“The messages. All of them on Mom’s Facebook. We hadn’t closed out my browser, so everything you entered was still there, and when I checked to see if Richard had answered, they were all gone.”
She ended on a sob, as though this had been their last hope of finding Mom. Her knees started to go out from under her, and she slid to the floor before he could get to her, crying like it was the end of the world.
Sixteen
Jared
He didn’t see Aaliyah at school the next day. Or the next. By Friday he was getting seriously concerned, approaching frantic. She couldn’t leave him too. Even if they couldn’t go out anymore, he needed to know she was all right. And that she didn’t hate him.
So when he saw her in the lunchroom, his gaze somehow zeroing in on her as he entered, even though she was halfway across the room from their regular table, he stopped so short that Dugan crashed into him from behind.
“What the hell, man?” he asked, giving Jared a push to move him forward.
Jared went with it, started walking again, straight in Aaliyah’s direction. He was nearly to her when he realized he hadn’t apologized to Dugan … and didn’t really care. Maybe later. Right now all he could think about was Aaliyah, who either hadn’t seen him or didn’t care.
He was a step away when she finally glanced up, totally startled, and then looked away again to his left. At nothing.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” she told the empty air.
“I was so worried. When I couldn’t reach you and you didn’t come to school—Are you okay? Is everything—” Okay, he was going to finish again, lamely, but she was already shaking her head.
“Mom and Dad want to homeschool me. They kept me home while they researched it. But with my accelerated schedule and my AP classes and the after-school activities to pad my college applications … They’re letting me come back, but with one condition. I have to stay away from you.”
Jared had thought it would be okay if he could just know Aaliyah was all right. But now that he knew … well, the relief at seeing her was a drop in the bucket compared to the pain of all the rest of it. She didn’t seem to hate him. That should count for something. But this—not even meeting his eyes and not fighting for him—this was hell.
“Aaliyah?” he said. Nothing else, hoping to make her look at him even for a second, just so he could see what was behind her eyes, hoping it was more than cold indifference. When she didn’t look up, he said. “Never mind. I’ll leave you alone. I’ve caused you enough trouble.”
It was the least he could do. He knew that. But it hurt like a hurdle to the chest.
He turned and walked away, headed for the food line, not because he was hungry, but out of habit. Besides, if he had food to stuff in his mouth, that might discourage Dugan or anyone else from asking questions.
He heard someone hurrying up behind him and almost didn’t turn. There didn’t seem to be any point, but a small hand on his shoulder had his heart leaping into his throat. Maybe it was Aaliyah. Maybe seeing him walk away …
But he turned to see her punk friend Maybell with the spiked hot-pink hair and the ripped Screaming Meemies concert shirt pinned to a tank top so it wouldn’t fall off one shoulder or another and violate the stupid school rules.
“Yeah?” he said, carefully neutral. Just because he deserved any lecture she could throw at him didn’t mean he was in the mood.
“It’s killing her too,” she said.
Jared felt a little of that compression to his chest start to ease.
“It doesn’t seem that way,” he answered.
“I never said this, okay? But I think she’s afraid that if she looks at you, she’ll cave. This is her whole future we’re talking about here. Her parents want to lock her up and throw away the key. That would kill her.” It was the second time she’d used that expression. Maybell was nothing if not dramatic. It didn’t mean she was wrong.
“So I’m just supposed to walk away?”
She shrugged. “For now. Maybe things will calm down and her parents will ease up. Or maybe you’ll find a way. But for now …”
“Will you give her a message?”
“I’m not going to be like that nurse from Romeo and Juliet. I’ve seen how that ends.” But she bumped his shoulder with hers as she said it, so he guessed he was supposed to smile, even if there wasn’t anything funny about it.
“Just tell her I’m sorry, okay? And that I’m here if she decides … whatever.”
“Got it. You have my number?”
Jared furrowed his brows. Her number? With him and Aaliyah just barely broken up?
