Twisted Fate(40)

“Looks like someone’s been making art,” Kim said. “He’s got the unmistakable halo of creation about him.”

Graham laughed and looked a little embarrassed. He took a couple olives out of the bowl and popped them into his mouth.

“You guys want to come upstairs?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

David said, “We’re ordering Thai food later—is there anything special you’d like us to get?”

Declan and Becky and I looked at each other. We didn’t even know you could order Thai food in Rockland. Or really what it even was.

“Maybe just four pad thais?” Graham said.

“Gotcha,” his dad said, and nodded.

“Could we eat it in the screening room?” Declan asked.

“Of course,” Kim said. “Wherever you’re going to be working, we’ll bring it up.”

I remember thinking how funny it was Kim thought we would be working on something instead of just hanging out. She thought of everything as some kind of art project or the planning for some kind of art project. But actually I guess we would be working. Strategizing, and even I had to admit it was very cool of them to see it that way.

Graham grabbed the bowl of olives and we followed him upstairs. Through the maze of rooms and hallways into his back bedroom.

“What’s up, you guys?”

“Not much,” I said. “You’ve heard about Brian, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s so messed up. I was just talking to him last week.”

Becky said, “That’s why we’re here. We thought maybe you had something on your film that would be a clue. You filmed a lot at that park, right?”

“Yeah, and at the school and all around there. You’re right. I didn’t even think there might be something on the films.”

“Can we watch them?” Declan asked.

“Hell yeah!” he said.

We sat on the floor in his room and he opened his Mac Air and looked at it for several minutes. “Yeah, okay, all the files are here. And the raw stuff before I edited it into the main movie. Let’s take this to the screening room.”

We followed him down another long hallway to the back stairs and then went up to the third floor, to the tiny dark theater where Declan and I had first seen his work and where Declan had first got the idea to christen him “Art Dullard.”

But now we were all nervous and anxious to see the movies. I really felt like we were going to find Brian’s kidnapper. That Graham might have even captured him on film. Graham attached his laptop to the projector and then Brian’s soft round face filled the screen. Becky took a sharp breath and then started crying.

“What are you up to?” Graham’s voice asked on the audio.

“I’m headed to Professor Xavier’s house,” Brian said.

“Oh yeah? What are you going to do there?”

“Meet up with my friends, because we all have the X-Gene.”

“You’re an X-Man?”

Brian nodded and held out his arm for the camera to inspect. He had drawn the word X-Man on himself in magic marker.

Graham’s voice said, “That’s awesome, dude.”

In the background when the camera pans back you can see there are several people sitting in the park. A guy reading the newspaper, a couple walking past, Brian’s mother and baby sister perched on a bench across the way.

“Wait,” Declan said. “Go back and pause it.”

Graham did and we looked at a guy wearing a blue sweat suit, who seemed to be looking right at Brian as he walked past.

“What time is that on the footage?”

“Four forty-three,” Graham said.

Declan pulled a little notebook out of his pocket and wrote something down. We did that for every part of the film where some stranger appeared or someone seemed to be looking at Brian.

The film was just Graham talking to Brian. Asking him questions that were the little-kid version of what he had asked Becky when he filmed her.

“Where do you live? How old are you? What’s your favorite food? What’s your favorite show? Where do you go to school? Where do you like to play? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

All his answers were kinda cute and funny because he had a squeaky voice and he talked a lot—for every answer he would practically give his whole life story.

“My mom used to pick me up because she was working, but now she’s home with the baby and I walk home by myself and have to be really quiet because she’s taking a nap but usually my mom takes a nap too before our gramma gets there and then she has to go to work again. I can even go home by myself when no one’s there. I’m Wolverine.”

“How do you get home from school?” Graham asked.

“I take Sunnyside Drive and then my friends keep going to Demerest Parkway and I turn down Hendy Creek by myself.”

“Do you ever walk along the creek?”

“Sometimes.”

Declan and I exchanged looks. I knew he was thinking what I was thinking. I felt my heart pounding and like I was going to throw up.

“Wait,” I said. “Wait a minute. Who besides us has seen this movie?”

Graham shrugged. “Anybody can buy it from my site.”

“What?” Becky asked, suddenly shocked.