“We’re not going to leave you on your own. We’ll take you to the police and let them deal with you,” Steven answered. “Is that how you want to play this?”
Most of the other people from the ferry had already driven away on the ice-cream truck taxies, but one lone truck drove up to where Jack and his family were standing. “Lady, you want taxi?” a man in a striped linen shirt asked. His face was a shining tan, and his hat looked as though it had been planted on the back of his head. “I help wid dis luggage,” he said. “Where do I take you?”
“Well,” Olivia asked Forrest, “what’s it going to be?”
“Just come with us. Please?” Ashley pleaded.
Jack said nothing. He watched Forrest sag, just a little, before he finally gave in. “All right. I accept. Thank you. Please…please, don’t ask me why I’ve done what I’ve done. I have my reasons. That’s all I want to say.”
“There’ll be plenty of time to sort out the ‘why’s’ in the morning,” Steven told him. “That much can wait. But we will be calling your parents as soon as we get to our motel. They must be worried sick.”
Forrest did not reply. Woodenly, he got into the cab and pushed himself into the farthest corner. Ashley followed, then Jack, and then his parents, crammed in so close their knees touched.
“Here we go,” the man called out as his truck-cab rumbled to life. Though almost eleven at night, the streets were full of partying students from the U.S. mainland, mingling with island natives as they danced to music blaring from open-fronted, neon-lit restaurants. On the sidewalks, shorts-clad senior citizens walked hand in hand while neon lights reflected on their faces. Ashley tried to coax Forrest to speak, but he kept his head down as the taxi bumped along the uneven streets.
Their cab driver beeped his horn to warn people out of the way. The air felt warm and sweet with the scent of flowers they could barely see in the darkness; the crowds seemed happy and full of high spirits. St. John appeared to have no intention of quieting down for the night. Jack would have been feeling pretty high himself, except for the knot in his stomach. They were stuck with an extra kid, exactly the way he knew it would happen. Well, they couldn’t keep Forrest too long. They’d probably turn him over to some authority in the morning. He tried to remember what his father had said about Carlos. So far, it wasn’t working.
In minutes, the taxi stopped in front of a cast-iron gate that guarded a courtyard in the center of several darkened buildings. “You guys get the luggage while I find someone to check us in,” Olivia told them. “Forrest, as soon as we find our rooms, Steven and I will call your parents.”
Forrest nodded.
They’d booked two rooms, which would work out okay since it seemed that Forrest would be spending the night with them. He and Jack could stay in one room while Ashley slept on a cot in her parents’ room. They often divided up motel rooms that way, if the foster child happened to be a boy. Jack knew the drill.
They bumped the suitcases up a flight of narrow concrete stairs, waiting for Olivia to arrive with the room keys. She opened one door, then the one next to it. That’s when Jack saw where he’d be staying.
A ten-foot-square room with sagging twin beds greeted him. One small Formica end table held one lamp with a moth batting against the bulb. The cinder block walls had been painted a lifeless tan. The floor’s pattern had been walked off long ago.
Looking surprised and a bit grim, Steven surveyed the room, but all he said was, “Well, it’s not paradise, but it’s all we could get. Where’s the telephone?”
“I don’t know,” Jack answered. “First let me get some air going, Dad. It’s like an oven in here.” Jack turned on the window fan, but it only stirred a small, hot breeze. After he jumped up to pull a chain dangling from a ceiling fan, the overhead fan blades started to rotate slowly, pushing hot waves around the room. What a dump, Jack thought.
“Maybe the phone’s in the bathroom,” Ashley suggested, pushing open the door to the tiny room. It had a stand-up shower stall, no tub, and towels about as thick as handkerchiefs.
“There’s not even a phone, and I’m supposed to stay here?” Forrest blurted in disbelief.
“Bet it’s better than jail,” Jack retorted. “Or on the beach. Which is where you’d have been.”
“Jack,” his mother said firmly, a signal for Jack to back off. “Steven, I noticed a pay phone in a booth in the courtyard. I guess we’ll have to use that. Forrest, give me your parents’ phone number.”
Forrest pulled a monogrammed leather wallet from an inside pocket of his navy-blue blazer, which he still wore buttoned up in spite of the heat in the room. “Here it is on the back of my dad’s card. This is the number of the embassy in Paris.”
Steven took the thick, cream-colored business card and stared at it. “Forrest Winthrop III,” he read.
“Right. As I told you, I’m Forrest Winthrop IV.” The words sounded grim. “Mr. Landon, is calling them in the middle of the night absolutely necessary?”
Steven took a deep breath, and Jack knew he was thinking hard about waiting. In the end, he said, “Running away is a serious thing, and your parents have a right to know where you are. I think you should come with me so you can tell them yourself.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t. If you give me the phone, I won’t speak to them.”
Jack heard his father say something that sounded like “I’m too old for this,” but he wasn’t sure. “Anyone know what time it is right now in Paris?” Steven asked. “Four in the morning? Five?” When his family shook their heads no, Steven sighed. “You probably know, don’t you, Forrest?”
Forrest shrugged.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to call the operator and ask. Forrest, is there a message—a reason—you’d like me to give your parents?”
“No.”
“Then what should I tell them when they ask why you ran away?”
“Tell them…” he said, hesitating, “…that I wasn’t running away. I was running to. Tell them I know. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
CHAPTER THREE
Erh er erh er eeeerrrr!
The noise pierced Jack’s brain like a jolt of electricity. In a flash Forrest was up, peering out his window. Through half-opened eyes, Jack could see the sky had lightened to the color of silver as morning broke across the horizon of St. John. Forrest, in shorts and T-shirt, craned to glimpse the source of the noise.
Erh er erh er eeeerrrr!
“Man, what is that?” Forrest asked.
“Go back to bed,” Jack moaned. “It’s just a rooster.”
“A rooster? What’s a rooster doing outside our hotel?”
Jack yawned a gaping yawn and flung an arm over his eyes. “We’re in a motel, not a hotel, remember? Haven’t you ever heard a rooster
