GET THE KEYS, I TOLD MYSELF. BUT WHERE WERE THE KEYS? Were we never going to get out of there? Nick’s bags were scattered near the door. Maybe the keys were in there. Unless they were outside in the truck. Damn. I hadn’t seen keys when I’d looked through his stuff. Maybe they were hanging on a hook somewhere, or lying in a kitchen drawer.
“What are you doing?” Molly watched me ransack Nick’s kitchen.
“Looking for keys to Nick’s truck. We’re going for a ride.” “But I want to make a snowman. And a fort. And Nick said—”
“Molly, sweetheart. We can do other stuff later. Help me find the keys.”
I opened Nick’s overnight bag, found a sweater, jeans, a book. A holster. No keys. For the second time that night, I scanned the shelves, rifled through drawer after drawer, even opened a cookie jar. It contained cookies. While Molly ate one, I found a flashlight, candles, and a kerosene lamp, but no keys. I looked in nightstands, behind doors. In the broom closet, I found a shotgun and some shells; inside his shaving kit, a razor, a toothbrush, condoms, deodorant. No keys.
Then, in the upstairs bathroom, the light revealed a piece of paper taped to the mirror. A note from Nick.
“Good morning, sleepyhead. I didn’t want to wake you. I had to run an errand, but I’ll be back in time to make pancakes. I’ll bring the bananas. See you soon. Nick.”
Good morning? When he’d written the note, he was planning to be gone all night. He hadn’t expected me to wake up and find him gone, hadn’t counted on Beverly calling again and again, waking me up. Filling me in. No, Nick had thought himself very clever, leaving a note that he’d gone out only to do an errand. A note that had been deliberately, carefully written to deceive me. From a man who may have killed his wife. I shivered at the possibility. How sinister—how dangerous—was Nick? What kind of man was he? Damn him, anyway. I tore up the note, threw it into the toilet, and flushed, hoping it would stop up his plumbing. Flood the whole goddam place. But the note didn’t go down. Its pieces sat sodden, floating on the water.
“Did you find them?” Molly called.
The keys, I remembered. “No, not yet.”
“Let’s face it, Mommy. They’re not here. Let’s just make a fort? Can we? Please?”
I came downstairs. “Mollybear, don’t whine. Think. If we lived here, where would we keep the keys to our snowplow?”
“Somewhere easy to find them.”
“Right—someplace we could get to them quickly if it snowed really hard.”
“Somewhere in the shed?”
She was probably right. They must be in the shed. On a hook. Or in the truck itself.
“Molly, you’re a genius.” I looked out at large, dense snowflakes, falling heavily in the eerie morning glow.
Carrying the phone, our overnight bags, the thermos, and the flashlight, I took Molly by the hand and trudged outside. The sun hadn’t quite made it above the pine trees; snow and sky blended seamlessly, fading from ominous to forbidding shades of gray. The pines seemed nearer than before, closing in like the snow, and though I knew no one was among them, I didn’t look to the left or right, dreading what I might see. My eyes remained directly ahead, fixed on the swirling snow. We trekked through drifts, knee deep for me, hip high for Molly, grunting and panting through gusts of wind, tasting flakes that blew into our mouths, stopping several times for Molly to catch her breath or balance, for me to rearrange my load.
Finally, we slid to a stop at the door of the shed. I dropped the bags and scanned the walls with the flashlight. There were hooks holding showshoes and bicycles, shovels and rakes. Hooks holding saws and axes and drills and hammers. But no hooks holding keys. Damn.
“Where are they, Molly? Where would Nick keep his keys?” “Maybe inside the truck. In the glove compartment? Can I look, Mom?” She ran to the door of the truck. “Let me.”
“Why can’t I? I thought of it.” “Molly, please don’t whine.” “But why can’t I?” She stopped whining. “Here, hold the thermos.”
I climbed into the truck, leaned over the passenger seat, and reached inside. Maps. Headache pills. Kleenex. Candy bars. A yo-yo. Registration and insurance cards—a yo-yo?
