Page 75 of The Midnight Hour
“I don’t want to keep running,” she tells me, a tremble to her voice. “I’m happy here. Kyle and I are happy here…together, with Phoebe.”
He puts his arm around her, and my jaw slackens. I suspected something was going on, but…this? This much, at their age? I should have had that conversation with her. I should still have it.
“I’m not going,” Mattie says again. “I don’t want any more than this. I really don’t.”
And now she sounds like Daniel. Can I blame or begrudge her for her choice? I know already that I can’t. And yet…whatabout Sam, Ruby? What about what they want, what life can they make for themselves?
And what about me? There’s no way I can leave my daughter. Everything in me cries out against it, and yet…
And yet…
“Mom,” Mattie says, and now her voice has turned achingly gentle. “I really think you should go.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
DANIEL
March the previous year
Outside Albany, New York
Carefully Daniel fits the key into the padlock and unlocks it, and then pulls up the roller door of the garage with a loud clatter that echoes on the still, wintry air. Inside the musty-smelling space is a Honda Civic, maybe five years old. He breathes out deeply, hardly able to believe it’s really there. It feels like a miracle, except of course it isn’t, it’s a responsibility, and one entrusted to him by a woman whose name he doesn’t know, whose very life depends on him bringing her car back to her.
Next to the car are five five-gallon jerry cans of gas. It’s enough to get to Buffalo or Flintville…but not both.
An hour earlier, Daniel made a deal with the woman gasping for breath on the sofa, her baby next to her.
“I need to get out of here, too,” he’d told her. “Not to Buffalo, though, but up north. I’ll get your car for you, but I’ll have to drive my son, and my mother-in-law along with you, at least as far as Syracuse.”
As he said it, he didn’t know if he was being ruthless or just realistic. Surely it wasn’t too much to ask, to accompany her as far as he could? She nodded, already agreeing, but then Daniel realized that they couldn’t go that way, because both Syracuse and Rochester had been hit. The only safe way—if it was indeed safe—to get to Buffalo, would be to go south. Take Route88 all the way down toward Binghamton, maybe, and then start cutting across west, through northern Pennsylvania, before heading back up to Buffalo. It would double the mileage, at least, and it was also in the opposite direction of where he needed to go. There definitely wouldn’t be enough gas.
“Are you sure there’s a base at Buffalo?” he asked, sounding doubtful, wanting to change her mind. “It’s so far away…”
She nodded again, eagerly. “Yes, I’m sure of it. My cousin told me about it. He owns the garage I mentioned. He went a couple of weeks ago, but I was too sick. But he knew about it…it’s the only place I know to go…I’m going to meet him…I have to get there…” She trailed off, closing her eyes, clearly exhausted.
Daniel hesitated. He needed to look at the atlas again, but, if he drove this woman all the way to Buffalo, maybe he could cross into Canada at Niagara, and then make his way north and east through Ontario, avoiding Toronto, of course, but getting there steadily. It would add a lot of time to the journey, maybe even months, and he didn’t have the gas for such a long trip, but he knew he didn’t have any other options.
“Will you get the car for me?” she asked, opening her eyes and gazing at him in desperate appeal. “Please? You can ride with me. Hell, you can drive the car.” She let out a raspy laugh that ended in a rattling cough. “I’m not well enough.”
“All right,” Daniel said slowly, the word drawn from him reluctantly. He didn’t want to link his fortunes to this woman’s, but she was the one with the car. “Where’s the car exactly? And the key?”
With halting, painful breathlessness, she told him where the keys were, both to the garage and the car, hidden in a box under her bed. The garage, she said, was at 122 County Road, tucked behind a house with a front porch with green posts.
“It’ll be abandoned, but the car should be safe. The garage is made of concrete and the door’s padlocked.”
“All right,” Daniel said again. He found the keys just where she’d said they were and pocketed both sets. Then he headed back into the living room and gazed down at the woman, who had fallen asleep, her mouth hanging open, her breath coming in slow, rasping breaths. The baby had stopped crying; her eyes were open, and for a second Daniel wondered if she was dead, but then he saw the faint rise and fall of her tiny chest.
He turned away from them both and went to get the car. It took him over an hour to find his way to County Road, and then walk along the side of it until he came to number 122. It was nearly midnight, the sky inky black, and he’d been gone for hours. He needed to get back to Sam and Jenny. He needed to get back with a car.
He walked around the clapboard farmhouse just as the woman had instructed and there was the garage, tucked behind, locked up tight and looking safe.
And now here he was, just past midnight, the garage unlocked and open, the car right in front of him and he had the keys in his hand, and it would be easy, soeasy, to get in that car and drive back to Sam and never think of that woman and her baby again. He clenches the car key in his fist, so that it bites into his palm, hard enough to hurt. He welcomes the pain because part of him can’t believe he’s willing to think this way. And not just think but do.
He’s going to do it. He’s going to take—steal—this car and drive back to Sam. He’s going to condemn this woman and her innocent baby to death.
“They’d be dead anyway,” he mutters, but the words soundpetulant and frightened even to his own ears. They aren’t dead now.
A shuddering breath escapes him as he loads the gas into the trunk, and then slides into the driver’s seat. He rests his hands on the steering for a few minutes and just breathes. Then, steeling himself, he puts the key into the ignition; the car starts with a cough and then the engine turns over. Daniel reverses out of the garage and heads back down County Road, toward the ranch house where he left Sam and Jenny.
