Confused, I glance back at the screen to see there’s a notification of a new text message. From a name I don’t recognize.
A girl’s name.
Rachel.
The blood in my veins turns to ice.
Rachel.
Rachel.
Rachel.
I rack my brain, trying to think of a Rachel that goes to Russellville High, but I can’t come up with a single one. Which means he met her somewhere else. Outside of town. Far away from boring, lame Russellville and all of us boring, lame people in it.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Then, it comes again.
And again.
And again.
BOOOOOOMMM
BOOOOOOMMM
BOOOOOOMMM
Nico suddenly rips the phone from my hand and starts frantically tapping and swiping at the screen. In fact, he’s so desperate to do whatever it is he’s doing, he nearly drives us right off the highway.
“Watch the road!” I scream.
Nico looks up and swerves just in time to avoid plunging us off a steep cliff.
“Sorry,” he mutters, and drops the phone into his lap. I glance at it, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that almost got us killed, but the screen is dark.
I tell myself to calm down. Chill out. Get yourself under control. You’re not his girlfriend anymore. You don’t get to demand explanations. You don’t even get to expect them.
And yet, I feel like I at least deserve one.
But I won’t ask. I can’t ask. I will never ask.
“Who was that?” I ask, nodding toward the phone.
“No one,” Nico says quickly. Too quickly. “A wrong number.”
Your ex-boyfriend is dating someone else and lying to you about it. What do you do?
A Let it go. It’s none of your business. Remember, you broke up with him.
B Grab the phone and search all of his text messages, e-mails, phone records, and browser history until you catch him in the lie.
C. Silently seethe in your seat. You will not give him the satisfaction of knowing how much this bothers you.
I angle my body toward the door, so I don’t have to even see Nico out of the corner of my eye. As we drive, I can feel him stealing glances at me, like he wants to say something, but I don’t turn around, and neither of us says a word.
The mountain landscape soon turns into thick forest, darkening the road and hiding the sky. Even though it no longer seems as though we’re driving along the edge of the world, the highway is still terrifyingly wind-y, and nausea eventually creeps up on me. I rush to crank open the window.
“Hot?” Nico asks.
“Carsick.”
“I didn’t know you got carsick,” he says, maneuvering around another sharp turn. “We drove around all the time and you never got sick.”
That’s because I was properly distracted, I think but obviously don’t say.
“It’s just these curves,” I mutter, closing my eyes.
“Well, don’t close your eyes. That makes it worse. Look out the window.”
I open my eyes and turn my gaze to the trees. I hate to admit it, but Nico is right. Of course, he’s right. Nico, the Fixer.
“Should only be a few more miles,” Nico says after what feels like hours of twisting and turning. The light is almost gone, and the road seems to not only be getting curvier, but also dirtier. There’s debris everywhere. At one point, Nico has to swerve into the other lane just to avoid running over a giant fallen tree branch.
“What is all of this stuff?” I ask.
Nico shrugs. “There was probably a storm last night, knocked all of this debris into the road.”
“They should really clean it up. It’s dangerous.”
Nico is silent for a moment. I peer at his face and instantly know that he’s thinking hard about something again.
“What?” I ask.
“Have you noticed that we haven’t passed a single car in over thirty minutes?”
I hadn’t noticed, but now that he mentions it, I realize he’s right. We seem to be the only ones on this long, winding, deserted road through the forest. “Why do you think that is?” I ask, starting to feel uneasy.
“I don’t know,” Nico admits. “But it’s kind of freaky, isn’t it? This is a state highway. Why wouldn’t there be any other cars?”
“Too late at night?”
Nico points to the analog clock on the dash. “It’s barely after seven.”
As Nico continues to maneuver the car around the turns and the growing piles of debris on the road, I feel my hackles start to go up. I keep waiting to see another car coming from the opposite direction, or pulling up behind us, but the headlights from the Firebird seem to be illuminating nothing but empty dark road ahead of us.
