Page 28 (1/2)

He stared at her for ahis ared the Roi de Donuts parking lot across the street

"Feel like starting the car anytiether

In the instant Eureka glanced at Cat, Ander vanished When she looked back at the lot, it was e out of the donut shop with to-go bags Eureka exhaled; started Magda; blasted the heat to fend off the cold, damp air that had settled like a cloud inside her car She didn’t want a banana freeze anyet hoht to cook"

"So you all have to suffer" Cat understood, or she thought she did Eureka didn’t want to discuss the fact that Ander knew they’d just tried to turn hiht reel of the doe-eyed expressions she had just used on Bill "Don’t be discouraged," she said as Eureka turned out of the parking lot and started winding back toward Evangeline, where she’d drop Cat at her car "I just hope I’m with you the next tiht on out"

"Ander is good at changing the subject when the subject is hi he was even better at disappearing

"What teenage boy doesn’t want to talk about himself? He’ll be no ed her mind and turned it all the way down "I can’t believe he told you you were in danger It’s like, ‘Ho with the tried-and-true Does Heaven know it’s el? Nah, I’ll scare the crap out of her instead’ "

They passed a few blocks of dilapidated duplexes; drove by the drive-through daiquiri stand, where a girl stuck her big chest out theand handed gallon-sized Styrofoa What Ander did this , and just now across the street, that was different

"He isn’t hitting on me, Cat"

"Oh, coe of twelve, put off this sexy-broken-girl air that guys find irresistible You’re just the kind of crazy every boy wants to wreck his life"

Now they were out of the city, turning onto the windy road that led to Evangeline Eureka rolled down the s She liked the way this road s jass in the darkness She enjoyed the co her feet

"Speaking of which," Cat said "Brooks interrogated me about your ‘emotional state’ today"

"Brooks is like my brother," Eureka said "He’s always been protective Maybe it’s a littleelse"

Cat propped up her feet on the dashboard "Yeah, he asked about Diana, only"--she paused--"it eird"

They passed dirt roads and old railroad tracks, log cabins chinked with h the black trees

"What?" Eureka said

"He called it--I re of Diana’ "

"Are you sure?" Eureka and Brooks had talked a million times about what happened, and he’d never used that phrase

"I reue wave," Cat said, and Eureka sed the bitter taste that came every time she heard those words "Then he was all, ‘Well, that’s what it was: she was killed by a rogue wave’ " Cat shrugged as Eureka pulled into the school parking lot, stopped next to Cat’s car "It creeped er three years in a row for Halloween"

Cat got out of the car, then glanced back at Eureka, expecting her to laugh But things that used to be funny had darkened, and things that used to be sad now seemed absurd, so Eureka hardly ever kne to react anyhts lit Eureka’s rearview mirror She heard Cat’s wimpy honk as her car swerved into the left lane to pass her Cat would never criticize how cautiously Eureka drove these days--but she also wouldn’t get stuck behind her at the wheel The engine gunned, and Cat’s taillights disappeared around a curve

For a ht about Ander skipping stones, and she wished Diana were still alive so Eureka could tell her about hione Brooks had put it plainly: a wave had killed her

Eureka saw the blind curve ahead She’d driven it a thousand tihts had wandered, her speed had increased, and she took the bend too fast Her tires burooves in the center divider for an instant before she straightened out She blinked rapidly, as if startled frohts on the outskirts of Lafayette But as …?

She squinted ahead So a joke? No, Eureka’s headlights revealed a gray Suzuki sedan parked across the middle of the road

Eureka slah She spun the wheel right, tires screeching She swerved onto the shoulder, across a shallow ditch Magda caarcane

Eureka’s chest heaved The s There was soely familiar Eureka tried to breathe She’d almost hit that car She’d almost been in her third accident in six months She’d slammed on the brakes ten feet short and probably destroyed her alignment But she was okay The other car was okay She hadn’t hit anyone She ht still make it home in time for dinner

Four people appeared in the shadows on the far side of the road They passed the Suzuki They were coray couple from the police station There were two others with theray, as if the first couple had been multiplied She could see them so clearly in the darkness--the cut of the dress of the woman froroup; the pale, pale eyes of the woman Eureka hadn’t seen before

Or had she? They looked somehow familiar, like family youabout theible in the air around thelowing Light lies of their bodies, blazed outward from their eyes Their arms were locked like links in a chain They walked closer, and as they did, it seemed like the whole world closed in on Eureka The stars in the sky, the branches of the trees, her own trachea She didn’t re her car in park, but there it was She couldn’t reearshift The least she could do was roll up the s

Then, in the darkness behind Eureka, a truck ruhts were off, but when the driver punched the gas, the lights caht toward theda--

And plowed into the Suzuki