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Only when you are driving through the woods in the middle of the night
looking for a cop, on your boyfriend's motorcycle that is, without a doubt,
more bike than you can handle, you can't actually go very fast at all. Not if
you don't want your wheels to spin out from beneath you.
My biggest fear was not that one of Heather's attackers might suddenly leap
out at me from behind a tree, grab the handlebars of Rob's bike, and knock me
to the ground. No, my biggest fear was that the engine was going to stall,
because I was going so slowly.
I tried to kick up the speed a notch, and found that, by going another couple
miles an hour faster, I could actually maneuver the bike much more easily. I
tried not to concentrate so much on the trees, and instead concentrated on the
open spaces around them. It sounds weird, but it actually helped. I figured it
was like using the Force or something.Trust your feelings, Jess , I said to
myself, in an Obi-Wan Kenobi voice. Knowthe woods . Feelthe woods . Bethe
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woods. &
I really hate the woods.
It was right after this that I burst out of the trees and skidded up the
embankment to the road. There was a moment of panic when I thought I was going
to tip over. . . .
But I threw out a foot and stopped myself at the last minute. I don't know
how, but I managed to get the bike upright again and was off. The whole thing
took barely a second, but in my mind, it seemed like an hour. My heart was
thundering louder in my ears than the bike's engine.
Please be there, I was praying as I raced toward the place where we'd passed
the squad car.Please be there, please be there, please be there .... Now that
I was on the open road, I could really let loose, speedwise, and so I did,
watching the speedometer go from ten, to twenty, to thirty, to forty. . . .
And then the squad car was looming up ahead of me, the overhead light still
on, the cop inside, sipping a cup of coffee. The tinny sounds of the radio
drifted out from the open window on the driver's side.
It was against the driver's side that I braced myself as I pulled up, to keep
the bike from falling over.
"Officer," I said. I didn't have to say much to get his attention, because of
course when someone on a motorcycle pulls up next to your car and leans on it,
you notice right away.
"Yes?" The guy was young, probably only twenty-two or three. He still had
acne. "What is it?"
"Heather Montrose," I said. "We found her back there, inside a house off that
road, the old pit road, the one they don't use anymore. You better call an
ambulance, she's really hurt."
The guy looked at me a minute, as if trying to figure out whether or not I
was putting him on. I had Rob's helmet over my head, of course, so I don't
know how much of my face he could make out. But what little he could see of
me, he must have decided looked sincere, since he got on the radio and said he
needed backup, along with an ambulance and paramedics. Then he looked at me
and said, "Let's go."
It turned out the cops already knew about the house. They'd searched it,
Deputy Mullins that was his name said, twice already, once right after Heather
had been reported missing, and then again after nightfall. But they hadn't
found anything suspicious inside . . . unless one counted a plethora of empty
beer bottles and used condoms.
In any case, Deputy Mullins led me toward a clearly little-used dirt track
just off the road. It was better, I found, than the way we'd originally taken
through the woods, since I didn't have to dodge any trees. I wondered why my
psychic radar hadn't led me this way before. Maybe because it ended up taking
longer. It took us almost fifteen minutes of slow going over weedy, bumpy
terrain to reach the house. It had only taken me ten minutes to get to the
road through the woods. I knew from Rob's watch.
Deputy Mullins, when the house appeared in his headlights, pulled up beside
it, then got on the radio again to describe his location. Then, leaving the
headlights on, but his engine off, he got out of the car, while I leaned Rob's
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bike carefully against it, turned the engine off, and climbed down.
"She's in there," I said, pointing. "On the second floor."
Deputy Mullins nodded, but he looked nervous. Really nervous.
"Some people got her," I said. "She's afraid they might come back. She "
Rob, having heard our approach, came out onto the porch. Deputy Mullins was
even more nervous than I'd thought either that, or the house was creeping him
out as much as it had creeped me out since he immediately went for his
sidearm, sank down onto one knee, and, pointing the gun at Rob, yelled,
"Freeze!"
Rob put both hands in the air and stood there, looking slightly bored, in the
glare of the headlights.
May I just say that Rob Wilkins is the only person I know who would find
having a gun drawn on him boring?
"Dude," I said to Deputy Mullins, in a voice high with suppressed emotion,
"that's my boyfriend! He's he's one of the good guys!"
Deputy Mullins lowered his gun. "Oh," he said, looking sheepish. "Sorry about
that."
"It's cool," Rob said, putting his hands down. "Look, have you got a blanket
and a first-aid kit in your car? She's not doing so hot."
Deputy Mullins nodded and raced around to the back of the squad car. I pulled
my helmet off and hurried up to Rob.
"Did she say anything?" I asked him. "Like about who did it, or anything?"
"Not a word," Rob said. "All she'll talk about is how they whoever they
are will be back soon, and how we're all going to be sorry when that happens."
"Yeah?" I said, running a hand through my sweaty hair. (It was hot inside
that helmet.) "Well, I'm already sorry."
I was even more sorry when I led Deputy Mullins up the rickety stairs, and
found out that, insofar as any sort of first aid knowledge was concerned, he
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