“I can afford it.” Hudson shrugged and took another big, crispy bite of his apple. He wiped his chin with the back of his hand, while Oakley’s eyes grazed his lips in motion. She shook off the kiss-thoughts that followed. “I’ve got a lot of cash.”
“Yeah, right.” Oakley had humored him yesterday when he offered to pay for her boots. No way a guy who’d been off the grid for twenty-three years could have a bank account anywhere still in operation. Except maybe in his imagination. He’d already lost so much—friends, and now probably his family, too—she had hated to pop his bubble at the shoe store, so she’d left it alone. Maybe she’d have to break it to him now.
“No, seriously. If we are going to hire a private eye, I can totally afford it. I am, er, was, a musician with two number one songs, after all.”
“By now that money has evaporated, for sure, Hudson.” Oakley had no idea about the statute of limitations or whatever on abandoned bank accounts, but when Sherm got home, she’d let him be the bearer of the bad tidings. “It has a way of doing that.”
“Not this money.” He tugged Oakley to her feet. “If your mom will let us borrow her car, we can go get it.”
“What are you talking about?”
Excited almost to the point of babbling, Hudson didn’t answer that question. “I’m guessing my family wouldn’t have left the Seattle area. All our relatives live near there. Even if there’s nothing on the not-so-magical internet, we can still give an investigator a lead or two. I can give the guy my grandparents’ address, and … Wait. Or I could just get in touch with them and we can do this ourselves.” His eyes were alight. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first thing.”
“Hudson—” Oakley had already dug up information on his grandparents. She just hadn’t wanted to break the news to him. Now she’d have to. “About your grandparents …”
His excitability evaporated like steam in a hot desert. “Don’t tell me.” He could obviously read the pity on her face. “They’re gone.”
She bit her lower lip and nodded. “I’m so sorry.”
Hudson fell onto a bar stool at the kitchen counter. “They were good people. I probably hurt them, too, when I cut ties with Mom and Dad.”
Sometimes there were consequences in life, unintended ones. Oakley had caused some, and reaped some from the decisions of others.
“We’re going to find your family.” She put a hand on Hudson’s shoulder. “I’ll check my bank account and see how much is left in it. With what I think is in there, we can afford one of the less-pricey guys.”
Mom had always threatened her not to touch it until college began, since she’d been too destitute to attend college herself as a girl.
“I won’t tell Mom right away. She’ll understand. Family is the most important thing.”
“Yeah.” Hudson frowned at his shoes. Then his chin snapped upward. “What? No. You aren’t getting your college money out. Seriously. I have money. A lot of it.”
At this, Oakley had to at least try to believe him. “Where? Where do you have money?” Oakley shook her head slowly, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t hate me for telling you this, but if it’s in an account somewhere, I’m sure that after all this time it’s been cleared out. That’s what I meant by it tends to disappear.” She might as well tell him the sorry truth.
“It’s not in an account.” Hudson shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Believe me.”
Not in an account? Well, that made a difference. Maybe. For the first time, Oakley was ready to suspend disbelief and listen to Hudson’s claims of being rich, rich, rich! Up to now, she’d been as skeptical as one of the Populars eyeing Oakley’s shoes.
“A few weeks before our last concert, when I started getting worried about the album—in fact, I started getting worried about everything—I started reading end-of-the-world magazine articles along with Al, and we started talking about how to survive an apocalypse.”
“Uh, hate to break it to you, but all those apocalypse worriers don’t believe cash will be worth anything if the End comes.”
“True. I figured that out later, when we read another article. By then, I’d already done something to protect all but a few thousand dollars from my bank account.”
“Like, put it in a safe deposit box in a bank?”
“Those articles didn’t trust banks.”
Of course not. “So, where is it?” Maybe she shouldn’t be prying, but he did seem to want her to take him to his secret stash of cash which may or may not exist.
