Driver's Dead (11 page)

Kirsten felt a surge of anger. Had anyone
really
looked into this? Nguyen Trang died without knowing his parents. His aunt and uncle moved away without finding the truth. And no one cared!

What if someone else stole that car? What if someone
was
in the Toyota with Nguyen that night?

When Kirsten got back home, Nat was playing basketball in the backyard. “You made me miss!” was his greeting as she pulled into the driveway.

“Just stuff it, Nat.”

“I'm not tall enough! Get it?”

Kirsten ran inside to the sound of Nat's barf-inducing laughter.

She cleaned up her scrapes and cuts in the bathroom and bandaged them securely. Then she called her dad at South Oaks Community Hospital.

“Hi, honey, what's up?” he asked.

“Dad, when people come into the Emergency Room, they all have to sign in, right?”

“Sure.”

“Can you get a copy of one of the sign-in sheets—like from April 18?”

“I can try. Why?”

“A … demographics project, to demonstrate statistical randomness in community institutions.”

Where did
that
come from? Kirsten beamed with pride.

“Sounds serious,” her dad said with a chuckle. “I'll get it for you.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

Kirsten breathed a huge sigh as she hung up. If another kid was with Nguyen, he couldn't have escaped an accident like that without some serious injury—unless he got out and
pushed
the car over the cliff, which didn't seem too likely.

And South Oaks Community was the only hospital around for miles.

Tip-tip-tip-tip … “Yes!”

Tip-tip-tip-tip … “Yes!”

Tip-tip-tip-tip … Bonk. “Foul!”

Nat's sound effects were beginning to drive Kirsten crazy.

She decided to go upstairs and write in her journal. She hadn't done that since all the weird stuff started happening.

Maybe if she got it all down, she'd be able to figure things out.

She booted her computer and called up her journal. The last date she'd worked on it was September 22, and now it was already mid-October.

She went to the end, then scrolled up to read her last page.

She stared at the orange, glowing screen, her mouth slowly opening in horror:

Kirsten, beware!

I know where you live. I know where you sleep. You may think you are safe, but that is part of the plan.

When you least expect it, you will say good-bye to the world. And you will be unprepared.

Kirsten Wilkes, you can ignore the blood on the floor. But you cannot escape the blood to come.

Your own.

K
IRSTEN'S FINGERS FELT LIKE
icicles. Her eyes were magnetized to the screen. The letters seemed to fade and swirl.

She shook her head. She blinked. She prayed she had misread the words. They were a hallucination. Her fall from the bike had given her a concussion, and she was seeing things.

You cannot escape the blood to come… .

Kirsten quickly scrolled down. The message continued:

And after the blood, Kirsten, comes worse.

Much worse.

Look tonight for the Seeping Mucus below your windows. To be followed by the Cascade of Puke from the shower head. Then the Cake of Fused Boogers in your soap dish. Of course, if you're quick, you can feed that to the squiggling little rodent beckoning you from the toilet bowl… . NYAH HAHAHAHA HA!!!!!!!

P.S. You are the worst driver who ever lived!

Kirsten heard a squeak outside her door. It became a giggle, then a full-fledged laugh.

“Nat, you rotten, stinking, little slime bucket!”
Kirsten screamed, springing from her chair. She flew across the room and threw open the door in time to see her brother jumping the last four steps to the first floor.

She bounded down the stairs and chased him into the street.

Nat sprinted away, howling with laughter. In seconds he had gained most of a block on her.

“I HATE you!”
Kirsten shrieked after him.

Cursing under her breath, she stomped back to the house.

She was livid. Nat had gone into her room, turned on her computer, snooped around in her files, found her personal diary, and sabotaged it.

Probably read the whole thing, too!

She went straight to her room and deleted everything he'd written. She stewed for a few minutes, but forced herself to put aside her rage. It was time to write.

She let her fingers fly over the keyboard. She wrote about everything, sometimes not even stopping to put in periods. The date with Rob. Rob's death. Gwen's behavior. The mysterious flyer. The blood. The kitchen door. The doubts she was starting to have about Nguyen Trang's death.