She snorted at him. “Oh lord, you’re so not my type. I mean for Aaliyah. Look, I don’t promise you anything, but if you want to send her a message to my phone, I’ll make sure that she gets it. And if she decides she wants to answer, I’ll let her do that. Modern day carrier pigeon, that’s me.”
It was the best thing he’d heard all day. All week.
“Thank you,” he said, meaning it. “But why? I didn’t think you liked me all that much.”
She eyed him and shrugged again. All he could think was that it was a good thing the shirt with the torn-out neck had been pinned to her tank. Otherwise all that shrugging would certainly have thrown it off.
“You’re okay,” she said. “And I hate to see Aaliyah hurting.”
“That makes two of us.”
Jared rooted in his backpack for a pen and paper and took down the number Maybell gave him.
“My parents have my phone,” he said, “so the read-out might say Emily. That’s my sister.”
“Note to self,” she said, “don’t send any nip pics.”
Jared’s eyebrows must have risen all the way to his hairline.
“Relax,” she said, a wicked smile forming on her face. “I’m kidding.”
She walked away, leaving him to stare after her.
He was startled by a sudden slap on his back, and then Dugan’s voice, “Dude, you move fast. I didn’t think you were her type.”
Jared turned, rolling his eyes hard. “It’s not like that,” he said.
“Sure, sure. I didn’t hear that part about nip pics.”
“Oh, lord,” Jared groaned.
“Do you think they’re pierced?” Dugan asked, grinning from ear to ear.
“Dude, seriously?” he asked.
“What, like you’re not imagining it?”
“I have a girlfriend,” he answered, but it was automatic. He wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Okay, so you’re taken. You’re not dead.”
Jared just shook his head. Dugan wasn’t going to get it, and he wasn’t going to explain it to him.
But now he couldn’t even think about food. Or grabbing it for show to take back to the table with Dugan and their other friends. Any more comments or questions like that and Jared was afraid he might throw a punch.
He walked away. He wanted to walk straight out, even though he didn’t know where he’d go, but he got stopped by one of the lunch monitors. He mumbled something about being sick, and all she asked was whether he wanted a pass to the bathroom or the nurse. He wanted home, but that wasn’t an option.
“Nurse,” he said. There was too much left of lunch to wait out in the men’s room. The nurse was going to get tired of seeing him, but with his mother missing, he thought she’d understand.
There was no track on Fridays, and Emily was hanging out with her friend Shara after school, which meant it might be hours before she got home and he could check her phone. He could hunt down where Dad had stashed his stuff, use it to get on the web, search through Mom’s e-mails or past Facebook updates for clues. Maybe set up his own account to reach out to Richard Travis or try again to find a local listing for him—Emily had already gone looking.
Check news and hospitals for Jane Does, a part of his brain said, but he crushed that right down. The police would have checked the hospitals already.
His mind was like a pendul
um, swinging back and forth between something horrible has happened and she’s fine, everything’s fine, you’re overreacting. He wanted to stay on the side of the shiny and happy, but there really wasn’t one. Best-case scenario meant Mom had turned her back on them, but he didn’t believe it. Not after seeing her toothbrush and her laptop, not after she didn’t show up for her job or call Aunt Aggie. Not with the mysteriously missing messages.
He hated that he was afraid enough of his father not to hunt his things down. He didn’t know what kind of spyware Dad might have on the family’s internet.
Dad had said he couldn’t go running. Couldn’t leave the house except for track.
He’d taken away television with the rest of Jared’s electronics.
What did that leave him?
He could take a nap, but every time he laid down these days his brain tried to eat itself, gnawing on every fear like a dog with a big bone that wouldn’t grind down.