“Not far from here, actually.” He spun an apple from the wire mesh fruit basket on the countertop. “If it’s still there, which I’m sure it is, we can afford a full-time private investigator.”
Sure, they could. Oakley’s mind went through the machinations of what he could be talking about. Had he left it with someone? Why, after more than two decades, would someone still be keeping it safe for him? They wouldn’t. The end.
“Why did you hide money?” Oakley took an apple, too, but she ate hers. “I mean, most people keep it in a bank.”
Hudson stilled. The apple stopped spinning. “I—I don’t know, really. Call it a hunch.”
“A hunch.”
“You know, a gut feeling. One of those things you can’t explain but that nags at you, and then you finally follow through, and then you feel peaceful but you have no idea why.”
After thinking about it for a second, Oakley realized she did understand a hunch. She’d followed one when she’d felt like she should look in the Portland newspaper at Board & Brush the day she first saw the advertisement for auditions for The Next Radio Star. It had been like the newspaper had called to her with a siren song until she picked it up and opened it.
Still, she doubted the money would still be where he’d left it. “Money is slippery.”
“Maybe. But I still want to go check on it. The sooner we go, the sooner we can hire a private eye, and the sooner we find my parents.”
That was true. “I’ll ask Mom if we can use her car.”
“This might be more of a truck situation.”
“Sherm has a truck.” In came Mom, her arms laden with kindergarten art projects. “He’ll be fine if you want to borrow it, so long as you’re a safe driver.” She angled an eyebrow at Hudson.
What? So she was loaning Sherm’s fancy truck to Hudson? She trusted his driving more than Oakley’s, her own daughter’s?
“As soon as he gets back, okay?” Oakley begged. “Hudson needs to find his parents.”
Mom nodded gravely. “I wish my searches had netted something.” She grimaced. “I even contacted the police.”
“Police!”
“Sure, but they couldn’t help.” She set down her pile of art projects, every color of construction paper known to man stacked high and wrinkled with too much Elmer’s glue. “Sorry. I’m feeling thwarted. When Sherm gets home, we can try again.”
“When is that going to be, Mom?”
She sighed. “When the trial ends, or the clients settle out of court. So who knows. It’s always unpredictable.” She went to the fridge and pulled out a bag of grapes, offering some to Oakley and Hudson. “But if you have places to go, you can borrow my car.”
“We’d like that, Stacey.”
“Yeah, Hudson needs to get some closure.”
“Going to the crash site?” Mom said, her hand dropping from the bag of grapes. “I figured. I know you’ll want the closure. Although, from my research, I’m afraid the crash site won’t give it to you.”
“Mom, not the conspiracy theories. Let’s just put those to rest.”
Mom pushed the bag of grapes aside, defensiveness rising in her tone when she answered, “They’re not hokey. Someone crashed that plane on purpose.”
“Mom.” Oh, why had Oakley brought up the drive to the Gorge with Mom in the room? She should have seen this coming. “If it hadn’t been stormy, that might be a valid theory.”
“Then how do you explain the location of pilot Manny Villa
lba’s body?”
Hudson cocked his head to the side. “What are you talking about?”
“He wasn’t in the pilot’s seat.”
They exchanged glances, and Hudson had a sick look on his face. Oakley needed to change the subject, to save Hudson from this wrenching.
However, before she could think quickly enough to change topics, Hudson startled Oakley to her very core by saying, “I think it might be my fault that Nick, Chris, and Al are dead.”
Scene 9: “Inconsolable”
The next day, after Oakley’s church ended, they were driving to the Gorge. Oakley had spent the last ten miles trying to figure out how to change Hudson’s mind. “There’s no way you are at fault for the other guys’ death.”
It was late in the afternoon, and the sun would be going down soon.
“You can’t deny one fact: the crash happened very soon after I told Roman I thought his lyricists were bad.”
“Are you saying you think Roman crashed your plane out of spite at your disagreement with his choice of lyricists? Because that wouldn’t make sense.”
