by Tracy Deebs
“I don’t know. I wasn’t going in order, so I didn’t pay much attention.”
“You need to figure it out. We have to assume that everything your father did was for a purpose. If we figure out what that reason is, we’ll be able to beat the game.”
“So what? Who cares if we win if there’s nothing left to save?”
I know he wants to argue with me, but I guess I look about as irrational as I feel, because he doesn’t say anything else. Just waits patiently as I pull out the photos and start to sort through them one more time.
I go slowly, focused on getting the order right so I don’t have to do this ever again.
It hurts to look at them, but I force myself to do it. It’s not like Theo has asked that much of me. I can put most of the pictures in the order they came in on the website, but I get stuck when I’m down to two spots—the fourth and seventh. “I don’t know which of these is the one we need.” I turn the last two photos so he can see them.
Theo looks at the photos for a minute, then asks, “Does it snow in Albuquerque?”
“Sometimes. Not very often, though.”
“And probably not this much, right?” He holds up a picture of my father and me building a snowman. We’re standing in front of a huge field with a WELCOME TO THE WILLOWS sign in front of it.
“So, we’re going to say that this is not the Albuquerque picture.” He puts it in the seventh spot, and we both stare at the only photo that’s left.
I’m about five, and I’m sitting on my dad’s shoulders. We’re standing in front of some strange piece of equipment that looks like it belongs in Area 51 rather than the middle of Albuquerque. But the thing is, the longer I stare at it the more I’m certain that I remember the day this picture was taken. When I saw it on the computer, I was struck by how happy my dad and I looked, but now that I’m studying it, I realize it was more than just keeping up appearances for the camera. We were happy that day. Very happy.
“This is Albuquerque,” I tell Theo, tapping the photo like it doesn’t hurt me just to touch it. “We drove up from Austin to visit his friend, Dr. Susan. She’s the one taking the picture.”
“Dr. Susan? She’s a doctor?”
“Not a medical one. She specializes in solar energy. That’s a solar cell behind us. It’s part of a solar array.”
“Do you remember Susan’s last name?”
“I don’t think I ever knew it. But I remember she was associated with the University of New Mexico. We went to her office there once.”
Theo reaches for his backpack, pulls out his laptop, and starts to open it. I can tell the exact second he remembers that there’s no point. He puts the computer on the floor and then rests his head in his hands. “You know, we’d be done with this whole scavenger-hunt thing if we had access to Google.”
“I think he was counting on us not having that access.”
“I know, I know. So there has to be another way to figure this out. We just have to think outside the box.”
“We can’t call the university,” I tell him. “And we can’t afford to waste gas driving out there in case that’s a dead end.”
“It’s not a dead end, but I agree. That picture wasn’t taken on a college campus. So how do we—”
“You could read the name on the equipment,” Eli says from behind me. He’s dressed in only a towel, and as he braces a hand on the table on either side of me, he smells lightly of oranges. He points at the very bottom of the equipment, to the gray-on-gray lettering I hadn’t even noticed but now can’t believe I missed.
“Orinoco. But isn’t that just the brand name?” I ask.
“No,” Theo says. “He’s right. You said she was a research scientist. What if this was her baby? What if she works for Orinoco?”
“Are they a New Mexico company?”
“I have no idea. But I know how we can find out,” Eli says. He crosses to the nightstand, opens the top drawer, and pulls out a very battered phone book. “It turns out they do still make them.”
Within minutes, we’re all staring at an address for Orinoco Solar Energy. Could it be this easy? I wonder, as I copy down the address. And if it is, what are we supposed to get out of it? I mean, what’s the point? I’m confused, but that could just be because I’m exhausted. If I don’t close my eyes soon, I’m going to drop where I stand.
Theo goes to take a shower, and Eli and I spread out dinner on the small dining table. We have crackers, the fresh cheese I bought today, honey, the pecans, bottled water, and peaches.
