Ashley Cooper's Arc

Chapter 24 of 37

The car flew down the wet road. Mike gripped the wheel, jaw tight. Ashley's phone lit up in her lap. Her father's name filled the screen. Danny. It buzzed once, twice, then stopped. Three seconds later it started again. She stared at it. Her father wanted her home tonight. If she ignored him too long, he would call the police. If she answered wrong, he would hear the panic in her voice and know something had happened. "He won't stop," Ashley said. "He's an accountant. He checks everything twice. If I don't pick up, he'll drive to the hotel himself." She pictured her father finding Ricky on the floor. She pictured squad cars. "I have to answer. And I have to make him believe I'm fine." Mike glanced at her. "Then tell him something. Anything that sends him the wrong way." She swiped the phone and lifted it to her ear. "Dad." "Ashley." Danny's voice was flat and careful, the voice he used on tax forms. "You didn't answer. Ricky isn't answering either. Where are you?" Her bone hand tightened on her knee. She had to give him a story too strange to check, too big to chase. "I'm not coming home, Dad. I left." A pause. "Left? Left for where?" "There's a commune. Out past the county line." The lie built itself as she spoke. "It's all women. A lesbian commune. I'm joining them. I've thought about it for weeks. This is who I am now." Silence stretched on the line. Mike's eyes went wide. Ashley kept her face still. "A commune," Danny repeated. His voice cracked. "Ashley, this is nonsense. You have school. You have council. You can't just—" "I already left with them. Don't call the police, Dad. They'll only find an empty road." She made her voice soft, almost kind. "I'm safe. I'm happy. Let me go." She heard him breathing. She could hear his mind working, sorting the impossible facts, failing to make them add up. Her father hated things that didn't add up. But he hated a scandal more. "You're serious," Danny said finally. Not a question. Defeat sat in the words. "After everything. A commune." He exhaled. "I won't send anyone. But you'll call me. You'll call me every week, or I will." "Every week," she said. "I promise." She ended the call before he could ask another question. The phone went dark. Ashley sank into the seat. Her hands shook. "He believed it," Mike said quietly. "He wanted to." She stared out at the rain. Her father wouldn't send the police tonight. That was the point. But she had just cut the last rope that tied her to home. No more father waiting. No more house to return to. Only Mike, this car, and a dead man they were driving away from. She had bought them one night. She didn't know what she would do with the next one.