“Latte?” she asked, gesturing to a center console and two to-go cups from the coffee shop across from the campus. “I figured to drink them both, but we can stop later.”
“Oh,” Damon said, and took the cup. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” she said as he took a sip.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s wrong with your eye?”
“The doctor says it’s strained,” she replied. “But my family has a history of glaucoma, so I’m not sure.”
“What’s your job?” he asked, and took a longer draw on the coffee.
“I am a traveling saleswoman,” Acadia replied, grateful that Sunday had convinced her to make her false identity deep. “I represent several fashion manufacturers up and down the East Coast.”
“That’s cool,” Damon said.
“I like to think so,” she said, and went on to move the focus off her and onto Damon, who warmed up and enthusiastically answered all her questions as they drove back roads west toward the New York State Thruway.
About thirty minutes into the drive, however, and soon after he’d finished his coffee, Damon’s energy began to wane. He yawned. At a stop sign she caught him blinking several times as if he were confused about something.
Ten miles from Glenmont, she heard the first thickness in his tongue when he said, “I should probably call my dad, tell him I’ll be home early.”
“Cell service is horrible through here,” she said. “I’d wait until we’re on I-87. Good service there.”
Damon’s words were slurred when she took the exit ramp onto the thruway heading south. “You said, I drive…the interstate.”
“Sorry, sugar,” she said. “You’ve had much too much Rohypnol to be anywhere near the wheel of a car.”
Acadia glanced over to find him staring with unfocused eyes.
“Roofie?” he said woozily. “That’s…a date-rape drug.”
“Yes, it is,” Acadia said, patting his leg as he started to pass out. “But don’t you worry your virgin little heart over it. You and I are going on a far stranger journey than sex.”
Chapter
92
Around the corner from the Cross residence, Sunday waited patiently in the van, which now sported a magnetic sign that read, SILVER SPRING ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS AND REPAIR. It was a quarter to noon. The guys from Dear Old House were just leaving for the holiday weekend.
Things were falling neatly into place, he decided, putting the van in gear the second they left his view. Acadia had texted him that she’d picked up a friend and was on her way, already driving across the George Washington Bridge.
Now it was Sunday’s turn to have a little fun.
The writer pulled into the parking spot the contractors had left and got out. He was wearing a set of green workman’s clothes with a badge that identified him as Phil Nichols of Silver Spring Electrical and carrying a metal clipboard. Sunday bounded up the steps and gave a sharp rap on the door, then rang the bell. Moments later, Nana Mama came to the door in her church clothes, opened it on a safety chain, and said suspiciously, “May I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said deferentially. “Sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Cross, but I’m the electrical sub on your addition. Did I miss the Dear Old House guys?”
“They just left,” she said.
“Dang it,” he said. “Well, I can probably look at it myself. Can I go around back? I won’t be long. I’m just trying to get a general sense of where we are before heading down to St. Anthony’s.”
Cross’s grandmother softened. “For the Stations of the Cross?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I promise you I won’t be long.”
“You attend St. Anthony’s?” she asked.
“Regularly? No,” he said. “St. Tim’s in Fairfax. But St. Anthony’s is the only church doing the stations at a time I can go.”