by Elle Keaton
“This place is awesome. How come I never knew about it before?” Trust Weir to find Patty’s interesting. They sat down at a table toward the back. Weir propped his injured leg up on a spare chair. Sterling snagged one of the plastic menus off the table, knowing what he was going to get but looking anyway. Yep, two eggs over medium, bacon, and fruit.
The waitress stopped by with the coffee pot and an order pad. God, he hated their stupid uniforms like nothing else. The owner had overdosed on Brady Bunch reruns and made his female wait staff wear an outfit identical to Alice’s, down to the white apron and sensible shoes.
Sterling placed his order, then gaped as Weir ordered enough to feed five hungry men, with plenty of red meat, processed sugar, and a side of biscuits and gravy.
“What? I’m a growing boy, you starved me all day,” Weir said, full of innocent indignation, his eyes flashing with amusement at Sterling’s reaction.
As they chatted, waiting for their food, Sterling looked around the café. Not that he really wanted to focus on the weird décor. It was more of a compulsion. His eyes widened when he noticed a familiar hoodie hanging on a hook on the wall near the kitchen. Raven had been here recently and left her favorite gaming hoodie behind. The fuck. He nearly launched himself out of his seat to get to it, but something held him back. Gathering himself, he gestured surreptitiously toward the hoodie. Weir turned, pretending to take in all the monstrosities, and raised his eyebrows at Sterling, mouthing, “What?”
Sterling leaned across the small table. No way was all the food they ordered—Weir ordered—going to fit. “That black hoodie? It’s Raven’s, I’m sure of it. It’s her favorite. No way would she accidentally leave it here.”
“Okay.” Weir’s gaze sharpened, taking note of the environment and the people around them.
Luckily, or not, the waitress reappeared just then with armloads of food, the many plates taking up every square inch of the small table. Instead of wolfing down his food as Sterling expected, Weir merely picked at a few things before leaning back in the chair, crossing his good arm over the special sling his right arm was wrapped in.
“Why aren’t you eating?” Sterling was not letting him get away with not eating. What was Weir’s thing with food, anyway?
“Leg hurts. Why haven’t you asked about the sweatshirt?”
The black hoodie hung there, mocking Sterling with its nonchalant appearance. If he asked, he might not like the answer. It could be the worst answer, even if he didn’t know what that was yet.
“Excuse me, miss?” Weir called to the waitress. “My friend and I are keeping an eye out for his sister. We think that could be her sweatshirt over there. Could you tell me how long it’s been here?” He had pulled out his most charming SoCal smile, dimples popping. It was eye-catching in spite of the residual bruising and the healing scrapes across his face. The woman didn’t have any idea what had hit her. She literally blinked a few times before answering.
“Uh, well, two girls were in here yesterday afternoon. One was crying and the other one was trying to comfort her. An older man came in and began talking to them—one was shaking her head—and then he started to cause a real scene. I had to ask him to leave. I mean, we’re tolerant, but he was using terrible language. He grabbed the crying girl and tried to make her to go with him. Kenji came out from the kitchen, you can ask him what happened.” A Japanese American man appeared behind the waitress. Sterling had been so intent on her story he hadn’t seen him approach.
“I asked the kids if they needed help, but they said no,” Kenji said, “and the man said to back off, this was family business. They all left together.”
“What did the older man look like?” Weir asked.
“My height, so 5’9” or so, skinny, brown hair, bowl cut.”
Weir looked at Sterling.
“Not my dad, he has a stylist.” A terrible feeling was growing in the pit of his stomach. Much longer and weather forecasters would be naming it Storm Raven. There was an off chance Raven could have forgotten her sweatshirt in the heat of the moment, but she would have come back for it if she could, the second she realized it was gone.
“Can we take the sweatshirt? I’m sure Sterling’s sister will be glad to see it,” Weir said. “And can we get the check?”
Sterling eyed the mostly full plates still sitting on the table. “Eat.” Weir glared at him before sullenly picking up his fork.
