The Girl in the White Van Page 9

  I was stuck.

  That’s why when I heard about In Trevor’s Memory, I knew I had to volunteer. All the volunteers had one thing in common: missing children. Some eventually found. Many not.

  For another mother or father, I could be the person I had needed when Jenny was taken from us.

  And now I would be that person for Lorraine Taylor.

  SIR

  Rex knew enough not to try to follow me into the RV, but his front paws were on the top step. “Raus!” I ordered him. Out! He backed off, his desire battling with his fear.

  I understood how he felt.

  After closing the door, I set down the supplies I had bought at Michaels crafts, including a pair of cheap white satin gloves. I would cut the fingers off one and then slide it up her arm. Then I would dip the plaster-of-paris bandages in water and wrap them around the glove.

  I came to a halt in the bedroom doorway. Even though more than thirty-six hours had passed, the two girls were nearly just as I had left them. The new girl lay on her back under the covers. Jenny was curled on top of the comforter, facing her.

  And they were both absolutely still. Unmoving.

  My breath caught in my chest. Could they be dead?

  A jolt ran from my head to my heels. But it was followed by something unexpected.

  Relief. I didn’t have to figure out what to do about Jenny, with her ruined face. I didn’t have to decide if I wanted a second broken girl.

  My shoulders loosened. I took a deep breath of the RV’s stale air.

  And then Jenny’s eyelids fluttered open. I turned on the light.

  “How’s my patient?” I asked.

  “She’s still asleep.” Jenny rubbed her eyes and sat up.

  The new girl didn’t even twitch. I squeezed between the bed and the wall and sat next to her. Her splint rested on top of the comforter. Her fingers were swollen and red. Not at all the condition I had hoped to find them in. Casting her wrist would have to wait.

  She lay flat on the pillow, her eyes closed. The left side of her face was scabbed. It looked bad, but of course Jenny’s face was much worse. And it would never get any better.

  The undamaged side was pale, but her cheek was flushed. Now that I was close, I could hear her fast and shallow breathing. Could she have an infection even though the broken bone hadn’t pierced the skin? Or maybe she had picked up some kind of germ when her face scraped along the roadway.

  When I laid a hand on her forehead, her skin was cool. But it was also damp, clammy with sweat. A wave of disgust rolled over me. I jerked my hand back and then wiped it on my coveralls.

  I looked at Jenny. “Has she been like this the whole time?”

  “Savannah? Pretty much.”

  I tilted my head. “How do you know her name?”

  Jenny’s gaze darted to the other girl’s face. “Um, I looked in her wallet.”

  I glanced back at Savannah. Her eyes were still closed. But for some reason, I felt like she and Jenny had just exchanged a look.

  Maybe it had been a mistake, putting them together. I could pick this girl up and carry her out the door right now. Walk a hundred feet, and put her in the other RV I had hauled here a month ago. I had already set it up with clothes and kitchen supplies and everything she might need. All of it bought cash-only at the Salem Goodwill, over an hour away. I hadn’t wanted to risk running into someone who knew me. Someone who would wonder why I was buying clothes for a teenage girl when I didn’t have children. When, as far as they knew, I didn’t even have a girlfriend. The whole time I had worn a baseball cap pulled low over my eyes, in case the store had security cameras.

  It had been exciting getting everything ready for her. It had been like it was a year ago, when I’d been preparing for Jenny. I still remembered the night I had first spotted her. She was locking up the door of Island Tan late at night, everything dark around her except the light over her beautiful face. I had spent a few weeks figuring out her schedule, finding the best time to take her.

  And then Jenny had gone and ruined everything.

  Sure, she was compliant. She called me Sir, the way I taught her to. She followed all the rules. She trembled every time I entered the RV. All of those were good things.

  But I couldn’t get past how her face looked now, despite my best efforts. Even if I closed my eyes, how could I want to kiss torn lips, to hear the ragged breathing through her gashed nostril?

