Of the five gathered round the tombstone, only Buddy hadn’t made the Centennial High football team. Adam thought it odd that the outsider did the best Coach Jones imitation of the lot of them: “‘Get with the program, boys,”’ Buddy aped, as they waited for his next order. “‘Time’s a-wastin’!”’
As if even the B & O Railroad was afraid to disobey, a tremor pulsed beneath their feet, a sign that the midnight train was fast approaching.
Buddy leaped up, punching the air with a hard right cross. “Yes-s-s!” came his hoarse whisper. “I’ve been lookin’ forward to this all day!”
Shaking his head, Wade wrapped his arms around the dummy’s waist and, half dragging, half carrying it, headed for the tracks. Luke and Travis followed, muttering to one another as they huffed up the grassy incline. When the foursome crested the hill, their leader looked back at Adam, who lagged behind.
“C’mon, mama’s boy,” Buddy said, his voice a sarcastic singsong, “or you’re gonna miss all the fun….”
The uneasy feeling that had been dogging Adam all night took another nip at his heels. Was he edgy because Buddy’s harebrained ideas had gotten them into trouble, dozens of times? Was it that this time, Buddy had decided to hone the fun-slash-risk factor by tossing a Halloween dummy onto the railroad tracks in front of a moving train?
Or was it simply that despite their obvious reluctance, the rest of them had agreed to go along with one of his schemes…again?
Engineer Al Delaney wished he could belch. Just one good healthy burp, and maybe this discomfort would end.
All day, he’d been feeling, well, odd. He blamed a sleepless night. Overwork. The bologna-and-sauerkraut sandwich he’d stuffed into his mouth an hour ago. Cranking his left shoulder in a clumsy forward-then-backward circle, he peered through the train’s front window, wondering what to blame for the pressure that had been tightening across his chest for the past half-hour or so.
Wincing at this latest troubling twinge, Al thumped his chest. Well, he thought, taking a deep, difficult breath, I’ll be clockin’ out in half an hour, and then—
Movement up ahead caught his eye. Something—looked to him like a man—on the tracks.
“What the—?”
Heart pounding like a parade drum, Al reached for the whistle with one hand, the brake stick with the other. The high-pitched squeal of locked wheels strained against polished steel tracks.
But it was too late.
Kasey Delaney woke to the repeated dinging of the doorbell. Knuckling her eyes, she padded into the upstairs hall and croaked a sleepy “What’s going on?”
“Probably just Buddy and his gang,” her mother said.
It would be just like the neighborhood juvenile delinquent to need a Halloween finale, but why he’d think ringing people’s doorbells in the middle of the night was fun, Kasey couldn’t guess.
“Mrs. Delaney?”
Her mom stood at the top of the stairs, one hand on the newel post, the other clutching her bathrobe tight to her throat. Kasey reached for her hand, but froze when her mother whispered, “Dear God, don’t let it be—”
Her mother had always been calm, practical, easygoing. Hearing the fear in her voice frightened Kasey, too. Heart beating double time, she said, “What, Mom? Don’t let it be what?”
She watched as her mom took a deep breath, smoothed back her bangs. Despite the outward attempts at bravado, her voice trembled when she exhaled. When she opened her mouth to answer her daughter’s question, the grandfather clock chimed, announcing two o’clock, tolling in odd harmony with the doorbell.
A cold chill wrapped around Kasey’s shoulders. “Where’s Dad?”
“Oh, you know your father,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I’ll bet he took Jimmy’s shift. His wife was supposed to have her baby tonight, you know.”
Kasey nodded. That would be just like her dad, all right, stepping in to help out a pal. Still…wouldn’t he have called?
“Mrs. Delaney? Mrs. Al Delaney!” The man on the porch had stopped ringing the bell and started banging on the door.
Lifting the front of her nightgown with her right hand, her mother started down the stairs, the left hand making a soft, hissing sound as it dragged over the polished banister. “Go back to your room,” she said from the tiny foyer.
“But Mom—”
“Don’t argue with me, Kasey Delaney!”
Kasey took two reluctant steps back, shut her eyes tight and leaned her forehead against the doorjamb. “Please, God, please, God, please, God,” she chanted, hands clasped in prayer, “let Dad be okay.”
Kasey opened her eyes in response to the loud, grating sound of the deadbolt. Its echo, resounding up the uncarpeted stairs, reminded her of the noise her father’s hammer had made when it drove in the steel pins that secured the landscape timbers surrounding her mother’s flower garden. Seemed he was always doing things for others….
“Mrs. Delaney?”
The door was open now, and the overhead porch light cast the man’s shadow on the foyer floor. He was a policeman, as evidenced by his short-billed hat.
“What is it?” her mother asked in a thin, little-girl voice. “What’s happened?”
In the instant before the officer answered, a thousand pictures of her father flashed through Kasey’s mind: tossing her a softball; sitting beside her at the piano, playing corny duets; helping her with math and science homework. He’d taught her to tie her shoes, to swim, to twirl spaghetti like a Rome-born pro, forced himself to eat every bite of every oven-baked fiasco she’d ever cooked up.
Kasey pressed the heels of her hands against her ears, but she still heard the policeman say, “Ah, may I come in, Mrs. Delaney? I think this might be easier to hear if you were sitting down….”
Easier? Was the man out of his mind? Kasey slammed her door, knowing even before her teary face met her pillow that nothing would ever be easy again.
The radio alarm jarred Adam awake.
“…and the vagrant reportedly hit by the train was never found,” the rise-and-shine announcer was saying. “Engineer Al Delaney is survived by his wife and daughter.”
Heart pounding, Adam leaped from bed, bare feet slapping on the hardwood as he raced toward the kitchen. “Mom,” he gasped, “where’s the Sun?”
Without looking up from the Today section, she pointed.
Adam paged through the rest of the paper scattered on the tabletop, eyes narrowed as he searched for a corroborating story. And then, on page twelve of the main section he found it: Vagrant Missing; Engineer Dead. The article explained how, just before he’d breathed his last, Al Delaney told paramedics that a vagabond had staggered onto the tracks behind Crescent Lawn Memorial Gardens.
Thirty-five-year-old Al Delaney, the report said, had a long history of heart disease. The tidbit didn’t matter one whit to Adam. What mattered was that Mr. Delaney probably wouldn’t have died last night if it hadn’t been for—
Adam’s gaze froze on the black-and-white photograph of the Delaney family—Al, his wife Karin, their daughter, Kasey, age twelve.
Twelve. Same age Adam had been when his own dad died, four years earlier.
Overwhelmed with guilt and shame, Adam stood and, taking the paper with him, trudged woodenly back to his room.
“Do you see the time, young man?” his mom said from behind the paper.