Kenji handed him the sweatshirt. “Good luck, dude.” Sterling wasn’t sure if he meant looking for Raven or dealing with a surly federal agent.
Their mood was even more subdued once they managed to get back to Sterling’s car. It was obvious Weir’s leg really was bothering him, his face wan in the fading afternoon light. This was the first day since the accident he had been out and about for more than physical therapy and maybe a coffee at the Booking Room. On the upside, he’d polished off almost all the food he’d ordered.
“Who do you want to talk to first? Pony’s family or yours?”
Pony’s mom had slammed the door in his face earlier. His mother had been weird, even for her, over the phone. Sybil was going to be the weak link in whatever was going on. The sick, sick feeling Sterling had been attempting to squash returned. It was too much to hope now that Raven had gone on an unsanctioned trip to Seattle or was at a friend’s.
Images assaulted him, sound clips, mostly from that horrifying documentary Jesus Camp he had watched a few years ago. His beautiful, willful sister… not even someone as strong as her could withstand something like that. Those “rehab” programs were still out there. Not as easy to find as they had been even a few years ago, but if you knew the right catch phrase, had the right connections, a person could be sent away against their will to be “reprogrammed.” They would beat the gay right out of them.
Even though he had just gotten into the car, he quickly reopened the door. Leaning out into the street, he lost everything in his stomach. He collapsed back against the driver’s seat when his stomach was empty, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. Gross.
A light touch to the side of his face brought him from his morbid thoughts.
“Hey.” Dark, nearly bottomless eyes looked deep into his, calming him. “Federal investigator, remember? Can you drive us home, to Micah’s?”
Sixteen
Weir had to stop making promises he had no idea if he could keep. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t worked several missing-children cases since he had qualified for Mohammad’s team. He’d been involved in one as recently as last fall when he and Adam were assigned to Rochelle Heid’s disappearance. It had ended “well” only inasmuch as her remains had been found and the piece of shit that abducted and killed her apprehended.
Missing children had informed his choice to commit to the feds in the first place. He would never see his sister again. Even if she was alive, he didn’t remember what she looked like. How would he know if she passed him in the street? Regardless of the age difference between him and Sterling, he was the professional. He needed to start acting like it.
The drive back to Micah’s was long and quiet. Weir could literally feel Sterling pulling himself together, grabbing the sharp ends of himself and tucking them back inside where they belonged. Finally, Micah’s house appeared in the distance. To Weir’s dismay, he needed Sterling’s help getting out of the car and back inside. He had definitely overdone it today, not that he would admit that.
“Overdid it, huh?”
“Fuck you.”
Gently, Sterling helped Weir lower himself onto the couch before going into the kitchen, where Weir heard him rinsing his mouth and spitting into the sink. Grateful for the moment’s privacy, Weir groaned in relief at being off his feet with his leg elevated. He knew he was improving, but it seemed to be at a snail’s pace.
Sterling was a complicated man. These moments when he exposed his nurturing side were surprising. It seemed to come naturally to him, though.
When Sterling returned, taking a seat beside Weir, Weir
tried to return the favor. “You have good instincts, you’re doing the right things. We need to bring in the big guns now. Report Raven missing. Maybe it won’t go anywhere, but you need to try. You should report Pony, too, I think.” Reporting was complicated when kids were involved. They needed to figure out where Raven was.
While Sterling called his mother again, Weir wondered about Raven’s phone. It hadn’t been at the diner. Only her hoodie. Their recent calls had gone straight to voice mail. That meant it was turned off or out of power. There were ways to find out what cell tower a phone had pinged off last, or at least it could be narrowed down to a geographic area.
He also wondered what the hell had prompted him to convince Sterling to sleep in his bed last night. At the time he’d assured himself it was his natural sense of altruism: the guy needed sleep. He wouldn’t be any help to Raven if he stayed up all night worrying and pacing. On the other hand, Weir had gravitated to the human warmth of Sterling beside him, following Sterling into sleep like it was the most natural thing in the world.
