Out of the Cold (2 page)

“Sorry, did you say something, Robbie?”

“Tara—who is she?”

“She's a very old friend,” he said, smiling. There was a twinkle in his eye that made me think he wasn't telling me everything.

“She doesn't look that old,” I said. “In fact, she seems kind of young.”

“Does she?” He pulled a knife from the drawer and sliced up the tomato. “I think she's just about right.” He rinsed the knife and cut into the cheese. “Are you sure you're not hungry?”

“I'm sure. How long have you known her?”

“Long enough, I guess.” He pulled out another knife and used it to spread a slice of bread with a thin layer of mustard. “Did you tell your mother you're back?”

“I called her as soon as the bus got in.” Which reminded me. “Have you been snooping on Ted?”

He looked confused. Or maybe he was just
acting
confused. With my father, it's sometimes hard to tell.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“I saw a picture of him on your computer. Have you been checking up on him?” It wouldn't have surprised me. For some reason that I didn't quite understand, especially given how rough the divorce had been, my father still seems to be in love with my mother. It would be just like him to try to dig up some dirt on Ted. Well, good luck. Ted is a sweet, mild-mannered, all-round nice guy. If he had any secrets, they were more likely to be along the lines of anonymous donations to good causes than scandals or indiscretions.

“Checking up on him? Why would I do that?” my father said. He had been layering ham, cheese, and tomato onto the mustardy bread, but he stopped and looked me in the eye to show that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. The thing is, though, my father is pretty good at deceit. He's the first to admit that it's often necessary in his line of work. He had been a police officer for nearly twenty years. These days he runs his own private security and investigations business. He says that sometimes, if you want to get the truth out of a liar, you have to lie yourself. My mother sees it differently. She says that lying comes as naturally to my father as breathing does to the rest of the world. “I promised your mom that I wouldn't snoop into her affairs,” he said. “And I keep my word.”

Uh-huh. I studied him for a moment, trying to decide if he actually expected me to believe that. Then he said, “Robyn, about Nick—”

“I was going to ask you about him,” I said. “I went to look for him, but he wasn't home and he's not at work. I thought for sure he'd be here. Have you seen him?”

“You went downstairs?”

“Yeah, but he wasn't there.”

“Did you talk to Fred?”

He meant Fred Smith, owner of La Folie.

“No, but I talked to Lauren,” I said.

“What did she say?”

“That Nick wasn't working today.” Wait a minute. “Did you just call me Robyn?” The last time my father had called me by my proper name instead of using my nickname was when he'd told me about the divorce. “Is something wrong? Did something happen to Nick?”

My father dropped the top piece of bread onto his sandwich.

“I wish I knew,” he said. He cut the sandwich in half, carried it and the container of coleslaw over to the counter, and sat down opposite me. “I haven't seen him since you left for that school trip.”

“What do you mean, you haven't seen him? You mean he hasn't been home?”

My father laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Dad, where's Nick?”

“I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know?”

“He's gone, Robbie. I don't know where. I don't know why. I don't even know exactly when he left. All I know is, he's gone.”

  .    .    .

“Gone?” Morgan said at school the next day. “What do you mean, he's gone?”

“I mean, he's not here. He's someplace else.”

“Someplace else
where
?”

That was the million-dollar question. I told Morgan everything I knew, which wasn't much. Two days before we got back from our trip, my father had been downstairs having lunch at La Folie. After he ate, he went back to the kitchen to say hi to Nick, but Nick wasn't there. When my father asked Fred Smith how Nick was doing, Fred told him that Nick didn't work there anymore.

“Did he get fired?” Morgan said.

“He quit.” Fred had told my father that Nick was nice about it. He thanked Fred for giving him a job and apologized for leaving on such short notice.

“He didn't say why he was quitting?” Morgan said.

I looked grimly at Morgan. “He said he was going out of town.”

“Why? For how long?”

“Fred didn't ask, and Nick didn't say.”

“What about your dad? Didn't Nick say anything to him?”

I shook my head. “My dad checked Nick's apartment after he talked to Fred. Most of Nick's things are gone.” He'd left his furniture, almost all of which my father had given to him, and the few kitchen things he owned—dishes, a couple of pots, all bought at thrift stores—but he had taken his clothes and his more personal possessions.

“I don't get it,” Morgan said. “Why didn't he call you and tell you where he was going?”

I had asked myself the same question a hundred times.

“Didn't he even leave a note?” Morgan said. “You don't think he's in trouble, do you?”

All I could do was shrug. Then I said what had been on my mind all night. “Morgan, what if he left because he didn't think he had any reason to stay?”

“What do you mean?”

“He's not getting along with his aunt. Joey's in prison.” Joey was Nick's stepbrother. “Angie and the baby don't live here anymore.” Angie was Joey's girlfriend. She had recently had a baby boy. “And he wasn't allowed to see me unless my mom or Ted was right there with us. What if he got fed up?” Nick had had problems controlling his anger in the past. I was pretty sure he resented the way my mother had been treating him. Maybe he'd decided that putting up with her just to be with me wasn't worth it. Or maybe—I hated to think about it—maybe he'd met someone else.

“He knows you were away.” Morgan said. “He knows when you were supposed to be back. If he cares about you, Robyn, he'll call.”

If he cared so much, why hadn't he told me he was leaving? Why hadn't he called me already?

  .    .    .

I got the key to Nick's apartment from my father and checked the place myself after school. Apart from a film of dust that had accumulated since he'd left, the place was spotless. I looked for a note but didn't find one. I even checked under the furniture in case it had fallen behind a dresser or under a table. Nothing. He was really gone.

