Hush Little Baby (10 page)

In her little flute voice Muffin said, “They don’t even have chairs, Kit. And there isn’t any furniture in those cars. They’ve been here, but they haven’t eaten anything in weeks but pizza. Plus they didn’t throw away their pizza boxes. They’re going to get bugs.”

“May I hold Sam?” said Cinda. Cinda was crying.

Kit was not letting go of Sam. She backed up against her unlocked car. Shifting Sam against her chest, gripping him crosswise with one arm and hand, she managed to reach behind herself and get the back door open. She schooled her voice: It must remain calm. The only way to do this was with her Dullness Training. Calm was the one thing that actually startled people. They did not know what to do about confidence, except stand there and watch you be confident. “Get in the car, Muffin,” she said easily.

Muffin scrambled in.

Cinda and Burt were still yelling across the grass. Ed seemed ready to fly at Cinda, seemed ready to strangle her!

Kit dreaded having to put Sam into his carrier. It was not a quick procedure, and she would have her back to all of them. And then she still had to walk all the way around the car. Do it now, do it efficiently, she told herself. She leaned in and over Muffin to pop Sam into his seat. Muffin had the straps up and nodded to let Kit know that she would finish the job. Sam’s little body flung itself outward when Kit shifted him, and he whimpered, his little fists curling and uncurling. How scary to live in a world that could do what it wanted with your body.

“Tell you what,” said Kit, shutting the door on Muffin, “come to Dad’s house in the morning, Cinda. Dusty will be there by then, and we’ll sort this out.” She clicked her key ring, locking all four doors. “It just feels a little messy to me,” she said casually. There. Muffin and Sam were okay. They were in the fortress of the Volvo. Even if Ed or Burt or Cinda got the key ring away from her and clicked it, Muffin could override the command and keep the car locked. Muffin was no fool. She was already reaching in between the two front seats to find the driver’s control.

Cinda began to cry, flinging looks at her husband, at Ed, at Kit, at the baby.

“No!” said Ed. “No! You promised! We’re doing this!”

“Give it up, Ed,” said Burt. His voice sagged. “We’re out of time. It didn’t work. You’re not getting all your money.”

Money? thought Kit. She was walking carefully around the car, hoping Ed would not try to intercept her. She knew Burt wouldn’t. She didn’t think Cinda would.

But Ed …

He was that thing you heard references to in TV games … a wild card.

And also, a wild car. Once he got behind the wheel of that Caddy, both driver and vehicle would be wild. And it was the first car in line, facing out. If they followed Kit, it would be Ed at the front of the line.

Money, she thought. There’s money sometimes in private adoptions. Is Ed being paid by Cinda and Burt? If Sam the Baby isn’t delivered, Ed doesn’t get the rest of his money? And Dusty? What did she get paid? Is this about money, then? Not about my precious little guy’s life and future and the people who love him?

But money?

Kit hated Dusty then.

It was a sharp clean emotion, which she would not have expected, because she had certainly never hated her mother for anything, no matter how upset she’d been over the years, and she never hated Malcolm, only disliked him for existing. She would have thought hate would be a big splat of shuddering dislike.

But it was blade thin, slicing Dusty like peel from an orange.

A brand-new life, a trusting sleeping perfect baby, and Dusty just threw everything into the mixing bowl and let it get whipped up.

Muffin leaned between the seats and opened the driver’s door for Kit.

“No,” said Cinda, weeping openly. “No, please, you don’t understand. I’ve wanted a baby for so long! And this was perfect! Everything was perfectly planned, and I will be a good mother, I will! Kit, we can’t come in the morning. You see, we have other problems. We have financial problems and —”

“Stop talking about it!” shouted Burt.

“She has to understand!” sobbed Cinda. “I need that baby. He’s mine. We all agreed on that. Dusty didn’t want a baby! She didn’t want a baby at all, even for a minute!”

Then why weren’t you at the hospital? thought Kit. She got into the car, trying not to lose her Dullness Training skills, trying not to tremble, or vomit, or scream, or catch her own fingers in the door from slamming it so fast.

“No!” said Ed. He launched himself at the car, tearing at the back door handle, which he knew, they all knew, was locked solidly. “You leave that baby here!”

Kit thrust the key into the ignition.

