Fly Away (10 page)

“But we can't even talk to her,” I said.

“If there's anything I can do to help,” Comiskey said, “you know where to find me.”

After he'd left, Shona and I sat staring at each other.

“You heard what he said,” Shona said. “We have to find a way to talk to her. But we'll never get past that gatekeeper.”

I nodded. “Then we have to find another way in.”

Once we'd worked out a basic plan, Shona called her grandmother. “So roast the chicken anyway, Gram! You and Grandpa still have to eat, right?” She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “No, Greek food is not better than your cooking. But Marnie's never been to Greektown. I promised to show her a good time.” Then she turned her back, not wanting me to overhear.

I moved closer.

“Marnie's the new captain, Gram. I don't like her, but I have to suck up to her.”

When she hung up, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her.

“What?” she challenged. “We have to go back to Benedict's. It has to be after dark. What was I supposed to say?”

“I don't care what you tell your grandmother, Shona,” I said. “What I'm tired of is the way you act toward me.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, as if she didn't know.

“You act like being a cheerleading champion is all you care about, but then you diss me to other people.”

She looked confused.

“I'm your team captain, Shona. Like it or not. So how is disrespecting me going to further your goals?” I couldn't believe I'd just said that. Go, Marnie. I waited a long time for her answer.

“I don't know,” she whispered, so quietly I could barely hear.

I took a deep breath. “All I'm saying is, you don't have to like me, but you did agree to help me. So how about you drop the diva act and just follow through with what you agreed? I'm grateful that you're here. It would have been much harder to find Arielle without you. Thank you. Now, smarten up.”

For once, Shona seemed at a loss for words. She had a funny look on her face, a strange mix of shock, hurt feelings and maybe even a little respect. Before she could say anything to contradict me, I slid my chair out and hopped to my feet. “Let's go. We've got some research to do.”

We went from the coffee shop to a library, where we could scope out the Benedict property on an online satellite map.

His lot was at least forty meters wide. There were trees, especially on the west side. It was impossible to tell what kind of fencing surrounded the place.

“It'll be ordinary fencing,” Shona guessed. “He's got cameras at the gate, but he's just an artist, after all. It's not, like, a secure compound.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Like you said. Arielle wanted to go there. She paid to go there. He's not keeping her there against her will.”

I pointed out a shed a third of the way along the west-side fence. “I think we should climb here. Then we can hide between the shed and the fence. But we'll have to go through the neighbor's property to do it.”

Shona nodded. “I'm in.”

chapter twenty-tree

We waited until dark to call the cab, but when we got to the end of Straightarrow Court, there was more light than I'd imagined. Streetlights. Also, many of the trees we'd seen on the satellite image were bare. We looked at each other nervously.

“What exactly do we do,” Shona asked, “when we get in?”

I shrugged. On the bus to Richmond Hill the day before, I'd imagined our visit as a rescue. But it isn't a rescue if the person you're rescuing doesn't want to leave. “We'll just talk to her,” I said. “Tell her about the sketches.”

This seemed good enough for Shona. She kept walking.

We stopped in front of the neighbor's house. There were no cars in the driveway, but that didn't mean much. Mansion dwellers probably parked their cars in garages. We moved on until we were beyond the reach of the streetlights and, hopefully, far enough from the house to avoid triggering any security lights.

The neighbor's fence was low and ornamental, definitely not a security feature. So far, so good.

We concentrated on staying out of the remaining patches of snow and moved quickly toward a little cluster of evergreens. I found myself wishing Shona's parka wasn't pale pink, but we hadn't thought to replace it. We had stopped at a pet store to buy a cheap dog collar and leash. A lost dog was our trespassing excuse.

We stopped between the evergreens and Benedict's high wooden fence. I could feel the cold creeping up through my boots. We peered at the neighbor's house. There was one light on, toward the back. Nothing to worry about.

We couldn't be sure where the shed was on the other side of the fence.

“Boost me up,” Shona said.

I made a basket with my hands and popped her up, just like in cheerleading. I was only expecting her to take a look, but she grabbed the top of the fence and swung over. How was I supposed to follow?

“Shona,” I hissed. “Pull on this. Hard.” I fed the loop at the end of the leash through the lattice near the top of the fence, then took the collar in my hand.

Shona pulled on her end, and I scampered up the smooth boards like a rock climber. I got a boot over at the top, straddled the fence and swung quietly to the ground. Shona nodded approval, her eyes shining with excitement.

There was junk behind the shed. Lumber, and something that looked like a sailboard. There was enough space to keep us in shadow. We peered at the house.

Light poured from several of the front-facing windows, but our side was mostly dark. There was a screen porch on the back.

The description of the BeneFactor Foundation mentorships had mentioned a “self-contained apartment” for the resident artist. I guessed it would be upstairs.

“Let's go,” I said. “Avoid that patch of snow and hunker down between the screened porch and that dark window.”

We ran as fast as we could. I expected motion sensors and a security light, but nothing happened. We crouched, panting, our backs against the stonework. When we'd caught our breath, we looked through the screened porch, trying to see the far rear corner. There was a little bit of light there.

We crept carefully around the porch, careful to avoid the noisy gravel at the foundation.

Shona pointed at something on the back wall.

“What?!” I gasped.

“Shh,” she said. “It's a dryer vent. That's a laundry room. Won't be anyone in there. We can keep going.”

We sidled past the laundry-room window. The last window, at the northwest corner, was the one with the light. But it was above our heads. We were too close to the building to see in.

“You'll have to boost me up again,” Shona said.

When I did, she instantly ducked back down, almost knocking me over. She stared at me, wide-eyed with panic.

“He's right there! In the window!”

Terror rooted me to the spot. I remembered Benedict's intense gaze. I desperately wanted to run, but Shona had dropped to her knees, and she had my wrist in a viselike grip.

“Wait,” she whispered. “Hush.”

We waited, trembling, for more than a minute. “Did he see you?” I asked.

“I guess not,” she breathed. “It's an office. His desk faces out the window. He was looking at a computer screen…”

I nodded. “Well, at least we know where he is,” I said. “Let's go.”

We reached the corner of the building. A wide trellis extended from the corner. We had to cross the lawn to get around it. We weren't prepared when we stepped right into a pool of light that came from a pair of French doors.

On the other side of the doors, curled up on a couch, watching television, was Arielle. She saw us right away and jumped to her feet. In three strides, she was at the doors.

“Marnie!” she exclaimed, her voice alarmingly loud. “And Shona…,” she added, looking even more surprised. “What are you doing here? Come in.”

I was afraid to go in, but we needed her to keep her voice down. We stepped into the warmth of the house.

“Why did you come to this door?” she asked. “Have you met Trey?”

“No,” I whispered. “Could you keep your voice down, Ari?”

“Why?” she asked. Confusion flickered across her face. “He doesn't know you're here, does he?” she finally said, answering her own question.

“His gatekeeper told us you weren't here,” I said. “Earlier, when we tried to get in. And your phone's been off for days.”

“I know,” she admitted.

“You could have told me about all this,” I said. “Why didn't you trust me?”

She didn't answer. “There's no reason you can't be here,” she said instead. “You're my guests. Sit.”

But we wouldn't.

“Are my parents on their way?” she asked.

“No,” Shona said. “They don't know. Yet.”

“We wanted to find you first,” I added. “See what was going on.”

Arielle nodded. “Thanks.”

I stood, hyperalert, in the doorway, listening for sounds in the house.

“Why are you so freaked out?” Arielle asked. “I love it here. I'm getting lots of painting done. I'm sorry, Marnie, that I didn't tell you what I was doing. But—”

“He's a criminal!” Shona said.

Arielle frowned. “Hardly.”

I heard footsteps.

