Stress Test Ch. 37

Sandy drove three miles from the mall, checking her mirror every block for squad cars or the face of the man she'd wrapped in the jacket. The brown-haired girl never said a word until they stopped at a small park.

Sandy and the girl both stared out the windshield at a few kids and ducks that took turns chasing each other on the far side of the pond.

After a few moments, the girl cleared her throat softly and brushed a line of hair back behind her ear. She extended her hand and said, "I'm Marti."

Sandy looked at Marti as if she were afraid the girl might shatter in tiny pieces all over the Impala's cracked seat.

"I thought he said Lou Anne—" she started, then caught herself. "I'm sorry. I'm Sandy." She pressed the girl's hand between both of her own. "I thought he called you Lou Anne."

"Yeah. That was so we wouldn't get caught."

"Caught?" Sandy stared for a moment before she realized Marti was still wearing the leather jacket she'd tried on.

"Yeah." Marti ran her hands over her sleeves as if she were cold. Her voice trailed off. "You know . . ."

"Don't worry about that. We can go back when it's safe and pay—"

"When it's safe?" Marti shook her head and looked back across the pond. "How's it going to be safe? What's going to happen that makes it safe?" She slumped back in her seat. "I don't care. Do whatever you want with me. It doesn't matter."

Sandy felt confused by how quickly everything had happened. It had all seemed necessary and natural at the time, but she felt her stomach knot up now that she realized what she had done. All she knew about the law she had learned from television, but she counted off the charges they could slap on her: aggravated assault, shoplifting, fleeing the scene of a crime, aiding a fugitive, conspiracy—the list went on forever.

"I don't believe this," said Sandy, not even trying to control the rise in her voice. "You're telling me all that was just an act so you could steal a damned jacket?"

"Yeah." Marti folded her arms and burrowed into the seat. "No!" She shook her head. "I mean sometimes it is—"

"What is it? Yes or no?"

"I don't know." Marti raised her hands to her face as if she wanted to peel the skin away from her head. "I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't. Because nobody can understand."

Sandy put her arm around her and listened to the girl's story. The first time Dave attacked Marti in a store was because she had humiliated him in front of his buddies by forgetting to bring home the beer before she went shopping. He tracked her down and threw her into a hat display in the accessories department. The security cops held them in separate rooms until the real police arrived and that reinforced her vague feeling that she'd done something wrong. When Marti refused to press charges, they went home together. Hours passed before they realized she was still wearing the bracelet she'd been looking at in the store.

Dave was no fool. He figured the more brazen they were, the bigger their haul. The sales clerks and security cops—all the little people on the fringes of his life who might have kept him honest—were so distracted by the raw, senseless violence that they never noticed the goods that went out the door with the victim.

Marti said that sometimes he planned everything, choreographing the fight as carefully as a professional wrestling match. Other times, she was just as surprised as the people who formed a loose circle around her and stared in horror. It didn't make much difference to her whether his rage was calculated or spontaneous. The bruises felt the same either way.

Sandy shook her head. "How can you let him do those things to you?"

Marti waved her hand in frustration. "See? You don't understand at all," she said. "He's better than the other guys. Believe me, I've seen them. Dave treats me like I'm a princess. He's always buying presents for me . . ." Her voice drifted off for a moment before she added, "I get all kinds of nice stuff we could never afford to buy."

"So it's just a trade-off for you?" Sandy felt like she'd made a friend and been betrayed, all within an hour. "He gets to beat the crap out of you and you get a new jacket?"

"Everything's a trade-off, lady." Marti snapped. "I get a jacket and I don't get killed. What do you know about anything? It's easy for you."

"Then tell me. I want to understand." Sandy took the girl's hand again.

"It's like those religious people who sleep with the rattlesnakes," Marti said slowly, looking across the pond again. "My mother had a cousin who did that. If you don't get bitten, it means you're a good person, that your faith is right. If you're a bad person—or even if you just think you might get bitten—those snakes will take you just like that." She pulled away from Sandy's hand to snap her fingers.

"If I'm good and I make Dave happy the way I should, then everything's fine."

Sandy had never come closer to a snake handler than the newspaper. "What happened to your mother's cousin?" she asked.

"Got bit and died."

Sandy shivered. "You can't live like that. You don't need it and you sure as hell don't deserve it." The picture looked so clear to Sandy. "You have to get away from him."

"I've tried." Marti shrugged. "He'll find me. No matter where I go, he'll find me. He told me he'll kill me if I try to leave him again.

"Dave's just a mechanic down on Westmore, but sometimes I think if there's anyone in the world he doesn't know, then he knows their friend. He can ask questions so that people don't even know they're telling him things. There's no place on earth to hide from someone like that."

Trying to plan their next move paralyzed Sandy. Whatever they did would have a thousand repercussions which she had to sort through to be sure they were doing the right thing.

"Let's—" she started, then shook her head. "Maybe we should—no . . ."

When she realized it was time to pick up Saury at Kid'n'Kaboodle, everything else seemed to fall into place.

"Who's that?" Saury asked climbing in the back door and pointing at the woman hunkering down in the front seat.

As they drove down Westmore to Rollingwood Park, Marti tucked her head between her knees so no one could see her. Saury peered over the back of the seat and poked Sandy in the shoulder. "Mom, what's the matter with her?"

Sandy had to drive into the garage and lower the door before Marti would come out of the car.

Sandy put her keys on the kitchen counter and wondered what to do next. "Would you like to take a shower?" she asked, but she saw how foolish that was when Marti shook her head. "Can I get you anything? Coke? Coffee?"

"I'm just tired is all. Could I take a nap for a little while?"

Sandy showed her the guest bedroom, found a picture book to keep Saury occupied, then went and collapsed on her own bed. She didn't know how long she'd been sleeping when a noise nagged at her to wake up.

Her grogginess gave way to panic when she realized it was the sound of the garage door opening.

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