riverside. Lowering his voice, he argued with Virgil, gesturing angrily with his arms.

Virgil looked terribly anxious.

They were waiting for me. This was a setup.

The thought ripped its way into her consciousness. She never would have suspected Virgil.

But Virgil had called her immediately after Busk had tried to kill her.

And Virgil had gone
ballistic
when he'd seen her reading Nguyen's disk.
A defective mouse?
How could Kirsten have been so stupid? Mr. Ruggiero had said the mouse was fine. Virgil had lied so he could sabotage the disk while she and Maria went off rummaging in the file cabinet.

And Mr. Busk had been in the hallway when they'd left the lab.

They were working together. But
why?
What did
they
have to do with Nguyen and Rob?

Kirsten's jaw dropped with a sudden realization.

43, 18, 17.

Those were the ages of “Johnson,” “Jones,” and “Smith.”

The ages (more or less) of Mr. Busk, Rob, and Virgil.

And no one at the hospital checked IDs. No one was suspicious. Why?

Because the attending nurse was Mr. Busk's sister.

Kirsten heard a slam. She looked toward the Jeep. Mr. Busk was rushing to get into the driver's side. Virgil was nowhere in sight.

With a roar and a cloud of black smoke, the Jeep disappeared up Riverside Drive.

K
IRSTEN HOPPED ON HER
bike. Her pain was gone. She could feel her blood pulsing wildly at her temples.

She pedaled furiously. Beneath her, fallen leaves crackled under her tires.

As she followed the first sharp bend in the road, her tires slipped. She skidded left, sticking out her leg to stop the fall.

She bounced back upright and continued. Her eyes scanned the blacktop in front of her for leaves. She steered around the thickest piles. She could not afford to fall over now.

But the bike was no match for a Jeep. Kirsten saw no sign of it. The engine noise soon died out. Mr. Busk was probably driving along the outskirts of Fenimore Village, heading for the parkway.

She continued a while longer, but finally stopped.

Her breaths came in savage gulps; her throat was parched and dry. She felt unstable as she propped her bike on a pine tree and sat on an old log.

She had lost him. Years ago, after the war, Mr. Busk had vanished once from Port Lincoln. Now he was likely to vanish for good.

And no one would know that he had helped destroy Nguyen Trang.

Now Kirsten knew what Nguyen had wanted. Vengeance.

He had gotten it from Rob. Now he wanted the other two. Somehow they were involved in his death.

As the harsh hacksawing of her own breaths diminished, Kirsten began noticing the sounds around her. The screech of a chipmunk. The skittering of a squirrel. The dropping of acorns. The caw of crows. The lapping of the river below her.

The chugging of a balky car engine.

Yes. The sound was unmistakable.

Kirsten rose to her feet. Below her, a dirt path wound along the riverbank. Silently, on the sides of her feet, she descended the gentle slope and followed the path toward the noise.

The river took a sharp left less than a hundred yards ahead. Kirsten trained her eye upward. Through the crisscrossing tree trunks and blowing leaves, she caught a glint of metal.

Carefully she edged closer. When she could see the road clearly, she hid behind a sycamore tree.

Whirrrr … whirrrr … chock-chock!

Mr. Busk's Jeep had veered off the road. Its right bumper had hit a tree, and now the engine wasn't starting.

She heard Mr. Busk's voice muttering epithets she'd never even heard before. He pushed his door open, got out, and kicked the door shut again in frustration.

Standing with hands on hips, he looked down Riverside Drive.

Kirsten ducked behind the tree.

Soon she heard footsteps tapping on the road … crunching on leaves and fallen branches … coming nearer.

“Hey. Who's there?”

Kirsten froze.

“Come on, get out. I see you. You got a car?”

Kirsten took a deep breath and stepped out.

Mr. Busk stopped in his tracks. His jaw dropped open.
“K-Kirsten?”

“Did you think I was dead?” she asked.

“Well, I—I saw—the train—” He swallowed and cleared his throat. “I was so worried. I—I bailed out when I saw that gate go down, and I knew you'd do the same. But then, I wasn't sure. I didn't see you afterward… .”

“I got out. I rolled away on the other side of the tracks.”

“Well, thank God you're alive!”

“Yeah. I sure don't have
you
to thank.”

Mr. Busk stepped backward, up the slope. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, you didn't know?” Kirsten followed him, step for step. “I guess you closed the window before you jumped to avoid a last-minute chill—and your knee nicked the ignition shutoff by accident on your way out. I'm not sure why you went through the trouble to lock the door, though… .”