She wrote a lot about Nguyen. Funny how much she was beginning to care about a guy she'd never met. Never
would
meet.

But somehow she felt connected to him. Maybe it was the bedroom (it
had
to have been his; she was sure of it). Maybe it was the unfairness of it all, the assumption that he stole the car and caused his own death.

Kirsten didn't believe it for a minute.

What
did
happen on the night of April 18?

Nguyen didn't know many people. But he did know Gwen. He had to know Rob, too—or
of
him. After all, Rob had been going out with Gwen while Nguyen was pining over her.

What else?

Gwen wanted Rob. Nguyen wanted Gwen (and so did Virgil). Gwen went out with Nguyen, with the cockeyed idea that Rob would get jealous. It was like a soap opera.

And it ended in a death, maybe a murder. But who would have a motive to kill a harmless guy like Nguyen?

Rob? No way. He had dumped Gwen. What did he care who she went out with?

Virgil? Maybe, since Nguyen was going out with the girl he had the hots for. But Virgil was the last person in the world who would murder anyone.

Okay,
Kirsten thought.
So I'm Nguyen. What am I thinking about the night I'm about to die? What am I worried about?

Kirsten recalled something Maria had told her:
“The Trangs kept saying they would find Nguyen's diary, and that would give all the clues to what really happened.”

She opened a new file, and at the top of the first page she typed:

THE DIARY OF NGUYEN TRANG

Off the top of her head, she began composing:

I give Gwen so many presents. She is so beautiful. Does she really like me? I wish she did, but she still likes Rob. Maybe I should talk to Rob in shop tomorrow. Maybe he needs to have a real breakup, instead of just ignoring her… .

This was ridiculous. How could she put words in the mouth of someone she didn't know? Who did she think she was, Nancy Drew?

She closed the file without saving it. She was about to shut down the computer when she thought about Nat.

No way was she going to let him see what she'd written in her journal.

She took her software manual off the shelf and found a chapter entitled, “Passwords: Protect Your Sensitive Data.”

But her eyes crossed when she began reading. It was too complicated, and she
hated
figuring out computer gobbledegook. She'd get Maria to help her someday.

For now, she copied her journal file to a floppy disk, then erased the copy that was on her hard disk. If Nat tried to snoop around, he'd find nothing.

Slipping the floppy in its paper sleeve, she looked around the room for a place to hide it.

The bookshelves would be the first place Nat would check. The closet was out. Too messy. The disk might get thrown around, bent up. And wedging it between her clothes in her drawers was also a little risky for something so fragile.

Kirsten walked around, idly spinning the disk in her hand.

She noticed the wood paneling was laid on the wall in large sheets. Wherever the sheets met was a seam, floor to ceiling. Along the seam, small nails attached the paneling to the support underneath.

Just above the floor, near her door, one of the seams had warped. A nail or two seemed to be missing, and the sheet of paneling on the left had bowed outward a bit, making a gap.

Kirsten stuck her fingers in the gap and pulled. The wooden sheet had some give, and she could see the wall underneath.

Nat would never think to look there.

Smiling, Kirsten pulled the paneling as far as she could and carefully set the disk inside.

But a disk was already there.

Wrapped in a small plastic bag.

Kirsten pulled it out, sending wisps of dust to the carpet.

She wiped off the dust that obscured the disk label and read the words N. TRANG underneath.

K
IRSTEN PULLED THE DISK
out of the plastic bag. She ran to her computer, inserted it, and typed out the DOS command DIR A:, to get a list of files.

The hard drive popped onto the screen: DATA ERROR READING DRIVE A:.

Terrific. Data error. What on earth did that mean?

She dashed into her parents' room and tapped out Maria's number on the phone.

“Hello?”

“Maria! What's a data error?”

“Uh, excuse me? Come again?”

“It's me—Kirsten! I found a floppy disk that might have Nguyen Trang's diary, but my computer says ‘data error.' What does that mean?”