“No, no. Roman would never. We were like nephews to him.”
“Well, there’s a huge difference between causation and coincidence, Hudson. It was a rainy night. The routes were even changed for the flight.”
This conversation had been going on ever since last night when Oakley first heard his guilt talking. Make that shouting. Survivor’s guilt was real, and she was getting a huge eyeful of it firsthand.
“What would have made Roman line up bad lyrics for you, though? It doesn’t make sense.”
Hudson gripped the wheel harder as they entered a narrower part of the road. “I don’t know.”
“Was he getting along with the execs at the label? Were there financial troubles at the company?”
Hudson shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
Speculation was useless, but Oakley couldn’t help trying to put together the puzzle pieces.
“Thanks for making this trip with me.” Hudson sat at the wheel, his eyes on the road ahead. “After clawing my way out of this canyon, I didn’t think I’d ever want to come back here. Thanks for helping me see that I needed to.”
After his comment about being the cause of his band mates’ deaths, Oakley’s understanding had kicked into high gear. Oakley couldn’t let Hudson go another night without seeing the crash site, considering the way his mind was obviously creeping. Getting some closure, finding a sense of peace at what happened to his friends, was more important even than finding his family, she could tell. The crash, of course, most definitely wasn’t his fault. Somehow, this trip had to convince him to believe that.
“It’s been a while, but I’ve been here pretty often.” She had studied the scrapbook’s clippings all night, and a few memories flowed back to her from being a kid. A lot of things pieced together. She knew the way to the Gorge, no problem, and Mom made sure they took a map and a few other precautions, like flares and hiking equipment, plus extra food. Oakley had protested that it was a half-hour drive up the river, but Mom insisted. “I can show you some of the places.”
“I can’t believe your mom offered to let me take her car.”
“I can.” But only because Oakley had seen how adults couldn’t seem to deny Hudson any request—Mom least of all. Hudson had only to turn on one of his boyish grins and Mom or school teachers or anyone would be like, Can I give you a million dollars? Or worse. At least Mom’s crush seemed to have mellowed. It didn’t hurt that Oakley had reminded her that Sherm could come home at any minute. Bringing up Sherm all the time had helped. “She really cares about you.”
A little thought whispered, And she cares about you, too. Oakley harrumphed in silence. If Mom really cared, she would have told her about Derek Marsden a long time ago.
But she hadn’t. She was too ashamed. Oakley thought about the things that made her ashamed, things she hadn’t shared with Mom. Things like being called Shoe Girl at school for the past year or so. Her face burned with the realization that she’d kept the distance between them wider than it needed to be.
We’re more alike than I want to admit sometimes.
“She’s pretty great,” Hudson said as they drove through the pretty autumn trees.
“Yeah.” Oakley had watched Mom get a little wobbly in her sanity after the trip out to the oak tree with Hudson, but it had passed. Thank heavens. Sherm had called to video chat, and that had steadied her again.
Sherm made Mom normal. Even if Oakley couldn’t help fantasizing about the man who might be her father—whom she knew as Ranger Derek Marsden now, and could actually finally picture, complete with his light green shirt and dark green pants and flat-brimmed suede brown hat—she had to admit Sherm did a good job as a place-holder and mom-stabilizer.
Still, I wish I could meet my dad. Sometime. Not knowing him, seeing his personality, his likes and dislikes and their connection to her, had left a gouging hole in Oakley that maybe no one could ever fill. Mom had said she wanted it to just be the two of them, but she’d grown up with two parents, at least for her childhood, so she hadn’t known how it felt to have that missing piece.
I’m going to find him sometime. When those words went through her mind, she shivered, like she knew they were true.
Hudson parked, and they hiked down through a bunch of brilliantly colored autumn trees to the river bank. Rushing water, singing birds, and the smell of a distant campfire filled Oakley’s senses.