A knock on the front door startled Weir from his thoughts. Who would come to their, Micah’s, door? Shit, he kept getting caught up mistaking this house for his home.
Sterling was on his cell phone in the kitchen arguing with Sybil, who from the sound of things was vacillating between cooperation and obstruction. She wanted to find her daughter but didn’t want to be involved? What kind of mother was she? He grabbed his crutch, hobbling to the door as a second, louder, knock sounded.
Fumbling with the stupid crutch, Weir opened the door to find a group of bedraggled teenagers huddled on the front porch. They all stared at him.
“You aren’t Raven’s brother,” one of them blurted out.
“No… he’s on the phone.” They looked expectantly at him, like cartoon baby birds with their mouths half open. “You guys want to come in?”
Dumb question. Three of them all but pushed him down in their haste to come inside. The fourth, a skinny kid with long dark dreadlocks, moved a little slower, limping. Weir saw the kid’s left foot was encased in one of those soft orthopedic boots. All of them were soaking wet. The rain, which had held off all day, was pelting down. It looked like a small lake was forming up the street where the storm drain was blocked with leaves and other debris.
He shut the door and gingerly clumped after them as they straggled into the living room, trailing behind them the murky scent of rain and damp clothing. The bemused expression on Sterling’s face when he poked his head out of the kitchen to see what the uproar was made Weir chuckle. He’d forgotten how much noise teenagers made.
His own teenage years had been filled with adult responsibility. He had no frame of reference for a “normal” teenage experience. Ben had done his best, but by his own admission the man had been a confirmed bachelor. Weir’s outlet, other than computers and running, had been the beach. It still was. While Weir was in high school, Ben had left Walnut Creek and they moved south to San Luis Obispo. Weir figured out the bus system, and every day after school he took the #10 to freedom.
It had been too late to try and make friends with all the entitled-asshole kids in his new school who had known each other since pre-K. They took one look at him, with his ill-cut multi-shades of blond hair and freckles, and he was instantly classified as an outcast. His brain didn’t help, either. He’d open his mouth and people would look at him like he was crazy. Who was this smart-ass kid? He was a nobody who came in and was immediately top of the class.
At the beach, no one cared. It was a bunch of anonymous surfer dudes in wet suits with boards they could make fly.
Weir had been hanging out at one spot on the beach for a couple of weeks near a board-rental shack, watching and trying to learn. One day, some idiot tourist was bitching about the waves and the crappy board and the instructor’s inability to do anything right.
He listened to the jerk rant for a minute before deciding enough was enough. Inserting himself into the “discussion,” Weir proceeded to give the guy a laundry list of exactly what he was doing wrong: too stiff, angles all wrong, no core strength, and also a jerk because he wouldn’t listen to the instructor.
Instead of punching Weir, like he probably deserved, the guy challenged him to get on the board if he was so smart. Weir proved he was smart that day and never looked back. One second standing on the same board the other guy couldn’t find his own two feet on and Weir knew he was where he belonged. He didn’t stand long that day, but longer than Mr. Midwest.
Every day after that, if he could manage it, he took the bus to the same beach. He tracked down a surfboard at a garage sale and convinced Ben to let him buy it. The board came home, and Weir was in heaven. Weir lasted half a year at the high school before he tested for early entrance into USC. Never looked back.
Ben Tompkins had been silenced when Weir was seventeen, still in college. A domestic violence call gone sideways. It had taken Weir months to pick himself up off the ground. The thing—the only thing, besides the blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean—that kept him going was knowing that Ben wouldn’t want him to give up.
Weir was damned tired of putting himself back together.
“Uh, hi?” Sterling asked.
“Hi, Mr. Bailey.” Sterling physically recoiled at being referred to by that name. Weir turned his laugh into a fake groan as he lowered himself back down onto the couch.
“No, no. Please, it’s Sterling. You’re Raven’s friends?” Tandem nodding. They all started talking at once before Sterling asked them to have a seat and maybe take turns.
