A Friend at Midnight Read Online Free Page B

voice too soft and flat to be Michael’s.
    â€œBut what’s going on? Why are you at the airport? Where is Dad? Is he having a hard time parking the car?”
    â€œI don’t think he parked.”
    â€œWhere is he, then?”
    â€œI think he went back to his house.”
    â€œBut who’s with you?”
    â€œNobody,” said Michael.
    â€œYou’re alone at the airport?” she said, unable to believe it.
    â€œDon’t tell, Lily,” said her brother. “I don’t want anybody to know. Just come and get me.”
    â€œ
You’re eight years old and he
—” Lily didn’t finish the sentence out loud—he threw you out on the sidewalk like a paper coffee cup? If she took a deep enough breath, the oxygen in her lungs would ignite. She would go up in smoke. That worthless lowlife pretend father! How dare he! I’ll kill him, Lily decided. I’ll have him arrested and jailed and tortured to death.
    â€œIt was my fault, Lily. Don’t tell anybody. Especially Mom or Kells. Promise. You have to promise.”
    â€œI promise,” she said, although she could not imagine how this could be kept a secret. But to keep it a secret, she couldn’t ask a neighbor to drive her to LaGuardia. It wouldn’t be too hard to get there by bus. She’d never done it, but people did. She could get the details from LaGuardia’s Web site. Nate loved the bus, he’d be good. Driving herself wasn’t a choice; Lily wasn’t old enough to get a learner’s permit, never mind weave her way to LaGuardia.
    â€œYou’re coming?” said Michael. She could hear the pace of his breathing stepping up again, getting too fast and too shallow and very close to sobbing again.
    Okay, she thought, planning hard. Nate and I get the bus, meet the plane, bring Michael home, put sheets on his old bed, get York settled underneath it. When Mom and Kells get here,
they’ll
decide how to kill Dad. “What airline is your ticket?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t have a ticket,” said Michael.

chapter
2
    M ichael. Age eight. Alone at Baltimore/Washington International Airport without a ticket?
    â€œDo you have York?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t have anything. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t pack.”
    When Mom finds out, she’ll bring in the FBI and ten lawyers, thought Lily.
    Mom was a nice, good-humored person, but her post-divorce anger rose easily to the surface and she would take advantage of this. She’d bypass Michael for this huge and lovely chance to get even. She would get Dad jailed.
    You would think there could be nothing worse than being abandoned by your father. But there was something worse. If bad things happened to his father, that eight-year-old would hold himself responsible. Michael would tumble and smash like the loser in some horrible Chutes and Ladders game.
    But he could not stay alone in an airport. Anything could happen, something really hideously terrible. “Flag down a cop, Michael. There have to be dozens wandering around an airport.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI’ll talk to them. You don’t have to.”
    â€œNo!”
    What if the police kept Michael? Some judge in Maryland might put Michael in a foster home or some halfway house with real criminals. And how long would they keep him? Maybe not just overnight. Maybe weeks or months. And what if some sick and twisted judge—because according to the news, the world was full of them—decided Michael still belonged with Dad?
    Because to the judge, Dad might claim it was just a misunderstanding.
    And maybe it was.
    Lily would keep Michael on this line and use her cell to call Dad. Dad would have an explanation.
    â€œAre you still there?” Michael’s voice was shaky.
    Who cares about an explanation? Lily thought. What he’d better have is a plane ticket. “I’m here. I’m telephoning