“Am I right?” I asked.
She took so long to answer, I began to wonder if she had even heard me.
The Cadillac moved steadily through traffic. The peephole showed me plenty of cars behind us. An old lady in a Volkswagen Beetle. A family in a van. A businessman in another Cadillacâmuch newer than this oneâtapping his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as he waited behind us for a light to change. All of these people in their own little worlds, and they had no idea there were three of us stuffed into the trunk of the Cadillac right in front of them. It made me want to scream in frustration. But I didn't want to give the lunatics inside the Cadillac
a reason to start firing bullets through the backseat into the trunk.
“Yes, you're right, Tyler,” Samantha finally said. “But I'm not sure it does us much good at this point.”
She explained. It took some doing, over the rumblings of exhaust pipes and through the stops and starts of the Cadillac as it moved through traffic. What she told us added to what I had already managed to guess.
The Youth Works kids were chosen to belong to the program if they came from single-mother homes and if they had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder.
Samantha said that most add kids were extremely bright. But because of various medical reasons, they tended to be hyperactive and had difficulty concentrating on one thing for any length of time. Sometimes ADD kids take medication, and it helps them focus.
Single mothers with add kids were usually glad to have someone help them. Not only that, these mothers often received payment for letting their kids attend. They were told that the money was part of the Youth Works
approach to helping kids in all areas of life. Youth Works wanted the kids to get better food and clothing at home. Because of the extra help and because of the money, the mothers didn't ask questions about the program. Especially since their kids came home from Youth Works calm.
The reason they were less hyperactive, of course, was the Kool-Aid. Or, rather, because of what was in the Kool-Aid.
The kids, as I had guessed, were part of an experimental program, run by a Portland company called Beckstead Pharmaceuticals. Although there was medication already available for add kids, Beckstead wanted to find faster-acting medication.
Samantha said that any pharmaceutical company that discovered a better way to treat ADD could make up to fifty million in profit in the first year alone.
New medications, however, have to be tested for years before the government approves them. Beckstead was in financial trouble and needed to get their new drug on the market much sooner. They didn't want to
waste time having the government test drugs that might not work. Instead they wanted to deliver something that would pass all tests as soon as possible.
That's where Youth Works came in. The kids came from backgrounds where parents would be unlikely to ask questions, where parents would not have the education or money to file lawsuits, even if they did suspect something was wrong. In fact, if a kid had a seizure, he wasn't allowed back to the program, just in case the parents started comparing stories and realized how unusual it was for so many kids to have seizures.
The seizures were the result of the experimental drugs in the Kool-Aid. Most of the kids were fine with it, but not everyone reacted the same way. Including Riley. Because of his allergies, he'd gone blind for nearly an hour when all it had done to me was make me tired and stiff.
To run the experiments, the kids were watched and tested before and after their snack break. Some got Kool-Aid with the drug. Some got Kool-Aid without it. Those
who did, however, usually calmed down. Riley and I had never noticed a huge difference in their behavior because we kept them running around playing street hockey.
Samantha, however, saw them everyday in several settings and did see differences.
She also knew about the number of seizures.
She knew the kids all had ADD, except for Ben, who wasn't really part of the program.
She had seen the blood tests given to some of the kids and heard the excusesâthat they were being tested for polio and other diseases that sometimes hit kids in poor neighborhoods.
She had begun to ask questions. But she had asked the wrong person. How could she know that Earl Chadley, the director of Youth Works, had received tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to allow the add experiment to continue?
When Samantha started asking questions, the two thugs in the front seat were brought in by Beckstead Pharmaceuticals. They had
kidnapped Ben, intending to scare Sam into silence before releasing Ben.
Because of me, however, the kidnapping had failed. Sam had asked a few more questions, which had led to the conversation I had overheard the afternoon I broke a window with my slap shot.
Even so, Samantha was scared enough to keep her mouth shut, and the program might have continued.
Except for one thing. Me and my big mouth. Me and my big mouth the afternoon I had marched into her office and demanded that she explain some things.
“A voice-activated tape recorder?” Riley asked as Sam told us how they had discovered my interest in the kids who were having seizures. “In your office, Sam?”
We had been in traffic for nearly twenty minutes. My body ached from bouncing around inside the trunk. My muscles felt cramped, my nose full of dirt. My skin was itchy too. I wondered if the trunk had bugs in it.
“That's what Ron and Louie, our two
friends in the front seat, told me,” Sam said. “A voice-activated tape recorder. When you think of all they have at stake, it shouldn't be a surprise. They needed to know everything that was going on around Youth Works. When Tyler barged into my office with all his questions, it didn't take them long to realize they needed to stop him too.”
“But why me?” Riley asked. “I didn't ask any questions.”
“You were at Youth Works with Tyler,” she said. “They didn't know if you knew anything. And for all they had at stake, they weren't going to take any chances.”
“They won't get away with this,” I said. “I already gave some of the Kool-Aid to Coach Estleman. The tests will show something was in there. And Coach Estleman knows the Kool-Aid came from Youth Works.”
“That's right!” Riley's muffled voice said. “Kidnapping us won't help keep this a secret! Once we explain that to Ron and Louie, they'll have to let us go. Otherwise, they'll be in even bigger trouble. I mean, it's one thing to throw a drug or two into some Kool-Aid.
It's another to haul people away in a beat-up old car.”
“Wrong,” Samantha said.
The way she said it sent chills down my hunched back. She spoke as if she had no hope.
“Look,” she said, “how do you think I know so much about all of this? Louie and Ron had a lot of fun telling me. They also told me about your Kool-Aid test. Do you think once they knew you were asking questions that they would take any chances at all?”
“Coach Estleman took the water bottle from my hand,” I said stubbornly. “And he's not part of this. He will get it tested.”