We also have a chocolate bar for dessert. I break it into three equal pieces and divvy them up on paper towels. Then I devour my piece.
Eli laughs and hands me his section. “If you like it that much, enjoy.”
I can feel myself blushing as I wonder if he thinks I’m a total pig. “No, it’s fine. I’ve just always liked to eat my dessert first.”
“Well, now you can eat mine first, too.” He breaks off a chunk, then taps my lips with it. “Open up.”
I laugh and let him feed me, closing the chocolate behind my lips. But it feels weird, especially when he runs his thumb over my mouth. I pull away, reach for the water and take a swig.
“Are you thirsty?” I ask, holding the bottle out to him.
“Sure.” He reaches for it, and his fingers brush against mine. I think he’s going to say something else, but Theo chooses that moment to walk out of the bathroom.
“We need to decide who’s sleeping first,” he says as he walks up to the table. He’s dressed in a T-shirt and athletic shorts that show off his huge biceps and supertoned legs.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to bed as soon as we eat,” Eli says right before he shoves a whole cheese-and-cracker sandwich in his mouth.
“That’s fine. I’ll stay awake and keep watch.”
“Watch? Over what?” I swear I spend half my time trying to keep up with Theo’s thought processes, and I fail every time.
“The van. This obviously isn’t a great hotel, and I’m afraid if we don’t keep an eye on the van, it won’t be there in the morning.”
“Are you kidding me? Look around, man.” Eli sweeps his arms out wide. “We’re practically the only people in this whole place.”
“That doesn’t mean people aren’t trolling.” Theo eyes him steadily, and I find myself wondering what he’s thinking. Eli’s easy to read—he wears his emotions close to the surface. But Theo, he’s harder. I never can tell what’s going on in that massive brain of his.
“Everything we currently own is in that van. We can’t afford to lose it, so we need to take three-hour shifts watching over it.”
I want to groan—just the idea of staying up another three hours makes my head throb. But at the same time, I think Theo might be right. Do I really believe anything’s going to happen? No, but I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“I’ll take the first shift,” I volunteer, even as my stomach churns. I’m so tired that I’m nauseated, and I’m not sure how I’m going to last another three hours without sleep. I’ll have to, though.
“Don’t worry about it, Pandora. I’ll take the first shift. You can do the second, and Eli will do the third.” Theo’s voice is as calm as always, but there’s an underlying steel to it that makes Eli stiffen. I’m afraid he might argue, but in the end he just shrugs.
“Sure, whatever. As long as I get some sleep beforehand.”
We finish dinner in silence. There doesn’t seem to be much else to say, after all.
As soon as the food is cleared away, Eli stretches out on the bed closest to the door, while I lie down on the other one and pull the covers over me.
The last thing I’m aware of is Theo fiddling with the radio, trying to find out something new. Something more. I fall asleep before he settles on a station.
25
Day Four
I wake up shivering, curled into a ball with my arms wrapped around myself. I reach for the covers, but they’re not there—wh
ich I think is strange, at least until I roll over and realize that Eli is stretched out next to me, and has all the covers wrapped around himself.
I kick him, hard, and when he yelps, he loosens his grip on the blankets long enough for me to grab the covers and pull them back over me. I’m not ready to get up yet and am grateful I don’t have to. The sky outside the dusty motel window has barely begun to lighten, which means it’s still early. Thank God.
I did my shift from two to five this morning, and nearly froze as I huddled by the window, listening to the radio and messing around with the last couple of levels of Pandora’s Box—just in case we missed something—until it was time to wake Eli up.
I stretch out and try to go back to sleep, but I can’t. There’s a little voice in the back of my very drowsy brain nagging at me, telling me that something’s wrong. I can’t quite put my finger on it, though, at least not until Eli rolls over and puts an arm around my waist. His face is close to mine now, and I can hear him snoring softly in my ear.
And that’s when it hits me. Eli. In Bed. With Me. His hand shifts, tries to scoot up my stomach to my chest, and I grab his thumb, bend it back.
