“That too.”
I looked away. “And that the choices I make can influence how this whole thing turns out?”
“Right again. That’s what I mean, Danni. It’s the Four Remembers to a T. What he sent you is perfectly tailored for this situation, but he admitted that he didn’t know what the situation would be when he gave it to you. Wouldn’t you agree that’s more than just a grandfather’s intuition? More than just a fortunate coincidence? There’s something really significant going on here.”
“Yes,” I said, withdrawing my hand from his; it was making it hard for me to concentrate. “But here’s something that’s bugging me. I’ve been thinking about this too.” I smiled sweetly at him. “I didn’t make a list, but . . .”
“Go on,” he growled.
“Grandpère told me that the pouch responds to the desires of your heart, even if those desires are not good for us. But the thing I want the most is to have my family free. And that is a good desire. So if the pouch is such a wonderful thing, why didn’t it warn us beforehand that gunmen were waiting at our house? Then we could have called Mom and Cody and warned them. Or, for that matter, if it can produce a gun out of nowhere, why not make it so we all could escape? Why only me and Cody?”
“Maybe because . . .” His voice trailed off. Finally, he shook his head and motioned for me to continue.
I was working up a head of steam, feeling frustrated and upset all over again. “Le Gardien won’t free my family, but it will let me do stupid things with bumper stickers and windshields and traffic signs. How do you explain that?”
He waved the paper at me. “Dunno, but that’s one of my questions too. Here’s one possibility. Why do we let go of a toddler’s hand so he can walk on his own, even if we know he’s going to fall and bump his nose or scrape his chin?”
“I . . . Wait, say that again.”
He did.
“So you’re saying that the pouch is letting me learn from my mistakes?”
“No, I’d switch that around. What if the pouch is letting you make mistakes so that you can learn from them?”
“Like a nanny,” I said after a moment.
“Exactly. Maybe that’s why your grandpa told you that it sometimes grants you things that may not be wise.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “It isn’t working. If the pouch can create money out of nothing, why doesn’t it just yell at me? Why doesn’t it say, ‘Hey, stupid! Stop being such an idiot’?”
“Because you’re not stupid.”
“Come on, Rick. You know what I’m talking about. What desires have been driving my use of the pouch? Get Rick to drive faster. Get Miss Perfect to speed up. Tell the blockhead that he’s a blockhead. How stupid is that? Can you imagine what Grandpère would say about that if he were here?”
“I think so.”
“No, you don’t,” I snapped. “You’re just trying to be nice.”
“I think he’d ask you one question.”
“What question?”
“Are you learning from your mistakes?”
I looked at him. I was so tired, but I had to at least try to answer his question.
Was I learning from my mistakes? I didn’t think so. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything right. I was just being Danni McAllister at her worst—impulsive and immature, with too much Irish temper.
Rick took both of my hands and held them between his own. He looked directly into my eyes. “Tell me this. What do the stories of your great-grandmother and Aron Ralston have in common?”
The answer was simple and obvious. “Never give up,” I said in wonder.
“So you are learning something,” he said with a smile.
Chapter 51
When I got back to the room, Cody was already in bed. He was so far gone that even when I turned on the lights it didn’t wake him. So much for a bath. Oh, well. I could live with a little chlorine smell for one night. I was ready to call it a day, too.
Yet when I got in bed a few minutes later and turned out the lights, my mind wasn’t ready to shut off. There was something back there that I couldn’t quite catch hold of, and I couldn’t push it away. It was something that had occurred to me while I was talking with Rick, but now I couldn’t remember what it was.
Friggatriskaidekaphobia.
I sat straight up in bed. Where in the world had that come from? We hadn’t said anything about Friday the thirteenth. Why would I think about Mom’s fear of it now? I started to lay back down again, when I remembered what Grandpère had said that day at the Grand Gallery. My ever-so-great-grandmother, Angelique Chevalier, had lost her parents on her thirteenth birthday, which was on a Friday the thirteenth. And then I realized exactly why that word had popped into my head.
I threw back the covers, turned on the lamp beside my bed, and got up. Moving quietly, I went to my overnight bag and retrieved Grandpère’s envelope.
And there it was. The American pilot was shot down on Friday, August 11. Two days later was Monique LaRoche’s twenty-ninth birthday—the thirteenth of the month. All three of us had birthdays on the thirteenth of the month. And that was also the day the Gestapo had come and taken away my great-grandfather and Lieutenant Fitzgerald.
Suddenly I wished I knew our family history better. How many others in my family had been born on the thirteenth? Was this some kind of family curse? Or a blessing, as Grandpère seemed to think? And did Mom know all this? Was what I thought was merely superstition really part of that same gift that ran through our family? A sensitivity to danger? Premonitions about evil?
My mind was swirling. I wished Mom was here so I could ask her. Maybe there was much more to this situation than I thought. Maybe that was why she always brushed my questions aside. I went to the dresser where I had left the pouch. I picked it up, then, feeling silly, I checked to make sure I had locked and bolted the door. As I climbed back in bed and turned off the light, I held the pouch close to me, finding great comfort in its rough surface.
