The Leaving (23 page)

“I wish you would!” Lucas wanted to knock the coffee out of his hand. “Did you even Google the words ‘the leaving’ back then?”

“Don’t be a smartass. Of course. The book didn’t pop! They’re not exactly uncommon words.”

“Unreal,” Lucas said.

Chambers just shook his head and looked away, letting it go. “Come inside so I can take notes.”

So Lucas followed him in and told him again about Orlean—and no, he didn’t have the book, because he’d given it to Orlean—and went over the whole story of the nursing home and Scarlett’s penny and the security guard.

When they were done, Lucas said, “Why were you asking about Max and the school shooting?”

Chambers seemed to be considering, like deciding on a chess move. His phone rang and he took the call. “Yeah?”

Then, “Okay. Be right there.”

“I have to go,” he said to Lucas. “Something’s come up.”

“Something to do with us?”

“When I can tell you,” Chambers said, “I will.”

“So that’s a yes.”

Chambers let out a loud breath. “That’s a yes.”

“Why were you asking Max’s parents about the shooting?” Lucas repeated. “I was there, you know.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked your brother.”

“Why?”

Chambers tilted his head, annoyed. “What did I just say about letting me do my job?”

AVERY

Again with the landline.

Just ringing and ringing.

Why did they even still have the thing?

She got up from where she was sitting at the kitchen island and picked up: “Hello.”

“Avery?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Detective Chambers.” The dishwasher dinged that it was finished.

“Hi.”

“I need to speak to your father, please.”

“He’s not here.” She opened the dishwasher door, and hot air pushed out into the room.

“I’ve tried his cell ten times,” Chambers said. “I’ve left messages. Do you know where he is? Can you reach him?”

“I can try his cell, too. Or call his assistant.”

“What’s that number?”

She had to go get her phone and look it up to give it to him.

“Okay, thanks.”

“No, wait, you can’t expect—”

He hung up.

“You have GOT to be kidding me!” Avery screamed.

She called her father’s cell, but it went straight to voice mail.

She texted him:
CALL CHAMBERS! THEN CALL HOME!

He was no better than her mother, really: She was upstairs, in the bedroom, in bed, watching TV. He was hiding under his own pillow at work. Her phone rang.

“Sorry,” he said. “Meetings.”

“What’s going on?” she said.

“It’s—they got a tip that sounds reliable. But—”

“A tip about what?”

He breathed loudly. “The location of a body.”

“
Max’s body
?” She nearly screamed it. Then regretted her mother might have heard.

“They don’t know, Avery. A body. That’s all.
Do not mention
this to your mother yet. Understood?”

Avery said, “Understood.”

“And let’s not jump to conclusions, okay? Let’s just sit tight. I’ll come home as soon as I can.”

Sam came and got her when she texted him the news—
I will not call Lucas. I will not text Lucas
—and they went to the Love Boat for ice cream because she couldn’t think of anything else to do and neither could he.

As usual, he ordered a flavor she didn’t even want to try.

Pistachio.

Who did that?

Who didn’t at least try to coordinate?

They’d had to wait a long time to get served—the kid in front of them had a peanut allergy and the mom had asked them to use a clean scoop and open a new gallon of whatever flavor the kid wanted—and by the
time they got outside, there were no tables worth sitting at. Only two seats at a table where someone had spilled what looked like a combination of chocolate-chip-mint and blue-raspberry sorbet. They’d melted together into a green and purple swirl that she half wanted to take a photo of. She could study it later and decide whether it looked hideous, like a close-up of some aggressive cancer cell, or beautiful, like something the aurora borealis might whip up in the sky. So they headed for the car.

“Have there been any more notes?” Sam asked, and it took her a second to figure out what he was referring to. “Because they can’t really be from Max if . . . Well, you know.”

“There was another one yesterday,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugged and took a swipe at her coconut almond fudge with a hard tongue.

“Well, hopefully this will put an end to all that.”

“You mean
if
it’s Max’s body,” she said.

“Can’t I say
anything
right?” He shook his head.

“I don’t know, can you?”

He shifted his green cone to his left hand, then reached over and took her hand. “I know this is unbelievably stressful for you. I can’t even imagine.”

“No, you can’t.”

“That’s what I just said!” he shouted.

“I’m sorry,” she said, even though she really wasn’t; she just didn’t want a scene in the parking lot at the Love Boat. “I’m just so on edge.”

“Come on,” he said. “I told Emma we’d come get her.”

Avery stopped walking. “Why’d you do that?”

“Uh,” he said. “Because she’s our friend? Because I thought you’d want to see her?”

“I didn’t know you guys, you know, texted.”

“Sometimes,” he said. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” she said. “Should it be?”

“Why
would
it be?”

He got into the car and she got in, too, and he started to drive toward Emma’s. After a few long blocks, her ice cream had reached that point of no return, where it was melting faster than she could reasonably lick it, and she opened her window and tossed what was left of it out. It hit the car with a thud as Sam took a sharp turn.

“What the hell, Ave?”

“I didn’t want the rest of it.” Her hands were sticky, and the only napkin she had left was sticky, too.

He shook his head. “We could have found a trash can.”