He howls and yanks his hand back to his side of the bed, but I’m already up, poking at him. “What are you doing? It’s only six thirty! You’re supposed to be awake!”
“What are you talking about?” He shoves his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes, then stretches.
“It’s your turn to take the watch!” I shout at him, and Theo stirs in the other bed, mumbles a protest.
“It’s fine.” Eli sounds irritated now as he reaches for the covers, pulls them up to his chest.
“But you promised! It’s your turn,” I repeat. I’m talking to myself. Eli’s already asleep.
“Damn it!” I’m furious as I storm over to the window to check the van. It’s bad enough that he shirked his duty, but now where am I supposed to sleep? There’s no way I’m crawling back into bed with him when he’s half-naked, and I’m not getting into bed with Theo, either. No way.
I glance down at the parking lot, then do a double take. Rub my eyes. Am I remembering something wrong? Is the van parked in a different spot than I think it is? I scan the area, but it’s empty except for a rusty old Camaro.
Panic makes my heart beat double-time as I walk back over to the bed and shake Eli awake. “Hey, did you move the van?”
“Forget about the stupid car, Pandora. Come back to bed.” He buries his face in a pillow.
“Eli! Listen to me! Did. You. Move. The. Van?”
“What? No.” He’s annoyed, but also a little worried as he rolls over to look at me. “Why?”
“Because it’s gone!”
“Yeah, right, Pandora. I’m not in the mood to be screwed with.”
“Well, then I guess you should have stayed up.” I turn away to wake Theo.
Eli springs out of bed, then storms over to the window. “This better not be a joke, because it isn’t—”
He stops midsentence. Blinks a few times, then rubs his eyes just as I did. Looks again. “It isn’t there.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
I shake Theo awake. It takes a few seconds, as he’s dead to the world, but eventually he opens his eyes. Unlike Eli, he’s alert as soon as he sees the look on my face. “What’s wrong?”
“The car’s gone.”
“What?” He shakes his head, like he can’t quite make sense of what I’m saying.
“The van? You know, the Odyssey? It’s gone. Eli fell asleep and someone stole it.”
Again, there seems to be a time lapse between when I speak and when my words register with Theo. But as soon as they do, he’s out of bed and standing next to Eli, staring down at the empty parking lot like he’s never seen one before in his life.
“What the hell happened?”
Eli shrugs, looks away. “I fell asleep.”
“You fell asleep?” Theo’s voice is dangerously low now, and I take a step back. I’ve never heard that tone from him before, and it sets every nerve ending in my body on alert.
“Yeah. I screwed up. Sorry.”
Except he doesn’t look very sorry, and I can tell that it’s getting to Theo. I know it’s getting to me. He’s ruined everything and he doesn’t even seem to care. “What are we going to do?”
I’m asking Theo, but he turns to his stepbrother, an annoyed scowl on his face. “Yeah, Eli, what are we going to do?”
“Hey, lay off! I didn’t do it on purpose.” He turns away, heads back to bed, and Theo snaps. He shoves him, and Eli stumbles. Hits the bed hard.
He comes up pissed, his hands clenched into fists and an ugly look on his face. “Don’t you fucking touch me!”
“Or what?” Theo demands. “You think you can take me? You can’t even stay awake after six hours of sleep—which was a lot more than Pandora or I got when we did what we were supposed to.”
“Yeah, well, we can’t all be you, Theo. We’re not all early-acceptance Harvard-bound idiots who think we’re better than everyone else. So get over it.”
“Look, I know you’ve taken screwing up to a whole new level, Eli, and I can appreciate that. But I’m not your father and this isn’t your safe little world where nothing ever touches you. This is the real world, and you didn’t just make a mess of your own chances here. You completely screwed Pandora and me as well.”
“Like I said. Sorry.” Eli’s voice is openly mocking now, and I’m afraid Theo is going to beat the crap out of him.
