Jay and Cole dug through the debris to get Spinner.
"Oh shit," he moaned as he looked at the damage to the car.
Spinner stood, took a couple stumbling steps to the car. "Oh, shit."
Kendra, who had heard the crash from the house, dashed in. "What happened?" she barked. "Are you all right?"
"The damn car got smashed!" Spinner shouted. He leaned on the hood, trying to stop his hands from shaking.
He was fixating on the car. The others might question his priorites at the moment, but for Spinner, focusing on the car was the one thing keeping him from falling apart. Otherwise he would be pissing and puking on himself in uncontrollable fear.
"Should we call a tow truck?" Jay asked, his first reflex to joke, to focus on the superficial.
"And get you to the hospital," Kendra said.
"I'm fine," Spinner winced.
"You did get clobbered by a couple hundred pounds of wall," Jay pointed out. "I'll drive you."
"No more than one hundred."
"Cole," Kendra asked, "Are you OK?"
Cole's head shot up, realizing he was expected to answer. "Yeah."
"He didn't get hit," Spinner said, then amended, "I don't think he got hit."
"Spinner, you're bleeding," Kendra pointed out.
Spinner swiped at his cheek. A welt formed below his eye.
"A screw. Or a chain link."
"I'll pull up my car," Jay offered. "It's parked down a way."
"I'm fine," Spinner insisted
"No one was there," Cole explained after Jay left. After they unsuccessfully tried to convince Spinner that he should go get checked up at the ER, Cole and Kendra returned to the kitchen. "But I think someone set up the accident before we went in there. They did something to the bike chain, and probably loosened the nails on the wall panel."
He stopped blabbering and sipped the water as Kendra directed. Kendra traced her finger around the rim of her own glass. The movements of her hand were sharp and agitated.
"This might be related to Spinner's fall in the lake," she said.
Cole had been thinking of the car's smashed windows his first day here. The accident at the lake, he now reasoned, could be connected as well.
Kendra stood. "I have to start calling for repairpersons," she said.
"What about your parents?" Cole asked.
"You're right. I'll have to ask them to transfer money to pay for all this damage."
That struck Cole as strange, that Kendra's parents would expect her and Spinner to pay for the garage. Maybe she just expected, in light of their vague explanation, that they would blame her. Cole could understand why she would not confide to her parents about her unusual trait; they generally discouraged confidences and instead advised their daughter and son to solve their own problems. He was grateful his mother, Lyn Sear, never had that attitude to that extreme. Though, like Kendra and Spinner, Cole was home alone a lot, it was only because of her work and her need to raise money for their ordinary expenses. Lyn always tried to make time for him several times a week, if not every day.
For once, Kendra did not worry about how Cole would interpret her avoiding calling their parents. She had a bigger problem on her hands.
"I think someone's after Spinner," she said.