The Long Sleep (19 page)

I moaned. I could make sounds, but I couldn’t
articulate. More awareness came, reaching farther out from my tight
space. I wanted to be home, not here. Home, with my family.

The car stopped.

My heart pounded. Other than that, I couldn’t
feel anything.

Yes, I could. I felt fear. I felt the car
shake when a door slammed.

Very nearby I heard a clicking sound. A gust
of fresh air blew over me. I lay still, not knowing what I would
face if I could see. I was blindfolded.

Strong hands picked me up. I knew Evan was
strong.

He lifted me out of the trunk and stood me
up. My legs wobbled. He grabbed my arm and pulled me along,
stumbling over uneven ground. I had guessed right. It was a meadow.
I could feel the clumps of grass. I tripped and then he tripped but
neither of us fell. I thought of falling on purpose and rolling
away. He could outrun me, he was a football player, and I couldn’t
see where I was going.

Was it really Evan? The feel wasn’t quite
right. Especially when he hoisted me onto his shoulder and kept
walking, staggering under my weight. Evan wouldn’t stagger. He was
strong.

He should have been protecting me with those
strong arms. I wished I could take back all the sarcasm I’d heaped
on him. It felt good at the time but I should have had more sense.
For my own sake, I should have been kinder even though he wasn’t
kind.

He stopped. In the distance I heard water.
The Vanorden Kill. I wished I knew whether it was night or day. How
long was I asleep, or whatever I was, before waking up in that
trunk?

We were almost at the edge of where it
started going down. I could tell by the sound of the water.

He let go of my arm and I fell.

I tried to move, to kick. My leg was so weak
I could barely lift it. I had a momentary flash of being in a room.
Someone else was there, looking at me. The flash disappeared.

He bent over me. I could feel that, too. He
reached into my mouth and the gag came out.

I coughed. I had a hard time closing my
mouth, it had been so stretched.

I moaned “Evan.” That was all I could manage.
I still couldn’t see. I prayed that next he would take off the
blindfold.

He didn’t.

Once again he grabbed my arm, nearly pulling
it out of its socket. He dragged me through dried leaves, and then
stopped. I knew by the feel of it that we were right on the
edge.

He turned me so that I faced the sound of
water. I could hear it but had no time to think. He whipped off the
blindfold and gave me a hard shove.

Chapter Sixteen

I crashed through
bushes, hurtling toward the water. The bushes couldn’t stop me.
He’d flung me so hard I went right through them. I was nothing but
a streak of pain and terror.

Down, down the hill. Branches scratched my
face as I hurtled past them. Stones leapt out of the rocky earth
and battered me. I couldn’t control my arms or legs.

Finally I hit something. Hit it hard, and
stopped. It knocked the breath out of me.

It was a bush. A sturdy bush with a lot of
branches. I gasped, trying to pull in some air, and knew I was
going to die.

Way up above, a star twinkled. It was
nighttime. Finally I managed a shallow breath, and then another. I
could breathe, I could see, but I couldn’t move.

Pain seeped through me. I was battered
everywhere. My head must have hit a rock. I tried to feel if it was
broken.

I remembered the car. Was he still there? I
couldn’t see above the top of the cliff.

Nor could I possibly get up there. I was such
a broken wreck, I couldn’t imagine trying to move. Or being able to
move even if I tried.

The hill loomed above me, almost straight up.
Nothing but bushes and rocks. The top edge of it was a dark line
against the sky.

And my star.

He said he loved me. Was this love? Would he
come back in daylight and pretend to rescue me? I couldn’t count on
it.

And there was the blindfold. So I wouldn’t
recognize him. What difference would it make if I recognized him,
if I was going to die?

But he took it off at the last second. He
took the gag out, too. If he left those, then whoever found me
would know I’d been murdered. Without them, it would look like an
accident. Or suicide.

That was it. Maddie Canfield fell off the
cliff. In the middle of the night. A likely story.

Or threw herself off. Even less likely.
Anybody who knew me . . .

Evan knew me.

But not very well. He only knew his idea of
me and it wasn’t the real me at all. I would show him.

