flight jacket as he poses in the open cockpit of an old-fashioned airplane. Two wings, like Snoopy used to fly.
“That’s a Waco,” says Shane. “Famous stunt biplane. Big bucks.”
“Stunt plane? You mean like loop-de-loops?”
“Yup,” says Shane. “If you like flying upside down, Waco will provide.”
I almost say, I’ll kill her, then bite my tongue. The guy may have a leather jacket and a big mustache, but he’s not the young man from her photo collection.
As it happens, the second response is from our mystery boy. There’s no photo, and not much of a message, just a succinct more details, please, but it does include a name, Seth Manning, and his e-mail address, [email protected].
“This is dated six weeks ago,” Shane notes.
“S-Man,” I say. “The folder. Can you open it?”
“Already there.”
The S-Man folder contains over a hundred e-mails, messages from S-Man and responses from flygirl91.
“She didn’t have to mention gender,” I point out. “Flygirl kind of gives it away.”
“Good point. If you don’t mind, I’d like to print these out,” Shane suggests. “It’ll be faster and easier than opening each e-mail.”
Maybe he’s not that comfortable having me hover over his shoulder. Fine. Whatever, Kelly’s printer starts spitting out pages at a rate of twenty per minute. I sit on the edge of her bed, devouring her correspondence with Mr. Seth Manning, flight instructor and seducer of teen girls. Or maybe not. From the tone, right from the beginning, my darling daughter seems to be the aggressor.
What have u got 2 lose? Flygirl will make it worth yr while.
Hw old r u? Don’t lie.
Will b 18, all legal and tender, on 4th of July.
Two lies, actually. Her sixteenth birthday was in May, a few weeks before flygirl started trolling for flyboys. By the time Shane hands me the next batch of pages, I’m feeling physically ill. Partly its residual guilt, for violating her privacy, but mostly what’s making me ill is righteous, motherly anger. How dare she take such outrageous risks with her life and well-being! There’s scarcely a broadcast of the local evening news that doesn’t include mention of Internet predators. It’s not like Kelly didn’t know the danger. She just didn’t care. Or worse—and this might be what’s really making me sick—danger is precisely what she’s looking for.
All legal and tender.
Cool, oily sweat suddenly pours from my scalp into my eyes, and I barely make it to the bathroom before heaving. On my knees, gagging, emptying my stomach.
Shane makes me sit on the closed toilet as he applies a cold cloth to my forehead. “Guess I was wrong about the toast, huh?”
“Dummy.”
“Well, it’s not the first time I’ve been dumb,” he says kindly, wringing the cloth out.
“No, me. I’m the dummy. Should have known. Should have been checking her e-mail.”
“Here, hold this,” he says, pressing the cold cloth to my forehead. Gets a dry towel, pats the moisture from my neck. “You couldn’t check her e-mail, remember? And if you could, she’d have found another way. Your daughter is obviously a very willful young woman.”
“Obviously.”
He folds the towel, slips it back on the rack. Most of the men I know, they’d drop it on the floor, because that’s where used towels go. Not Randall Shane. He’s different. Been in my house for an hour or so and I know that much.
“You feeling better?” he asks, standing tall, very tall. “Good. I just got a hit on Seth Manning.”
“A hit?”
“His address. I know where he lives.”
15. Seven Finds A Wall
Time is squishy. Sometimes the seconds tick by in a reasonable, almost ordinary way, and Kelly counts her heartbeats, the pulse in her neck. One, two three, and so on. The highest she gets is seventy-six and then the overwhelming darkness seems to bend around her, a kind of dim gravity, and the clock in her head stops ticking and gets all squishy.
No other way to describe it. Squishy.
Because she can’t measure the passage of time, Kelly has no idea how long it takes for the paralysis to dissipate. All she knows is that at some point she can wiggle her toes, raise her languid arms and let them droop across her chest like melted bones. Could be hours, days, eternity.
Thoughts slowly surface out of the inky black, like a die rising inside a Magic 8-Ball. The usual 8-Ball answers, too: Outlook not so good. Ask again later.
She manages to place her tingling palms on the floor, detects the familiar roughness of concrete. Not bare ground, concrete.
Is it night outside, is that why the darkness is so absolute?
Wait, how does she know she’s inside rather than outside?
Sluggish thoughts, and then she knows the answer. Because it feels inside. The closed silence, the still air, a kind of muffled feeling. Definitely in, not out. Enclosed.
On impulse she flails, looking for a wall. Wanting to find an edge, a shape to the world.
Nothing.
You’re a baby, she thinks. Lying on the floor like a baby, flailing around. Get up. Do something. Learn something. Find a way back to the world.
It takes forever, and she has to endure a violent swirl of dizziness, but Kelly eventually turns over, manages to get on her hands and knees. Huffing the thick air because the effort makes her feel faint.
Hot, stuffy. Wherever she is, that place can’t be very large. The darkness is close, pressing. Slowly, very slowly, she crawls, struggling to keep her balance. Not wanting to fall over like some cheesy mechanical baby toy. Boink, I fall down, Mommy!
Counting as she crawls. One two three, four five six.
Seven finds a wall. A very solid wall. Slippery smooth surface. Steel, like the cafeteria counters in school.
Now we’re getting somewhere, she thinks, and the thought becomes a giggle. Now we’re getting somewhere? As if! Hilarious. Ironic. Whatever.
Keep going. Orient yourself. You wanted to learn to fly, flygirl? Seth’s first flight lesson pours into her brain, and it helps, hearing his gentle confident voice.
First rule, know where you are. Find the horizon. Very good, keep your wings level. Trust your balance, but trust the instruments even
