Second Star (17 page)

Jas climbs into the driver’s seat. “There’s a bar not too far from here. The Jolly Roger. I spent a lot of time there after I ran away. It’s an old-school kinda place. Lots of surfers, lots of skin.” He pauses, then adds, “Lots of substances.”

“You think someone there might know my brothers?” I ask, cutting to the chase. Jas always hesitates before he mentions drugs and my brothers in the same sentence, like he hates to remind me about that part of them. It’d be kind of sweet, except for the fact that he’s the person who sold them the drugs in the first place.

Jas nods. “But, Wendy, listen—” Jas’s voice shifts, lowering an octave. “It’s a bad scene.”

I almost laugh; Pete used exactly the same words to describe Jas’s side of Kensie, the first night I spent there. “Jas, no offense or anything, but I’m a big girl and you’re a drug dealer. Won’t we fit right in?”

He doesn’t answer right away, just twists the keys in the ignition. I jump when the truck roars to life. “It’s a long shot,” he says, “but your brothers might’ve stopped there on their way up the coast months back. Someone might remember…”

“Supplying them?” I offer, and Jas nods. He pulls the car out of the lot.

“Well, then,” I say, “I guess we’re headed to the Jolly Roger.”

Darkness falls earlier than usual; Jas explains that the storm is coming down from Canada, the one that’s going to cause Witch Tree to break. He hands me his phone and shows me a weather map, tracking the storm.

“Looks like the wave will break sometime tomorrow morning,” he says, studying the map.

“Who knew surfers were such meteorology geeks?” I say, handing it back to him.

Jas laughs.

Even the parking lot of the Jolly Roger looks dangerous. First of all, it’s not even paved; it’s just a field of dirt next to a surfside shack. The beach is right across the street, but it looks gritty somehow, the water not quite so blue, the sand gray with tar or dirt. Cars and motorcycles are parked haphazardly across the lot so that Jas has to squeeze his truck into a corner, the back half popping out onto the road behind us. A bare, grimy yellow lightbulb hangs above the door, flickering on and off.

“How do you even know this place is called the Jolly Roger?” I ask. “There’s not exactly a sign over the door.”

Jas smiles grimly. “You’re just somebody who knows—or you aren’t.”

“Surfers,” I say.

“Not just surfers.”

I nod, unclicking my seat belt.

“You ready for this?” Jas asks.

I nod again, trying not to look nervous.

“You could stay in the car if you want to,” Jas offers, but I shake my head. “That’s what I thought,” he says.

I take a deep breath. We’ve come this far, halfway across the state. What’s a few steps farther?

I’m shaking as I follow him across the parking lot, and it takes me a second to realize that it’s not fear, but excitement. For all I know, John and Michael are inside the Jolly Roger right now, just a few yards away, on the other side of a crappy door that I notice, when Jas opens it, is halfway off its hinges. They could be in there just killing time before Witch Tree breaks in the morning. Jas might walk right up to them and tell them to follow him out to the parking lot. They wouldn’t hesitate. They’d assume that Jas was about to hook them up. Imagine their surprise when they see me standing beside him.

It’s sad how relieved I am that they’d follow a drug dealer wherever he led them, like Jas is some kind of pied piper. They’ll be so disappointed when Jas doesn’t actually have anything to sell them, more disappointed still when we get home and it’s them going off to rehab. Because they’re the ones who need help, not me.

Inside, it’s so dimly lit that my eyes have to adjust to the darkness, even though it wasn’t exactly bright outside either. Sitting at the bar are about a half dozen men and teenage boys, nursing beers or cocktails, one or two looking so skinny that, despite their muscles and their tans, they seem sick. A few splintered tables dot the room, most of them empty.

“Wendy,” Jas whispers, tugging my arm; I look down, surprised to see that he’s holding my hand, not exactly sure when that happened. “I’m going to go into the back room.”

“What’s in there?”

Jas shakes his head. “Just wait for me out here.”

A woman staggers across the room and practically falls into a chair beside a table and promptly passes out. Other than her, I’m the only female here.

