Spam writes more and I read it aloud. “It’s not that kind of freaking out. She just wants us to stall. She wants more time to talk to him alone.”
Lysa glances at me. “Do you believe that?”
I shrug. “If she wasn’t safe she’d say something.” I truly think she just wants to make it okay with him.
Lysa gives me a stricken look. “We can’t stall. You heard my mother. There’s GPS on this car. They will know if we don’t go directly to Spam’s house.”
“Okay. Okay. Go to my house and you can text her when we get there that I had to pick up some things as well.”
There’s no one home at my house so I let myself in and Lysa and I head up to my bedroom. She sends a text to her mother about where we are, while I throw a few things in my bag to take to Spam’s.
I send Spam a text. NOW?
She replies: NO.
Lysa is edgy and aggravated. “Where’s your laptop?”
I point to the attic.
She leads the way into my closet and up the ladder like she’s done it a hundred times, which is funny since she only recently came to know that this space even exists.
I hand her my laptop, then flop down on the sofa. I stare up at the open beams while listening to her fingers click away at the keys.
“Wow,” she says. “Geez. Thi … This is … Gosh. What the—”
I roll over on my side and prop my head up on my hand. “What?”
She flashes me a sad look. “I’m reading a study that says between 1997 and 1999 over two hundred thousand children were abducted.… by family members!”
“Wow. Are you serious?”
She gives me a hard look. “I am more serious than my dad.”
I roll back on the sofa. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that serious. Two hundred thousand?” I try to let that number sink in.
“By well-meaning family members.” She uses air quotes around well-meaning.
“I don’t even know how to process that,” I say.
“I don’t either.” She closes the laptop. “But we need to get back over there before Lyman leaves. He needs to understand this isn’t his fault.”
The reality of Lyman’s situation hits me. I grew up immersed in survivor’s guilt, wondering why I was left alive and if a family member was to blame for my mother’s murder. Lyman is actually living with a family member who did the unspeakable. Lysa’s right. He’s going to need some serious support after getting news like this.
I roll off the sofa and land on my feet. “Let’s go.”
37
Well-meaning family members might think they are right to illegally remove a child from their home, but really they are only making the situation worse.
—VICTOR FLEMMING
When we get to Spam’s house, she’s sitting outside on the back steps, sobbing. This is a sight neither of us have seen before.
Lysa curls in next to her and throws her arm around her shoulders.
“Spam, where is he?” I ask.
She waves her hand and croaks, “Gone.”
Lysa hugs her. “Did you tell him … about his parents and his aunt?”
“He knew,” she sobs. “He knows everything.”
“Okay.” Lysa nods. “That’s good.”
Spam gives her a stark look.
“I don’t mean it’s good that this happened,” Lysa stammers. “I just mean that if he knows, it’s because he did run his own print. And that’s good because it means we have control of the information.”
“What do you mean by control?” I lean against the railing, watching Lysa coax Spam out of her hysteria.
“If it’s just the four of us who know, then we don’t have to worry about someone swooping in out of nowhere and busting it open before we’re ready.” Lysa nervously gnaws at a hangnail. “Maybe, for once, we can actually help someone get out of trouble the right way.”
Spam vehemently shakes her head. “No! Huh uh. Lyman ordered us to stay out of it.” She starts to quiver again, but pauses to take a long, calming breath. “He was super-crazy furious. Said I invaded his privacy.”
“He’s the one who left it open on the computer,” I say.
“Right? But he thinks I hacked in to get it.” She shrugs. “I probably could have, but I didn’t. The part that hurts is I really like him.” She looks back and forth between us. “But he was just using me to get what he wanted.”
“What does he want, Spam?” Lysa asks. “Because no one tries to blow up their life. Not like this.”