“Could mean the disk is damaged. Could mean it's not compatible with your system. What kind of computer do you have?”

“Um … you know. It sits on a desk and has a screen and big metal thing—”

“Kirsten—
IBM-compatible or Apple?”

“Well, neither… .”

“Oh,
duh.
Didn't they teach you anything in New York City? Does your computer use DOS, Windows, or—”

“DOS!” Kirsten blurted.

“Thank you, Wilma Flintstone. Welcome to the twentieth century. You have an IBM-compatible. Maybe Nguyen's disk is formatted for an Apple.”

“Do you have an Apple?”

“Uh-uh—but Virgil has a Mac.”

“Thanks! You are the greatest, Maria! See you!”

“Wait, Kirsten. I was about to call you. Tomorrow's the funeral service for Rob. In the morning. Anyone who goes is excused from classes until lunch. Want to go with me?”

Kirsten's smile disappeared. Sadness flowed back into her. “Of course I do. Where should I meet you?”

“My house. It's on the way.”

“Okay. See you.”

“Bye.”

Kirsten tried to shake the funeral out of her mind. She'd have plenty of time for tears tomorrow.

Quickly she called Virgil.

“Virgil, hi, it's Kirsten. I need a Mac.”

“Don't we all. I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes.”

“What?”

“I could try to make it twelve, but—”

“Meet me where?”

“At Mickey D's.”

“No! Not that kind of Mac. Your
computer!”

“Oh! Hey, well, that's a disk of a different color. I thought you were asking me on a cheap date.”

“Virgil, you're a goon.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere. Come on over.”

Kirsten hung up, grabbed the disk, and ran downstairs. As she sped out the front door, she nearly ran into her mother.

“Hi, Mom! I'll be back in an hour or so!”

“Oh, no, you won't, Kirsten Wilkes! You stop right there!”

Kirsten felt as though someone had thrown a warm blanket of mud over her. “It's okay, Mom,” she said, turning around.

Whoops. No, it wasn't.

The look on her mom's face was definitely of the “Not-Okay” variety. In fact, it was deeply into “Over-My-Dead-Body” territory.

“Mo-
om
, I just need to use someone's computer.”

“Is yours broken?”

“I need a Mac.”

“We have chopped sirloin in the freezer.”

Kirsten groaned in frustration. “I already
told
Virgil—”

“Virgil?
I had no idea there was a Virgil in your life.”

“Ohhhhhh!”
Kirsten stormed back into the house. “What am I, a prisoner?”

“Call it whatever you want, but on the day after someone your own age has been killed in the neighborhood, you just may notice a
little
parental concern.” As Kirsten huffed past, her mom's eyes narrowed. “Kirsten, what happened to your hand?”

“I cut it trying to get off my handcuffs!”

She went inside and slammed the front door behind her.

It took a few minutes for the steam to empty from her ears—just in time for Nat to return home to an even louder lecture from Mom.

Kirsten escaped upstairs, called Virgil, told him about the disk, and explained that she'd been grounded.

Virgil responded with a deep sigh. “It's okay with me, but I don't know how I'm going to explain this to Wolfgang.”

“Who?”

“My Mac. He's very sensitive. Especially when it gets close to the full moon. Often bad news makes him boot.”

“Ha ha.” Everybody was a comedian today.

“Don't worry, Kirsten. Just bring the disk to school tomorrow. We'll use the Macs there.”

“Okay. Thanks, Virgil.”

“You bet. Bye.”

As she hung up, she heard her dad's voice outside, joining Mom's safety harangue against Nat.

Kirsten went downstairs. When she heard her dad starting to
defend
Nat, she decided to barge in. “Hi, Dad!” she called, stepping out the front door.

“Hey, sweetheart. I have something for you.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a manila envelope. “That list, for your school project.”

Eureka. Possible progress.

“Thanks!” Kirsten grabbed the envelope and went back inside.

She opened it in her room, sprawled on the bed. The heading read: