Free Fatality by Caroline B. Cooney Page B

Rose Lymond’s secret.
    A second secret.
    A secret that would matter to Anjelica Lofft.
    Chrissie closed her eyes and tried to remember every word she had read in that diary. But if there was a second secret, Chrissie could not come up with it. I should talk to Rose, thought Chrissie. But then I’d have to admit I read the diary. I’d have to admit I know the truth.
    Putting a hand on the overpass railing, Rose simply vaulted over. It was the kind of thing she would never have done if she’d had time to think about it. What if she fell thirty feet to her death on the pavement below? What if she wasn’t strong enough to vault over and got impaled against the railing? What if it would have been wiser to run forward or dash back?
    But Rose didn’t think, just leaped.
    She was lucky. She was close to the start of the bridge and her fell was only six or eight feet, cushioned by little bushes. Her roll downhill was punctuated by the stabs of sharp little cedars.
    She somersaulted, feet hitting the hot pavement of the little country road. She staggered, got her balance, and ran under the bridge. It was damp in there, and dark. Water seeped through cracked concrete. She wasn’t bleeding, thanks to the padded vest and her jeans, but she was good and bruised.
    Had it been the SUV loitering at the top of the hill south of her? Rose knew her cars, because she was fifteen and thought constantly about what she would own if she could own one. And yet the vast number of cars had made her lose interest; they blurred until they were just traffic.
    She berated herself for not identifying the vehicle. In memory she fought for detail, but she had caught none. She’d been busy saving her skin.
    Above Rose, the car braked rather carefully, probably not even leaving a patch. It came to a stop in the emergency lane. Its bulky frame cast a shadow on the country road below.
    Rose backed up into the depths of the tunnel, her heart pounding like tires on a warning strip. The shadow of the driver leaned over to see what had become of her. The sun was bright and the two shadows had the clarity of black paper cutouts.
    Walk out and wave, she told herself. Let the poor soul know you weren’t hit.
    But she didn’t move. Had the car wandered out of its lane? Or left the lane deliberately? Had the driver felt like scaring any old orange-vested worker by the side of the road? Fair game, the way substitute teachers in school were usually considered fair game? Or, when her cap blew off, had the driver known Rose by her hair?
    How deserted the little country road was. Above her, traffic raced by. Down here, it was quiet and empty. She yearned for a school bus or a delivery truck.
    The driver shadow disappeared. In a moment, the car shadow also disappeared.
    When her pulse eased off, she scrabbled back up her hill. No other car had stopped. Nobody had noticed anything. There was no one in the emergency lane and no dark SUV in sight.
    Rose leaned on the top of her stick, staring at all the bad drivers of the world.
    She didn’t want to get on the bridge again. But if she didn’t cross it, she wasn’t going to reach the trash on that end of her half mile.
    They’re not grading me, she reminded herself. I’m not going to get C minus because I skip some of it.
    She caught sight of the boy’s baseball cap. It had been swept up the grassy slope she had just cleaned. Rose caught it and wept suddenly over the kindness of strangers.
    When rehabilitation was over and Rose finally got home, her parents were sitting together, watching TV news. Rose hated television news. It made her queasy and uncertain, as if life, like tides, could come out from under her.
    She stood silently, not wanting to let Mom and Dad know she was home. What would they say? So, darling, how was rehab? Do you have a future in trash? Are you going to be a good, talkative girl from now on?
    The Loffts had had TVs in every single room, including Rose’s own bath. In that huge, elegant house