A yo-yo. It was red and blue, made of wood. Blinking at it, I stuffed everything back into the glove compartment, slammed it shut, and yanked my hand away. There wasn’t time to dwell on a yo-yo. The yo-yo didn’t matter. All that mattered was the keys.
Still eyeing the glove compartment, I felt above the sun visor, under the driver’s seat. That’s where I found them, on the floor, under the seat. Next to the gun.
I pulled my hand back as if from a fire.
Of course, there was a gun under the driver’s seat. Nick was a cop; cops had guns. He probably kept them all over the place, under cushions, in the bread box. No big deal. Not for Nick.
Just take the keys and go, I told myself. I reached under the seat and retrieved the keys.
“Got ‘em,” I said, holding up the key ring.
“Yeah, Mommy. You rule. Let’s blow this pop stand.”
“Let’s what?” Where did she get those expressions?
She wiggled her tooth, shrugging. “Angela says that.”
The ring held lots of keys. A dozen, at least. Lord. What were they all for? I climbed out, grabbed Molly, and hefted her up into the cab. As she climbed across to the passenger seat, I tossed in our bags and hopped up behind the wheel. I slid the driver’s seat forward so my feet could reach the pedals, aimed a key at the ignition, tried another and another until I found one that fit. Then I pushed down on the clutch, held down the brake, felt for a hand brake—was there a hand brake?—released what I thought was a hand brake, stepped on the gas, and turned the key. The engine sputtered and coughed. Then it died. Damn.
“What’s wrong with the truck?” Molly wanted to know.
Good question. Was the battery dead? Was it frozen? Was there any gas? “I don’t know.”
“Do you even know how to drive a truck?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“Then why isn’t it going?”
“Molly. Give me a second, okay?”
Try it again, I told myself. I turned the key. The engine gurgled. I stayed on the gas. It complained and it groaned, but it finally came to life. Molly gave it a round of applause.
“I never rode in a truck before, Mommy.”
“Me either.”
“Then how do you know how to drive one?”
Oops, she’d caught me. “It’s not that different from a car.”
“Don’t worry, Mollybear. We’re fine.”
She looked unconvinced but stopped chattering for a while.
The truck forged slowly through the snow, grumbling loudly. Time to shift, I told myself. Shift. Remember how? I found the clutch, pushed down, pulled the stick—and cringed at the piercing screams of grinding metal. The truck lurched to a halt. Oops, I thought. The gears.
“Mommy, what was that?” Molly cried.
“It’s fine.” We weren’t even off of Nick’s driveway, and I’d already stalled. There was a lever in the car—connected to the plow? I pulled it, and the plow lowered into plowing position. Amazing. Something actually was working. Molly kept talking, giving me advice on how to drive.
Start over, I told myself. Get the timing. Push down on the clutch. Now shift. Now accelerate. Now—slowly—release the clutch. Better. A bit of a jolt, but no screeches or stalls.
For endless minutes, the truck snorted and chugged. At first, Molly reacted to each bump. She asked questions about how the plow worked, about Nick. She criticized my driving, cited Angela’s expert advice, and updated me on the status of her teeth, showing that another one was loose. As we chortled around curves, through hills, along walls of silent pines, she eventually leaned back in her seat and dozed. For miles, I drove randomly, with no idea where we were or how to get to a main road. My eyes darted around, checking the rearview mirror as if someone might be following, knowing that no one was. Finally, the winding side road reached an intersection. Not a major artery, but big enough to merit a stop sign. I turned onto it, heading east toward the rising glow in the sky. Chester County was west of the city. So I was headed in the right direction. Soon the sun was higher; shadows evolved into shapes. And the road led to Route 30. A familiar number. I took it. Snow coated the pavement, and the truck felt clumsy, drove heavily, sluggish with the weight of the plow, but when we hit 202 I knew my way. Even with the snow, we could make town in under an hour. We were on our way home. Whatever awful memories awaited me there, they were mine, and I’d deal with them in my way, on my own. I would face Charlie’s empty house and the truth about what had happened there. And if I had my way, I’d never hear of Nick Stiles or Beverly Gardener again.