The Winter People(38)
“Can you really do that?” Fawn asked as she followed Ruthie and Buzz out of the truck. “Just look a person up?”
“Sure,” Ruthie said. “I think you can find out just about anything if you know what you’re doing.”
“Wow,” Fawn said, her eyes big. “I wish we had a computer.”
For the millionth time, Ruthie cursed her parents for not allowing a computer in the house. They claimed that technology wasn’t safe, that Big Brother was watching everything, monitoring every e-mail and Web search. Her mom also said wireless Internet and cell towers messed with your body’s electricity and could give you cancer. Ruthie had to go into school early and stay late to use the computers to work on reports and essays.
Fawn was only in first grade and hadn’t taken any classes in the computer lab yet. It was a magical, mythical realm to her.
Ruthie ordered coffees for her and Buzz and a hot chocolate for Fawn.
“Let it cool off before you take a sip, all right?” Ruthie warned.
“Mom puts milk in to cool it,” Fawn said. Ruthie nodded, and dumped in some half-and-half, testing it herself to make sure it wasn’t too hot before handing it back to Fawn.
They settled in around a table, and Buzz fired up his laptop, which was covered with stickers of aliens and UFO organizations. He typed for a minute and scowled at the screen. Fawn pulled her chair around for a closer look.
“Do you have games on there?” she asked.
“Tons,” Buzz said.
“Can you teach me to play one? Please?”
Buzz smiled. “Later. I promise.”
Fawn nodded excitedly and took a sip of hot chocolate, not taking her eyes off the screen. Buzz kept typing, fingers clicking on the keyboard.
“No listing for them in Woodhaven, but I get, like, a zillion hits for Thomas and Bridget O’Rourkes all over the country. We’ve got doctors, actors, you name it. Picking the two of them out from all these names would be like finding a needle in a haystack.” He took a sip of coffee, then typed some more. “But it just so happens that there are two O’Rourkes listed here in town, William and Candace. Don’t know if they’re related to our couple, but I got their addresses and phone numbers. At this point, I’d say they’re our best lead.”
“Let’s go,” Ruthie said, hopeful once more.
“I thought I was gonna try a computer game,” Fawn said, her face serious.
“When we get back to Vermont,” Buzz said. “Right now, we’re going to go check out these addresses.”
“Because maybe the people can help us find Mom?” Fawn said.
“That’s what we’re hoping,” Ruthie told her. “Slip your coat back on and grab your cocoa.”
Buzz jotted down the addresses and closed up his laptop, and they carried their drinks to the truck.
Back on Main Street, waiting at the next traffic light, Ruthie studied the landscape of stores and restaurants in a strip mall up ahead: Woodhaven Liquors, Donny’s New York Style Pizza, Pink Flamingo Gifts. There, at the end of the strip, was a closed business with boarded-up windows and a FOR RENT sign out front.
She blinked, bit her tongue to make sure she was awake and not dreaming.
“Stop!” Ruthie yelled, gesturing wildly. “Pull in there, next driveway on the left.”
Buzz turned left, pulling into the strip mall parking lot too fast—Ruthie bumped against Fawn, and Fawn leaned into Buzz. Ruthie’s coffee spilled all over her lap.
“What the hell?” Buzz said once he’d stopped the truck, but Ruthie was already hopping out of the cab, heading for the closed shop, the faded red sign drawing her in: FITZGERALD’S BAKERY.
She held her breath as she approached it, walking in slow motion, suddenly unsure if she really wanted to do this. She shuffled like a sleepwalker, half of her brain lost in a dream-state, the other half scrambling to make sense of what she was seeing: could this place really be here, existing in the waking world?
She approached cautiously, heart thumping in her ears. Plywood covered the windows, and newspaper was taped to the inside of the glass front door. But a square had fallen away, and Ruthie pressed her face against the glass, hands cupped around her eyes to keep out the glare.
There it was: the long glass-fronted display case that had held rows of cupcakes, cookies, and pies, now empty except for a broken lightbulb and a few forgotten doilies. Even the black-and-white-checked floor was the same. She could practically smell the yeasty warm fragrance of fresh-baked bread, taste the sugar on her tongue, feel her mother’s hand wrapped around hers.
What do you choose, Dove?
“No way!” Buzz had come up behind her and caught her enough by surprise that she jumped in alarm. “Is this the bakery you keep dreaming about?”
Ruthie shook her head. “It can’t be,” she stammered. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence?” The words felt hollow. But some part of her brain, the part that held dearly to all that was rational and made sense, couldn’t let her accept the truth.
“Coincidence, hell! How many Fitzgerald’s Bakeries can there be? Does it look the same inside?”
“I don’t know,” she said, turning away, the lie making her throat tight, the truth making her dizzy and disoriented. “Come on, let’s go check out those addresses.”