“He wants to be normal.” Spam sighs. “His aunt found out he made actual friends here and she was going to make them move again.” She gestures, hands in the air. “He’s a smart guy. He knows that’s not normal. He suspected she was hiding something for a long time. At first, he thought he would get to know us and ask us what he should do. He thought maybe we could find out if there really was something going on. But that could have been risky too. He said he saw the opportunity to do it on his own and he took it.” Spam’s tears start up again. “Giving him back his fingerprint gave him the idea. He apologized, but said he took a few of the lifters from the box in the storage room, too.”
I take her arm and help her up. “Let’s go down to the basement and see what we can figure out.”
Down in the basement, we take up uneasy spots in front of the laptops that Lysa doled out to us earlier. We need to come up with something to help Lyman, but I’m at a complete loss.
I glance at Spam. She can’t seem to stop sniveling.
Lysa is intently creating order out of her area. She lines up the laptop with the edge of the table, adjusts the angle of the tablet, and straightens her notebook and pens. “What did he say? Did he mention a plan or say when they were leaving?”
“No,” Spam says. “I mean, he’s mad at us for finding it, but he’s also mad at his aunt. Furious with her, actually.”
“What does he say about her?” I ask. “Is she nice, mean, psycho?”
“Is he in any danger?” Lysa asks.
“He loves her. All along he’s told me that she’s awesome and smart. He says she works really hard, but that she’s nice and caring.” Spam shrugs. “He loves her even though she’s also a little psycho with the moving and the paranoia.”
Lysa taps her pen on the notebook. “That’s not paranoia. She has a reason to be scared. She kidnapped her sister’s kid. And it doesn’t matter that her sister is dead. When they catch up to her she’s going straight to jail.”
Spam and I both kind of recoil from her bold prediction. When Lysa channels her father, she’s intimidating.
“But his parents were on drugs,” Spam says. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
“No.” Lysa is firm. “You can’t just break the law because you think it’s the right thing. She could have called the police on them and had him taken away from them.”
“Maybe she tried,” I argue.
“She obviously didn’t try hard enough.” Lysa slams her hand on the table, bouncing the pens in all directions. Then she concentrates on rearranging them again. “Sorry. I’m trying to come up with a solution. But I know what my father would say if a client came to him like this.”
“What?” Spam asks. “Lyman needs sound advice.”
“My father would tell them to turn themselves in. Take the punishment and then get on with life as a law-abiding citizen. Seriously, how awful and stressful must it be to move every year and never be able to stop looking over your shoulder?”
“Okay, but Lyman didn’t do anything wrong, and he’s the one who stands to suffer the most,” Spam says. “He told me he refuses to go into foster care; he doesn’t care what anyone says.”
“I didn’t think of that,” I say. “If Lyman’s aunt goes to jail, what happens to him?”
Lysa shrugs. “His parents are dead, so yeah, it’s not a pretty picture.”
“Spam, try to get him to come back. There’s got to be something we can do,” I say.
&nbs
p; “Apparently, I have a grandmother. You could help me find her.” The disembodied voice in the dark room startles us as Lyman steps down into Spam’s basement.
His hands are in his pockets and he walks sheepishly toward us. He nods back at the stairs. “Your dad was taking out the trash when I came up the driveway, so he let me in. He’s a pretty cool guy.”
Spam’s frozen in her place at the table. It’s as if she doesn’t believe her eyes that Lyman has returned. “Are you still mad at me?” Her voice is a tiny squeak.
“I was never mad at you. Not really.” Lyman strides over to her and wraps his arms around Spam’s head, pressing it to his chest. He gives her a tiny noogie. “I’m pretty much an idiot.”
She pulls away and looks up at him, her eyes welling up again. “Did you just give me a noogie?”
He scoots himself into her chair with her. She melts against him. “I couldn’t help it. You’re too cute.” He looks up at Lysa and me watching them, wide-eyed. “Remember me? I thought my name was Lyman—now I’m not so sure.”
“We get it,” I say. “No worries. We’ll keep your secret.”