  “When she wakes up,” I reminded Jenny, “don’t forget to teach her the rules.”

  Jenny nodded her head like a bobble doll. “Yes, Sir.”

  I had thought Jenny could help me make Savannah the kind of girl I had dreamed of for so long. Pretty. Compliant. And afraid.

  But now I wondered. Had I made the same mistake twice?

  And was it too late to fix it?

  The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus.

  —BRUCE LEE

  SAVANNAH TAYLOR

  “It’s not Tim,” I whispered once I was sure Sir was really gone. It also wasn’t Mr. Fryer or Mr. Tae Kwan Do. I had been so anxious that the bottom of my feet and the backs of my knees were still sweating.

  “If you know that, then you must have opened your eyes!” Jenny hissed. “What if he’d caught you? He was looking awfully suspicious.” Her ruined mouth twisted. “And like he was making some kind of plan.”

  “I just peeped at him through my lashes. And you must have looked at him too,” I countered.

  “Normally all his attention is focused on me.” Jenny crawled backward to the end of the bed and then got to her feet. “I could only risk it because he was looking at you.”

  “See, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The two of us can do things that one person could never manage by herself.” I was still thinking about Sir. “I don’t recognize him, but my mom’s boyfriend has made us come with him to wrecking yards a couple of times while he looks for parts for his classic car. We must be at one of them. But I never really looked at the workers there.”

  “He told me that he saw me outside Island Tan and knew that I was meant for him,” Jenny said. “Although I think he’s changed his mind about that.” She shivered. “I was so afraid he’d notice the screws were gone. Or even decide to check the trash.” As I had scrambled under the covers, she had swept the screws and improvised tools into the bathroom garbage can.

  How were we going to escape? We couldn’t get out through the vent. The windows were made of something that refused to break. And the door had a chain padlocked across it.

  Except whenever he came inside, he had to unlock it. “Next time he comes back, we’re going to have to hurt him,” I said with more courage than I felt. Sir’s words, his tone of voice, and the brief glimpse I’d had of him had helped me understand why Jenny was so afraid of him. “We just need to disable him long enough for us to get away.”

  Jenny was already shaking her head. “If we try anything, he’ll just hurt us.”

  “Not if we gang up on him the second he starts to come inside.”

  Ignoring how my head and body ached, I started to search the RV again, but now I was looking for a weapon. The table and bench were built in the wall. The two swivel chairs were bolted down, as was the couch. No freestanding lamps, just lights in the ceiling. I could try swinging the boom box at his head, but it was made of plastic, and the cord of the attached mic looked too short to try to wrap around his neck.

  When I pressed the tines of a spork from the junk drawer against my skin, they barely made a dent. The end of the potato peeler had been dulled by our assault on the vent.

  Could I combine things to make a weapon? Maybe I could embed the lid of a can in a wooden broom handle. As I imagined the sharp metal edge slicing his face, I felt both horrified and exhilarated. “Do you have a broom or a mop or anything like that?”

  “No. Just one of those hand vacuums. It’s under the sink.” Not following my thoughts, Jenny added, “I try, but it’s hard to keep this p
lace clean.”

  Clean gave me another idea. “Do you have any spray cleaner?”

  “Dish soap?” she offered.

  So much for blinding him with chemicals. What would Bruce Lee do? He was famous for his skill with nunchucks, two pieces of wood connected by a short chain. In movies, he could fight off a whole room full of people, swinging one end through the air to hit his attackers in the head or crotch. I didn’t have any wooden sticks or a chain, but … I checked the cupboard again. “Do you have a pair of tights?”

  “Yeah.” Without asking why, Jenny went into the bedroom and returned with a pair of black fishnet stockings. The sight of them made me shiver as I thought of Sir buying them for her. Clenching the waistband with my teeth, with my good hand, I slipped the can of SpaghettiOs inside one leg and then shook it until it fell all the way to the toe. Grabbing the top of the leg, I raised my hand, the dangling can swinging back and forth. “Step back,” I told Jenny. Then I spun the improvised nunchuck around my head and snapped it down. The can thumped so hard on the couch cushion that it left a dent.