A petite girl with short dark-blonde hair and a mouth full of braces was Alex. The beanpole of a kid wearing a knit beanie half-covering unruly dark hair falling to the shoulders of their soaking denim jacket was Drew, possibly second in command to Alex. The other two appeared to be along for moral support.
Lee (Leigh?) was tall, at least 5’8”, with wild, curly blonde hair also half-heartedly tucked into a beanie. The ends of her hair were bright pink, and the Doc Martens she was wearing made her appear even taller than she was. Maybe she was along for protection, not moral support. The kid with the dreadlocks and boot was Marcus. He plopped down on the couch next to Weir. Drew and Alex squished together on Marcus’s other side. Lee lurked at the far end of the couch, hands in the pockets of her black hoodie, ignoring Sterling’s invitation to sit.
Alex and Drew started talking at the same time. Alex glared and Drew snapped their mouth shut.
“Okay, so, we’re from the GSA, the Gay-Straight Alliance at school.”
“Yeah,” Drew confirmed, nodding.
“Raven and Pony weren’t at school today, and they didn’t come to GSA. We’re worried,” Alex looked at her friends, and they all nodded, “that Pony’s family did something bad. They’ve been scared for a while that they would send them away to ‘boarding school.’”
“Yeah, boarding school,” Drew muttered, scorn dripping from the very words.
Lee and Marcus muttered under their breath. It really did feel like the gay teen mafia of Skagit were lounging in Micah’s living room.
“So anyway, Raven had a plan—” Alex started.
“—but we think Pony’s family found out—” Lee interjected, from her side of the room.
“—yeah and took Pony—” Drew added.
“Whoa, slow down,” Sterling said, holding out his hands and motioning for them to stop. Remarkably, they all did.
“So, what happened to you?” Marcus asked Weir, startling him out of his dark thoughts about conversion camp and what happened to kids who were sent to those kinds of places.
“Marcus! Focus,” Alex snapped.
Weir leaned closer. “I’ll tell you later,” he whispered.
Alex glared at him. Weir had the urge to roll his eyes, but managed not to.
“We think Pony’s family forced them to one of those conversion places.”
“Okay, how is Raven involved?” Sterling asked, his voice low and intent.
&nb
sp; “She was helping Pony with a plan, but we know your parents had threatened her, too. What if they both had to go to conversion?” Alex’s eyes grew wide with horror; she emphasized the word like a person would axe murderer or serial killer.
“I just got off the phone with our mother. She swears she has no idea where Raven is. She is beside herself with worry.”
Weir thought that was a bit of a stretch. He doubted Sybil Bailey had ever been beside herself with worry over anything worse than a hangnail.
“What about your dad?” Drew asked.
Weir could see all the carefully folded pieces of himself Sterling had tucked away when they returned from their day starting to fray again. His pupils dilated, and his knee was bouncing like crazy. Weir wanted to grab his thigh and remind him he wasn’t alone in this, but Sterling was too far away. Both literally and figuratively. His expression told Weir he absolutely believed his dad would do something heinous like send his daughter to conversion therapy.
Lee spoke up again. “We think we know where.”
“This place in Sedona,” Marcus added.
“Arizona?” Sterling asked.
“Yeah, it’s like horse conversion camp. They ride for Jesus.”
“Raven hates horses.” Sterling was slipping beyond devastated. Weir needed to take the wheel of this conversation before Sterling broke down.
“How do you guys know this?” Weir surprised them with his question. It seemed they’d forgotten he was part of the conversation.
“Pony overheard their mom and dad talking and found a brochure or something at home. They were going to run away. Pony was going to run away,” Alex clarified.
A few more questions and, they appeared to have exhausted the teens’ factual knowledge about what Pony’s parents might have orchestrated. Instead they were content to hang out and speculate wildly on the fate of their friends. Sterling looked a hair’s breadth from breaking down. Weir glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was almost nine at night. “Don’t you guys have school tomorrow?” he asked. They collectively looked guiltily at both men.