The last thing I remember

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Beth My mom called me and I woke up, my face pressed deep into the soft pillow. Her voice came again, drifting to me from the bottom of the stairs. I was so tired I didn’t want to get up. It was so sweet here, so comfortable and warm under the covers of my bed. But my mom kept calling, and I was desperate to go to her. I wanted so much to see her face again, to hear her voice saying, “Don’t get too close to the hot stove. You’ll burn yourself.” I wanted to see my father reading his newspaper at the breakfast table. I even wanted to hear my sister, Amy, screaming in wild panic over the fact that her new jeans had been left in the washing machine overnight. I’d been away from them all such a long time.

As my mother called to me again, I became afraid- afraid that she would lose her patience and stop waiting for me. I became worried that when I got out of bed and went to the top of the stairs, she would be gone and my father would be gone and Amy, too, and the house would be empty and I would be alone.

It was that fear that woke me up-that fear and the voice of the bus driver coming over the loudspeaker to announce that we had reached Cale’s Station, ten miles south of Centerville.

I sat up and looked around. My heart sank as I realized that my mother’s voice, my soft pillow, my warm bed-it had all been a dream, just a dream. I was alone again, on the run, here in the cramped seat of this bus heading toward an appointment with an assassin.

The bus came to a stop, and the hydraulics hissed as the door came open. Two or three of the other passengers got up and shuffled down the aisle toward the exit. I slid out of my seat and shuffled after them.

This was my stop, Cale’s Station, a small village surrounded by forested hills. I had bought a ticket all the way to Centerville. It had cost me eighteen dollars. With some of the bills I had left, I had bought myself a detailed map of the area. Reading the map on the bus, I had noticed something. If I went the full distance into Centerville, it would be almost impossible for me to get to Indian Canyon Bridge, where I thought Richard Yarrow was going to be murdered. With Highway 153 blocked off for security reasons, there was no other passage to the spot. But the bus traveled on the interstate, which ran almost parallel to 153, separated from it only by the woods. Cale’s Station was directly opposite the bridge. If I could get over the hill, I could come down the far side and maybe put myself in the way of Yarrow’s motorcade and stop it before it reached the bridge. That would at least be dramatic enough to put the Secret Service on alert. Then, if I could point them to Orton, maybe I could convince them to question him. Or something like that.

It wasn’t much of a plan, I guess. Even if it worked, there would be one big drawback to it. Maybe I could stop the motorcade, maybe I could convince the Secret Service that Yarrow was in danger, maybe I could even save the secretary’s life-but the police were sure to arrest me. I would be taken back to prison for good. I figured it was possible that my actions in saving Yarrow would be taken into consideration. I had a daydream that the president came to see me and said, Well, Charlie, my boy, I don’t know what all this fuss is about you murdering Alex Hauser, but to thank you for your service, I’m giving you a full pardon.

Yeah, right. Like that would happen. It’d probably be more like, Well, Charlie, my boy, thanks for your help. Be sure to look me up in twenty-five years to life when you get out.

I climbed down off the bus. I shivered as the air hit me. We were up in the hills here. It was colder than the city, and all I had to wear were the jeans and flannel work shirt I’d gotten from Mrs. Simmons.

I found myself standing in front of the Cale’s Station bus depot. It was a small box of a building at the very edge of a short, rural main street. I headed for the door. I knew I had to get moving, start hiking over the hill. It was already after eleven. In less than an hour, Richard Yarrow’s motorcade would start traveling over the highway toward the canyon bridge. Even if I started right now, I was going to have to hike fast to cut him off.

All the same, before I started, there was one more thing I had to do.

There wasn’t much inside the depot. A ticket window with no one behind it. A couple of benches against the wall. An old pay phone.

I went to the phone. Like I said, I figured when this was over, I would be going back to prison. That’s if I was lucky. If I wasn’t lucky, I might just get myself killed. In either case, I wanted one last chance to say good-bye.

I picked up the handset and pressed zero for the operator, then I dialed the number. It was the number Beth Summers had written on my arm. I had read it over so many times that I knew it by heart. I’d forgotten the whole year of my life that followed that moment, but I remembered the number.

The operator came on. I told her I was placing a collect call to Beth from Charlie. As I waited, listening to the phone ring, I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one recognized me. The place was empty.