Something is wrong.
I can feel it.
“Do you think maybe—” I begin to ask, but Nico slams on the brakes, causing the car to skid and fishtail. For a split second all I hear is the screeching of tires and my own scream echoing in my ears. An object flashes across my vision, and I realize there’s something in the middle of the road. Something Nico had to brake to avoid crashing into.
What was that? A deer? A bear?
The car finally comes to a halt, and that’s when I realize I’ve grabbed on to Nico’s arm. I quickly release my grip.
“Oh my God. Oh my God,” I say. “Did we hit something? What is it? Is it dead?”
“Relax,” Nico says with a chuckle. “I think it’s a sign.”
“A sign of what? That we should turn back?”
He laughs again. “Actually, yes. But it’s a literal sign.” He points at something through the windshield ahead of us, and I squint into the darkness. Nico puts the car in reverse and then backs up, turning the wheel so the headlight beams fall across something white and bright in the center of the highway.
ROAD CLOSED
“What?” I ask, blinking hard. “The road really is closed?”
“Looks like it.”
“So what do we do?”
Nico looks at me like I’m crazy. “We have to turn back.”
“How far?”
He grabs his phone from his lap and checks the map. “Looks like all the way to Fort Bragg. To pick up Highway 20.”
“What?” I snatch the phone from him to check. He’s right. There’s no other way to the 101. We have to go all the way back to Fort Bragg. I glance desperately at the clock again. “But we’ll never make it to Crescent City by nine.”
“Well, we can’t go through here.” Nico shifts the car into reverse and does a slow three-point turn until we’re facing the direction we came from. The thought of losing all of that time—almost three hours wasted—is sending me into panic mode.
“But what about Tom Lancaster? And the car?”
“You’ll just have to call him and tell him we’ll be there tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I ask, my heart thudding in my chest. “What do you mean tomorrow?”
“Well, by the time we get back to Fort Bragg, it’ll be almost nine. I’ll get us as far as I can, but I can’t drive all night. We’re going to have to stop somewhere.”
I want to ask why not. Why can’t he drive all night? But I soon realize it’s not fair of me to ask him to do that. He’s already gotten us this far, and asking him to keep going without any sleep feels like some sort of unnecessary torture.
I lean back in my seat with a resigned sigh. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe we won’t make it to Crescent City tonight.
Nico is just about to shift into first gear when his phone chirps. This is a ringtone I actually recognize. It’s for new e-mails. He picks up the phone again and glances at the screen. His expression shifts from weariness to elation in a heartbeat. “YES!”
“What?”
He passes me the phone. “Read it and weep!”
I glance at the subject line of the e-mail, and my mouth falls open. I can’t freaking bel
ieve it.
“Go ahead,” Nico prompts as he maneuvers the car back through the debris on the road. “Read it aloud.”
I groan and click on the message, reading with about the same amount of enthusiasm as someone reading from a technical manual.
Hi. I’m Sandy. I just saw your barter post on Craigslist, and I’m VERY interested in the phone. I’ve been looking for this exact model for weeks, but no one has it. I can trade you my collection of Beatles CDs (4 total).
“Four Beatles CDs! That’s amazing!”
“We don’t have a CD player in the car,” I remind him.
“Well, we’re not going to use it ourselves. We’re going to trade it up for something even more valuable. See? It’s already working. Where is she located?”
I look back at the screen, my annoyance doubling when I read the rest of the e-mail. “Fort Bragg.”
“Aha! Now that is a sign. Quick! Write her back! Tell her we’re on our way to Fort Bragg now and can meet her at . . .” He consults the clock on the dash. “Eight thirty.”
How is this possible? Who is bored enough to scour Craigslist for random people wanting to trade random stuff?