“This is the best trail from the crash site.” Oakley walked toward the stand of trees that now stood where Mom had studied the area so many times in the past. She’d talked to her before they left for this drive, and Mom had given Oakley more details than she could manage, but now that they were here, that information really did seem to help orient her on the rocky-strewn shore of the river. “Did you hike up through here? Do you remember?”
Hudson was looking at everything, his eyebrows pressing together, a frown on his face. His friends had died here, so of course he would be less than light-hearted. She gave him a minute to look around.
This had to be where the beach vigils had taken place over the years, and where, according to the scrapbook’s info, the fans had planted three trees for each lost guy. Twelve trees. But there should only be nine.
“This is where they think the plane went down,” she said after a minute. “Do you remember any of that?”
Slowly, he shook his head, puzzlement and deep thinking evident in his face.
She paused, almost afraid to ask her next question. “Were you … in pain?”
He looked up quickly. “I didn’t crash.”
“What do you mean?” Oakley dropped his hand, which he’d been holding ever since they left the car. “You were on the plane. Or— did you parachute out?” He’d said something about a parachute. She tried to remember. “You saw a parachute when you looked out the window before the crash, right?”
Hudson nodded, and Oakley’s mind pieced together the puzzle. Maybe he’d seen himself in his mind’s eye, parachuting. All the other passengers had been killed. Maybe the parachute caught the time wave’s crest, or whatever. Otherwise, where had it ended up?
“I—no.” Hudson found a big rock and sat down on it, looking at the ground. “I was on it. I saw Manny’s parachute.”
“You did? The pilot’s?” Oakley caught her breath. What kind of pilot jumped and didn’t get the passengers off? Anger swelled in her—and sympathy for Hudson, who must have seen the plane’s descent and felt that awful g-force in his stomach as it dove. How horrifying. “So you knew it was inevitable that …”
Hudson only breathed the next word: “Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry.” Oakley’s heart pounded, vicariously experiencing what Hudson must have been feeling—what? A couple of days ago by his perception? The trauma must be fresh. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you here. Do you want to leave?”
“No, no.” Hudson looked up. “I need to see it.”
“We weren’t on our usual jet, the one the record label let their biggest stars travel in. Because we only had a puddle jump, Roman said, from Portland to Seattle, we were on a small plane instead. Roman changed it after our fight earlier in the day.”
“Maybe it was the combination of the unfamiliar plane plus the storm,” she said. What Oakley really wanted to ask was even if he hadn’t felt the impact of the crash, whether he’d felt himself … disappear.
“I know you say it’s coincidence, not the cause, but I keep coming back to the fact that it all happened right after my disagreement with Roman about the lyrics.” Sitting himself down on a different boulder, this one with room for two people, Hudson frowned. “I was so mad about the tour and how the audience had reacted at the Portland concert, that I complained about how the label was treating us. Honestly, we’d been their gravy train for the past half a year or more. Do you know how much money those two singles made?” He let out a low whistle. “If I had all that cash, could buy you a lot of boots, my dear.”
His dear? She’d have to think about the implications of that phrase later, because Oakley’s burning question couldn’t wait.
“Can we go back to something?” She sat down beside him on the boulder and hugged her knees up against her chest. The cold of the rock seeped through her jeans into her bottom. She should have brought a blanket from the trunk of the car. “What did you mean when you said you weren’t in the crash?”
Hudson shrugged. “I don’t really know.”
“Just … tell me.” Why she needed the details so much, she didn’t want to say. But it was so she could tell her mom that Hudson hadn’t been in unbearable pain. Even though Mom obviously knew it now, that he was alive, and that she’d found him after all these years and all that effort, that Hudson was physically okay, she would want to know that he hadn’t suffered in the crash. That would make a difference to her. “I guess I pictured you going down with the plane.”
My 90s Boy Band Boyfriend: A YA Time Travel Rockstar Romance (Teen Queens Book 2) Page 15