Chapter 50
DEBBIE
I’ve come up with a new idea for a phone app.
It hit me while I was driving back from the shipyard last night. It’s called Punish Your Husband.
I spend the whole morning working on it, although it’s a little more involved than I initially intended.
I’ve coded half a dozen apps in the last decade, but this one seems like the sort of app that could really take off.
And now that I’m no longer working, I’ve got plenty of time to develop Punish Your Husband.
I can’t spend every moment of my day working in my garden, tending to my opium poppies.
If I build the app and sell it, I bet I can make a good chunk of change. We could certainly use the money right now.
I wonder what Cooper will think of it.
I’ve just finished jotting down more ideas when my phone starts ringing. When I see Izzy’s name on the screen, I nearly drop the phone trying to answer it. She never calls me during the day. “Izzy?”
“Mom!” Her voice is breathless. “You’ve got to come pick us up right now!”
“What?” Is it some sort of half day that I’m not aware of? Random half days seem to occur with alarming frequency. “Why?”
“Because,” she says, “a kid smashed his car into the school!”
“What?” That was the last thing I expected her to say. “How did that happen?”
“I have no idea,” Izzy says. “It was some senior guy, and I heard he was really drunk. I don’t know what happened, but they’re sending everyone home. There’s, like, an ambulance and a fire truck and everything.”
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t think so. I heard he’s pretty badly hurt.”
“Where’s Lexi?”
“She’s in her classroom,” Izzy says. “We all are. They won’t let us leave the classrooms that we’re in until someone comes to get us. So you have to come get us.”
“I’m on my way. Don’t move.”
“I can’t, Mom! They won’t let us!”
I go into emergency mode. I send Lexi a text message to let her know that I’m on my way, because I’m sure she’ll be calling next. Then I grab my keys and head for my car. All the while, I try to convince myself that this isn’t what I think it is, even though the evidence is concerning.
A boy smashed his car into the school, drunk at nine in the morning. A kid who obviously wasn’t thinking straight. He was a senior.
Is it possible that the senior who crashed his car is…
No, it couldn’t be.
Although…
I hop in my car and drive as quickly as I can in the direction of the high school.