Free Dark Lie (9781101607084) by Nancy; Springer

That license number had to be there.
    But no, it wasn’t. I’d sweated it off while gripping the steering wheel or I’d worn it off wrestling with my smashed hood or I’d wiped it off in the grass when I had squatted in a benighted bush to relieve myself. Remorselessly all the various forces of entropy had removed it from me. It was gone.
    Moreover, I was standing there holding a silent phone to my ear.
    No dial tone.
    But—but I didn’t know what to do if I couldn’t call the police.
    I hung up and tried again.
    Still no dial tone.
    With shaking hands I fumbled in the bottom of my purse—whoever had designed that purse ought to be hung by the toes—and I found the car keys, for once, when I wasn’t looking for them, and then, finally, some change. I shoved a number of coins into the phone and tried again.
    Still nothing.
    The telephone’s cord had a kink in it. I straightened it. I listened for a dial tone again. None. Quite gently I hung up the phone, drooped against it, and stared into the night.
    Now what?
    A few hours and a few traumas earlier I would have thought,
Find another way to phone, come on, get moving,
and I suppose I might have done so. But even such a simple alternative no longer seemed sensible or possible. What I wanted now was someone to help me.
Help me.
God, I wished Sam were there. I’d seen him buy meals for homeless people, I’d seen him change flat tires for strangers, I’d known him to help down-on-their-luck employees with personal no-interest loans, no questions asked, no blame and no shame. Somehow Sam had come out of his religion ingrained with kindness. So much the opposite of my parents. With the regretful certainty of hindsight, I knew I should have trusted him with my secret from the start. If I had, maybe he’d know where to find me.
    But he didn’t know.
    And there didn’t seem to be anybody else around. I’d seen a few cars passing, but nary a human face in Appletree’s decaying core. Appletree had never been a place where Saturday night counted for anything, and now it was so quiet it seemed sinister. I felt like a corpse waiting to be discovered, but no one was likely to trip over me till morning. Too punch-drunk to move or think, hanging on to the otherwise useless phone for support, I gazed blindly into the darkness behind the former library. That lumpen Victorian mass of brick cast a large shadow.
    Not quite dark.
    Funny pale blue flashing light.
    Faint. I wouldn’t have noticed it if the parking lot behind the deserted library weren’t so black.
    Sapphire blue strobe flash, very faint. Blink. Blink.
    From inside stupid metal bread loaf.
    Derelict van.
    Dodge Ram. Pale. Darker stripes along the sides. Looked just like . . .
    Sapphire blue strobe flashing.
    A lightning-bolt jolt of panicked joy stood me straight on my feet. What adrenaline could do was amazing. I don’t even remember lunging into my car and finding the flashlight Sam had put in the glove box for me. Instead, I remember discovering the flashlight in my hand as I ran toward the van, keys jangling as my purse jounced on my arm, that and the
chuff-chuff
sound of my cheap sneakers on gravel loud in my ears. At the same time I must have regained vestiges of good sense, because I slowed to a walk, flicked on the flashlight, and scanned the dark corner I was heading into as if I might trip over a body.
    My heart pounded, and I started to shake, suddenly convinced that Juliet lay dead in that van.
    I couldn’t stand to look.
    But I had to do it.
    Trying to move silently—as if I hadn’t already thundered across the parking lot like a rhinoceros—I walked softly up to the van and aimed the flashlight beam in the side window.
    Seats, floor, rubber mats on the carpet. Nothing more.
    I breathed out.
    I scanned the interior, limped to the passenger-seat window, scanned some more. Nothing. No papers, no plastic shopping