Ed was pawing at the windows now, and Muffin shrank back, her hands spread out in front of Sam, to protect him from the evil of Ed’s eyes.

“No, Ed!” cried Cinda. “No, no, no, you calm down. We all have to calm down here. Let’s calm down.” She took Ed’s arm and led him away from the car.

“I want my money!” shouted Ed Bing. He pulled clear of Cinda, put his two palms flat on the hood, and she thought of his half-moon palm edges on the glass doors. Now his fingerprints were on her car; if something really really terrible happened, the police would find those fingerprints.

Kit started the engine.

“Kit, you’re getting us all upset over nothing,” said Ed Bing. The hum of the motor made it difficult to hear him. “Roll your window down,” he yelled. “We’re all very emotional because this is such a tiny baby, and Dusty has not been rational, you know how difficult Dusty is — your father left her because of that! — and you know that she is not a good person to bring up a baby — and Cinda and Burt have wanted a baby for years, and they will make the best parents of all.”

“They didn’t even buy Huggies!” Muffin shouted back. “They don’t have soap in their bathroom. I bet they don’t own a crib.” Muffin lowered her voice. “Just drive away, Kit. We’ll go to Shea’s house and my Aunt Karen will know what to do.”

Ed Bing was leaning over the hood now, pocked face distorted with yelling, like some huge insect caught on her windshield.

“Drive over him,” said Muffin. “He’ll look better squashed.”

“We’re out of time!” shouted Burt.

Cinda was hanging on to Ed and losing her balance, so that she, too, was half leaning on the Volvo. Cinda called, “Really, I understand, Kit. I’m glad you’re thinking of the baby first. Please just forget about all this. Dusty — Dusty will — Dusty —”

But Cinda had no idea what Dusty would do; nobody knew what Dusty would do; probably least of all, Dusty.

“Kit! What do we have to do, call the police?” yelled Ed Bing. “You are kidnapping Cinda and Burt’s child!”

Burt came loping across the grass at last, and for a minute Kit thought he was going to land on the roof of the Volvo, and she would have all three of them clinging to her car, and —

But he was offering money to Ed. Ed stepped toward Burt’s wallet.

Burt said, “Kit, just take the kid and leave. It didn’t work. We’re very sorry you got involved in this. It wasn’t my idea, okay? Please just forget all about it. Come on, Cinda, we gotta get out of here. Now!”

Kit put the car in drive. “Wave to them, Muffin,” she whispered. “Make this look normal.” Kit pressed the accelerator.

They were ten feet away. Twenty feet. Thirty.

And then a hundred feet, two hundred, almost out of the driveway, almost safe in the woods that had seemed so unsafe before.

Muffin Mason opened her window. She stuck her head all the way out, her shoulders at risk from tree branches. She yelled in her sturdiest voice, “Anyway, there were
two
cameras! I took plenty of pictures, too! So we still have pictures of Sam the Baby even if you stole Kit’s camera. So there!”

R
OWEN CALCULATED THAT HALF
the cars in New Jersey drove around just to drive around. Nobody had a destination. Everybody was cruising, listening to the radio, not thinking of much. To keep his mind busy, Row was trying to figure out how that ATM scam had worked. It was complex. According to the radio reports, the criminals had manufactured a couple of ATM machines of their own and put them illegally in public places like malls. People went up and stuck their bank cards in to get cash and the machines copied down their account number and PIN number, which the criminals now had. Then the bad guys made their own bank cards, and using the PIN number — supposedly known only to the card carrier — they could hit any real ATM machine anywhere in the country and get money out of the victims’ bank accounts.

It was clever, and yet, Row didn’t see how it could really work.

You’d have a bushel basket of fake bank cards, and in order to use them, you’d have to carry around your printout with the PIN numbers. Then what did you do? Line up with regular customers at an ATM, getting your money a hundred or two hundred dollars at a time? Did you run ten cards through the machine while other people waited behind you? And how many ATMs did you go to? Because the bank machines were programmed not to allow too many withdrawals at a time — it was suspicious.

So did you just cruise the state — or several states, because according to the radio, the scam was up and going in Pennsylvania and New York and Connecticut as well — looking for ATM machines?

Row himself cruised down a street he had driven about ten times already in the last hour, because he was circling near Kit’s two houses and near Shea’s, so that he could intercept them.