Well, he had an assignment for English he was already behind on. He wasn’t much of a reader to start with, and a historical novel would have been his absolute last choice, but he hadn’t been given one. At least A Tale of Two Cities was supposed to be about the French Revolution, so surely there’d be some action and stuff. But so far he hadn’t gotten past the beginning.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
What the hell? It was one or the other. No way it was both. Which meant the author was being poetic. Which meant an entire book of the writer saying what sounded pretty instead of whatever the fuck he meant. Jared hadn’t had a lot of patience for that crap even before his mother disappeared.
But what the hell else was he supposed to do?
Nothing.
Dad was boring him into reading.
Death by homework.
He went to his room, dug out the book, started reading, and got that nap in anyway.
He bolted awake when Emily got home, but was too groggy to meet her at the door. He did manage to stagger out to the kitchen, still half asleep, and ask to look at her phone. He might have greeted her first, he wasn’t sure.
“Geez, Jared,” she said, thrusting her phone at him, but not before looking at it herself. “Nothing new, okay?”
It wasn’t okay, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“You look like heck,” she said when he handed her phone back after checking just to be sure.
“Thanks,” he said with a glower.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean that to come out so strong. It’s just … are you sleeping?”
“Just woke up from a nap.”
“I mean at night.”
“Sometimes.”
They stood there looking at each other. It was Friday night and he had nowhere to go. No date, not even with himself to go jogging in the park.
As if she’d read his mind, Emily asked, “Do you want to play a game? Cards, like you used to play with me when I was little.”
Was she offering him a pity play date? Was he desperate enough to take it? The answer was yes, yes he was.
But he wasn’t going down that easy. “What game?” he asked, as though he might actually have better things to do.
“I don’t know, Garbage? Rummy, Nerts, War?”
“War,” he said. Although now that she was older, she might be fast enough to give him a run at Nerts. He smiled remembering the fun they used to have, even though playing with her always started out as a chore, just something to humor and entertain her.
“You’re on,” she said. “You get the cards; I’ll pop some corn.”
“Bossy much?”
Emily stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed. Actually laughed. It shocked him so much he nearly shut it down. He had no right to laugh when Mom was … wherever she was. But Emily needed normalcy, and so he let it die off naturally. Or maybe a little bit strangled, but she didn’t seem to notice over the crinkling of the popcorn bag as she put it into the microwave.
Her phone rang as she pushed start, so she answered it and then kinked her neck so that she could hold the phone between her shoulder and her ear while she grabbed herself soda from the fridge.
She stopped mid-turn with the soda bottle in her hand. “Yeah, he’s right here,” she said. “We’re about to play cards.”
She was looking at Jared now, and he saw her eyes go wide. He heard Dad’s voice coming through the phone, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. What the hell was going on?
“Um, okay. You do know we’re old enough to watch ourselves, right?” Pause. “Yeah. We’ll be here.”
She hung up and Jared immediately asked, “What?”
“Dad was checking up on you,” she said. “Or asking me to, which just sucks. Oh, and he’s bringing pizza and Gran tonight. He’s going out.”
Jared didn’t say anything, but inside he was seething. Mom was missing, his kids needed him—well, Jared didn’t, but any reasonable parent would assume otherwise—and Dad was going out? Out with the guys? Out on a date?
Dad didn’t really have guys.
“Out with who?” Jared asked.
“He didn’t say. Maybe it’s something for work?” But Emily was chewing her lip and thinking, seeming to have forgotten all about the soda she held in her hand. Behind her, the popcorn was going mad, pinging and popping all over the place, but when the microwave went off, Emily jumped.
She nearly dropped the soda, but she made a good recovery and set it down on the counter as she dealt with the popcorn. Jared went to help, getting out a bowl and opening the steaming hot bag so that Emily wouldn’t burn herself. In turn, she got out a second glass for the soda and poured him some too.
For the next half hour they played War and alternately ate and threw popcorn at each other. Like they were normal kids and this was a normal night and everything was normal. Like they were some kind of TV family.
It was nice.