“Hello?”

The sound of her voice sent an ache through me. It was the same kind of ache I’d felt on the bus when I woke up and realized my mom wasn’t really calling me, that it was just a dream. It was that yearning to be back home again, back in school, talking to my friends and trying to figure out calculus and asking Beth to go to the movies. It was an ache to be normal and have my life back and have everything be all right.

I opened my mouth to talk to her, but the operator cut me off.

“Will you accept a collect call from Charlie?” she said.

I heard a little sound far away over the line, a little intake of breath. There was a silence after that. Then, in a weak voice, Beth said, “Charlie?”

“Yes, ma’am. Will you accept the charges?”

“Yes. Yes, I will.”

I licked my lips. My throat suddenly felt dry, almost too dry for me to speak.

“Charlie?” came Beth’s voice over the line.

“Hi, Beth,” I said. “It’s me.”

“Oh…” There was another silence, another breath, and when she spoke again I could tell she was crying. “Charlie… are you all right? Are you hurt or anything?”

For a minute I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, no-no, I wasn’t all right. I was lost and alone and afraid. Everything I loved, everything I knew, was gone. Terrorists were trying to kill me. The police were trying to arrest me. I was setting off to do something that seemed almost impossible, and even if I succeeded I’d kprobably end up in prison or dead. No. No, I would have to say I was very much not all right.

“Charlie?” said Beth again, crying.

“Yeah. Yeah,” I said. “I’m okay, Beth. I’m fine. I just wanted… I just wanted to hear your voice. I needed to hear your voice, that’s all.”

“Charlie, what are you doing? They’re hunting for you everywhere. Your picture’s on TV. You’ve got to turn yourself in. You could be shot. You could be killed.”

I nodded, but for a second or two I couldn’t answer her. Finally, I got the words out. “Listen, Beth. Before I can turn myself in, there’s something I have to do. But the thing is, it’s kind of dangerous.”

“Charlie…”

“Listen to me, Beth. You have to listen and you have to tell my mom and dad what I say too. Okay?”

“What? What is it?”

Her voice was so sad, so tearful-there was so much emotion in it-that I wanted to reach out over the distance between us and wrap my arms around her and hold her close and tell her it was going to be all right.

But all I could do was say: “I don’t know what’s happened. About Alex and everything… I always tried to be a good person…”

“I know that. Your mom and dad… we all know it. We all believe in you, Charlie.”

“Whatever you hear about me next, I just want you to know: I was trying to do the right thing. See, there’s a man who’s going to be killed…”

“What? Charlie, what are you talking about?”

I closed my eyes. I leaned my forehead against the cold plastic edge of the phone booth. There wasn’t enough time. It was all too complicated to explain. I just wished I could see her. I wished I could touch her face.

“Never mind,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. I just want you to know that I’m trying to do what’s right. There are all these bad things happening. I can’t make anyone understand. I don’t understand it myself. The thing is, Beth, I can’t remember anything. I mean, I remember everything up to that day you gave me your phone number, but after that-this whole last year-it’s just gone.”

When I stopped talking, I heard Beth crying, sniffling. “You don’t remember?”

“This year. What happened. It’s all a blank.”

“You don’t remember… us? You and me?”

I reached my hand up to the phone as if I could reach through it and touch her. “I remember you,” I said. “I remember you and how much I liked you, but…”

“But… you said you loved me… we love each other. Don’t you remember?”

My throat felt so tight I could hardly get the words out. “I want to, Beth. Believe me, I want to a lot, but…”

Beth’s voice sounded sad and small. “We were going to spend our lives together. You were going to join the Air Force and we were going to get married…”

I shut my eyes tight. I was sorry I’d called. It was selfish. I hadn’t accomplished anything. I’d just hurt her feelings.

“I want to remember, Beth, I really do,” I told her. “I’m trying as hard as I can. Beth, listen, I just have to do this one thing and then… somehow, I’ll find my life again… I’ll find you again… I promise. I just…”

“I love you, Charlie,” Beth said.

My heart swelled up in my chest.

“I’ll come back to you, Beth,” I told her. “So help me, I will find my life again and I will come back to you.”

My hand was shaking as I reached out to hang up the phone.