“Okay,” I say, reaching into my purse for my phone and scrolling through the photos. “Here’s their picture. There’s, like, twelve of them on there, but this one is the most recent. Their names are John and Michael and they’re twins, but not identical. And they’re about five feet eight, or that’s what they were the last time I saw them. Michael is maybe a half an inch taller and he never lets John forget it, even though technically John is older. He was born ninety seconds ahead of Michael. And—”

“Wendy,” Jas says gently, “I know them, remember?”

I nod. He squeezes my hand once more before he leaves. “Be careful,” he says.

“You, too.”

He slips me the car keys before he leaves. “You can go back to the car if you need to,” he says.

By the time Jas has disappeared behind an unmarked swinging door, I’m wondering if I should run back to the car right away. Pete would have wanted me to
stay
in the car to begin with.

I shake my head and remind myself that I’m supposed to be the one searching for my brothers. Even with Jas in the back room, I can be asking around. At the very least, it will keep me too busy to be scared.

I walk straight to the bar and order myself a beer. I get the feeling this isn’t the kind of place where they’re going to ask me for ID.

Someone lights a cigarette beside me. I turn and come face-to-face with the scariest-looking man I’ve ever seen. He’s not as tall as Jas, but muscles bulge from beneath his wife-beater, like he spends his days lifting weights on the beach. He’s grinning at me; one of his bottom teeth is missing.

I consider mentioning that it’s illegal to smoke in a bar in California, but instead I ask if I can bum one of his cigarettes. When he leans in to light it for me, I wonder if he can tell that I’ve never actually smoked a cigarette before.

“Thanks,” I say, swallowing a cough.

“No problem,” he replies, and winks.

“So,” I say, taking a drag on the cigarette, “come here often?” I exhale, watching the smoke rise in plumes around his face.

“Aw, come on, beautiful, you’re not going to use that line, are you?”

He leans in so close that when he speaks I can taste his breath: cigarettes and liquor, yesterday’s lunch and last night’s vomit. I resist the urge to back away.

“You’re a little honey, ain’tcha? So pretty and clean.”

I shake my head. There are no clues to be found with him. I slide down from my seat, cigarette in one hand, beer in the other.

“Nice meeting you,” I say awkwardly as I turn to walk away, looking around for someone else to ask, hopefully someone slightly less terrifying.

But he gets up and follows me across the room. “We didn’t exactly meet, did we? And I’d sure like the chance to get to know you better.”

I grimace, tossing my cigarette onto the sawdust-covered floor.

“I came here with someone,” I say carefully.

“Just ’cause you came here with someone doesn’t mean you’re leaving with him,” he says, grinning again and displaying his missing tooth. I wonder how he lost it.

The woman who passed out a few minutes ago is moaning as she lifts her head off the table. I consider sitting down and offering her my beer as a pretext for asking her some questions. But the man beside me is licking his lips; his breath sounds like he’s practically panting. So I head for the door, gripping Jas’s keys so tightly it hurts. I may want to ask more questions, but I need to get away from this creep even more.

Soon I’m sprinting across the lot, dropping my beer on the ground, and climbing into the driver’s seat of Jas’s truck, checking to make sure that the doors are locked, the windows rolled up.

Finally safe, I exhale, the taste of cigarette smoke heavy in my mouth.

A knock on the passenger side window startles me and I jump. I don’t know why I didn’t think he’d follow me into the parking lot.

“Open up,” he says softly. “I won’t bite.” I shake my head. He knocks again, so hard this time that the entire truck rattles. I’m pretty sure he could tear the door off with his bare hands.

I reach into my purse. But then I remember that I can’t call anyone for help. Jas has my cell phone. My hands are shaking so hard that I can’t even fit the keys into the ignition.

Shit.
Shit
. I press the horn, just tapping it. The sound is enough to make the guy drop his hand. He grins and steps away, crouching down. When he stands up, he’s holding a rock, lifting his arm behind him like a pitcher winding up for the throw. A heartbeat after he releases the rock, the side view mirror on the passenger side shatters into a thousand pieces.

Now I lean on the horn like my life depends on it. Maybe it does.

Jas comes running out of the bar, charging right at the guy. They fall to the ground; I can’t see them from where I’m sitting. Instead, I just see dirt flying up from the ground below.

Suddenly, Jas springs up and runs around to the driver’s side. I unlock his door.

“Move, Wendy!” he shouts. “Move!”