The thought of climbing that hill and proving
him wrong was too much. I curled up in dry leaves and rested my
head on my hand. I
wanted
to prove him wrong. But I needed
the strength to do it.

* * *

I did it! I was up! Running through the
woods. Through cold air. How did I get on my feet?

Running, running. Keeping warm in the cold
air, except it still felt cold. I would have to run harder, faster.
If it’s too cold, you can die. I wasn’t running up the hill, but
toward the bridge, where someone would see me. What if it was Evan
who came along? He’d have a stroke.

I tripped on a rock and fell down. Didn’t
feel the fall. I just lay there in the cold. And closed my
eyes.

I woke, shivering. Still in the same place. I
hadn’t been running at all.

The sky was lighter now and my star had begun
to fade. Was it the morning star? I couldn’t see my watch. I could
feel that the crystal had broken from my tumble down the hill. It
seemed a long time ago, but I still hurt. The water was still
there, waiting for me. I could hear it. Too shallow to swim, and
much too cold.

I felt myself floating down the river. To the
Hudson. That’s where the Vanorden Kill came out. Right into the
Tappan Zee, the widest part of the Hudson. Three miles across.

I jerked myself awake.
I had to get out of
here.
Nobody was going to do it for me. I would not let Evan
define me. He could take his machismo and shove it.

I pushed myself to a sitting position and
began an inventory.

First, me. How damaged was I?

Luckily I had on my jacket. It meant I must
have been outside when all this began. Or going out or coming back.
I wished I could remember. The jacket was quilted, black nylon,
with Hank’s blood dried into it. Call me crazy, but I hadn’t wanted
to wash it. No one could see those bloodstains because the coat was
black.

Black nylon. That meant something, but what?
Another black nylon jacket. Not quilted, like mine, but lined with
something. I remembered someone asking me about it.

This was no time to be thinking of that. I
had to get out of here.

Where was my handbag? And my purple backpack?
The purse had my cell phone in it. Probably still in his car. As
soon as he found it, he would toss it into a dumpster. The
backpack, too, with all my
Tiger
notes. Maybe someone would
find them and finish the series.

All I wanted was to sleep. But that would
mean hypothermia. And death.

Somehow, I would have to crawl up the hill.
It was too steep to walk. The top of the cliff was clearer now,
almost vertically above me. I would have to pull myself up, hanging
onto bushes, and try very hard not to slide back down.

Briefly I thought of going down instead of
up. Gravity-wise it would be easier, but once I reached the water
there was hardly any shore, only rocks and a few scraggly trees. I
couldn’t walk on the rocks, they were too round and bumpy, and the
water would be icy. Hypothermia would come that much faster.

Okay, then, up we go. I grabbed the nearest
bush and pulled myself about two inches. On my knees. They hurt
from that first tumble, and would hurt a lot worse after a few
steps like this. But infinitely better than dying there in the
woods.

Once again, I dragged myself. Only an inch
that time. I stopped and panted. I felt so weak, half dead.
Something had happened to make me this way and it wasn’t only from
being tossed down the hill. Something before I was put in the
trunk. Something that got me into a condition to be put there, and
then blotted out my memory.

I tried to dig my fingers into the ground. It
was nothing but loose leaves. I pushed them aside and there was
bare ground, hard packed and full of rocks that tore at my
knees.

Keep going. Don’t think.
Don’t think
about what you’re doing, just do it. Be a machine.

I thought about Hank instead. I was doing
this for him. I had to get to him before Evan did. Or whoever shot
him. Who else would it be but Evan?

Another giant heave. I was pulling on the
hard ground. Crawling on my knees. For Hank.

I thought of how he looked when I last saw
him, his face so thin and tight.

Half dead. Just like me. Thin and tight. And
cold. Really cold. I wished I could rest for just a few seconds.
Again I put my head down on my hands. The leaves themselves were
much too cold.

Cold air. All around me.

I was running.

Running through the woods, like before. But
this time it was real. I could run all the way home, now that I’d
gotten onto my feet. I never thought how easy it would be. When I
looked down, I couldn’t see the river. There were trees in the way,
and leaves. A lot of leaves. They swished under my feet.

