Christie Road

It couldn't have picked a worse day to rain. And it wasn't just a little shower--it was biblical rain, rain that soaked clear through your skin to your very bones, rain that fell in fat drops like bullets from the sky, straight down, and sideways, and even up from the ground when you least expected.

Rain that meant there was no possible way to play an outdoor show.

Billie stood by the back door, phone on his shoulder, cursing under his breath. For the last two hours he had paced back and forth between his room and the big glass door, but as time passed and the storm only got worse, his mood had darkened with the sky.

"There's nowhere else to set up!" he complained into the phone. "They have a den, but it'll hold ten, twelve people max with us in there, and that's standing room only."

"What about the basement?" Mike asked hopefully.

"Do you want to stand ankle deep in water holding a 110-amp guitar?" Billie fumed.

"Hey, chill--I'm just trying to help! Don't bite my head off!"

Billie rubbed the back of his neck, trying to release some of his pent-up frustration. "I know, dude, I'm sorry. I just hate this. I tried to talk them out of doing this outside--it's March, for chrissakes! It rains all the time!"

"Look, is there anywhere close by that we might get on short notice?"

"Not this short. We were supposed to start in three hours!"

Mike sighed. He was out of ideas, and Billie was out of patience. "Well, I guess there's nothing else we can do. I'll call Tre and catch him before he leaves home, and you call and tell them we won't be able to show."

"Fuck," Billie spat, and hung up. Punching the buttons angrily, he tried to keep his voice pleasant when the voice answered, explaining their dilemma and apologizing. Of course, they understood, they wouldn't dream of putting them in such an unsafe situation. Yes, they'd be happy to invite the band back for their next party. Sure, they'd recommend them to their friends.

No problem.

Still, he was left with a sick, sinking feeling in his stomach when he hung up, as much from residual adrenaline as from disappointment. There was probably no one but Mike who understood just how intense he was about performing, how he lost sleep the night before a show, and could barely eat. Having that build up inside him, with nowhere to let it out, was almost unbearable.

Now he was stuck here, alone in the empty house. He was too pissed off to practice, too distracted to write, too agitated to watch television or listen to music. And it only added to his frustration that Lani's father had grounded her from seeing or even talking to him for two weeks after the Gilman incident. Fucking prick, as if jailing her at home was going to make her forget about him.

At least he hoped she wouldn't forget.

So for the moment he was lying on the cluttered floor of his bedroom, a wadded sweatshirt under his head, lifting 10-pound dumbbells until his arms were burning and shaky and his hair clung in damp curls around his neck. It stopped the freight train of thoughts that kept tearing through his mind, even if only for a few minutes, and worked off some of the tension that made him feel as if he'd snap in two.

The sound of raised voices outside drifted through the closed windows, and with a grunt of irritation, he looked out to see what was happening. Next door, a police car sat at the curb, the blue and red lights splashing over the front yard. He hadn't heard Anna's car pull up, but it was in the driveway, and she stood beside Jasmine's mother, arm draped around her shoulders as she gestured frantically to the cops.

Curiosity ate at him, but the prospect of getting caught up in a family drama didn't appeal to him at all. He hung back, watching out his bedroom window, until he saw Anna coming across the yard toward the house.

"Billie!" she yelled as soon as the door was open. The tone of her voice told him something was wrong, very wrong, and he didn't even bother pretending not to hear her.

"Yeah?" he asked, almost colliding with his sister as they both rushed through the hallway.

"Billie, you haven't seen Jasmine today, have you?" Her cheeks were red and blotchy, and tears streaked down her face. "Her mother said she's missing, and doesn't know how long she's been gone. Has she been over here?"

"No, I've just been hanging out, I haven't seen anybody. What do you mean she's missing?"

He was tempted to write this off as another chapter in the life of an attention-seeking teen girl, but he had to admit, Jasmine had a more level head than that. She wasn't a brat, like some of her so-called "friends."

"Her mom said she'd been up in her room all day, and when she went up to call her for dinner, her window was open and she was gone. No note, no nothing." Anna was fighting back sobs that choked her and made it hard for her to talk.

He felt a chill run through his veins. The rain was still beating down on the pavement, and now that darkness was falling, the temperature was dropping fast. It would be one thing if she were older, and could take care of herself. But she was barely thirrteen, and he doubted she was street-wise enough to find safe shelter, especially in this mess.