I nod, scrambling into the passenger seat and handing Jas the keys. He shoves them into the ignition and we speed off so fast that I don’t even get a chance to look back, to see in what condition Jas left the other man lying on the ground.

“Are you okay?” Jas asks. I open my mouth to say yes, but I can’t get the words out. I lift my hands to my face, surprised to find that there are tears running down my cheeks. I brush them away and take a deep breath, but I can’t take a deep breath because I can’t stop shaking.

“Wendy,” Jas says, his voice so deep that it cuts through my shaking. “Wendy, look at me.” He takes his eyes off the road just long enough to look into my eyes. “You’re okay. He didn’t hurt you. I would never have let him get to you.”

He lifts his foot off the gas slightly; we’re back on the highway now, and he slows us down until we’re a little bit closer to the speed limit.

“I would never have let him get to you,” Jas repeats.

I nod. I believe him.

27

“Well, you were right,” I say after a few more miles of silence. My pulse has slowed to an almost normal beat, and the tissues I pulled from my purse have wiped away all traces of my tears. “The Jolly Roger is a bad scene.”

Jas laughs. “Told ya so,” he says, and I smile. “Hey,” he says gently, “I’ve got some news. There was a guy in the back who recognized Michael and John.”

“Really?” I ask, my heartbeat quickening again. “Oh my god, should we go back?”

“Back there?” Jas laughs. “Your friend’s probably still waiting for us in the parking lot. If he regained consciousness.”

“But if someone there knew John and Michael—”

Jas shakes his head. “This guy had shared a motel room with your brothers a few months ago—three or four months ago.”

“After Pete kicked them out,” I say, doing the math.

“Don’t be so hard on Pete,” Jas says. “
I
was the reason he had to kick them out.”

I look over at him, shocked that he’s taking the blame. That’s when I see that Jas’s right hand is bleeding all over the steering wheel.

“Your hand!”

Jas shrugs. “There was glass on the ground.” Whether it was from the shattered mirror or just from the dozens of broken beer bottles littered across the Jolly Roger’s parking lot, I don’t know.

“We’ve got to get it cleaned up.”

“Believe me,” Jas says, “I’ve had a lot worse.”

I don’t want to imagine just what that means. I see a sign for a service area coming up and I say, “Pull over there.”

Jas keeps the car headed straight ahead.

“Now!” I say firmly, and this time, to my surprise, he listens. The fog is thick as we curl along the exit ramp.

“Now it’s my turn to tell you to stay in the car,” I say, hopping down from my seat. I run into the shop next to the gas station. When I come back, carrying water, bandages, and a cup of ice, Jas is sitting in the flatbed of the truck, his long legs hanging down and swinging back and forth like a little kid’s.

“I thought I told you to stay in the car,” I scold. I hop onto the truck beside him and pull a towel out from between a couple of the surfboards, pouring the ice into it. In addition to his bleeding hand, an ugly bruise is blossoming above his left cheekbone. I press the ice to his face, and he leans into my touch before placing his left hand over my own.

“I’m sorry,” I say, dropping my hand and opening up a package of gauze. I pull his right hand into my lap, cleaning out his cut as gingerly as possible.

“What for? You didn’t punch me.”

“We went to that place because of me,” I say. “And for what? Another dead end. We don’t really know any more than we did before.”

“It was my idea,” Jas says, cringing as I clean the gravel from his wound. The cut is long and skinny, horizontal across his palm. I can tell now that it’s not deep, at least.

“Will you be able to surf tomorrow?”

“Takes more than a few bumps and bruises to keep me out of the water.”

I smile, nodding.

The fog turns into a light drizzle, soaking our clothes and the truck beneath us. I shiver, but I don’t want to move.

“We’re not far from Witch Tree now,” he says. “Surfers from all over the place will be there tomorrow. No one’s going to want to miss this swell.”

“So if my brothers are still out there, they won’t want to miss it, either.”

Jas shakes his head, dropping the ice into the truck behind him. “Wendy,” he says, “I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” I say, but a lump is rising slowly in my throat. My tongue feels like it’s made of cement. Jas’s cut is clean now and the bleeding has almost stopped; I cover his hand with Band-Aids, spread across his palm. When I’m done, Jas lifts his undamaged left hand to my face. I close my eyes and imagine the way these hands propel him through the water when he paddles into the surf.