“Sure he will,” she said. “But it won't be the Kool-Aid they used on the kids. Beckstead Pharmaceuticals has connections everywhere. And they've been watching everything you do. They knew the KoolAid was going to a lab to be tested. They switched the samples.”
“Impossible!” I said
“Impossible? Your team doctor is a man named Crozier, right?”
“Right,” I said, suddenly feeling even worse, if that was possible.
“Just this afternoon Ron and Louie bragged about how they had broken into Crozier's office and made it look like a robbery. Only their real reason was to switch Kool-Aid samples. When the tests come back, they will show nothing unusual.”
“Great,” I said. I kept looking out the peephole of the trunk. It might not do me any good to know where we were going, but I was doing my best to figure it out.
“It gets worse,” she said.
“Worse?” Riley said. “I can hardly wait to hear this.”
“Ron and Louie told me that Beckstead is ending the program. They're going to stop testing kids at Youth Works and look for another place to start testing kids. We came too close to finding the answers.”
“You sure know a lot,” I grumbled.
“That's the worst news of all,” Samantha said. “They don't care what we know.”
“Your point?” Riley asked.
“Did they hide their faces from you?” she
asked him in return. “Are they worried you'll ever have a chance to testify against them in court?”
“No,” he said. His voice was small. He knew what she meant.
“You see,” Samantha said, “if they stop running the program at Youth Works, and if there is no drugged Kool-Aid around to show it was used in an experiment, nobody can ever prove that testing was done.”
“Nobody except for us,” I said. I winced as the Cadillac bounced through a pothole.
“Exactly,” she told us. “There was a reason they were happy to tell me everything. They know we won't have a chance to let anyone else know. I mean, there's a reason we're in such a junker.”
I didn't dare ask.
“If the car was newer,” Samantha continued, “it would cost them that much more when they drive it off a cliff into the ocean. Which is their way of making sure we keep our mouths shut forever.”
Well over an hour later we were still in the trunk. Through my peephole, I had watched the late afternoon light become dusk and then darkness. Since I had not been able to see the sun behind us, I knew we were driving toward the sun, which meant we were headed west, toward the ocean and a cliff. And a real long good-bye.
For most of that time, we had traveled on a highway, with the tires whining at high speeds on the pavement. There wasn't much traffic
on this highway. As evening approached, I had seen only occasional headlights behind us.
The Cadillac began to slow down.
“This isn't good, is it?” Riley said. “We've got to do somethingâbefore the cliff.”
I'd been thinking the same thing. But what? We couldn't kick the trunk open. If we tried, they would hear the noise, and they would be right there with the 45 Magnum and the switchblade. While I had been able to work my arms loose from under my body and I had fiddled with the trunk lock almost in front of my face, there seemed to be no way for me to open it. And again, they had the gun and switchblade.
Unfortunately, Riley was right. If the Cadillac was slowing down, it meant we were that much closer to the moment they would drive this car off a cliff.
I tried to remember what I knew about Oregon's geography. The Pacific Ocean was around eighty miles from Portland. If we had averaged fifty-five miles an hour since getting out of the city, it meant we were close. Too close.
The Cadillac stopped.
“Relax, guys,” I said. “Traffic light. We're in some town.” Through the peephole, I could see cars pulling up behind us. The cars were lit by streetlights.
What town? I wondered.
I got my answer at the next traffic light. Although I couldn't see much through the peephole, by pressing my head as close as possible, I was able to read some signs. I saw a motel. The Tillamook Motel.
I passed the information on to Riley and Samantha.
“Tillamook?” Samantha said. “That's almost at the ocean. I remember some beach towns north of here.”
“With high cliffs?” Riley asked.
“High enough,” she said quietly.
Riley didn't say anything until the next traffic light. “Well, Tyler,” he announced, trying to keep his voice cheerful, “at least I won't have to lie awake at night and worry if I'll go blind or if my heart will stop beating.”
“And I won't have to worry about getting cut from the Winter Hawks,” I said.
The Cadillac rumbled as it idled at the traffic light.
“Probably too late,” Riley said, “but I just thought of something. When you die, it's one thing or the other.”
“Do we have to talk about dying?”
Samantha said. “I'm scared enough.”“Unless we find a way to pop the trunk open when this car hits the ocean.”
“Thanks, Riley,” I said. “I was doing my best to ignore that.”
“That's what I mean,” he said. “I've always ignored the fact I would die. And that either God is really there, or he isn't. I'd never thought of that before. It's one or the other. And I guess I should spend some time thinking about it to at least make up my mind about what I believe before I die.”
I kept my eye at the peephole. If this was the last I would see of the world, I was going to be as greedy as possible and see as much as I could.
“Are you talking about God because you're scared?” I asked.
“Of course I'm not scared,” he said
sarcastically. “I look forward to drowning in a Cadillac. Especially an old ugly one.”
I saw a car a block away. At first I didn't want to believe what I saw. When it passed beneath the next street light, I saw the light bubble on top. It was a state police car.
I nearly shouted the good news to Riley and Samantha. Until I realized it wasn't good news. The troopers were right there, pulling up behind us, but there was no way we could get their attention.
I wanted to bang my head on the floor of the trunk. It would pop my stitches open, but who cared. This was like being on a raft in the middle of the ocean and watching search planes in the distance as they flew right by without seeing you.
The police car eased up closer. For a moment, I saw both officers' faces in the windshield. The driver was sipping from a coffee cup. The other had a half-eaten donut in his hand. Then the police car pulled up so close to the Cadillac's bumper that all I saw was the shiny silver grill.
“But a person might die any day, right?”
Riley was saying. “Like if you stepped in front of a bus. Or a drunk driver hit you. Or...”