Page 74 of Mountains Divide Us

“You don’t trust me, do you? I promise, I’m not going to get you in trouble. Come on. I’ll help you.”

He crawled onto his knees, then stood. He was as tall as me, so I wrapped his arm around my shoulder to help carry some of his weight. I felt the weakness in his muscles as we hobbled down the stairs, one at a time, and when we got to the bottom, he swayed and leaned against the wall.

“Sit down. My lunch is right there. See my tote bag in the entryway?”

“’Kay,” he mumbled, sliding down the wall and parking his butt on the bottom step.

“Let me just—”

A car door slammed outside, and when I turned back to him, panic had filled Murphy’s eyes. He stood, looking at my face, then in the direction of the front door, and then back at my face.

I jabbed my thumb behind me to the rolling cart under the book drop next to the front door. “Maybe it’s just a library patron returning books.”

He shook his head, eyes wide, and I jumped to the side, trying to see out the front windows.

Shit. Frank.

I held my hands up in front of me again. I didn’t know what to say to make Murphy stay, but it didn’t matter. He bolted. I had no idea how he could move that fast, as weak as he was, but he disappeared in a flash, and as soon as Frank pushed in through the front door, I heard the back door slamming shut.

Frank heard it too. He missed nothing. He took one look at the garbage still on the floor, my overturned book cart, and the guilty wince on my face. “Where’d he go?”

“Out the back. Just now.” I hung my head. It made my stomach hurt to think of Frank finding Murphy and arresting him, but he really didn’t look good. I was afraid Murphy needed more help than I could give him.

It felt like there was barbed wire in my stomach when Frank whipped around and jumped down the steps outside, letting the door slam behind him. And when he peeled out, kicking up dirty snow behind his truck’s tires, I was so scared for Murphy, I felt like I might throw up.

* * *

“Dammit, Samantha! Why didn’t you call me as soon as you knew he was here?” Frank boomed at me, slamming the front door closed behind him when he returned. “I’ve been trying to find him for weeks!”

“You didn’t catch him?”

He’d been gone for over an hour, and I just sat there on the bottom stair, my mind racing with all the really bad possibilities.

Yanking the gloves off his hands, he threw them to the floor, and his hat followed. “No!”

I stood, following him into the main room. “I’m sorry, but you didn’t see how scared he was, Frank. He can’t be more than fifteen years old. Why do you have to arrest him? I know you don’t like it, but not everyone has to live by the rules all the time. Why can’t you go with the flow a little? Nothing bad is going to happen if you do, you know.”

“Yes, it will!”

“What, Frank? What bad thing will happen?”

“Life! Goddammit. Life will happen, and it ain’t always hippie roses and good times.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “You come in here, and you—you’re messin’ everything up. Why can’t you just leave it be?”

“Leave what be?”

“Nothin’,” he said, turning away from me, shaking his head.

“I know life isn’t always easy.” God, did I ever. “But that kid was terrified of you finding him. He knows, as soon as you do, you’re going to arrest him.”

“Yeah?” He wouldn’t look at me. He stepped to the front windows and stared out, breathing in loudly and releasing the breath silently. “Well, he’s gonna be scared shitless tonight. The storm headed our way is s’posed to be really fuckin’ bad, Samantha. Polar temperatures, high winds, and we’re gonna get dumped on. A whiteout. Abey’s already out there, blockin’ off roads.”

Oh God. The storm. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“No, you weren’t,” he said. “I’m so angry with you right now.”

“Frank—”

“I gotta go. I have to find him. You have no idea what it’s like to be out there all alone.”

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