This Is Not the Jess Show by Anna Carey

Author:Anna Carey [Carey, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781683691983
Google: QWO9DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Quirk Books
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

24

“Where were you going?” Patrick (Kipps?) asked as he made a U-turn and drove in the opposite direction of the SWICKLEY ALARMS car. He was already trying to lose them—he was smart, at least.

“Please pull over,” the driver’s voice boomed through a loudspeaker. That small, pathetic light flicked around as the man did an awkward three-point turn, knocking over some garbage cans.

“Arden Place. It’s that—”

“Dead end. Yeah, I know it. Why there?”

“I don’t know?” I fumbled for the lyric book just as Kipps took another hard turn, squishing me against the passenger door. “Something about a red house…that doesn’t mean anything to you?”

“I think part of that street is along the outside wall of the set. She might be leading you to an exit. But I don’t know how she thought you’d get there alone. They are not happy.”

He checked the rearview mirror as two bicyclists appeared and went all Tour de France on us. Another SWICKLEY ALARMS car came down the block. The driver rolled down his window and waved, signaling Kipps to pull over, but Kipps just gave him a thumbs-up and kept driving.

“You’re going fifty,” I said, but before I could finish the sentence the speedometer passed it. Fifty-two, fifty-five…

“We have one chance, and this is it,” Kipps said, his eyes moving from the rearview mirror to the intersection in front of us. A young mother pushed a double stroller across the street. Kipps didn’t even slow down.

I kept thinking he’d brake, he was obviously going to brake, but we were heading right toward them and if anything, he was speeding up. The woman had headphones on, her Walkman clipped to her belt. As she stooped down to tie her shoe she let go of the stroller and it drifted further out into the intersection, right in our path. It was in the middle of the street and she still hadn’t noticed.

“Kipps—you’re going to hit it. You have to stop. Kipps. Kipps!”

But he didn’t stop. He just swerved, clipping the front of the stroller, exploding it into a dozen pieces. I turned back, my breath trapped in my chest. The mother screamed over the pile of blankets and twisted plastic.

“Pull the car over, I want to get out,” I said.

“You didn’t recognize her?” Kipps took a turn so hard I thought the Land Rover would flip. “She’s the cashier at Sassy Shoes. And Principal Haverford’s wife. And the Swickley Times reporter who interviewed me at school, and who knows what else. Fake—it’s all fake. They probably didn’t even bother to put dolls in there.”

I turned back but the woman was already out of view. The bicyclists and SWICKLEY ALARMS cars were still there, racing to catch up with us. I pulled open the glove compartment and took out the Land Rover’s user manual. When I thumbed through the pages they were all blank. The cover was a color print pasted onto a notebook.

“You think that’s Mr. Rutherford’s place? That crazy old guy?” Kipps said as we sped past the broken-down house on the corner of Fox Lane and Route 24.

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