The woods faded. I ran in the dark.

Then I wasn’t running any more. I was back in
the leaves. A rock jabbed into my hip. I raised my head and saw the
steep hill above me.
All the way
above me. I hadn’t made any
progress at all.

I had to get to Hank before Evan did. Again I
got up onto my knees. How was it I could run so lightly, so easily,
and now this? Painfully, I took another knee-step. It didn’t hold,
and I slipped.

Chapter
Seventeen

Once again I got up.
Third time was a charm. I had to believe that. And I was
running.

This time I absolutely knew it was real. I
could hear twigs crunching under my feet. I hadn’t heard that
before.

On and on, through the trees. I had no idea
where I was going and didn’t care. All I knew was I was free, with
the sun shining above me.

And so cold. Why didn’t the sun warm me up? I
shivered.

And woke.

I was lying on the ground, on wet, cold
leaves, and only my killer knew it. Only he could find me, and he
wanted me dead.

Okay, I was dead. Or as good as. I hoped Evan
was happy now.

I couldn’t feel anything. Not anger. Not
sorrow that my life had ended. I thought of Rhoda, Daddy, and Ben.
They would miss me but they’d get over it. Life would go on. Cree
had saved my life, just for this. To die in the woods of
hypothermia. And bruises. I wasn’t bleeding, only cold. Can you die
of bruises?

My eyes wanted to close. That was a sign,
wasn’t it? Freezing to death. Not a bad way to go. You would be
cold, unbearably cold, and then you went to sleep and never woke
up.

My brain had frozen. I tried to remember how
I got here.

A car, that was it. Evan’s yellow car. In the
trunk.

That didn’t seem right. It didn’t feel like
Evan. Or smell like his car. It was older. Rotten.

I jolted awake. There
had
been
somebody there. Not Evan.

But who else? It had to be Evan.

The sky was lighter now. Almost daybreak. How
did that happen? Time went on without me as I lay shivering in damp
leaves.

Shivering. That meant I wasn’t dead yet. I
still couldn’t remember how it happened. When I looked up, all I
could see was leaves and bushes and a few small trees. All the way
up. To the top of Mount Everest.

This was a holiday week. Did we have it
already?

I couldn’t remember. Would they have
Thanksgiving without me? Maybe I was there.

Maybe not. I remembered being at school . .
.

We had our meeting. I’d told them what I
learned about Paula.

And Evan. Did I really talk about Evan? He
must have heard me and that was why he did this.

It wasn’t Evan.

It must have been Evan.

Something about coffee. I’d had coffee and
now I had to pee.

What a dumb, dopey situation. With all my
other troubles, I had to pee. But if you have to, you have to.

I was out in the open, but alone. The sun
hadn’t quite come up yet so it wasn’t all the way light. Might as
well get it over with. The cold only made it worse.

I sat up. Gravity tried to pull me into the
river. Balancing carefully, I stood on my knees and fumbled with my
zipper. I didn’t want any of it to run down my legs, soaking my
jeans and making me colder. It was the only time in my whole life
that I thought men had the advantage. But I still didn’t want to be
one. I grabbed a sapling to hold myself steady, and let loose.

Then I reached into my pocket for a tissue. I
always carry a tissue, especially in cold weather because the cold
makes my nose ran.

I found one. And something else, too.
Something rigid. Metallic. And cold. I ran my thumb along its
edge.

Oh, thank God! Thank God!

I said it aloud. “Thank you, God.”

Now I remembered putting it in my pocket as a
reminder that it needed recharging.

I hoped it still had some charge in it.
Enough to make a call. I mustn’t waste it.

Call 911? My family? They wouldn’t be up yet
and it had to be someone who wouldn’t need a lot of explanation. I
knew there wasn’t enough juice for that.

They could trace me through the signal even
though I didn’t know where I was. I clicked the on button and
waited, hoping it would light up. When it did, I impulsively
skipped 911 and went to my speed dial. Probably a bad idea. So many
of my ideas were bad.