"He said to come alone and to look for him by an old car that's back a little from the river."
Will methodically opened a second catsup packet, then a mustard one. His slow and deliberate actions annoyed Tristan.
"Tell her, Will! Talk sense to her!" Beth wrote furiously.
But Will would not be hurried. "Eric could be setting a trap for you," he said to Ivy thoughtfully, "maybe a deadly one."
"Exactly," wrote Beth.
"Or," Will continued, "Eric could be telling the truth. He could be running scared and trying to give you some important information. I honestly don't know which it is."
"Idiot!"Ú Beth wrote. "Don't do it, Ivy," she added out loud, her voice shaking. "That's me telling you, not Tristan."
Will turned to her. "What is it?" he asked. "What are you seeing?"
Tristan, inside her mind, was seeing it, too, and it shook him just as badly.
"It's the car," Beth said. "As soon as you mentioned it I could see it, an old car sinking slowly into the mud.
Something terrible has happened there. There's a dark mist around it."
Will took Beth's trembling hand.
"The car's slipping into the ground like a coffin," she said. "Its hood is torn off. Its trunk… I can't see-there are lots of bushes and vines. There's a door partway open, blue, I think. Something's inside."
Beth's eyes were big and frightened, and a tear ran down her cheek. Will wiped it away gently, but another ran over his hand.
"The front seats are gone," she continued. "But I can see the back seat, and there's something…" She shook her head.
"Go on," Will urged softly.
"It's covered with a blanket. And there's an angel looking down on it.
The angel is crying."
"What's under the blanket?" Ivy whispered.
"I can't see," Beth whispered back. "I can't see!"
Then her hand started scribbling: "I can see only what Beth sees. The blanket can't be lifted."
"Is the angel you, Tristan?" Ivy asked.
"No," Beth wrote. Then she grabbed Ivy's hand. "Something terrible is there. Don't go! I'm begging you, Ivy."
"Listen to her, Ivy!" Tristan said, but Beth's hand was shaking too hard to write it.
Ivy looked at Will.
"Beth has been right twice before," he said.
Ivy nodded, then sighed. "But what if Eric really has something important to tell me?"
"He'll find another way," Will reasoned. "If he really wants to tell you something, he'll figure out a way."
"I guess so," Ivy said, and Tristan sank down in relief.
Soon after that, he left the three of them. He heard Ivy ask mentally, "Where are you going?" But knowing she was in safe hands, he kept on. He had recovered from the exhaustion of time-traveling but wasn't sure how long his second wind would last. He wanted time to search Gregory's room while everyone was out of the house. If he could find Gregory's latest purchase of drugs, Ivy would have evidence for at least a drug charge.
Still, what she really needed was the jacket and cap, Tristan thought as he passed through the school door. The clothes might convince the police to reconsider Philip's story. A single piece of hair could establish the important link to Gregory.
Somebody must have found the clothes after they rolled off the motorcycle. Did that person know how important they were? Philip's story hadn't been released to the public, but it could have leaked out. Was there, Tristan wondered, an unidentified player in Gregory's game?
"But Ivy," Suzanne wailed, "we had plans to find the crystal slippers-the ruby shoes-the only pair of heels in all New England that are exactly right for my birthday party. And I've got only a week left to hunt!"
"I'm sorry," Ivy replied, reaching into her locker for another book. "I know I promised." She shifted the stack in her arms, clutching a note beneath the books. Three minutes before Suzanne had arrived, Ivy had opened her locker and found Tristan's picture gone. The note she grasped had been taped in its place.
"How about Wednesday?" Ivy proposed. "I have to work after school tomorrow, but we can shop till we drop on Wednesday and find you an incredible pair of shoes."
"By that time Gregory and I will have made up and be doing something again."
"Made up?" Ivy repeated. "What do you mean?"
Suzanne smiled. "It worked, Ivy, worked like a charm." With her back against the wall of lockers, Suzanne bent her knees and slowly slid down till her bottom touched the floor-no easy feat in tight jeans, Ivy thought. A group of guys down the hall admired her athletic ability.
"Since you wouldn't mention Jeff to him," Suzanne went on, "I did. I called Gregory Jeff."
"You called him Jeff? Did he notice?"
"Both times," Suzanne replied.
"Whew."
"Once when things were pretty hot and heavy."
"Suzanne!"
Suzanne threw back her head and laughed. It was a wild and infectious laugh, and people grinned as they passed her in the hall.
"So what did Gregory say? What did he do?" Ivy asked.
"He was unbelievably jealous," Suzanne said, her eyes flashing with excitement. "It's a wonder he didn't kill us both!"
"What do you mean?"
Suzanne slid closer to Ivy and bent her head, her long, dark hair falling forward, like a curtain for telling secrets behind.