The Leaving(28)

Would Avery see this report? He hoped so.

Hoped that maybe she’d believe him now.

He turned to look at Scarlett and Kristen, then back to the camera and said, “That’s all we have to say right now. Thanks for your time.”

The reporter smiled with large white teeth—“Awesome”—took out her phone, and started to walk away. “I’ve got the new lead on The Leaving,” she said. “We’re heading in.” Then the cameraman opened the van’s back door, put the camera in, and closed it. They both got in—their door slams loud like gunshots. Lucas realized he didn’t even know what station they represented, but it was already too late; they were gone.

“And now we wait,” Lucas said.

“I can drive you home if you want,” Scarlett said to both of them. In her car, stopped at a light beside an RV camping site, Lucas thought about getting out. Grabbing her hand and just abandoning the car right there. They’d hop in an RV and just drive and drive until they found a place where no one knew them.

But then . . .

Max.

Avery.

Wherever he went, this need to know what had happened would dog him. It had its teeth sunk into his flesh now and would need to be dealt with . . . extracted . . . properly.

The light changed and Lucas said, “It’s up here on the right.”

Opus 6 appeared like a jack-o’-lantern, sections of it glowing golden with solar-powered lights. It seemed to have eyes, and a mouth out of which a winding tongue of lava pulsed weakly down toward where the car pulled up.

“What on earth—” Kristen said.

“This is Opus 6?” Scarlett asked.

Of course.

They hadn’t ever been there.

Scarlett got out of the car at the base of the driveway and left it running, her door open. She took large, confident strides up the main path, casting her own shadows on the glow, and in a minute she was standing at the top plateau—where the final stone was supposed to go. She spun around, taking a full rotation, making Lucas think of sacrificial virgins on altars and ceremonial dances. She said, “This is amazing,” like a prayer. “I saw it mentioned in some old clippings I looked through . . . but wasn’t really sure what it was.”

Kristen wasn’t even interested enough to get out of the car. She’d lit a cigarette that glowed the same color as the solar lights.

She was far enough away not to hear.

The wind blew Scarlett’s hair into her face and she pushed it away.

Lucas said, “Do you have the feeling that you and I were . . . together?”

He had no better way to phrase it.

Then, for a long moment, he stared at her, waiting.


CAROUSEL FIRE

CLICK HISS


She said, “I think so, yes.”





AVERY



There would be no break in spring break—no sleeping in, no time-wasting.

She had set an alarm and was waiting for her dad when he came down into the kitchen. She’d heard him on the stairs and had abandoned the maze on the back of the cereal box to pour coffee for him. Black, two sugars.

“You’re up early,” he said when he entered the room, a tie draped around his neck.

“We need to offer a reward for information leading to Max being found.” She delivered his mug to him. “A big one.”

“I’m not really sure—”

“Dad.” She perched on a stool by the center island. “It looks bad, you not really doing anything. There is someone out there who did this and who maybe has Max, and right now they think they are going to get away with it. But someone out there knows something—they have to—and money talks. I mean, if the note’s real, and he’s really out there? We have to act. Now.”

Her dad took a long sip of coffee, then put the mug down and adjusted his watch. “How much are we talking?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Ten grand? Twenty? Twenty-five?”

“That’s a lot, Avery.”

“You can’t put a price tag on Max, can you?”

“That’s not fair.” Another sip and a minute of silence. “And the note probably isn’t real. You get that, right?”

She nodded. “Still.”

“I’ll think about it.” He put the mug down but didn’t let go of it.

She said, “While you’re thinking, time is being wasted.”

“If I do this, you need to not go on the news again.”

“Deal.” This was almost too easy.

“It is weird, though, isn’t it?” he said.

“What’s weird?”

“The carousel, the hot air balloon, horseback riding.” He let go of his coffee to sort through a stack of mail.

“Hot air balloon?”

“It’s on this morning’s news.” He opened a bill. “They each have one unique memory.”

“I hadn’t seen.” She turned the TV on. They were doing the weather, but it would cycle back soon; if not, she could look for the story on her phone. “So you’ll do it?”

He tossed the bill back onto the pile. “I’ll do it. I just need to, you know, figure out how one even goes about doing that, talk to my lawyer, speak with the police, the FBI. And you realize it’s going to bring out some crazy people.”