Read Online Deliver Us from Evie by M. E. Kerr - Free Book Online Page B

near Appleman.”
    I heard the bedsprings creak again, heard Mom say, “Don’t tell your father this, Evie. I’ll call Mr. Kidder and say you’re going somewhere anyway. Then you do what you’d planned on doing.”
    “Lie,” Evie said.
    “Yes. Lie.”

18
    A NGEL’S VALENTINE GIFT TO me was a wash-off tattoo of an angel flying through clouds. She’d made me a card drawn with a heart, our initials inside, pierced by an arrow.
    Before I could stop her she’d read aloud what I’d written inside my card: I love everything about you !
    “Now you’re talking!” Dad rubbed his hands together, pleased.
    Mom helped her put on my locket, and Dad said now he supposed Angel wanted his picture to put in there.
    We laughed a lot. Angel was right at home with my folks, as they were with her.
    I felt sorry for Evie, even though she seemed to be in a great mood. I kept remembering hearing her ask Mom to look at the ID bracelet Patsy gave her, and Mom saying she couldn’t.
    Angel had to be back by ten o’clock, which was just when Cord surprised us by showing up with candy and a card for Evie. He’d skipped the last half of the lecture so he could make an appearance. He was having a cup of coffee with us when Dad answered the phone and told us all the fan belt gave out on Evie’s car and she was going to stay over at the Twin Oaks motel.
    Cord said, “I thought Evie always had an extra fan belt in her trunk.”
    “Seems she doesn’t.”
    “Tell you what. I’ll go get her. I got to go back over that way tomorrow, anyway.”
    “After all the driving you did today?” Mom said. “I won’t hear of it!”
    “I asked her why she didn’t just go back to the Kidders’,” said Dad, “but she said there wasn’t room there and she didn’t want to wake them up.”
    “I’ll go get her,” Cord said. “You can’t give a gal a valentine on the fifteenth of February.”
    “She’s probably already in bed,” said Mom.
    “Let him go,” said Dad. “I never can sleep away from home, and I bet Evie can’t, either.”
    Mom followed Cord out the door, spoke to him, came back looking worried.
    We were all in bed when the phone rang the second time. I wasn’t asleep and I bet Mom couldn’t sleep, either, but Dad got awakened and cussed his way downstairs saying who was that calling up at midnight?
    Then he yelled up to Mom, “Evie’s not there. Cord says should he call up the Kidders at this hour?”
    “No!” said Mom. She’d gotten out of bed and was just outside my door.
    “Well, where the heck is she? Twin Oaks doesn’t know anything about it!”
    “Tell Cord to come back to Duffton,” Mom said.
    “Maybe she’s trying to get a ride somewhere on the road,” said Dad. Then I heard him tell Cord, “Did you take a look by the Texaco station down at the turn to King’s Corners? There’s a phone booth—”
    Mom interrupted. “Tell Cord to come home, Douglas.”
    “But why? He’s already there. He might as well look around for her. He maybe ought to call the Kidders.”
    “I know where Evie is,” said Mom. “I told Cord she wasn’t there, but he wouldn’t believe it.”
    “Because she is there, somewhere!”
    “Tell Cord to come back, then hang up.”
    “ I spoke to her, Cynnie, and she said she was—”
    “Do as I say, Douglas! Evie didn’t have car trouble.”
    My father came back up the stairs, shouting, “What is this about? Where is Evie?”
    “I expect she’s gone on to Jefferson City!”
    “Jefferson City?”
    “Don’t get Parr out of bed now. Come on in and I’ll tell you about it.”
    Their bedroom door slammed.
    I couldn’t hear her clearly after that, but I could hear him.
    I could hear “loan.” I could hear “Duff.” I could hear “Patsy,” “Evie,” and a whole lot of other words my dad wasn’t known for saying inside our house.

19
    B Y THE END OF February Cord and Evie had had a showdown, so Cord knew what was going on between Evie and Patsy.
    He acted like it was a