I called Nick's Aunt Beverly and asked if she knew where he was.

“Why?” she said. “He isn't in trouble again, is he? Don't tell me he got fired from another job.”

He obviously hadn't told her he was leaving, either. I said that I had been out of town and that I was trying to track him down. I didn't have the heart to say anything else.

I went to the group home where Nick had been living when I first met him. It was for kids who had been sentenced to open custody—no locks, no bars, just strict discipline, lots of chores, and programs in life skills and anger management. Nick had at least one friend there, a guy named Antoine, whom I'd met during the summer. Maybe he knew where Nick was.

“Sorry,” the woman who answered the door told me. “Antoine isn't here anymore.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to give out that information.”

Judging by her somber expression, wherever Antoine was,
he
wasn't at liberty. Otherwise she would have told me.

For the next couple of days, I jumped every time my cell phone or the phone at my mom's house rang. When my mother finally said, “For heaven's sake, Robyn, relax,” I burst into tears. My mother gave me a sympathetic look. She said she was sorry that Nick had taken off without a word. She said she understood how I must feel. She was trying to be nice, but I couldn't help thinking that she was relieved that Nick was out of my life. Then she said the very last thing that I wanted to hear. She said, “Maybe it's for the best.”

  .    .    .

“I still don't understand,” I said. “Should I have done something different? Should I have snuck out to see him?” My mother would have grounded me for life if she'd found out I'd done that.

“It was only a few weeks, Robyn,” Morgan said. “It wasn't exactly the end of the world. And you said you talked to him on the phone almost every day before the trip.”

“I thought if we did what my mom wanted, she would see that he was okay. I was more worried about what she thought than about what Nick thought.”

I didn't mean to cry again, especially not in the school cafeteria where everyone could see me. But every time I thought about Nick, tears rose up all over again. Why had he taken off? Why hadn't he told me where he was going?

“What if something has happened to him? What if he's met someone else? What if—?”

Morgan pulled a wad of tissues out of her purse and handed them to me.

“I like Nick,” she said. “You know I do.”

In fact, I didn't know that. I knew she thought he was good-looking, which he is—tall and lean, with jet-black hair and startling purple-blue eyes. I knew she thought he was exciting and kind of dangerous—mostly because of all the trouble he had been in and because of the hairline scar that runs from the bridge of his nose to the bottom of his right ear. It makes him look like the kind of person who doesn't shy away from a fight. And it's true. He doesn't. I also knew that she respected the fact that I liked him, a
lot
. But I didn't know that she actually liked him.

“But,” she said—the word I had been waiting for—“you haven't known him for very long, which means that you may not know him as well as you think you do.”

“What are you saying, Morgan?”

“There could be a dozen reasons he left. Till you hear from him, there's nothing you can do. You just have to wait.”

“For how long?”

“I don't know.” She squeezed my hand. “But I do know that whatever happens, it's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. If he wasn't prepared to wait a couple of weeks for you, that's his problem, not yours. I also know that if worse comes to worst, you can't keep crying over him. And don't give me that look, Robyn. You know what I mean. It's been almost a whole week since we got back.”

“Hey, guys,” a cheery male voice said. I looked up. It was Billy Royal, my other best friend in the whole world and, recently, Morgan's boyfriend. He slipped an arm around Morgan and kissed her on the cheek before dropping into the empty chair beside her. “What's up?”

“Robyn is still beating herself up over Nick's disappearance,” Morgan said, as if I were doing something wrong.

Billy gave me a sympathetic look. “Still haven't heard from him, huh?”

I shook my head.

“She needs to get her mind off him,” Morgan said.

“I don't
want
to get my mind off him,” I said. “I want to know where he is and why he left.”

“What I mean is, you need to get your mind off thinking about him
all the time
,” Morgan said. “It'll drive you crazy. You need to get busy with something.”

“Why don't you come to the homeless shelter with Morgan and me?” Billy said. “They can always use extra help.”

Billy volunteered at a place for the homeless. He also volunteered at an animal rights organization and at the Humane Society, and was a founder of and the most active member in the Downtown Avian Rescue Club, which rescued injured migratory birds. Needless to say, he's a vegan.

“I don't know,” I said. I admire Billy, but the way I was feeling, I thought I'd probably just depress the destitute.

“Seriously, Robyn, you should try it,” Billy said. “The best way I know to feel good about yourself is to help someone else. Isn't that right, Morgan?”

Morgan nodded. “Although, to be honest,” she said, “I feel just fine about myself.”

I was sure that was true. Morgan was not given to self-doubt, self-pity, self-loathing or, especially, self-criticism. The person who liked Morgan best was Morgan herself. Billy was her number-two admirer.

“We're going down there tomorrow, right, Morgan?” Billy said. “And I know they're looking for more volunteers. The colder it gets, the more people use the shelter.” It was really cold already, and the nights getting longer. It was dark by five in the afternoon. “They need as many people as they can get to make soup and sandwiches, set out coffee, clean up after meals, sort and hand out donations of warm clothing and sleeping bags—stuff like that. It'll make you feel better. And you'll meet a lot of interesting people. What do you say?”

I wanted to say no. I didn't feel like doing anything. But Billy made it sound as if I'd be welcomed with open arms, so instead I agreed.

Billy beamed at me. “It's a great place to volunteer, Robyn. You won't regret it.”

As it turned out, he was wrong. It wasn't long before I was sorry I had ever said yes.

CHAPTER
TWO