Come Find Me(33)

“Finally,” I say. But Kennedy has gone uncharacteristically silent.

Her phone directs me through three more turns, and the road becomes wide and deserted at the same time. I hit the brake when I see the sign up ahead, just stop dead in the middle of the road for a second—and I’m glad there’s no one behind us.

Then I veer off to the shoulder and put the car in park. The engine rumbles underneath our seats, but she doesn’t say anything. I stare at her until she looks my way. “What are we doing here?” I ask.

“You promised, no questions.”

“Well, I changed my mind. I’m not going any farther until you tell me what we’re doing here.”

She stares at me like she’s daring me to look away first, but I don’t. “Pretty sure you already know the answer to that,” she says.

I frown, because she’s right. Out the front window, the sign on the side of the road says PINEVIEW REGIONAL DETENTION CENTER. I put the car in drive again, because of course I know exactly what we’re doing here. And I don’t know how to tell her this is a terrible idea. I’m sure she knows that.

    It is. For the record. An absolutely terrible idea.

I pull the car into the lot beside the high metal chain fence, facing the large concrete building beyond. The sun feels especially brutal out here, amid the area cleared of trees, with nothing but metal, pavement, and dirty concrete. We walk to the entrance, and the security guard at the gate looks us both over.

“You don’t have to come in,” she says, but I follow her anyway.

At the gate, we’re instructed to leave our phones and keys, so I turn my cell off before leaving it in a locker. We don’t speak. Not during this part, and not when we walk through a metal detector on the way to the registration area. And not while she’s standing in line.

There’s a line of people in front of us, and another group waiting to be let inside, and I start to get a really bad feeling.

I want to tell her to forget this, offer to take her somewhere else, anywhere but here. But before I know it, we’re at the front of the line, and she hands over her ID.

“Inmate’s name?” the woman behind the plastic window asks, without even looking up.

“Elliot Jones,” she says.





The woman looks up from her computer screen and shakes her head. She looks way too friendly to be working here, asking for inmate names all day, from behind a plastic shield. “You’re not on the list.”

“I’m his sister,” I say. “Family.” I point to the ID so she sees the name. Last name Jones.

Her face softens even more. “I know, honey.” She pivots the computer screen my way so I can see. There’s a column of approved names: I see his lawyer’s name and Joe’s name, not that Joe has ever visited, to my knowledge. And then a column marked Unapproved. There’s only one name on it. She taps her purple fingernail against the screen. “There’s a note here, with your name. It says, specifically, you’re not approved.”

My teeth grind together, and I can feel the people behind me in line growing restless. “Who would do that?” I ask, thinking of Joe. Or Elliot’s lawyer. The police. “Let me talk to someone—”

    She shakes her head. “It won’t help. Also, darling, you can’t come in regardless without a guardian present. You’re a minor.”

“A guardian.” I almost laugh. “That’s him.” I point to the computer screen. I have no guardian anymore, not one that counts. Technically, Joe is the person to put on the school forms, and he can probably claim me as a tax deduction or something. But my true guardians are either dead or locked up behind that wall. Elliot, at eighteen, should be my legal guardian.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” she says, already looking behind me, to the next person.

I pull the envelope out of my pocket, the one with the readout from the radio telescope inside. The thing, I’m sure, only he can decipher. “Can I get this to him? Please. He won’t…” Call, accept my letters, anything. I need him to see this. To tell me what it means. He built it; he would know.

She seems to be debating something, and it’s awful, the hope that precedes her words. “No, Ms. Jones. The inmates set this list.” She waits for me to understand, and when it seems I haven’t gotten the point yet, she lets out a sigh. “This list, this decision, is from him.”

I shake my head, not understanding. Elliot won’t see me? Elliot won’t let me visit? Not the lawyers, or Joe, but Elliot? Elliot, who never acted like I was a pain in his butt, even when I so obviously was. I don’t understand. I need him to give me answers.

Suddenly I feel a hand at my elbow. A voice at my ear. “Come on,” he says. It’s Nolan, beside me, the line of people growing louder behind us. They’re completely unsympathetic to my cause, and I get it, I do. Look where we are; everyone’s got a problem. We’re at a jail. They’re probably immune to scenes like this. To people like me.

    He leads me back into the sunlight, against the barren landscape. I hold the paper out to him so he understands. “He built it. The satellite dish. The computer program. He’ll know what it means.”

Nolan frowns. “Can’t you email or something?”