Come Find Me(45)

I shake my head. “You can’t do that.”

“Yes, I can. I can also take your phone, if you want to push it.”

I clamp my mouth shut. These were his rules: no skipping school, no boys.

As if this is the source of the change in me.

Not the signal, not the photo, not Elliot at the jail. But a boy in the night.

“Joe, please.”

“Kennedy. Go to bed. Now.”

I listen, but only because this is not the right time. And before that time comes, I need my phone.





Grounded for a week



That’s all I hear from Kennedy the next day. Meanwhile, if my school has called about me skipping a day, it doesn’t seem to register. Or else no one has checked the messages. Though from the way my parents looked this morning, my guess is it wouldn’t make their Top 10 list of Things That Require Attention, either way.

When I arrive home from school, Dave, Clara, and Mike are there, along with the remainders of their day: three energy drinks on the desk, two sandwich wrappers, and an open bag of Doritos. I can feel Clara’s eyes on me as I walk past, but I don’t look. I have to tap the table in front of Mike to get his attention. He reminds me of a college kid pulling an all-nighter, only he’s in his forties and he does this all the time. Sometimes I wonder if this is my future, the sibling left behind, a life dedicated to searching.

    God, I have to find him.

Mike looks up but doesn’t remove his headphones at first. “My parents?” I ask.

He holds up one finger, then points to the headphones, like maybe he’s listening to a message.

“They left,” Dave says. “With some dude in a suit.” I close my eyes. Agent Lowell. “Think it was about the picture,” he continues, obviously the master eavesdropper.

Clara perks up, opens her mouth to talk just as my parents walk in the front door, clearly disoriented.

They thank the group working in the living room, then excuse them for the day. They drift through the downstairs, my mom tossing her purse onto the couch as she wanders to the sink and sticks her mouth directly under the faucet. That is, for the record, the most un-Mom-like move.

I’m transfixed.

I jump when my dad puts his hand on my shoulder, and then tense. This is the parent move I am familiar with. I’m even more shaken by this than by the un-Mom move. Because I know what this means. Nolan, we have something to tell you.

“Dad,” I start, before he can say something, sucking us back in. The reason I was looking for him when I got home from school. I pull him to the kitchen, pointing to the new picture up on the wall. “That kid on the end. My friend was here yesterday, and she says she saw him around here.”

He narrows his eyes, steps closer to see the details. If he thinks anything of me having a girl in the house when they were gone, he doesn’t say, doesn’t seem to care. “Hunter Long,” he says slowly, like he’s pulling the file up in his brain. “Here? Is she sure? When did she see him?”

    “In the fall.”

He nods slowly. “Seems unlikely. But we’ll make a note. Give me her name tomorrow.”

But he’s not paying attention. Usually, when they get a bite of promising information, their movements quicken, their eyes brighten, fueled by the hope.

My dad turns away from the photo, letting out a sigh. “Nolan, we have something to tell you,” he says, and my stomach continues its precipitous plummet. No point in prolonging this, but still, I plan my escape route.

I back out of the room so I’m hovering between the dining room and living room. “Uh-huh,” I say.

“The photo of Liam appears to be authentic,” my dad says. “The photo is proof.”

My mother appears then, her eyes glassy, her weight leaning slightly to the right, and for a second I wonder if she’s been drinking.

“Proof of what?” I ask.

“Proof that the park wasn’t where he disappeared from,” she says, the faraway look still in her eyes.

I shake my head. It has to be the park. It’s where I’ve centered everything. Every test. Everything I’ve been looking for. My brother and his dog disappear without a trace. A forest of ghost stories and legends. Some crack in the universe. Everything happened against his will; he didn’t choose to go anywhere, without telling us.

I feel sick, like the world has tilted. I can’t orient myself. No. They’re wrong.

    “They’ve enlarged the photo for us,” my dad says, gesturing to the living room. “Agent Lowell is asking all of us to take a good look again. To think about where it was taken.”

The room is practically spinning. It feels like I’m falling, like something is slipping from my grasp—

“Nolan,” he says, like he’s repeating something he’s already said.

It’s then I notice the printout on the living room table. Enlarged Liam, in the center of the room.

I picture my brother, in the corner of this very room. The fever dream. His mouth moving. Help us. Please.

I picture him over the sink the morning he disappeared, the drop of blood. The hiss of pain, the razor clattering in the sink.

“Someone went to a lot of trouble to disguise where the email was sent from,” my dad adds. “They’re still working on it, at the field office.”