“I’m with her right now.”
“Oh thank God,” Sydney said. “Is she okay?”
I smiled at Patty, who seemed to be studying my facial reactions. “She’s good. She’s okay.”
“Patty’s been so great,” Sydney said. “Right from the beginning. I mean, it’s been awful, hiding out like this, but at least you knew I was okay.”
I looked at Patty. I wasn’t sure whether she could hear Sydney’s voice coming out of the cell. I turned slightly away. “What’s that, hon?”
“Whenever I called Patty, she kept me posted on everything. How the people from the hotel were watching you and Mom, about the fake website you got Jeff to set up to make them think you really didn’t know where I was. How the hotel people had our phones all tapped and were listening in on everything. Patty said as soon as it was safe to call you, and come back, she’d let me know. I can’t believe it’s finally over.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can’t believe it, either.” Patty tried to inch closer to me, wanting to hear what Sydney was saying. I said, “You’ve been up here the whole time?”
“Pretty much,” she said. She was trying to hold off crying, but she was unable to stop her voice from shaking. “The first day, after it happened… Oh God, Dad, I swear I didn’t mean to shoot that man. I was walking down the hall and this girl was screaming, and when I used the passkey to go into the room, this man, he was doing these awful things to one of the Chinese women who worked there, he had her tied down and-”
“It’s okay, honey.”
“And I started to scream, and then this guy got off the bed and started coming after me. That’s when I saw the gun sitting on the dresser, so I grabbed it, and-”
“It’s okay. You can tell me all this later.”
Full-out crying now. “I shot him. I couldn’t believe I’d done it. Then Carter and some of the others came in, and I was freaking out, you know?”
“I know, I know.”
“I told them we had to call the police. I knew I had to call them. But then they all started freaking out, too. Said we couldn’t call the police. Said they couldn’t find out what was happening.”
“Okay,” I said. “And then what?”
“So they took my cell, and they left me in the room with the dead man and Owen was standing outside the door so I couldn’t get away, and they ripped out the wall phone so I couldn’t call anybody. I was so scared, and I couldn’t think what to do, and I knew Patty was coming over, because we were going to hit the mall real quick when I finished work. So I thought, maybe that dead man had a phone on him, and I reached into his jacket, and oh, Daddy, I got his blood all over my hands-”
“It’s okay,” I said softly.
“And I called Patty with his phone and told her I was in trouble.”
I looked at Patty. She wasn’t making eye contact.
“So Patty, she had this idea. She snuck into the hotel, pulled the fire alarm, snuck back out, and then I guess everybody was running around, and then she ran around to the window of the room I was in-it was on the first floor. I slid it open, it only went about a foot, and there was a screen, and Patty kicked out the screen, but I couldn’t squeeze through, so Patty grabbed my arm and pulled and pulled and it just about killed me but she got me out.” Syd took a moment to catch her breath. “But she told you all this, right?”
“Sure,” I said.
“And Patty, she could see everything so clearly, she was so cool. She told me to just go, and keep going. Because I’d shot a guy, right? She said the police would never understand, that they never believed teenagers, and those bad people at the hotel would be after me, too. Patty told me not to think about anything but getting away, and she’d explain to you and the police what happened before everybody, you know, started flying off the handle. So I got in the car and just started driving away like crazy.”
Another breath, then, “So I ditched the car, because I figured everyone’d be looking for it, and hitched my way up to Stowe. I remembered this friend of Evan’s talking about living up here, getting a job, so I figured, it’d be as good a place as any to hide until you told Patty to tell me it was safe to come home.”
“Syd,” I said, “tell Bob I’m on the bridge with Patty. He can scoop us all up, we can get the hell out of here, sort it all out on the way back.”
Patty had her back to me. She had her cell out and was punching in a number.
“Hang on,” I said to Sydney. To Patty, I said, “Who you calling?”
“Like you said,” she snapped. “I’m calling my mom.”
I almost reached out and took the phone from her, but instead said to Syd, “Hon, put Bob on for a second.”
“Hang on.”
Then: “Yeah?”
“What about that car that was following us?” I asked him.
“I did a couple of quick turns, think I lost it. I’m parked with the lights off in some driveway by a hotel.”
“Okay. When you think it’s safe, whip down to the bridge and we’ll all get the hell out of here.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Bob said. “Hey, I know there’s a lot of bad shit coming down, but there’s some good news.”
“What?”
“I asked Sydney here if Evan had knocked her up, if she was pregnant. But she’s not.”
“Bob!” Sydney shouted, and grabbed the phone back from him. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “The only thing that matters is that you’re okay.”
Patty, talking into her own phone, was saying, “Yeah, I’m here with Mr. Blake, on the bridge, and Bob and Sydney are going to be here in just a second, and then we’re all supposed to head back.”
Now Bob was back on the phone. “Hey, Tim,” he said, “doesn’t some of what Sydney just told you sound kind of goofy?” To Syd, he said, “No offense.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking at Patty. “It does.”
Patty said, “Okay, see you soon.” And she put her phone away.
I said to Bob, “Get here quick.”
“Give us a minute to make sure the coast is clear,” he said.
I put my phone away. Patty eyed me nervously. “So that’s great,” she said, trying to smile. “We’re all going back.”
“What’s this game you’ve been playing?” I asked her, keeping my voice level. “Telling Sydney to stay up here until it was safe? What was going on in your head?”
“Don’t yell at me,” she said.
I took hold of her by the shoulders. “You think this is yelling? Patty, why did you do this?”
She tried to wriggle away, but I held on to her.
“I hate you,” she said. “I thought I could love you, but I hate you.”
I wasn’t letting go. “Why did you do it?”
She stopped fighting me, but wouldn’t look at me. “At first, I thought if she came back, I’d be in deep shit.”
“You? Why would you be in trouble?”
“Because… I gave her the tip to work for the hotel. I put her in touch with somebody.”
I thought about what Andy had told me, about finding Gary and Patty meeting over a milk shake.
“You knew Gary,” I said. “Andy saw you together.”
Now she looked at me. She was puzzled. “Knew?”
“Gary’s dead,” I said.
“Dead?” Patty said.