He was too worried and too disgusted with himself to show up at Shea’s and wait. He could imagine so well, so painfully well, what his aunt and uncle and cousin would say to him.

He put his mind on crime once more.

In your fake ATM, which you were using just to get the bank card numbers to start with, no money would be distributed to customers. Some customers would just grit their teeth and forget it, but wouldn’t the rest call in the ATM failure? And wouldn’t the bank realize they didn’t
have
an ATM at that location? And wouldn’t that bring the police? So didn’t that mean that you’d be constantly picking up and moving your fake ATM to fake locations? And wouldn’t that increase your risk something fierce?

Row had a fantasy in which he himself was a master criminal. Not the scummy type that ripped off innocent old ladies’ retirement money in investment plans that didn’t exist — but some cool fabulous way of stealing cool fabulous things — like diamonds from mines. He was a little concerned by his fantasy, since his father was the type just to shoot him if he even expressed it, but he liked his fantasy, and pulled it out fairly often; he could really get into his plans for the Big, Big Crime.

How would
he
have done the fake ATM scam, if he’d been in charge?

It seemed to him that yet another problem was that you’d have to have a crew. You’d have to have a truck to move the ATM, you’d have to have people cruising around banks to use the fake bank cards, so you could not do this alone. And the more people you had in on your scheme, the tougher it would get to keep it secret.

He remembered traffic, and took a quick glance around to be sure he wasn’t driving sideways — and there, next to him, in a four-door black sedan which seemed far too tame and lacking in style, was Dusty. The ex-stepmother herself.

Such a beautiful woman! Her hair glistened tawny gold. Her earrings shimmered. She was studying herself in her own rearview mirror, and she was pleased with what she saw, tilting her head to the right and then to the left, admiring her own profile.

Rowen waved to get her attention, but she did not see him. She was pretty busy attending to herself.

When the lights changed, she drove jerkily, accelerating in little bursts and slowing in little jabs. She changed lanes without looking to see if there was space.

There was not.

Horns blared, fingers were lifted, drivers shouted unpleasant words, the syllables hidden by their closed windows. She did not notice. It was her perception that this was her own road, and she had no sense that she must share it. After several blocks, Row managed to slide in behind her. This was a woman you could follow for days and she would never know, because she was thinking only of her destination, whatever that was, and did not once glance around to see what traffic was doing.

It was astonishing such a driver was still alive.

Eventually, they arrived at Kit’s father’s house, which he should have guessed. She was returning for her baby. Dusty parked, walked up to the front door, and let herself in, while Row drove up right behind her. Then he reparked, because she was not likely to notice there was a car behind her and would just back into him if she left first. He pulled way to the side, using the last inch of asphalt, so she couldn’t open her doors up against his car, either. She’d left the front door wide open so Rowen also just walked right into the house.

He was in time to see her beautiful ankles vanishing at the top of the stairs. “Kit! Kit! Kit!” Dusty cried. He could hear her running from room to room, slamming many doors, as if checking closets. “Kit!” she called. “Kit, where are you?”

He waited while she rushed around the house the way she had driven around the town, and then she came racing back down the stairs.

She shrieked when she saw Rowen, so he said quickly, “I’m a friend of Kit’s, Mrs. Innes. I’m Rowen Mason, we met at the club, remember you were playing tennis and my parents had friends there for dinner?” She had seemed so glamorous to Rowen — slender and gold. “The baby is fine, I saw him this afternoon, Kit’s taking great care of him.” As soon as the sentence was out of his mouth, he realized that Dusty had not been looking for the baby; she’d been looking for Kit.

“Oh, Rowen, of course I remember you,” she said. She smiled sweetly. “You were wearing the cutest little outfit.”

“The cutest little outfit?” That made him sound like Muffin. He said weakly, “Yeah, that was me.”

“So the baby is fine, then,” said Dusty happily. “I knew I could count on Kit. Let’s get a Coke. It’s the only thing you can be sure of in this house. Gavin never runs out of Coke.” She set off for the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she said, “Did Kit take the baby to her mother’s? That would be fine, except then I have to deal with her mother. I like Gavin’s first wife; she was nice to me. But the thing is, she’s sticky about things, do you know what I mean, Rowen?”