Come on, Danni. That inner voice of mine started up again; it was pointing its finger at me. When El Cobra came it wasn’t a Friday and it wasn’t the thirteenth. You had a good birthday, and everything was fine. You’ve had a lot of birthdays where nothing unusual happened.
Feeling more and more frustrated, I turned on the light again. I dug in my overnight bag until I found my journal. Then I went to the desk and began to write.
It was an hour later when I finished. My eyes were suddenly heavy and my mind exhausted. I turned off the desk light and crawled into bed again. As my eyes closed and I started to drift off, my great-grandmother’s prayer, offered in a bombed-out hotel in Paris, came back into my mind: “O Dieu, ne m’abandonne pas maintenant.”
O God, do not abandon me now.
Chapter 52
Bountiful, Utah
Thursday, June 16, 2011
I woke with a start when I heard someone knocking on our door. Sunlight was coming in around the corners of the blinds. I came up on one elbow. “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” Rick said. “You up?”
“Yes.” I raised my head enough so that I wouldn’t be lying.
“Breakfast’s in fifteen minutes,” he called.
I sat up completely, rubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands. I noticed the other bed was empty. “Is Cody with you?”
“He’s swimming.”
“Okay. I’ll hurry.”
“Good.” I heard footsteps moving away so I called again, this time louder. “Rick?”
The footsteps came back. “Yeah?”
I got out of bed and moved to the door, leaning up against it. “Thanks for that list last night. I was going over it in my head, and it really helped me get to sleep.”
He laughed and moved away. I stifled a yawn and headed for the bathroom. Maybe I would wear the turquoise capris today.
Though we had looked for a motel in downtown Salt Lake, everything around there was pretty pricey. The two thousand dollars the pouch ha
d produced was down to about sixteen hundred after we’d purchased clothes, gas, food, and phones. I had learned enough about the way the pouch worked to know it would be a mistake to assume I could make it produce more money anytime I wanted it. So when Rick found a cheaper motel in Bountiful, we opted for that one.
My sleeping in had made us later than we had hoped, so it was already 8:30 before we pulled out of the motel, with Rick’s dad right behind us. I wasn’t ready for big city traffic yet, so Rick drove, heading for the I-15 southbound on-ramp. Both Rick and I groaned when we saw the line-up of cars waiting to get on the freeway. The ramp had three lanes, but they were all backed up to the bottom. Up ahead, we could see the monitoring lights for each lane turning red and green in a regular sequence.
“Man,” I exclaimed, “I thought the traffic would be lighter.”
“You’re just used to Hanksville traffic. Or non-traffic,” Rick said with his usual “nothing to be done about it” attitude. “We’ll make it.” That was said with less assurance.
“Thanks. Now I’m supposed to be patient too?”
“Use the pouch,” Cody said from the backseat.
Both of us snapped around.
“Well, why not?” he said defensively. “We don’t want to be late for the FBI.”
Rick and I exchanged glances. The pouch was on the seat between us. He finally shrugged. “It’s up to you.”
“Do you think it’s wrong?”
“Not under the circumstances.”
I picked it up. The results were almost instantaneous. About ten or twelve cars ahead of us, the light for our lane turned green for a moment, then back to red. But instead of the next lane turning green in sequence, ours came on again. Then it did it again. We moved up, gaining two car lengths on the lady next to us.
“All right!” Cody crowed. “Way to go, Danni!”
Then my elation disappeared. “Oh no!” I cried. “It can’t be.”
“What?” Rick said.
“Look. In the lane next to us. About seven cars ahead of us. Surely, that couldn’t be—”
But it was. A large red pickup truck with spotlights on the rack over the cab was waiting its turn in the center lane.
“No way!” Rick exclaimed.
But I knew it was. I couldn’t see the driver yet, but I knew. And I knew something else, too. This was Le Gardien’s way of teaching me a lesson. I put one hand to the side of my face and slid down in my seat.
“It’ll be all right,” Rick soothed. “Just don’t say anything.”
Was he kidding? I was terrified. The image of that guy and the crowbar was back in my head.
“Come on,” Rick urged, speaking to no one. The 4Runner moved up another space. We were just five spaces behind the red truck. Horns were starting to honk as drivers went from baffled to angry. Then, to our surprise, when our light went red, the outside lane’s light went green. And it stayed that way for three cars. Then once again, ours turned green. For one car. Then back to the outside lane. The center lane, the one where Big Red was, didn’t change. Horns grew louder and angrier.
“Uh-oh.”
I looked at Cody, not liking the sound of that. “What?”
“Look.”
The driver of the pickup truck had stuck his head out the window and was looking at us. And we were close enough that I could tell he was not a happy camper.
“I think he recognized us,” I said in a tiny voice.
“Just ignore him,” Rick said. “Keep the window up. If the traffic keeps up, we’ll be past him in about three more light changes.”
Not only did I make sure my window was rolled up, but I locked the doors, too.
The green lights were still alternating between our lane and the outside lane, and with the next change, we drew alongside the pickup. The guy was still leaning out the window, glaring at me. He motioned for me to roll down the window. I didn’t move a muscle.
“Hey, kid,” he yelled. “This is your blockheaded friend speaking. Roll down your window. I wanna talk to you.”
