Upside Down

57

Faith Ann turned off the telephone and slipped it into her pocket.

Rush's father is looking for me! He's coming here!

Uncle Hank is alive!

I'm safe.

Standing at the top of the steps leading up to the aquarium's plaza, she held on to those thoughts. Like a sign, she used them to cover the memory of her mother's body, of Millie and Hank lying in the rain-soaked street. Hadn't Rush said Hank was going to be all right? She replayed the conversation, but she couldn't remember if he had said so. Mr. Massey would know. He could use the negatives to save Horace Pond. And the tape held the proof of who shot her mother and the other woman. What was her name? Ms. Lee. Amber.

She wondered how long it would take Mr. Massey to get there. Of course he wouldn't recognize her with short hair, but she'd know him on sight. She'd run right up to him and throw her arms around him. She knew how happy he would be, how relieved. And after he straightened everything out, the cops would be in big trouble, and the man who killed her mother would be where Horace Pond was now, in prison. Her mother had always told her that justice, while it didn't always work fast, averaged everything out in the end-like the scales the blindfolded woman was holding. Faith Ann supposed that the sword she held in her other hand was for people who didn't want justice to win. She was the sort of a no-nonsense angel Faith Ann imagined when she had prayed for one to help her. Winter Massey was probably some kind of an angel.

Faith Ann was watching the streets when she spotted a big car drive up and pull over on the access road beside the walled-in power station and the wall that ran beside the aquarium. As the driver stepped out, her feeling of safety, of being rescued, evaporated. A wave of terror filled her and washed away everything else. The driver of the sedan was the larger of the first two cops who had come to her house. Faith Ann moved across the mall and joined the line of people who were entering the aquarium.

Turning her head in the other direction to look for Winter Massey, she spotted the driver's partner coming straight toward her from the downriver end of the structure. She paid the $6.50 admission and was aware that the cell phone in her pocket was ringing, that Rush must be calling her back, but she ignored it.

The security guards manning the metal detectors inside the doors didn't so much as look at her.

The two detectives met up outside the doors and came inside.

She turned her head to see that the cops were talking to the male security guard.

Inside the lobby, she turned to see that the big cop was behind her; he was scanning the crowd, surely looking for her. She left the slow-moving crowd, and as soon as she was out of sight of the cop she ran. Where is Mr. Massey? The cop had looked directly at her, but she didn't think he recognized her. She could hardly hear the canned music or the people talking over the roar in her mind, the fear that filled her. She forced herself to pause to look at a glass wall, behind which fish of all sizes swam lazily. How did the cop find her?

Any second the cop could spot her and grab her, and he would take the tape and the negatives and then they would probably kill her because she knew too much. When Mr. Massey came, it might already be too late. If Mr. Massey started asking questions about her, maybe they would kill him too. Two days earlier, she would have thought that was impossible, but now she knew it wasn't. If they grabbed her, she could scream bloody murder and fight them, but who was going to go against the police to help her?

She tugged down the bill of her cap and moved rapidly through the Caribbean reef exhibit, colorful fish swimming on the other side of the glass wall. On the escalator she dared to look back. She saw the big cop coming behind her and she fought the urge to break into a dead run, knowing it would only call attention to herself.

On the second floor, she walked hurriedly through the rain forest, past the food court and down to the first floor. After passing by the jellyfish tanks and the Gulf of Mexico exhibit, she came alongside the glass tunnel for pedestrians that was under the shark tank. She had never been at the aquarium that she didn't go inside that tunnel. She always imagined that she was scuba diving, without the dangers or the wet.

She had to get out of the building, into the open.

Faith Ann slowed when she saw the smaller cop standing near the drinking fountain, close to the exit. He was looking hard at every kid who was leaving the building. If he studied her face, he could recognize her-a kid alone.

The phone in her pants began to ring again. She tilted her head down and ignored the rings. Using the bill of her cap to shield her eyes, she stared at the cop's feet and tried to look casual-like she was waiting for someone who was still wandering around in the building. Luckily there were tons of people for him to check out. She decided that her best route of escape was back out the entrance, because she doubted they would figure that anyone would go out that way, or have other cops hanging around there.

The bigger detective, now downstairs, approached the smaller one, and they started talking. Even though nobody seemed to take any notice of it, the phone ringing again in her pocket seemed to her to be a huge sound in the large space. Then it stopped.

She was moving toward the front doors when the phone rang again. Faith Ann was out of sight of the cops so she took it out of her pocket. The caller display showed a number she didn't recognize. She pressed the green button and put the telephone to her ear.

“Rush? Mr. Massey?”

As she listened for a reply, Faith Ann was aware of the sound of the canned music surrounding her, and that it seemed to be slightly out of sync where it entered her right ear through the phone. The caller's phone was picking up the same sounds she was hearing around her, sending them over lines or around a bunch of satellites before sending it to her ear. The echo ended when the incoming call shut off. He's here!

Faith Ann spun around, searching the figures and the faces, trying to spot Mr. Massey.