The Reture of Luke McGuire

by Justine Davis

  "I think... this may have been just a misunderstanding," she was saying. "Can you hold off contacting the police until I can talk to the boy?"

  Mrs. Adams frowned, but after a moment agreed. "Since he didn't succeed, and he's known to you, then I suppose we can. Just please keep me posted."

  "I will," Amelia promised.

  They were outside, next to her car, before Luke trusted himself to speak.

  "You didn't have to do that."

  "Yes, I did."

  He shook his head. "He shouldn't have stolen from you."

  "If he did, you're right. But I don't recall David ever being around when I had the checkbook out. Besides..."

  She lowered her gaze, and Luke wondered what she'd been about to say. "Besides... what?"

  She took an unsteady breath. "I can't help wondering what might have changed if somebody had ever looked not at what you'd done, but why."

  After a moment during which he had to blink against a sudden stinging behind his eyelids, he reached out and lifted her chin with a gentle finger.

  "You," he said softly, "are amazing, Amelia Blair."

  Her eyes widened, and her lips parted for a quick breath. He resisted the urge to kiss her right there on the street, although it was difficult.

  "We have to find him," she said. "I just can't believe David would do that. There has to be an explanation."

  She was a lot more optimistic than he was. ' 'We haven't been able to find him yet, and he'll probably be hiding even deeper now. He's got to know the bank would report this."

  "But he only tried, he didn't actually do anything."

  "Only because the teller was on his toes," he pointed out. It felt odd, her being the one most strongly defending David, but he really was furious. "As far as I know, at­tempted forgery's a crime, too."

  She looked at him curiously. "Why are you so angry?"

  "You mean when it's no worse than some of the things I did?" he snapped.

  "I didn't say that." Amelia's voice was quiet, making his own snarling reply sound even worse.

  "I'm sorry," he said, ramming a hand through his hair. "He's my brother, and I want to help him, but damn it, why you? If he was angry enough to steal, it should have been from me. I'm the one he thinks let him down."

  At first she just looked at him, but then she smiled, a slow, small smile he could only call mysterious.

  "I'm sure he's not thinking that clearly," she said after a moment. "He's feeling deserted, abandoned, by his mother, then his father, and now you. So he's striking out blindly."

  His mouth quirked. "Been reading psychology books?"

  "On occasion. But this is just common sense. Besides, what do you have here to steal that he could get to? He could hardly ride your motorcycle away, and I don't think he's up to picking your pocket or breaking into your room."

  "Yet," Luke muttered.

  "We have to find him, Luke," she repeated.

  "I'm open to suggestions," he said. "I've looked every­where I can think of."

  "Then we'll look again. And I'll call your mother to make sure he hasn't turned up there."

  He grimaced. "You sure you want to do that?"

  "No, she's the last person I want to talk to right now. But this is for David."

  He had the thought later, as she was making me call from the new cell phone she'd gotten to replace the one stomped in the fight, that if she would go this far just for a boy she'd sort of taken under wing, what would she do for someone she really loved?

  Just about anything, he guessed.

  It was a novel idea to someone who'd lived his life as a nuisance, a hindrance and a general source of aggravation to the one who, according to tradition, should be willing to do anything for him.

  He didn't dare wonder what it would be like to be one of those Amelia loved and would do anything for.

  Moments later she severed the connection. "He hasn't come home. She's still going to call the police if he hasn't turned up by dark."

  "Okay, Amelia," he said. "We'll look again."

  * * *

  This wasn't, Luke thought dryly, what he'd hoped to be doing with her all afternoon.

  Of course, he hadn't expected her to say yes, either.

  It wasn't that he wasn't worried about David. He'd gotten over most of his anger, except that he still wanted to shake the kid for ripping off Amelia, of all people.

  It was just that he wanted desperately to explore the fire that blossomed between them every time they touched. And he felt guilty because he wanted to do that even more than he wanted to look for David. He wasn't sure they could find him, anyway; he knew that if the kid truly didn't want to be found, there were places where he could hide for days, even in Santiago Beach. He knew, because he'd done it. He'd checked all the areas he knew of, but there had to be more.

  But he would look. Because Amelia felt they had to. And he supposed she was right; he was just feeling a bit cranky about it.

  He followed her to her house, where he left his bike parked safely off the street, and then they took her car. She turned the wheel back over to him while she called all of David's friends she had numbers for. Sadly, as had happened before, they said only that they didn't see much of David anymore, since he'd starting hanging out with Snake's crowd.

  They checked the smoothie stand at the pier, the burger place on the coast road, the pizza place by the high school, not really expecting to find anything.

  They were right about that, Luke was thinking, when Amelia suddenly said, "What if we see Snake or one of his pack?"

  He'd thought about that and had a pretty good idea what he would do. "Wolves have packs, not snakes," was all he said.

  But Amelia studied him for a moment, then said, "Shall I take that as you planning to pry whatever they know out of them by whatever means necessary?"

  He shot her a startled glance. She looked back at him with an exaggeratedly innocent expression.

  "You," he said, "are dangerous."

  "Me? You're the dangerous one. Just ask anybody," she said sweetly.

