Katie emerged from behind a hedge and made her way up the driveway. When she reached the garage door, she huddled below one of the windows and waited once again for her heart to stop beating so quickly. Katie feared it was making enough noise to be heard on the other side of the door.
She took five deep breaths, letting each one out slowly, and once she believed she was as calm as she was going to get, she slowly raised herself to a standing position and moved to the window. Even though this pane was not as dirty as the others, it was still hard to see through. Katie lightly touched the glass and found much of the dirt was on the outside, so she pulled her right sleeve down below her hand to turn it into a makeshift rag, and made a small, coin-sized clear spot.
She moved her eye right over the opening.
“Whoa,” she thought, hardly believing what she was seeing. But where was Mr. Clifford? She didn’t see him anywhere.
That was when she felt something grab her arm.
“Looking for something?”
Katie turned sharply to her left. She had never known, until that moment, that she could be so frightened that she’d be unable to scream. Her mouth opened and her body shook, but no sound escaped from her lips. She was so frozen by fear she couldn’t even find the strength to try to wrench her arm away from Bruce Clifford’s significant grip.
Mr. Clifford, half his weathered and wrinkled face lit from the dirty light filtering through the garage window, studied her with narrow eyes.
“You’re that girl from across the street,” he said, managing to somehow get the words out while his teeth appeared firmly set together.
Katie nodded, trembling. She thought she was very close to losing bladder control. For an old guy, his grip was vise-like.
“What are you doing here?” the elderly man asked.
Katie struggled to regain the ability to speak. “I... I just... I’m sorry... I—”
“Snooping around. You the one who soaped my windows last Halloween?”
“What? No,” she said.
“Then state your business. What do you want?”
A tear ran down her cheek. “My brother thinks you’re a serial killer,” she blurted.
The old man blinked. “What?”
“He... he thinks you’re cutting up bodies in your garage at night.”
Bruce Clifford’s eyes narrowed. This was the moment when Katie was most frightened. A hundred thoughts ran through her head within half a second.
Archie was right. My God, my stupid brother was actually right. And now this man is going to have to kill me, too.
But then Bruce started to laugh.
He released his grip on Katie’s arm and clapped his hands together and laughed some more. “Serial killer,” he said. “I love that.” He shook his head in wonder. “Cutting up bodies. That’s a good one. You know, when I was a kid, I worked in a butcher shop for a while, so I guess I’ve had the necessary training.”
Now that he was no longer holding on to her, Katie thought she could make her escape. She was betting she could outrun him. And yet, she stayed where she was, sensing that maybe the crisis had passed.
“Did you see any cut-up bodies when you peeked in?” he asked her.
Katie managed to get out one word. “No.”
Bruce Clifford nodded slowly. “So you’re not going to call the police on me.”
She shook her head.
“Then I guess I won’t call them on you,” he said. “Deal?”
Katie swallowed and said, “Deal.”
“So you saw what was in there,” he said. It didn’t sound like a question, but it was.
“I did.”
“You won’t tell anyone,” he said, tilting his head slyly.
“No, I won’t,” she said.
“I’ll show it to you, if you’d like,” Bruce Clifford said.
Katie considered the offer. Now that her initial scare was over, the guy seemed pretty harmless. Running back across the street, entering her house, and locking the door behind her was probably the smarter choice, but curiosity could be a powerful thing.
“Yeah, okay,” she said, her tongue so dry it was sticking to the roof of her mouth. “Show me.”
Eleven
Sandra needed to pull herself together before she could leave the community center. She’d shed a few tears and knew her eye makeup had to be halfway to her lips, so she slipped into a ladies’ room and went to the mirror. She looked a fright. She dug out what she needed from her purse and went to work.
Sandra was not walking out of this building looking anything less than one hundred percent confident. There would be no tears running down her cheeks. There would be no quivering chin. She was going to hold her head high. She did her job. She executed on everything that was asked of her, and more. This event had run like a Swiss watch. It was not her fault Lisa Carver couldn’t handle a tough question from a member of the media. It was not her fault the Arrival corporation was tainted by some industrial sabotage scandal, maybe even a murder. Some things were beyond Sandra’s control, and Lisa Carver and Albert Ruskin should have had the decency to understand that.
What a couple of cocks.
Exiting the ladies’ room and heading one last time through the gymnasium on her way to the front door, she realized that if there was anything she got right, it was the caterer. The attending reporters were at the buffet table, hoovering the snacks. She didn’t see any of them, not even the ones drinking the coffee, getting the slightest bit sick. Whatever had upset Carver’s stomach, it wasn’t the food and drink provided. Maybe she had a bit of a bug or something.
Not part of the buffet crowd, of course, were Lisa Carver and Albert Ruskin. They’d gone outside to do a demo with one of the Arrivals. The media wanted some good video clips.
Sandra did not want to hang around here any longer. She would return, once Lisa and Albert had left the island, to do the windup. Pay the caterers the balance of what she owed them, make sure the gym was cleared of media equipment. She hoped Ruskin didn’t balk at paying the rest of her bill. He seemed like the type who’d try to get out of it.
As she walked out the front doors, she took her phone from her purse and brought up the Arrival app. The car she’d been provided would start itself and come right to her location once she sent the command. God, she wondered. How long would she still have the vehicle? The demonstration was supposed to last another couple of weeks, after which everyone would get their regular cars back from the mainland. But would Lisa and Albert take her car back immediately, as some sort of punishment? If they did, how was Sandra supposed to get around?
Just let them try. She’d work a little PR magic on her own behalf. Put out a release about how a big, multi-million-dollar conglomerate like Arrival was using all its powers to bankrupt an independent businesswoman. She was already preparing the statement in her head, working in a phrase about how one would have thought that a female CEO would be the last one you’d think would ruin a single mom’s livelihood. She’d play the widow card if she had to.
She tapped the Arrival app — a stylized A that leaned to the right, as though moving swiftly into the wind. Once it was open, Sandra was connected directly, by voice, to her vehicle.
“Hey, Gracie,” she said.
“Hello, Sandra,” Gracie said. “How may I help you?”
“Time to go home.”
“I’ll take you there,” the car said. “I will be at your location in three minutes.”
Sandra, of course, did not have to tell the car where to find her. Gracie’s navigational systems would have pinpointed the location of the phone in her hand.