"Why would she do that?" he asked, but his mind was turning over the memory of the bruises on her face, the yelling and screaming he'd heard from their house, and he was coming to the sickening realization that he already knew.

"It'll be tomorrow before she's listed officially missing," Anna said, picking up the phone. "I'm calling Mom to let her know. Maybe she can ask around the restaurant to see if anyone's seen her."

Billie kept remembering the way she had defended him at her birthday party, and a fierce rush of brotherly protectiveness ran through him. Grabbing his jacket from the hall closet, he headed for the front door. "I'll be back in a little while," he called, and Anna nodded acknowlegement as she cradled the receiver on her shoulder.

He drove numbly, his eyes scanning every inch of the neighborhood. When he found no sign of her, he took the old car into Rodeo, and parked beside Cinelli's. Few stores were still open, but he tried all of them, giving them the best description he could manage. If they saw her crystal blue eyes, he knew they couldn't mistake her.

He looked at the library, the laundromat, the Seven-Eleven. He even had the clerk check in the restroom to make sure she hadn't hidden there.

Finally, he knew it was no use. There was nowhere left to look. Wet and tired, he slid behind the seat of his car, running his fingers through his dripping hair. How had he ignored it, he wondered. The girl had been in trouble, serious enough to make her run away, and he had been too wrapped up in himself to see it.

Sighing in disappointment with himself, he started the engine and began the drive home. The wipers slapped the pouring water from side to side, thumping rhythm against the hiss of the tires on the wet pavement. She had to be somewhere safe and dry, he insisted to himself. The alternative was unbearable to think about.

Ollie and Anna's red-rimmed eyes met him as soon as he opened the door, and he answered their silent question with a grim shake of his head.

His mother pressed her knuckles against her lips, closing her eyes. "That poor girl," she breathed. "I can't imagine what she was thinking, running out into this awful weather alone. Anything could happen to her, anything at all, and her poor mother and father--"

"You know, I don't really feel a damned thing for her dad," Billie snapped. His mother looked as shocked as if he had slapped her. "You and Anna may think you know them pretty well, but I'm beginning to think there's a lot more going on over there than they want anybody to know. And if it's true, then I'd love to have five minutes alone with that bastard."

Anna and Ollie exchanged looks of disbelief. "Billie, that's a pretty serious accusation," his mother said quietly. "Don't say such a thing when you don't know if it's true."

"Maybe I can't prove it but I know it's true," he said, his lips thin and white. "And what I can't believe is that we've lived right beside them and never put it together and tried to stop him."

Anna started to answer, but the ringing of the phone interrupted her. She held it out to him, her hand over the receiver.

"It's for you, Billie. It's Lani. She said she only had a minute to talk to you."

It tugged at his heart--he wanted to hear her voice, let her sweetness soothe his nerves and calm his mind. She was somewhere secret, hiding from her father to steal a few minutes to talk to him, and it was like cool water to a parched and fevered brow.

"Lani?" he murmured, taking the phone around the corner into the dining room. "Hey, baby."

"Hi, Billie. My dad went outside for a few minutes, and I missed you so much I had to call you," she whispered.

He closed his eyes, and tried to summon her image in his mind as he listened. "I missed you, too. How you been?"

"Okay, I guess. Just lonely. I'm off restriction next Saturday--do you think you can come over?" she asked hopefully.

The thought of seeing her father again made him shudder, but he'd deal with it. "I'd like to see you keep me from it," he grinned. "Where would you like to go?"

There was a second of silence on the line before she answered, so softly he could barely hear her. "I think my dad's back, Billie. It doesn't matter to me where we go, I just want to be with you."

"I'll pick you up at four, then. Okay?" He hated rushing like this, feeling like a thief fearful of being caught in the act.

"I can't wait. I think about you all the time." She sighed, and it sounded like the wind through the trees.

It gave him goosebumps. They whispered hurried goodbyes, and when he lowered the phone into the cradle, he stood looking out at the lightning flashing across the sky. She was a few scant minutes away, and yet it might as well have been a thousand miles. But at least he knew that she would spend the night snug in her warm, soft bed, full from a hot supper and wrapped in clean, crisp sheets.

But where would Jasmine sleep, he wondered with a pang of guilt.