  "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, but underneath the mock ir­ritation, he was delighted. She was actually teasing him. It must have been true, what she'd said, that she'd been drawn to him in spite of his reputation. And once he'd explained that the reputation no longer applied, she'd relaxed.

  And decided she wanted him.

  He was surprised he didn't grunt at the force of the need that suddenly cramped his body. His grip tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. He felt like he did when he shot over class five-falls; he was flying and not at all sure how he would land.

  Probably wrong, he thought dryly. At least on most falls he knew what he was headed for. These were unscouted rapids, and he had no idea.

  He hung on as they went from place to place, but his mind was barely on what they were doing. He kept having flash­backs of those moments in her office, wondering at how swiftly he'd been out of control and seconds away from taking her right there on her desk. He was on a slow, steady boil, until he was sure one touch, one trace of an echoing hunger in her eyes, and he would lose it.

  Think of something else. Anything else.

  He headed toward the downtown area, driving slowly, try­ing to think. It had been a long time since he'd had to think like a kid trying to hide, and things had changed around here in the past eight years. The old shoe store was gone, along with the hidden space under the stairway behind it, and the old, shut-down theater that had made a good hiding place if you could get in had been razed.

  Stopped at the Main Street signal, he tapped his fingers on the wheel, trying to use a teenager's logic. It hadn't been that long, after all. His mouth quirked. If David had been younger, he would have tried his early favorite, the place he'd had to quit using when he turned fourteen and grew nearly six inches over the summer.

  Grew nearly six inches.

  "Luke? Did you think of something?"

  "I think," he said, "I finally thoug
ht of something I should have thought of a long time ago."

  "What?"

  "Got a flashlight in the car?"

  "Yes, under the seat. Why?"

  "It'll help," he said as he maneuvered over to the right-turn lane, thankful for once for the town's relative lack of midday traffic. He turned onto Main and headed toward the library.

  Amelia looked at him as they pulled into the parking lot.

  "The library? Surely he wouldn't try to hide in there, would he? He must realize people will be looking for him."

  "Not in," Luke said. "Under."

  "What?"

  "I'm not sure if it's still there, but there was a crawl space under the building, in the back. Because it's on a hill, at one end it's high enough to sit upright. Up until I was fourteen it was, anyway."

  Amelia looked at him for a long moment. "And how much time did you spend there?"

  "A lot," he admitted. "And I kept it quiet. I knew they'd close the access if they knew. But then I grew about half a foot over one summer, and it got too cramped."

  Amelia thought about that a moment and arrived at the conclusion he had finally reached. "David's shorter than you."

  He nodded. "I should have realized it sooner," he said with disgust. "I thought about it when I first got back in town, but I'd sort of mentally crossed it off the list because at his age, I had to quit using it. I was thinking age, not size."

  "Do you think David could have found it?"

  "He already knew. I forgot until just now, but... I told him about it before I left. In case he ever needed a place..." Then, regretfully, Luke shook his head. "He probably forgot all about it."

  Amelia shook her head in turn. "I doubt he's ever for­gotten anything you told him." She looked at him curiously. "Did he know you were leaving?"

  Luke nodded. "I couldn't just go. I had to tell him. He started to cry, but... I hoped he'd understand later."

  "He did. Just like he'll understand this—later."

  He wished he could be as sure as she seemed to be.

  They walked around the back of the library. Amelia stared at the small opening, then at Luke. "Maybe I should do it."

  She stopped when he shook his head. "It isn't the Ritz in there, and unless you have a fondness for large spiders, you'd best wait here. I'll manage, it just won't be pretty."

  She shivered. "Spiders have their territory, and I have mine, and as long as we each stay where we belong, I don't mind them. I'm convinced. Go for it."

  "You'll have to play lookout for me," he said. "I don't want to have to explain to anybody what I'm doing."

  "I'll hold the cell phone to my ear, so nobody will feel compelled to come up and chat."

  He grinned at her, glanced around, and then knelt down to quickly pull the screen off the access hole. He considered whether to try feet first or headfirst; neither would be com­fortable or graceful, but headfirst might make it a bit easier to get his shoulders through. It was tight—had it once really been so easy?—but he made it.

  He flicked on the flashlight, sent it sweeping over the dark space. And then back, holding it steady on the spot he'd always used, where the hill dropped away and the floor was the highest over his head, making it seem more like a cave than a crawl space.

  Something was there.

  He scrambled awkwardly across the dirt and found an old, ragged blanket that looked a bit mouse-nibbled around the edges, and a baseball cap that looked nearly as old, if a little less dirty. A wrapper from a package of snack cakes and an empty fast-food bag completed the small stash. There was nothing else, no certain sign anyone had been there recently.

  He crawled back to the opening.

  "Amelia?" he whispered.

  "Sure, I can hang on a minute," she said.

  For a split second he didn't know what she meant, and then he remembered the cell phone. A second later he heard footsteps and couldn't help grinning at her cleverness.

  He waited, the footsteps faded, and then he heard her whisper, "All clear."

  He clambered out through the opening and quickly put back the screen. He dusted himself off as best he could, then stepped up to the sidewalk beside her.

