Star after all, thought Diane. They just didn’t want me to linger so they could get on with whatever they were getting on with. Damn little witches.
“What do you know about those two?” Diane asked Star as she peeked into a classroom.
“Jessica Davenport and Jamie Dempsey. I call them the Jersey Devils. They are so full of themselves.”
Diane would wait until they were alone to question Star further. But at least now she had two names to give to Garnett as possible leads. She opened a door to the computer lab just as Frank was coming out.
“Diane . . .” Then he spotted Star. “Dear God in heaven,” he said and put his arms around her. Star buried her head in his chest.
When Star had been under arrest and her parents and brother dead, she had tried to kill herself. With the desolation of her grief and the feeling that there was nowhere for her to go, she had lost hope that the world would ever be right again. Frank’s asking to adopt her virtually turned her around. He had made her feel that she was worth something and, more importantly, he had believed her when she said she was innocent. Star was still a handful from time to time, but Diane knew that she was truly grateful that Frank loved and cared about her.
The four of them walked out of the building and down the sidewalk to Frank’s Expedition. On the way, Jenny called home on her cell. A neighbor answered and Jenny looked surprised. But Diane knew that parents in their situation would leave someone to answer the phone, waiting for any word about their daughter.
Just as they were about to drive off, Jenny saw her parents’ car turning into the parking lot. She yelled for Frank to stop, opened the door, and got out. Her mother and father saw her about the same time and came running to her, leaving their car in the middle of the road.
After seeing so many burned bodies during the past twenty-four hours, Diane was relieved beyond words to see two happy endings. She thought of Bobby Coleman’s parents, and the parents of the girl with the blond wavy hair. Nothing would ever bring them closure. Diane knew there was no such thing.
Through her passenger-side window, Diane saw someone she recognized walking out of the Student Learning Center to the parking lot. It was the blond girl’s mother from the coffee tent. She was alone. Diane wanted to cry.
“Bobby Coleman’s dead, isn’t he?” said Star. Her voice startled Diane out of her thoughts.
“The police haven’t released any information, yet,” Diane said.
“But he’s dead. I could tell by your face. The way you had no expression. That’s what you do when you don’t want anyone to see you react—you set your face like that.”
“Yes, honey, he is. But please don’t tell anyone. I don’t know if his parents have been told.” Diane was silent for several seconds as the Expedition sped across the icy street toward her apartment. “He was the first one to be identified.”
After a minute, Diane looked in back. Star was curled up on the seat asleep. She wished she could have found Ariel curled up somewhere in the jungle. She was so thankful they had found Star.
“What’s this about your car being jacked?” Frank said in a low voice.
“Some kid running from the fire. He tried to get Keith’s car but Keith sped off. He came to me next. I was stuck in the snow.”
“Diane . . . ,” he whispered. “I can’t leave you alone for any length of time.”
“Apparently not.”
“How did you manage? Not anything dramatic and dangerous, I hope?”
“No. He was injured from the explosion.”
She made a motion as if chopping her hand off. Frank winced.
“I persuaded him to get into the backseat and I locked him in. He couldn’t get out because the child locks were on, and he couldn’t climb over to the front in his condition. It gave me time to run. By that time the police came. That’s about all there was to it.” Besides him shooting out my car window, she thought.
“How is he?” asked Frank. “Will Garnett be able to question him?”
“Yes, he was going to do that today. The kid was one of the few survivors well enough to talk.”
They arrived at her house and Frank walked her to her door.
“I’m so grateful we found Star,” she said.
He gave her a kiss on the lips—a short kiss, then one