  Jenny and I exchanged a grin. “Next time he comes in the door, I’ll hit him in the head with that. If he doesn’t get knocked out right away, I’ll keep hitting. You grab the Taser. When we leave, we’ll padlock the door behind us so he can’t follow.”

  The smile fell from her face. “But what will we do about Rex?”

  “We can use the Taser on him like Sir did when you were getting bitten.”

  “But what if you miss when you swing the can? Or it doesn’t hurt Sir enough?” She was trembling. “You don’t want to make him mad.”

  I made a sound like a laugh. “I think it’s too late for that.”

  “But you know kung fu.” Her voice shook. “I don’t know anything.”

  “That’s something we can fix,” I said.

  “What is” is more important than “what should be.”

  —BRUCE LEE

  SAVANNAH TAYLOR

  “The basics of self-defense are actually pretty easy.” I tried to project confidence. I thought I knew them well enough to teach them—but could Jenny learn? If I had learned anything about martial arts, it was that more than half of it was attitude. If you believed you couldn’t do something, then you couldn’t. But the reverse was also true.

  Jenny squared her shoulders. “Then show me.”

  I let go of the makeshift nunchuck. The can thumped on the couch. “The first step is to protect your head. Always keep your hands up in front of your face.” I demonstrated, but only with my good arm, which felt really strange.

  Jenny raised her hands, which she had curled into fists. But her thumb was tucked inside her fingers.

  I shook my head. “Don’t even worry about making fists,” I said. “If you make one with your thumb inside like that, and then hit him, you might break it. Just keep your hands open and up. If he tries to grab or punch you, raise your arm just enough to block it with the side of your wrist.” I raised my right hand, parrying an imaginary blow while still keeping my forearm at a right angle. “Now try to hit me on the right side of my head.”

  Jenny pulled her hand back for a slap. I raised my forearm a few inches and blocked it. Our wrists clashed.

  “Ouch!” She rubbed her wrist. “That hurts.”

  “My sifu has this saying—” I started, but Jenny interrupted.

  “Sifu?”

  “Sifu means ‘teacher.’ My sifu says you should put hard bones in soft places. Now you try. Put your hands up and block me.” She did and easily blocked my slap, then a right roundhouse I threw.

  Although I knew her wrist must still be hurting from the clash of our bones, now she wasn’t even wincing. I’d been expecting her to have the slightly stunned look most women did when they realized that martial arts was going to involve physical contact and even some actual pain. But Jenny, with her scars, her knowledge of teeth and Tasers, was more familiar with pain than I was.

  She was far stronger than she looked.

  Feeling more confident in her abilities, I continued. “A punch is basically like a fast push. Strike with the heel of your hand. Remember, hard bones, soft places. So you’ve got the eyes, the nose”—with my good hand I demonstrated lightly on myself—“and the neck. And if you catch him under the chin and push, he’ll have to go where you push.”

  I ducked into the bedroom and came back with the pillow. Holding the back of the pillow in the center, I lifted it to head height, off to one side. “Pretend this is his face.”

  She grunted as she threw her first strike, hard enough that I staggered. “Nice!” I adjusted my stance so my shoulder could swing away to better absorb the impact. “Don’t pull your arm back before you hit him, or he’ll know what you’re doing.” I thought of Daniel but pushed the thought away. I had to focus. “Always keep your elbows in front of your ribs. Now hit some more.” As she struck again and again, I grunted each time. “That’s right. Pivot from the feet. Use your hips.”

  My shoulder aching, I finally dropped the pillow. “That’s very good. You move well. A lot of people don’t realize that the power of your hands comes from your feet and hips.”

  Jenny ducked her head, but I thought she looked proud. “I ran track in middle school.”

  “That should really help your kicks. A good place to aim for is the groin. Think of making contact with your shoelaces.”