Lyman gets up and paces around the table, rubbing his hands together nervously. “Spam, I’m really sorry for what I said tonight. I was dealing with a lot and was kinda freaking out.”
“Understandable,” Lysa says. “We can try to keep it a secret. Or at least help you figure out what you should do.”
“I found out my baby picture has been printed on milk cartons,” Lyman says. “And I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that.”
I let his words sink in. I’ve spent most of my life at war with my unfortunate past. But your picture on a milk carton? That’s intense.
“I don’t want you guys to think bad about my mom, either,” he says, still pacing.
“Uh, not to be tacky,” Spam says, “but which mom?”
“My mom is the woman who raised me. I don’t know what all caused her to do this. But she must’ve felt like she was out of options.” Lyman circles the table. He’s talking to us, but his eyes are on the ceiling. “I wish you could get to know her.” He stops and leans against the table. “From what I’ve pieced together, she gave up everything so I didn’t grow up in a home with drugs or wind up in foster care or some other horrible option. If we get caught, her life will be destroyed and it will be my fault. The best thing I can do is to separate from her so she can go on and live and breathe.”
Lyman’s description of his mom reminds me of Rachel. She diligently kept her promise. She did everything she could to give me a great life. Now it’s her turn to have her own life with the chief. I understand exactly what Lyman wants and why he wants it.
He makes his way back over to Spam. “Spam, you are smart and amazing. If you can help me find my grandmother, I’ll go there. Hopefully, she’ll take me in. Once I’m gone, my mom can disappear. She’s really good at it. And then I won’t have to go to foster care.”
Spam slaps the table. “We’ve got this.”
“We can totally help you,” I agree.
Lysa rolls her head from side to side, stretching out the tension in her neck. “We can. And I am with all of you, at least in spirit. But we all need to be aware that by not reporting this we’re technically aiding and abetting.”
There’s a long, silent moment while we study each other’s faces.
“We’re kids,” I exclaim. “What are they going to do to us?”
Spam giggles. “And we’re back in business.
38
Trying to identify one specific person on the internet is like trying to find a toothpick in a tornado.
—SPAM RAMOS
Spam erases the skateboarder side of the whiteboard.
Lyman stops her. “Wait. You said I was cute?”
She smirks. “Get over yourself.” But then she blows him a kiss. She points to Lysa. “You’re on legal. Start with his parents. Dig up everything. They died taking drugs and we know it wasn’t their first time.” She glances at Lyman. “Sorry. Not judgy.”
Lyman shrugs. “It’s okay.”
“On it,” Lysa says.
Spam writes on the whiteboard: Lysa = legal. “Oh, this isn’t a priority, but we should know what aiding and abetting could mean to us.”
Next Spam points her marker at me. “You’re on proof. You know this stuff better than any of us. We can’t think we found Lyman’s grandmother and have him go to some strange woman’s house and give her a heart attack. We have to know it’s her. Go wherever you feel like you have to go.”
I nod, crack my knuckles, and hit the laptop.
Spam writes on the board: Erin = proof.
My phone suddenly rings, startling everyone. I look at the caller. “It’s Journey.” I answer it tentatively. “Hi, babe.”
“Hey. Did I wake you? It’s only ten o’clock,” he asks.
“No, no. You didn’t wake me. What’s up?”
“Victor and I are back here at the lab—” He pauses as Victor talks to him. I can’t hear exactly what they’re saying, but I’m struck with terror. Did we not put something back in the right place?
I mute the phone. “They’re at the lab.” I flash my wild, fear-filled expression around the table.
Everyone pauses and no one dares to breathe.
“Victor was just wondering—” He pauses again and my heart is nearly pounding out of my chest. “Oh. Never mind. He found it.”
“He found it,” I repeat. “Good.” Everyone around the table relaxes again.
“How about if I come over?” he says.
“Uh. Oh, well…” I fake a yawn. “I’m really tired. I was just getting ready to go to bed.”
“But aren’t you at Spam’s?” he asks.