We moved up a space. We were two cars away from being the lead car in our lane. Ten more seconds.
“Pull over. I know you can hear me. I wanna talk.”
Then, to my utter horror, the center monitoring light flashed green. The lead car shot forward. The red truck moved alongside us again. It was like a nightmare being played out in slow motion. We moved forward. He moved forward. Finally the semaphores were working properly. Of all the times. And there was nothing I could do to stop them.
I flung the pouch at Rick. “You take it. I’m just making things worse.”
He started to protest, then picked it up and placed it on his lap. Both cars were in the lead position, like we were at the starting line of the Indie 500.
“Pull over!” the guy shouted. He was close enough that I could see how mad he was. I had a sudden vision of tomorrow’s headline:
UTAH TEENAGER KILLED IN
ROAD RAGE INCIDENT ON WAY TO FBI.
I turned to Rick. “Do something!”
He clung to the pouch with one hand, but looked totally helpless. And then there was a loud clanking sound, a couple of loud bangs as the pickup’s engine backfired, and then, with what sounded like steel grinding on steel, the engine died. Smoke poured out from under the hood. Our light changed to green, and Rick jammed the gas pedal to the floor. As we shot forward, I could hear the guy yelling and saw him pounding on the steering wheel.
Once we were on the freeway, I realized Rick’s dad had been right behind us through it all. Feeling my heart slow down, I turned to Rick. “What are you going to tell your dad?”
He grinned. “I’m going to tell him it was all your fault and that I had nothing to do with it.”
Chapter 53
Salt Lake City, Utah, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Thursday, June 16, 2011
On the way to the FBI’s office building, the mood in the truck was pretty somber. We were back to reality. In a few minutes, Cody and I would tell our story to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That would start a whole different clock ticking. And that clock had an ominous sound to it. I kept hearing El Cobra’s voice in my head: If you go to the police, you will never see your parents again.
I had planned to spend some time this morning outlining the events of the last three days, but then I’d overslept. But with both Cody and Rick willing to help me, I decided it would be all right. The bigger question was how to explain our escape from El Cobra and his gang.
“You all right?” Rick said, watching me closely.
“Yeah. I—Well, no. Uh . . . I don’t know what I am, to be honest.”
“You’re doing the right thing, Danni.”
“Am I? Are you absolutely positive about that?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do I have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach?”
“Because there’s so much at stake. It’s only natural. But this is the way to help your family. You have to do it.”
I grunted something and fell silent, checking the rearview mirror to make sure Mr. Ramirez was still behind us. He was, but for some reason that didn’t help my nerves much.
“Will we have to move to another state?” Cody asked with such sadness that I looked around in surprise.
“Why would we have to do that?”
“Because we’re witnesses now. Remember that movie about the husband and wife who witnessed a murder in New York? The police put them in the Witness Protection Program and sent them to Wyoming so they would be safe.”
“We’re here,” Rick interrupted. “It’s the big white building up ahead. The FBI is on the twelfth floor.” He slowed and flipped on his turn signal.
“That’s different, Cody. The FBI will help us find Mom and Dad.”
“I know that,” he said, irked. “But we’re still witnesses, aren’t we?”
Not sure how to answer that, I shrugged as we pulled into the parking lot. A couple of minutes later, the four of
us were standing outside the main entrance to the office building.
“Are you really going to take the pouch in there with you?” Rick asked.
I barely heard him. Once again I was clutching it like a drowning man—or rather, a drowning girl. My warning bells were clanging like crazy. Something wasn’t right. I looked at Cody. He was beside me, waiting patiently, fully trusting that I would do the right thing.
The gift that Grandpère said I had was a strange thing. It was never exactly the same. Sometimes I felt a clear, immediate danger. Other times it was a feeling of being in the presence of evil. Occasionally it had been nothing more than a general sense of uneasiness.
This was different. This was clearly a warning. My first thought was that the FBI had been infiltrated by El Cobra’s gang after all. But I shook that off. That didn’t feel right. Was there danger nearby? Had El Cobra’s men somehow followed us? I rejected those as quickly as I had the first idea. I had to believe that if El Cobra’s men were nearby, I would have felt it sooner and more strongly.
“Are you ready?” Rick asked.
I shook my head. “Just a minute.” I stepped away, not wanting to be distracted. My gaze returned to Cody. This was what he had wanted from the beginning. In fact, he had thought of the FBI before I did, but now he looked nervous and frightened. And no wonder. He was still a kid, and this was a lot to ask of a kid. Add to that the fear of being ripped from his home and put into a Witness Protection Program, and it was no wonder he was nervous.
“Danni?” Rick asked. “You’re not changing your mind, are you?”
Surprisingly, his father stepped in before I could answer. “What’s wrong, Danni?” he asked kindly.
“I’m not sure. Something doesn’t feel right.”
He considered that for a moment. I expected him to tell me it was just the jitters, or something like that. So his next question took me by surprise. “This is more than just being afraid something might go wrong, isn’t it?”
I started to shake my head, then changed it to a vigorous nod. “Yes. I know this is the best thing to do, but suddenly it’s not right. And I don’t know why.”