Until Emily’s friend Shara called even though they’d just seen each other and she ran off to take the call in her room. They were nearly finished anyway. Jared had, like, seven cards left, and she had the whole rest of the deck. And that was that. He sat there playing solitaire for a while, but that got old pretty quickly and then he was back to staring at walls. Or taking another go at A Tale of Two Cities.
Or obsessing over whether or not he should ask Gran about whether she’d heard anything last Friday night. On the one hand, she was half deaf, so it didn’t seem likely. And even asking her would alert Emily. Gran tended to spend the whole evening with the television on at full volume. She’d never hear Jared unless he shouted, and then … Emily.
On the other hand, could he resist asking? She was a potential witness, and right now this was the only investigating he was capable of.
But was it worth the harm asking could do when she probably didn’t know anything anyway? Even if he could keep Emily from overhearing, Gran might mention the questions to Dad and then … what? What more could Dad do to him? He didn’t really want the answer to that.
He tried to keep it in, but all night, all he could think was What did you hear? What did you hear? It repeated in his head all through the pizza Gran made them eat in the kitchen, through the game shows she seemed to find any hour of every day, which she let him and Emily watch with her even though he wasn’t supposed to have TV, because it was the way they spent time together. Finally, Emily excused herself for the bathroom or escape, she didn’t specify.
He saw his moment coming. He waited while Emily leaned across the easy chair to kiss Gran on her papery cheek. As she pulled back, Gran took both her hands with a squeeze and a smile and declared her, “Such a lovely girl.” Then she let her go.
He waited until he heard a door close down the hall and then he waited still longer for a commercial. He knew better than to reach for a remote while Gran’s show was still on, but to his shock, Gran beat him to it. The remote was in her lap, after all, so she didn’t have as far to go. She turned the sound so far down it might as well be off
.
“What’s this I hear about you getting arrested?” she asked, twisting in her chair to fix him with a look.
He hadn’t been the only one waiting for Emily to leave in order to pounce.
He pulled back in shock. “Um, not arrested, actually. Just … questioned.”
“Were you handcuffed?” she asked.
Oh, hell. “Yeah.”
“What? Speak up.”
Was it her hearing or did she just want to hear him say it again? “Yeah,” he repeated, louder.
“Did they put you in the squad car?” she asked. “Read you your rights?”
Crap. “Yeah.”
“Did they drive you to the station and put you in an interview room?”
“Okay, yeah, but—”
She stopped him with a look like she was a bird of prey set to peck out his tongue if he continued. “Then you were arrested.”
“Okay, so I was arrested,” he said. “But they let me go.”
Gran shook her head. “Jared, I love you, but you’re impetuous, a hothead. I understand that you want to do something. But you’re only getting into trouble and causing grief for your poor father. He’s going through enough. Your mother is gone. If she wanted anyone to go after her, she’d have left a forwarding address.”
“Did Dad ask you to talk to me?” Jared asked, suspicious.
Gran blinked her bird-of-prey eyes. “Do I need to be told what to do?”
Uh oh.
“No, I’m just saying—don’t you find it weird that she’s missing? That she didn’t go back to her job or apartment? We were the last people to see her.” Dad was the last person to see her. “Maybe you saw or heard something that can explain why she’s gone?”
There, that seemed subtle enough. He didn’t ask, “Did you hear a fight?” “Did Dad do something to Mom?” “Is she ever coming back?”
“We were right here in the same house,” she said. “Your mother came, went to dinner with your father and left. I was sound asleep by that point. We all were.” But those eyes, still sharp, if a little more faded than they used to be, bored right into him as if looking for some kind of flaw or giveaway on that last bit. Or maybe that was Jared’s guilty conscience. Not that he had anything to feel guilty about, except pretending to be asleep when Dad came to check on him. Unless it was suspecting his father of … He could hardly bring himself to think it. Not murder, maybe, but an accident? Something he covered up out of fear. Whatever it was, Jared had to know.
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