Page 144 of Never Flinch

No answer. The bedroom door is closed. There’s a note. Holly pulls it off the door and reads it.

7

5:23 PM.

Jerome and John Ackerly park near the service entrance behind the Mingo. Jerome says, “I hope she won’t be embarrassed to ride to the hotel in a Subaru.”

“Don’t be an ass,” John says.

Jerome uses the code his sister gave him to open the door, and they hurry through the little kitchen.

“Her dressing room is on the third floor,” Jerome says, but Sista Bessie is waiting for them in the break room, reading from Barbara’s book of poems. Jerome is struck by how much she looks like his Aunt Gertrude. This leads to a second thought, which should be elementary but somehow isn’t: this is just another human being. A fellow rider on the journey from cradle to coffin. That leads to a third thought, which he will try to hold onto: unless and until it’s used, talent is just an illusion.

Sista Bessie stands up and smiles. It looks strained to Jerome, and he wonders if she feels a little off, maybe coming down with something. “Young Man Jerome,” she says. “Thank you for the ride.”

“You’re more than welcome,” he says, and takes her outstretched hand. “This is my friend, John Ackerly.”

Although that’s his cue, John doesn’t immediately turn to Sista. He’s staring at a line of framed pictures on the wall below a message to the staff that reads, REMEMBER YOU ARE DEALING WITH THE PUBLIC, SO SMILE!

“John?”

He seems to wake up and turns to his friend and the elderly woman. “Big fan,” he says. “Can’t wait to hear you sing.”

“Thank you, son. I think we better get going. Don’t want to be late.”

“Yes,” Jerome says, but John walks to the framed pictures below the REMEMBER TO SMILE memo. He’s looking at the photo of a smiling bearded man.

8

Holly: Christopher Stewart has taken Corrie. He says that if anyone tells the police, he will kill her. I believe him. If you call your cop friend and Corrie dies, it will be your fault. I got her into this. I’m going to get her out of it. K.

Hardly aware of what she’s doing, Holly crumples the note in her fist and strikes herself in the forehead twice, and hard. She feels like a woman who has run up to the edge of a precipice and almost fallen over. If she had called Izzy, as she first intended, or got in touch with the State Police detective, she could have been signing Corrie Anderson’s death warrant… and possibly Kate’s, as well.

And what is she supposed to do now? Just what the frack is she supposed to do?

The GPS tracker on her truck!

She picks up the phone, calls the front desk, and after what seems like an eternity is connected with the parking garage. She identifies herself as Kate’s security woman and the attendant tells her that Kate’s F-150 is still parked in the garage. Holly’s heart sinks. She’s about to hang up when the attendant says, “She took an Uber. Went out the utility exit. Just like Lady Gaga did when she played the Mingo.”

Holly thanks him and sinks down on the sofa, Kate’s note still crumpled in her hand. Much later, she’ll see the bloody crescents her fingernails have cut into her palm.

What now? What the hell am I supposed to do now?

Her phone rings. She grabs it out of her pocket, hoping it’s Kate. It’s John Ackerly.

“John, I can’t talk to you now. I’ve got a situation here, and I need to think.”

“Okay, but wait one. I’m coming to the hotel with Jerome and Sista Bessie, but I thought you’d want to know this right away. I think I know who Trig is! The guy I saw at the Buell Street Straight Circle meeting! This was years ago and he had a beard then. Now he’s clean-shaven and wears glasses! His picture is on the wall at the Mingo! He’s the Program Director!”

“Donald Gibson,” Holly says.

“Ah, dookie,” John says. “You already knew. Do I call the cops, or what?”

“No!”

“Are you sure?”

She’snotsure, that’s the pure hell of it; Holly is rarely sure about anything. But she’scloseto sure. Kate thinks Christopher Stewart hasCorrie, but logic suggests Kate is wrong. How could Stewart have taken Corrie, when his name and picture are everywhere? Gibson, on the other hand, could have taken her easily, because she was going to the Mingo to sign—supposedlysign—insurance papers.

---