The Leaving(54)

“The police were asking my dad about Max and the school shooting today,” she said. “Whether he was there. What do you think that’s about?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Was he there?”

“Yeah. An open house thing.“

“I was there, too,” Lucas said.

“I know,” she said. “Ryan and I used to . . . talk.”

He nodded. “Why would they be asking about that now?”

She honestly didn’t know. Had they all been there? Why would that matter? Everyone had been there.

“Do you remember it?” she asked.

“No.”

“It’s just as well,” she said.

They stood there on the front path for a minute and she really just wanted to go inside, take her shoes off, and have everything be different.

“What’s with the camera?” she asked, noticing the strap across his chest that led to a small case.

“Oh.” He pulled it forward. “I have a tattoo of a camera shutter and I seem to know my way around cameras.”

“And?”

“And I don’t know. Maybe it’s a clue that maybe connects to Scarlett’s clue? We don’t know yet.”

“Are you with her?” she asked. “Scarlett?”

“We’re trying to figure that out but yeah”—he seemed totally fine with telling her—“I think so, yeah.”

She had to turn away to hide a burning behind her eyes.





Scarlett


Scarlett sat outside, windows down in the darkness, listening to the surf and trying to make sense of the day, for a good long while.

Then, finally, she went inside, tapped on Tammy’s door, found her in bed with her laptop.

“Did you pass the alien probe yet?” Tammy asked.

“Why do you want it to be aliens?” Scarlett plopped down at the foot of the bed.

Feeling so completely dra i n e d.


She’d tell her about the penny.

Just . . .

later.


Tammy looked at her over her reading glasses. “I don’t want it to—”

“It’s the least likely explanation,” Scarlett cut in. “So just answer the question.”

Her mother’s whole body tensed.

Then she breathed out loudly through her nose.

Her voice was a few tones deeper, almost possessed-sounding, when she said, “Because I do not want to believe that another human being could have done this to you.”

For a second, looking at the anguish on her mother’s face under the golden glow of the bedside lamp, Scarlett could almost remember the deep hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm of a spaceship.


Could almost remember a creature . . .


Its eyes in a V.



That w a l k e d

on light.



She could almost remember



. . . floating weightlessly up toward . . .


Scarlett’s gaze found some crooked stitching on a throw pillow on the armchair in the corner. “Do you have a sewing machine?”

Her mother was blowing her nose. “Sure, but I haven’t used it in years. I was starting to teach you, you know. We were making little purses and stuff. Hemming curtains.”





/




“Can you show me?”





Lucas


Chambers stood outside the precinct, holding a cup of coffee top-to-bottom between his thumb and middle finger. “I’ve got good news,” he said. “The coroner has ruled your father’s death an accident.”

Relief, of course, but also: “I’m not sure I like your definition of good news.”

“I should clarify. There’s no evidence to support any theory that there was wrongdoing, nor is there evidence to vindicate you.” He shift ed his coffee to the other hand, took the lid off, blew on it. “But you won’t be charged.”

“Well, I guess I should be grateful, then.”

“Your brother said your father wished to be cremated, so that’s being arranged, and we’ll have the ashes delivered.”

Lucas nodded.

No family, no funeral.

It was easy that way.

“So.” Chambers put the lid back on. “Tell me about the book.”

“It’s from the sixties. It’s about a society that sends their kids away for their childhood. My father e-mailed with the author’s son a few years ago and I tried to contact him, but he’s dead. Brain cancer. Their e-mails mentioned that his father had a cult following. I don’t know. Maybe there’s a connection? Obviously, the Alzheimer’s makes it impossible to get any information out of him.”

Chambers sipped his coffee, winced. Took the lid off again.

Lucas said, “His research sounds relevant. It never came up before?”

“No.” Blew on it again. “But, Lucas. You have to just let me do my job, okay.”

“I wish you would!” Lucas wanted to knock the coffee out of his hand. “Did you even Google the words ‘the leaving’ back then?”

“Don’t be a smartass. Of course. The book didn’t pop! They’re not exactly uncommon words.”