I sigh and quickly type out the response. I’m about to drop the phone in the cup holder when my gaze lands on the little green icon on the home screen. The message app. Checking to make sure Nico is properly distracted with the wind-y road, I surreptitiously click on it and scan his list of messages, wilting when I see that the most recent one is from this morning. It seems the mysterious series of texts he just received has been deleted.
“What were you doing?” Nico asks, startling me.
I practically throw the phone into the cup holder. “Nothing.”
“You were checking my text messages.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You don’t believe me. That it was a wrong number.”
I stuff my hand in my sweatshirt pocket and feel for the shard of sea glass inside, clasping it tightly between my fingers until my knuckles ache. “Yes, I do.”
A smirk breaks out on Nico’s face. “No, you don’t. You were checking to make sure it wasn’t some new girl I was dating.”
“I don’t care who you’re dating.”
“I’m not dating anyone.” Nico says this so quickly, it makes me flinch.
I cut my gaze to him and study the rigid line of his jaw, searching for signs of the lie.
This time, there are none.
“Well, even if you were,” I say with one too many shrugs, “I wouldn’t care.”
Nico spins the wheel as we pull into another steep bend in the road. I keep my gaze straight ahead. Because I can’t bear to look to either side of me. Both have jagged, deadly cliffs that threaten to make my stomach drop.
Nico laughs quietly. It’s a different kind of laugh. A gloating kind of laugh. A laugh that leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
“Now who’s the liar?”
8:20 P.M.
FORT BRAGG, CA (AGAIN)
INVENTORY: 1968 FIREBIRD 400 CONVERTIBLE (1), CASH ($749.35), SEA GLASS (1 PIECE), ANCIENT CELL PHONE (1)
We pass a sign welcoming us back to Fort Bragg. Like the cosmic board game of life has given us a “Move Back Three Spaces” card, and we’ve rewound almost the entire day.
When we drive down Main Street again, the town seems to be mocking me.
Back so soon? it says with a sneer. As if even the town knows I can’t escape Jackson. Both he and this town are like magnets that constantly draw me back in, even when I think I’m well on my way to breaking free.
As soon as we were out of the treacherous forest, I sent a message to Tom Lancaster from Nico’s phone, explaining what happened and asking him politely (read: begging) if he’d be willing to meet me tomorrow to purchase the car.
Fortunately, Tom wrote back fairly quickly, saying it’s no problem and to just text him when I got close.
Unfortunately, Sandy from Craigslist wrote back just as quickly, directing us to meet her at eight thirty in the parking lot of a Denny’s, right across the street from the entrance to Glass Beach, reminding me yet again of how much we’ve had to backtrack tonight.
When we pull into the Denny’s parking lot, five minutes before our designated meeting time, Nico is in a jubilant mood. “Isn’t this exciting?” he asks, parking the car and compressing the parking brake. He withdraws the small silver flip phone from his pocket and turns it around in his hand. “I can’t believe people used to talk on these things.” He opens it and pretends to take a call. “Hello? 2001? Yes, I do have your phone. Thanks for calling.” He closes it with a self-important snap, then immediately opens it again and punches at random numbers on the numeric keypad. The phone is so old, it doesn’t even have a keyboard. “How cool is it that we’re about to trade this for four Beatles CDs?”
“Yeah, about that,” I say, crossing my arms. “Don’t you think it’s just a little bit strange? That this woman even wants this worthless piece of junk?”
“You have no idea what she wants it for,” Nico says defensively. “It’s clearly worth something to her.”
“But why?” I ask.
Nico squints at the number keys. “How do you even text on this thing?”
“Exactly!” I say. “What on earth could she want it for?”
Just then, an old minivan pulls into the lot and parks three spaces away. A few seconds later, a middle-aged blond woman gets out and starts slinking around the parking lot, throwing suspicious looks over her shoulder.
“This must be her,” Nico says, closing the phone again and slipping it into his pocket.
“Be careful,” I mutter. “There are dangerous people on Craigslist, remember?”
