The Leaving Part 12

"Where is he?" she blurted. "Why didn't he come back?"

"Who?" Lucas's eyes seemed blank for a second. "Oh. Max?"

"He's my brother." The air felt dense, weighted-like an invisible tarp was holding back a storm inches overhead.

Lucas looked tired and not at all like a murderer. Murderers couldn't possibly have such soft-looking hair, such sad eyes. Could they?

He said, "I have no idea."

"You were best friends."

"I'm sorry"-he started to walk away-"but I don't remember him."

"I don't understand." Avery stepped forward. "You couldn't forget a whole person. You must remember something. I remember you." She raced around her mind for a specific memory. "Like remember they used to have a Halloween parade in the park over by the pier, and one year you were dressed as a sailor and Max was a pirate and you posed for a picture where he had his sword at your neck? Even I remember that and I was only four."

Avery had been dressed as Smurfette, her face a chalky blue that matched her eyes. That had been back when her hair was white blond-not light brown like now. Back when her mother got excited about holidays and used to make jack-o'-lantern cookies and wrap the front porch in spiderwebs.

"How do you know that you remember?" Lucas seemed annoyed now, his jaw tight; he had the same eyes as Ryan but leaner features; he was, for lack of a better word, prettier. "Maybe you think you remember it because you have that picture."

"I swear I remember it." She was not, however, sure.

"Swear all you want. It doesn't mean you do. I bet if you look at a picture of your kindergarten cla.s.s, you won't remember all of them."

Avery felt herself getting annoyed, too-a tingling in her fingers and on the tip of her nose. "It's not my memory that's the problem."

He looked hurt but only for a millisecond. "All I remember is one ridiculous thing. I remember riding a carousel. So if Max had a thing for carousels, maybe that's a clue for you. Otherwise, sorry."

She and Max had ridden a carousel at Disney World once, the summer before The Leaving. There were pictures of that, too.

"You have to help me," she said then, desperate. "I need to find him."

"Listen-what did you say your name-"

"Avery."

"Right. Avery. I've kind of had an insane twenty-four hours and-"

"Everything okay?" Ryan was walking down the main path now, and Avery rushed to him, hugged him. "I'm so sorry." She should have called him the second she heard; she knew that now.

Ryan looked at Lucas and said, "Can you give us a minute?"

Lucas seemed relieved to have a reason to leave.

"You don't think he did it, do you?" Avery asked when Lucas had reached the house.

"I don't know what to think." Ryan rubbed his eyes. "Still no sign of Max?"

She shook her head, not finding words at first, then settling on, "I never thought any of them would come back. I figured they were dead or had new ident.i.ties somewhere. I never imagined it would go like this."

"No one did," he said. "I mean, I'm happy he's back. At least I think I am. But it's just . . . It's so messed up. I actually had a thought today, that I'm jealous that he was the one who got taken and I was the one who was here."

"We don't know what they've been through," she said, now feeling bad about pretty much attacking Lucas. "What Max is still going through."

"Neither do they!" he nearly screamed. "And us, on the other hand, we've had to slog through this for years."

"I have to find Max," she said as she turned to go, almost to remind herself why she'd come. It had been a slog, yes. Depressed parents. Obsessed parents. Drunk parents. Absent parents. Anger. Grief. Miserable vigils and limbo. But to suggest they'd had it harder?

"It's not promising to be a story with a happy ending, Ave."

"I know," she said. "I just need to know. So we can all move on one way or another. Do you trust him?"

He looked off toward the house, then back at her. "I don't know. I can't think. I mean, this day. My dad . . ."

"Of course," she said. "Ryan, I'm so, so sorry."

She went to hug him again and he let her, and she tried really hard to have the moment just be about that-about him, his dad-but she couldn't do it. Couldn't hold it in. When she pulled out of the hug, she said, "What if they're lying?"

Confusion flashed across his features.

"What if they remember everything?" Her voice sounded sinister even to her. "What if they're hiding something?" Then, "I have to do something."

"You need to leave it to the police," Ryan said.

She stared at him for a second-he just didn't get it-then took off down the path. "Yeah, because that worked so well the first time."

At home, she went to the back door and then changed her mind.

Going around to the front of the house, she walked up to a news van and knocked on its side, then knocked on the other one, then stood on the front porch steps as newsies set aside their Starbucks and applied lipstick and fired up their cameras and microphones. The camera lights were bright even under full sun.

Go-time.

"I'm Max G.o.dard's sister, Avery." Her voice cracked a bit, but she cleared her throat and went on. "And I want to say that we're really happy that Lucas and Kristen and Sarah and Adam and Scarlett are back home."

She could see in their eyes how excited they were, these people who'd been sitting around for hours, waiting for something-anything-to happen.

"But we miss Max as much today as we have since that first day and every day in between. And, well, I think they might know something. The others. I think they're hiding something." She took a breath and licked her lips, the last of her lip gloss gone-who even cared?-and thought for a second about Lucas, the bewildered look in his eyes, the curve of his shoulders. He was so . . . lovely . . . and yet.

"One of them remembers riding a carousel," she said slowly, clearly. "There must be more they remember. Things that could help us find Max. And our family fully expects answers, and justice. Thank you. That's all."

She turned to go inside as they shouted questions. "Who remembers the carousel?" "Which of them have you spoken to?"

The front door was, luckily, unlocked, so she walked in, then closed it behind her and leaned against it.

Oh G.o.d. What had she done?

No, it was good. Someone had to say it, so why not her?

She pushed to standing and went upstairs and changed into her swimsuit, then went out to the pool lanai and dove in. Surfacing, she pushed back into a float and looked up at the clouds-one of them the shape of a cow's head, another long and sharp-looking, like a knife.

Scarlett

"I knew they'd find something."

The smoke from her mother's cigarette seemed intent on blowing Scarlett's way instead of out her mother's open window.

"I just knew it."

Scarlett sat in the pa.s.senger seat with her hands resting on her belly. The smoke was surrounding . . .

. . . suffocating . . .

. . . like it was trying to strangle her from the The doctor had said they couldn't tell what it was.

That the shape was obviously wrong for it to be a coin, that the detail wasn't sharp enough.

That she'd have to keep an eye out for when it pa.s.sed.

"Steve's never gonna believe it."

Of course he wouldn't.

Scarlett couldn't believe it, and it was inside her.

And all she could do was . . .

Tick Tock Tick Tock . . .

. . . wait?

It seemed cruel.

Desperate to think about something-anything-else on their way to the outlets, desperate to get her mind off a foreign body working its way through her system, Scarlett said, "How'd you meet him? Steve?"

"Oh, he came into the bar one night. Then again the next night. And so on and so on . . ."

"What bar?"

"Thar she blows." Her mother pointed out Scarlett's window. They were on a small on-ramp to a bridge beside the Lamppost Hotel.

"It ain't . . ."

Isn't.

". . . the most glamorous job, but I've been there long enough I get to pick my own shifts and everybody pretty much leaves me alone. Haven't taken a drink myself since the day you went missing, but happy to hand 'em out."

"Really?"

"That night, the night before you were taken, I was three sheets to the wind when I was putting you to bed. And I was so H-O the next day when things got crazy-"

Aicho?

Oh.

H-O?.

"H-O?"