  She kicked in the air with her toe pointed. “Like a scoop?”

  I nodded. “Exactly. Exactly like that! Or kick him in the knee with the bottom or side of your shoe. With his knee dislocated, he couldn’t chase after us. Kicks are good for keeping distance. But if he gets in too close, raise your knee just like you’re climbing the stairs and hit him in the groin. If you lean back, you’ll give it more force.” Since I didn’t have two hands to hold the pillow, I had Jenny practice both kicks and knee strikes in the air.

  “Even if you end up on the ground, you can still kick him. Smash his knees, his groin, even his ankles.” I thought back to what Sifu had said. Was it just two days ago? “The main rule is that there are no rules. Do whatever you have to do. Scratch or bite or gouge his eyes.”

  Outside, Rex started to bark again.

  Jenny clutched my arm. “He’s already coming back!”

  We weren’t nearly ready. Should I position myself on the far side of the door, where he wouldn’t see me at first? Or on the near side where I could strike as soon as possible? What if I tried to hit him with the can just as Jenny was striking him and I ended up hurting her?

  I chose the near side, swinging the can over my shoulder. It thumped painfully on my lower back. Jenny stood opposite me, her hands near her face, her open palms ready to strike him or grab the Taser.

  Sourness spread over the back of my tongue. My pulse slammed in my ears.

  And we waited for the door to open.

  DANIEL DIAZ

  Yesterday in the school office, another student had overheard Savannah’s mom telling my dad about her disappearance. By the time the last bell rang, everyone was talking about Savannah, even people I was sure had no idea who she was. I started asking around, hoping to uncover new information. Maybe someone else at school knew her better, was in touch with her, or was giving her a place to crash. Maybe I could pass on the info to my dad, put his and her mom’s minds to rest.

  But no one really knew anything, except Nevaeh. She lived two doors down from the house Savannah shared with her mom and Tim. Nevaeh said that more than once she’d heard an angry man yelling inside the house. Just a man shouting. No one yelling back.

  Since Savannah’s home life was bad, it made sense that she had taken off. It even explained why she had lied to me. Someone else must have been in the upper lot, someone she had arranged to wait for her. But there were other possible explanations. Darker ones. Tim could have been lying in wait. And it even turned out that, over the last few months, a couple of girls had thought a slow-moving car was tailing them for a few blocks. One I’d
heard about before, the other was news to me.

  Last night, I’d lain awake until four in the morning, replaying my last conversation with Savannah, looking for clues.

  This morning, I biked back to our dojo and locked my bike to a street sign. On foot, I started where I had last seen Savannah Thursday night. On the concrete steps that led up to the upper parking lot.

  It had been less than forty hours since she had turned to look back at me from these very steps.

  Then she had gotten to the top, turned the corner, and gone—where? And why would she have gone someplace without her phone? She had definitely lied about her mom waiting for her. Did she have a friend outside of school? Or even a secret boyfriend? But if she did, why had it felt like she’d almost said yes to the idea of going to the winter formal with me?

  Nevaeh had given me Savannah’s home address. My plan was to retrace Savannah’s steps, or at least my best guess of what they would have been, and look for clues. And once I got to her house, what then? I remembered how some dark emotion had flickered over her face when she talked about Tim. It was somehow worse that he wasn’t even her official stepdad, just her mom’s boyfriend. According to my dad, he had already admitted to Savannah’s mom that he had argued with her. Could he have hurt her? At the thought, my hands balled into fists.

  What would I do if I saw him coming out of the house? Or what about simply knocking on the door and demanding answers? My dad would get mad if I confronted Tim. But I wasn’t sure I could leave him alone.

  At the top of the steps, I turned and looked back. The corner of the building blocked me from seeing the spot where I had been Thursday night. Which meant that even if I had hung around, I wouldn’t have been able to see what happened to Savannah once she reached the top. But I hadn’t been looking, had I? I had believed her when she said her mom was giving her a ride home.