“Exactly,” Nico says, leaning all the way over me to open my door. “That’s why you’re coming with me.”
I groan and step out of the car.
Nico approaches the woman, who seems to startle at the sight of him. “Are you Nico?” she whispers, her wild gray eyes darting around the parking lot.
Nico shoots me a glance. “Yes,” he says warily. “Are you Sandy?”
She shakes her head. “Sandy is just an alias. I wouldn’t dare give out my real name over the Internet.”
“Right,” Nico says, even though I can tell he’s fighting hard not to laugh.
The woman glances at me. “You must be the ex.”
I roll my eyes. I almost forgot Nico told everyone on Craigslist about our failed relationship. “Yes. That would be me.”
She glances over my shoulder and her eyes bug out, reminding me of a frightened pug. I turn, fully expecting to see the FBI jumping out of black vans with machine guns and bulletproof vests, given how shady this woman is acting. But all I see is the Firebird.
“Nice car,” she says approvingly. “Is that a Mustang?”
“Firebird,” Nico corrects with pride.
“So,” I say, anxious to move this process along. “You’re interested in the cell phone, huh?”
Sandy’s face illuminates. “Yes. Do you have it?”
Nico pulls the clunker out of his pocket and hands it over. She takes it and inspects it carefully from all angles.
“You realize it probably doesn’t even work,” I say, and Nico shoots daggers at me out of his eyes. “I’m just being honest,” I tell him.
“It might just need a charge,” Nico, the salesman, puts in.
But Sandy waves both of our comments away. “I can get it to work.”
Then she reaches into her oversize handbag and pulls out 4 compact disc cases, neatly secured by two crisscrossing rubber bands. She hands them to Nico, who immediately goes to work pulling off the rubber bands and checking each of the cases to make sure there are actually matching discs inside. I don’t blame him for double-checking. This woman is giving off a very odd vibe.
“May I ask why you want the phone?” Nico says after he’s verified each of the CDs.
Sandy narrows her eyes accusingly at him.
He raises his
hands in surrender. “We’re just curious.”
She beckons us both closer, like she’s about to tell us the location of every undercover CIA operative in the country. Nico takes a step in. I stay where I am. I can already smell the beer on her breath. It reminds me way too much of Jackson.
“They can’t listen in on these old phones,” Sandy whispers, as though this explains everything.
I dart a look at Nico, who looks genuinely interested. “Who can’t?” he asks.
Sandy gapes at him in disbelief. “The government! Who else?”
“Ah,” Nico says, nodding.
“You know they only sell us those smartphones for one reason: to spy on us. With the cameras and the microphones, it’s just like 1984, except we pay for it. We want it. That’s the genius part. They made them all flashy and cool. They market them to us with slick ads, and we all line up outside the store to buy the latest model. But really they’re using them to watch us.” She brandishes the flip phone at us. “These old babies are the only safe way to talk to anyone.”
I watch this exchange with a mix of fascination and amusement. Apparently, when Nico came up with his list of possible people who might want to buy an old cell phone, he forgot one: conspiracy theorists.
“They’re watching Craigslist, too, you know,” she goes on. “That’s why I gave you a fake name.”
“Right,” Nico says, clearly humoring her. “Good call.”
“You gotta be careful what you put on the Internet,” Sandy says in all seriousness. “They’ve got eyes everywhere. I was talking to one of my buddies in a chat room about Paul, and suddenly, boom! My friend got hit by a bus the very next day.”
Nico cringes. “That’s . . . unfortunate. Wait . . . who’s Paul?”
Sandy gasps and points to the stack of CDs in Nico’s hand. “Paul. You know, Paul McCartney.”
“The Beatle?” Nico asks.
“Yes,” Sandy replies, as though it’s obvious.
“What about him?”
“You mean”—Sandy’s eyes widen—“you don’t know?”
Nico shakes his head. “Know what?”
The Geography of Lost Things Page 11