Determined to keep the peace—or at least not let things turn any more violent than they already have—I say, “Come on, guys. This isn’t helping. We need to figure out what we’re going to do now.”
“Why don’t you ask Theo? He’s the one in charge. Right, bro?” Eli’s voice is downright antagonistic now, all the undercurrents between them rising to the surface.
“I have to be.” Theo mad dogs him, both staring him down and inviting him to start something. “You’re an asshole and a screwup, and I’m sick of it.”
Eli’s hands curl into fists and I step between them. “That’s enough. I mean it. Both of you need to stop.”
“Mind your own business, Pandora.”
Eli starts to brush around me, and I slam a hand into the center of his chest. “I said, that’s enough.”
Eli snorts. He tries to move around me again, but the room is small and he accidentally hits me with his shoulder. Hard.
I stumble, catch myself on the dresser, and the next thing I know Theo has Eli up against the wall. “Don’t fucking touch her.”
“It was an accident, Theo.” I tug at his hand, try to get him to let go, but he’s about as yielding as an 18-wheeler going ninety miles an hour. “He didn’t mean it. It was an accident,” I repeat.
“Yeah. Another accident. They happen around you a lot, don’t they, Eli?”
“Screw you!”
“Is that the best you’ve got? You sound like a three-year-old throwing a tantrum.” He lets Eli go, storms over to his backpack, and pulls out a pair of jeans.
“Where are you going?” I ask, as he drops his athletic shorts. He’s wearing navy-blue boxers that come to the middle of his thighs. I glance away quickly, stare out the window until I hear the zipper on his jeans go up.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Eli demands as Theo shoves his feet into his tennis shoes.
“The same thing I always do when you screw up. I’m going to fix it.” He slams out of the motel room.
26
I race after him, but he’s walking so fast I have to scramble to keep up. “Wait a minute! Theo! Hold on!”
He ignores me, keeps walking.
I latch on to his elbow, but he shakes me off. “Come on, Theo. Please. Talk to me.”
He turns then, and his eyes are such a deep, dark sapphire that the iris and pupil have blended together. It’s both beautiful and eerie to look at.
“I don’t want to talk right now, Pandora. I’m too busy trying t
o clean up after your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” The denial is instinctive.
The look he slants at me says he doesn’t believe me—and that he doesn’t care one way or the other. It makes my stomach hurt a little, though I don’t know why. I stumble back a couple of steps and he just watches me, his face shifting into a blank mask.
“Go back inside, Pandora.”
“At least tell me where you’re going,” I say.
“Where do you think I’m going? I need to steal a car.”
“Steal a—can you even do that?”
“You’d better hope so, because otherwise we’re stuck in this ridiculous motel while the world crashes down around us.”
I know he’s right. Even as I’m horrified at the idea of going from book thief to car thief in a little more than twelve hours, I know he’s right.
“Give me a second to get some shoes on. I’ll come with you.”
“I don’t need you to do that.” His voice is icy, harsh, but something flickers in his eyes, something that tells me he doesn’t want to do this alone.
“Yeah, well, I need to do it. So just chill out here for a second. I’ll be right back.”
I slip back down the hall and into the room. Eli’s lying on the bed, facing the wall. I don’t say anything as I grab my flip-flops and shove them on my feet. They’re not the best for running, but better than my Docs when the blisters on my feet have barely begun to heal.
“So, you’re taking Theo’s side now?”
I stare at Eli’s back, mouth agape. I can’t believe he even has the nerve to ask, can’t believe he thinks there’s any side but Theo’s in this whole thing.
Yes, I’m taking Theo’s side, I want to yell, because you’re a self-absorbed idiot. But that’s not going to get us anywhere except in a bigger mess, so I swallow back the rage that is still burning in my throat at his utter and complete carelessness.
“There aren’t sides here, Eli. We need a car, so we’re going to find one. That’s it. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
He rolls over, gives me a lost-puppy-dog look that I might have fallen for if I wasn’t still so pissed at him. “I’ll go with you guys.”