Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [74]
“He’s just being gracious and a gentleman. You did the right thing by helping him out, now do it again.”
The right thing …
Jack had to force his hand forward to give it back.
Mr. Collingswood looked him in the eye. “You’re sure?”
Jack shrugged. “Yeah.”
If a reward had been offered and he’d gone looking and found him, no way he wouldn’t take the money. But Mom was right. He’d been hanging out in the Pines on his own time.
The man shook his head. “What is it around here? Your girlfriend wouldn’t take it either.”
Mom said, “She’s not his girlfriend.”
He pulled out his wallet and removed a card.
“At least take this,” he said, handing it to Jack. “If you ever need anything—anything—you call me. I owe you.”
He shook hands with Jack, then headed for the Land Rover parked at the curb.
He glanced at the card. Everyone seemed to be giving him cards. Mr. Drexler, the strange Mr. Grossman, and now the normal Mr. Collingswood. Might as well start a collection.
He sighed as he watched the Land Rover pull away. “There goes five hundred bucks, Mom.”
She was already halfway back to the kitchen. “You can always make money, Jack. You don’t get many chances to help out a person in need.”
Yeah, he thought, but wouldn’t it be great to be able to do both?
Now there was a thought …
TUESDAY
1
“All right, everybody, settle down,” Mr. Kressy said. “I’ve got an important announcement to make.”
Jack had just slid behind his desk. The bus trip to school had been what it should always be: uneventful. All the talk had been about the Carson Toliver show yesterday and how he’d stayed out the whole day. Not a single “Easy Weezy.” Jack had to work hard to keep from grinning like an idiot.
Mission accomplished.
He focused on Mr. Kressy. Whatever announcement was coming must be important. He usually saved them for after attendance.
When everyone was quiet, he said, “Carson Toliver is missing.”
Jack felt a cold lead weight form in his stomach as he remembered Eddie’s “bad feeling” yesterday.
“He left school yesterday morning after some incident at his locker—no need to go into that since it’s all you’ve been talking about ever since—and never returned. No one knows where he went after that. He might have gone home, but no one can say so for sure since both his parents were out all day. He wasn’t there when they came home and he never returned last night. His car is gone, but none of his clothes are missing, so he does not appear to have run away. The sheriff’s department is searching for him but they’ve requested that we ask the student body if anyone has seen him since he left school.” He raised his eyebrows and looked around. “Hmmm? Anyone?”
Jack sat frozen in silent shock and dread as the classroom erupted in a burst of excited chatter—talking to one another or asking Mr. Kressy for more information. He didn’t have any.
Toliver … gone? Didn’t come home last night? Where could he be? Where could he have gone without extra clothes?
Yeah, he’d been embarrassed, sure, but to run off like this … it seemed so out of proportion.
That was what bothered Jack the most.
All the earlier pumped-up feelings deflated with a whoosh, leaving him feeling small and cold and worried.
Had he pushed him too far?
2
Mrs. LeClaire, Jack’s French teacher, dropped a hydrogen bomb right after lunch.
He knew something was wrong the instant he saw her. She looked pale, wobbly, and her eyes were red.
“I have terrible news,” she said in a shaky voice. “Carson Toliver is dead.”
As the classroom exploded with wails of shock and grief, Jack’s blood turned to sleet. He saw the whole thing play out in his head: Toliver leaving school, buying some applejack or some other kind of booze, getting drunk, then racing along a back road and wrapping his car around a tree or a bridge abutment.
He closed his eyes and fought a wave of nausea.
In response to a chorus of kids asking how, when, and where, Mrs. LeClaire held up her hands to quiet things down. Quiet wasn’t going to happen, not with a couple of girls crying, but the volume dropped enough