Tuesday.â
He took a business card from his wallet. He opened the truckâs glove compartment and reached inside for a pencil. He crossed out the telephone number on the card and wrote down a different number. Then he handed the card to Megan.
It read:
COLBY CONSTRUCTION
Brice Colby,
President
âThanks for your help, Mr. Colby,â Megan said.
The man waved and drove away.
Megan wondered why Mr. Colby was being so helpful. Maybe he just likes cats, she decided. Maybe he has a cat of his own.
Now she didnât need to hurry home to call Feline Friends or the other animal-welfare agencies. She could stay and watch for Mommacat to come out of the drainpipe and eat. She could make sure Mommacat and her kittens were okay.
In her relief at having help with the cat problem, she forgot for a moment about the note in her pocket.
9
Lacey bought a morning newspaper on her way to school the morning after the accident. She skimmed it quickly until she found the headline: POLICE SEEK DRIVER IN FATAL HIT-AND-RUN ACCIDENT .
Fatal? Disbelief slid down Laceyâs backbone. It must be a different accident.
Fatal
meant someone had died. She had not hit the other car hard enough for anyone to be killed. Had she?
As Lacey read the whole article, her breathing became shallow and rapid. It was her accident, no doubt of that. Anautopsy was being done to determine the exact cause of death.
The only witness to the accident, a twelve-year-old girl, had been in the empty field feeding some feral cats.
A sketch of the missing driver accompanied the story. Lacey didnât think the sketch looked anything like her. For one thing, the witness had thought she was a boy. Also, the person in the sketch had a long face and high cheekbones; he looked older than Lacey, and thinner.
No one who sees that sketch will think of me, Lacey thought. Will they?
Feeling sick to her stomach, Lacey quit reading and looked behind her, as if fearing her parents and teachers and all her friends were reading the article over her shoulder.
I should have stopped right away, she thought. Or I should have turned around and gone back instead of continuing on to Groganâs. If I had stopped, maybe I could have helped that woman.
She wondered what would happen if she turned herself in now. Maybe she would be sent to the county jail, just like her brother. Maybe worse. Maybe a federal prison. When you kill somebody in an accident, and donât stop to help them, is it the same as murdering them? Lacey didnât know and she didnât want to find out.
Could the girl identify me, if she saw me? Lacey wondered. Lacey didnât think so. If the girl had seen Lacey clearly, the sketch in the paper would resemble her more closely.
Lacey was positive the girl had not seen Laceyâs license plate. If she had, the cops would have come by now.
Lacey was sorely tempted to skip school and hide out somewhere. She wanted to be alone. She could call the school office and say she felt sick, which was the truth. She could hang out at the mall or go to the public library and study.
But she had her final exam in algebra that day, and she needed an
A
to maintain her average.
Besides, if anyone thought that she was involved in the hit-and-run accident, it would look mighty suspicious if she was not at school the day after the accident happened.
No, she would sit in class as usual, and take her test, and try to act normal. After school she would go to work, just as she did every day, although she would drive a different route so she didnât have to pass the scene of the accident. Lacey didnât think she would ever again be able to drive past that corner.
She would go on with her life as if nothing had happened, and hope against hope that no one ever found out what she had done. Because if they found out, everything she had worked for all these years was out the window. She was sure the Jefferson Foundation did not give scholarship money to
He took a business card from his wallet. He opened the truckâs glove compartment and reached inside for a pencil. He crossed out the telephone number on the card and wrote down a different number. Then he handed the card to Megan.
It read:
COLBY CONSTRUCTION
Brice Colby,
President
âThanks for your help, Mr. Colby,â Megan said.
The man waved and drove away.
Megan wondered why Mr. Colby was being so helpful. Maybe he just likes cats, she decided. Maybe he has a cat of his own.
Now she didnât need to hurry home to call Feline Friends or the other animal-welfare agencies. She could stay and watch for Mommacat to come out of the drainpipe and eat. She could make sure Mommacat and her kittens were okay.
In her relief at having help with the cat problem, she forgot for a moment about the note in her pocket.
9
Lacey bought a morning newspaper on her way to school the morning after the accident. She skimmed it quickly until she found the headline: POLICE SEEK DRIVER IN FATAL HIT-AND-RUN ACCIDENT .
Fatal? Disbelief slid down Laceyâs backbone. It must be a different accident.
Fatal
meant someone had died. She had not hit the other car hard enough for anyone to be killed. Had she?
As Lacey read the whole article, her breathing became shallow and rapid. It was her accident, no doubt of that. Anautopsy was being done to determine the exact cause of death.
The only witness to the accident, a twelve-year-old girl, had been in the empty field feeding some feral cats.
A sketch of the missing driver accompanied the story. Lacey didnât think the sketch looked anything like her. For one thing, the witness had thought she was a boy. Also, the person in the sketch had a long face and high cheekbones; he looked older than Lacey, and thinner.
No one who sees that sketch will think of me, Lacey thought. Will they?
Feeling sick to her stomach, Lacey quit reading and looked behind her, as if fearing her parents and teachers and all her friends were reading the article over her shoulder.
I should have stopped right away, she thought. Or I should have turned around and gone back instead of continuing on to Groganâs. If I had stopped, maybe I could have helped that woman.
She wondered what would happen if she turned herself in now. Maybe she would be sent to the county jail, just like her brother. Maybe worse. Maybe a federal prison. When you kill somebody in an accident, and donât stop to help them, is it the same as murdering them? Lacey didnât know and she didnât want to find out.
Could the girl identify me, if she saw me? Lacey wondered. Lacey didnât think so. If the girl had seen Lacey clearly, the sketch in the paper would resemble her more closely.
Lacey was positive the girl had not seen Laceyâs license plate. If she had, the cops would have come by now.
Lacey was sorely tempted to skip school and hide out somewhere. She wanted to be alone. She could call the school office and say she felt sick, which was the truth. She could hang out at the mall or go to the public library and study.
But she had her final exam in algebra that day, and she needed an
A
to maintain her average.
Besides, if anyone thought that she was involved in the hit-and-run accident, it would look mighty suspicious if she was not at school the day after the accident happened.
No, she would sit in class as usual, and take her test, and try to act normal. After school she would go to work, just as she did every day, although she would drive a different route so she didnât have to pass the scene of the accident. Lacey didnât think she would ever again be able to drive past that corner.
She would go on with her life as if nothing had happened, and hope against hope that no one ever found out what she had done. Because if they found out, everything she had worked for all these years was out the window. She was sure the Jefferson Foundation did not give scholarship money to
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