I’m completely freaking out. “Yes. Yes, I am”—another fake yawn—“but we’re all really tired and getting ready to go to bed.” I gyrate my hand for them to make noise.
Spam fake yawns, loudly.
“Hi, Journey,” Lysa says.
I nod. “He says hi back to all of you. How’d you know I was here?”
“Oh. Rachel told Victor so he wouldn’t worry about you.”
“Ahh. That makes sense.”
“You sound weird,” he says. “What are you doing?”
“I’m fine.”
“But you don’t want me to come over?” He sounds a little hurt.
“No. It’s late. Another time. Talk to you later. Bye.” I hang up the phone and breathe a sigh of relief for getting through the call without blurting out something incriminating.
“Journey would be a problem?” Lyman asks.
“No,” I say hesitantly. “Not really.”
“It’s for his own protection,” Lysa says. “Journey’s Victor’s intern. The less he knows about this, the better it is for him.”
Spam stands at the whiteboard and points a marker at Lyman. “Start at the beginning. Tell us everything you know about yourself and your mom. Example, what’s your birthday?”
“August 30th,” Lyman says.
Spam points at Lysa. “Check the missing persons flyer on your phone. Is the birthdate the same or different?”
Lysa scrolls back through her phone. “Same,” she says.
Spam grins at Lyman. “Congratulations, dude. You have a real birthday.” She scrawls his real name in a top corner of the whiteboard and underneath it she writes: DOB 8/30. “What else?”
“My mom goes by Laine Becker, but that’s not her real name,” Lyman says.
Spam hovers the marker over the whiteboard.
“Her real name is Lydia Booker … and she’s a doctor.”
“Whoa. How did you find that out?” I ask.
“It’s on the wanted poster.” Lyman shrugs. “I ran her print before mine.”
“Wait, she works as a doctor but she’s wanted by the FBI?” Lysa is incredulous. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“No,” Lyman says. “Lydia Booker is a doctor. Laine Becker is a nurse’s aide.”<
br />
“How did she explain moving all the time?” Lysa asks. “Does she make it fun, like it’s an adventure, or does she just say you have to go?”
“She apologized for it,” Lyman says. “She knew it was hard on me. It was hard on her, too. We’d leave everything behind and only take what we could get in the car. Every new place we’d start all over. She said we had to move because she had a lot of student loans that she couldn’t hope to pay off and we were moving to escape bill collectors.”
Lysa and I make eye contact.
“Kernel of truth,” I say.
“Exactly,” agrees Lysa.
Lyman looks confused. “Obviously we were moving because of me.”
“Yes,” Lysa says. “But most of the time when people lie there’s a kernel of truth to their story. Knowing that your mom is a doctor, I think the student loan story is also true and might help us find your grandmother.”
“How do you know you have a grandmother?” I ask.
“There’s a contact in my mom’s phone to call in case of an emergency. Her name is Millie and I asked my mom about her once,” Lyman says. “She paused for a really long time and then she said Millie was my grandmother.”
“Do you know Millie’s last name?” I ask.
Lyman shakes his head. “Just Millie.”
“But did you try calling the number?” Spam asks.
Lyman sighs. “Disconnected.”
The three of us groan.
“What if she’s—” Lysa slaps her hand over her mouth to keep from stating the obvious.
Spam waves her hand. “A disconnect doesn’t mean anything. Lots of people have changed their numbers in the last ten years because they gave up their landlines.”
Spam points to me. “Type in a search for Millie Jenkins and select images.”
Within seconds I’m able to turn my laptop around for all to see. There are a bunch of images, but they are mostly of young women. Too young to be Lyman’s grandmother. There’s also one that’s way too old.
Spam pats her chair for Lyman to come sit next to her. He smiles softly as he joins her. I admire the deep and soulful way they look at each other. It’s clear they have a special connection. “Jenkins was your father’s last name,” she says. “Millie is probably on your mother’s side. Let’s try Millie Booker.”
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