She leaned out to look in her side mirror, saw a racer’s stripe of ice cream. “There’s a car wash up on the right. My treat.”

They stopped at a light that had to be in the running for the longest red in the world, and then he pulled into the car wash. She handed him a ten to slide into the machine at the entrance and then he pulled up to the doorway, put the car in neutral, and they were off.

First came the rainstorm.

And she knew she wasn’t making it up, the tension between her and Lucas. The way that he looked at her, the way the air felt around them. You couldn’t make that up.

Then the blue-and-purple foam soap. She wanted to take a picture of that, too, compare it to that ice-cream swirl.

Then the dullflapping of those oversize brushes—the car basically being pummeled clean by some palsied rubber octopus.

She could remember all this, seen from the backseat when she was little.

A feeling of car sickness and fear and wonder.

He felt something for her.

Something more.

She knew it.

Then more rain.

Then huge fans to blow it all dry.

A gale.

Avery picked a droplet of water on the windshield and watched as it held on for dear life—so much longer than the droplets around it that she actually started rooting for that little guy and then it finally surrendered and went
poof
in the now blinding daylight.

She slid her sunglasses back down over her eyes.

Sam reached over and squeezed her knee as he pulled away. “You okay?”

She nodded and looked out her clean window, saw everything in sharp focus. “I think we should break up.”

S
c
a
r
l
et
t

Her hands on fabric,

her foot on the pedal,

her eyes focused on the line of stitches.

She made a skirt first, to get her fingers used to working the machine again. It was the only thing she’d done since coming home that felt right.

Her mother had had some old fabric lying around, so she’d used that.

She didn’t love it.

It didn’t matter.

There’d be time.

She’d shop.

She’d make dresses.

She’d make simple tops.

She knew how to do all that and had a moment of gratitude for . . . whoever.

This, at least, was a small gift.

Some small consolation prize.

Maybe the others had secret skills, too. Things that could bring them even a small bit of . . . joy?

Sarah had seen things in her mind like sketches.

Scarlett went and got her phone and called her.

It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Then voice mail—the robot kind, prerecorded.

“Sarah. It’s Scarlett. Listen. I want you to try to do something. I want you to try to draw what you see—the house, the girl. You said you see them like sketches, so just pick up a pencil and see what comes out. I just realized I know how to sew and, I don’t know. Maybe you can draw. Call me? Okay?”

She went back to the machine with the last piece of fabric she had on hand, thinking just to practice more, to maybe make a small purse.

She ran the machine and lost herself in the rhythm, the hum, the
click-clicking
of the needle.

When she stopped, she hadn’t even sewn along a seam.

She’d made a series of lines with right angles.

Nothing but three rectangles.

Such a waste of fabric.

She’d have to find a seam ripper and pick them out.

She heard Tammy’s phone ring, heard her pick up and then, a moment later, say, “Yes, thanks. Of course I’ll tell her.”

Tammy came into the room and stood there, looking . . .

             /
  /
        /
/
  /
    /

. . . and Scarlett said, “What?”

“They found a body.”

That   cliff    of   h e r   s.

“In the Everglades.”

Flattening.

“Max?”

. . . And becoming solid ground worth standing on.

“He ain’t saying”—
isn’t!
—“but who else would it be?”

. . . And the bottom

dropping out.

Lucas

Lucas was on the computer, reading about the shooting. Because maybe doing so would help him remember that day? It was before they were taken. So in theory, he should be able to remember. The way he should be able to remember maybe taking his first steps, the sound of his mother’s voice. So far, though, nothing.

His phone buzzed a text. It seemed too fast for there to be an ID. Chambers had said to sit tight.

The text said:

Want to hang out?

So not Chambers.

And it didn’t sound like Scarlett.

Because it wasn’t.

Avery?

Did he want to hang out with Avery?

Or did he want to stay here waiting for Chambers and answers? Yes, as a matter of fact.

He
did
want to hang out.

Yes, with Avery.

Today, maybe
only
with Avery.

Avery was easy.

A friend.

Right?

Scarlett was . . .

Something else.

Something complicated.

He wrote back,

sure ! when?
where?

She said:

Now? Got wheels?

Ryan and Miranda were out.

But her car was just sitting there.

It was a bad idea, really.

But it was his only idea.

He went down the hall and into Ryan’s room and looked for Miranda’s overnight bag and found the key linked to the strap on a blue hook.

Back to his phone:

Yes.

Pick you up in five
.

Then out the door.

Then back for his camera.

Then out again and into Miranda’s car, where he had to push the driver’s seat back and adjust the rearview, even for the two-minute drive.

Avery was waiting beside a pelican mailbox, wearing plaid shorts and a pink tank top and sunglasses with white frames.

“It has occurred to me,” she said when she got into the car, pushing a stack of T-shirts aside and then tossing them into the backseat, “that I actually have no idea what we should do.”

“Pick anything.” He felt suddenly giddy. “Something fun.”

“Fun,” she said. “Like real fun or fake fun?”

“I wasn’t aware there was a distinction,” he said. “Possible to have both at once?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Zoo? Or Zoomers? Mini-golf?”

“What’s Zoomers?”

“Amusement park,” she said. “So it would have to at least be
amusing
if not exactly fun, right?”