  "Somebody's been there. There's a blanket and a baseball cap, and some junk-food debris. But it could be old, too." One corner of his mouth twisted wryly. "Heck, it could be mine, for all I remember."

  For a moment she looked as if she were seeing the boy he'd been, compassion softening her expression until his

  throat tightened.

  "What next?" he said rather abruptly, knowing that grab­bing her right there behind the library would really set the tongues of Santiago Beach wagging.

  "I thought of someplace else to look. The mall just put in an arcade. It draws a lot of kids. David isn't that into video games, but he might think it's a good place to go unnoticed."

  Luke nodded, and they made the trip nine miles up the freeway to the shopping mall. They found the arcade, packed with kids on this summer day, but not, at least now, David.

  From there they went to the park that had been vandal­ized, where kids were known to hang out behind the hand­ball courts. They found four kids sneaking cigarettes and a couple farther up in the trees smoking something more po­tent, but no David. And finally they went down to the state park south of town, where there were isolated coves and places to stay out of sight along the beach. They hiked for what seemed like miles but found no sign of one particular angry teenager amid the summer throng.

  "Now what?" Luke asked wearily as they sat in her car and watched the sun begin to set.

  "I'm really out of ideas," she said, sounding as tired as

  he felt.

  "So am I."

  Out of ideas about David, anyway, he added with silent ruefulness. He was still full of ideas about Amelia. And be­fore he did something stupid like voice some of them, when he had no idea if she was in the same frame of mind she'd been in at her office, he suggested they get something to eat instead.

  "Good idea," she agreed. "Maybe we can think of something once we have some food." She hesitated, then said rather shyly, "I have some spaghetti sauce and fixings for a salad, if you'd like to come back to the house."

  He considered that for a moment, fighting down the ride of possibilities that engendered. "That depends on why your place," he said.

  She looked puzzled. "I just thought it might be... quieter."

  "Not because you don't want to be seen with me any­more?"

  Her eyes widened. "Of course not!"

  It was swift enough, and just affronted enough, to reassure him. "Just checking," he said mildly.

  "I didn't care what anyone thought before, so I certainly wouldn't now that I know the truth!"

  He wanted to hug her. But he knew if he did, they would end up doing things there in her car that you usually left behind with your teenage years. At least, he had; he doubted if Amelia had ever done such things in a car.

  "I'd like that," he said simply.

  It was still light enough for him to really see her home this time, and all the profuse, bright colors of her garden. He suddenly thought that the wild palette was a sign of the fire she kept hidden, and that perhaps he should have real­ized that.

  The bright colors continued in the interior, blues, greens and bright yellow, with a touch of unexpected red that added punch. It was vivid and cheerful against the clean white of the walls, and showed the hand of someone who loved mak­ing a house a home. The furniture was comfortable and prac­tical, very Amelia.

  She seemed determine to avoid talking about David, and they said little as she fixed the meal. She put him to work shredding lettuce and slicing tomatoes, while she tossed mushrooms in the simmering sauce she'd taken from the freezer—she made huge batches at once, she told him, so she could have it whenever she wanted—gave it a stir and went back to preparing garlic bread.

  When he asked, as they sat down to plates giving off an aroma that made his stomach growl, she told him about the work h
er parents had done on the house and the rather grim, dark little place it had been before they'd started. Between bites, it took most of the meal.

  "They loved this place," she said when they were down to crumbs.

  "What about you?"

  She shrugged. "I like it, too. And since I was renting an apartment when my father passed, it seemed only logical to move back in. But in my mind, it's still their home."

  "You must miss them."

  "I do. A lot. But you go on, or you become a neurotic basket case. My parents wouldn't have liked that."

  She apparently decided that was enough talk about her. After they had cleared the table, and as they moved to sit on the bright blue sofa in the living room, she asked a ques­tion guaranteed to get him talking.

  "Tell me about your river."

  "The Tuolumne? It's the most amazing place," he said with an enthusiasm he didn't even try to hide. "There are places where you can't see a trace of civilization from the river. It's exactly like it must have looked to the first people who saw it. Only two departures a day are allowed, which keeps it that way. On a two-or three-day trip you can camp on a white sand beach under an oak tree, hike up to a water slide or a natural swimming pool. In high summer, it's like the water's heated."

  She smiled. "I expected to hear about rapids and water­falls."

  He lifted one foot and rested it on his knee. "Oh, they're there. It's one of the best all-around whitewater runs in the state, probably the country. Nemesis, Hells Kitchen, or the big one, Clavey Falls, and when you make it through, it's like no other feeling on earth."

  "I can't even imagine," Amelia breathed. "I mean, I've seen it on television, and it always looks so... crazy."

  "It can be. There's a place called Cherry Creek, on the upper Tuolumne, just outside Yosemite. It's the toughest stretch of class-five rapids that's run commercially. Drops an average of a hundred and ten feet per mile, two hundred feet in what they call the 'Miracle Mile.' A rafter died there, back in 1992. Took the center chute at the end by mistake and ended up overturned against Coffin Rock."

  Amelia grimaced. "Coffin Rock? How... picturesque."