“He made sketches of your paintings,” I said hurriedly. “He posted them online. On that site. Without mentioning you.” We had to go. Now. Someone was coming.

Shona heard it too, and she grabbed the door handle. I edged toward the door.

“Arielle?” somebody called.

Shona ran out the door, and I followed. “Call me, Arielle!” I said. “Call!”

Eduardo moved into my line of sight. I turned and ran.

chapter twenty-four

Shona made it all the way around the house, but about four meters from the shed she stopped short.

“Run!” I screamed.

But she was frozen to the spot. A big dark shape was barreling toward her. A dog. A huge one.

“Run, Shona!” I grabbed her sleeve, startling her into action. The dog got hold of the hem of her parka, and she yanked it out of the dog's mouth, stumbling backward. I dragged her around the side of the shed and tried to boost her over the fence, fending off the dog with my boot. The animal was growling like it wanted to tear us apart. Shona went over the fence headfirst, but at least she was out of the dog's reach. I heard her hit the ground on the other side.

There was no time for the leash trick. I scrambled onto the sailboard, the snap of the dog's powerful jaws ringing in my ears. I punched, blindly, in the animal's direction, and missed. I got one leg over, but when I grabbed the top of the fence to stabilize myself, the dog closed its jaws around my wrist, and pain shot up my arm. I swung my leg forward and booted the dog in the throat, and it let me go. I shifted my weight and fell onto the neighbor's side. Shona pulled me to my feet, and we ran, not stopping until we were around the corner.

We leaned, gasping for breath, against the stone wall that bordered the subdivision. “Taxi,” I gasped. “Can you make the call?” I fished in my pocket for the card with the phone number. When I handed it to Shona, she stared down at the cuff of my coat. It was dark with blood.

When we were safely in the cab, Shona reached for my arm. “Let me see.” She inspected the puncture below my wrist. “You need to go to an emergency room,” she said.

“We can't let your grandparents know,” I said. But the hole from the dog's tooth was deep. Germs could live in that kind of wound. My whole hand tingled too, and it was a funny color.

“We're supposed to be out for dinner,” Shona reminded me. “They won't expect us home until ten o'clock at least. We've got time.” She leaned in toward the driver. “We've changed our minds about where we're going. Do you know the Markham-Stouffville Hospital?”

The cab driver shrugged. “That's maybe twenty-five kilometres. Forty-dollar fare.”

“It's okay,” Shona told him. “I don't mind. She saved my butt back there.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Shona just smiled.

At the hospital, the triage nurse wanted to call my parents before I got in to see the doctor. Shona was great then too. She convinced the nurse that getting a phone call from an emergency room late in the evening would freak my mother out.

“She's a two-hour drive away,” Shona explained. “What if she panicked and decided to drive out here in the middle of the night?”

When the nurse suggested we call Shona's grandparents, she had a story for that too: they were elderly and frail and terrified of driving at night.

I remembered, with a smile, the photos I'd seen the night before of Shona's grandparents sitting on the roof of a Land Rover in the Australian outback. But I kept my mouth shut. For a fourteen-year-old, Shona was pretty good at thinking on her feet. Having her along on this trip had turned out to be way more helpful than I'd expected.

The next morning when we woke up, Shona took one look at my bandaged wrist and told me she was calling Benedict. She put the phone on speaker and dialed.

“Benedict residence.” It was the female voice from the gate intercom.

“Trey Benedict, please. My friend was attacked by—”

“One moment,” said the woman.

Benedict picked up immediately. “Moe's up to date on all his shots,” he said, without introduction. “I don't know what got into him. He's never shown any aggression before.”

Shona snorted in disbelief.

“You were trespassing,” Benedict added, but not unpleasantly, as if it were no big deal. “I'd like to give you a copy of his immunization records. To put your mind at ease. And of course, I'll cover the cost of any treatment. Where can I meet you?”

“If you think—,” Shona began.