Finding Abbey Road (6 page)

“I'm Detective Reyes. We're here about Cassie Fowler. You two aren't in any trouble, but we do need to know everything you can tell us.”

“It's okay,” says Charity as we continue to stand there like statues. “They know you're related to her,” she says to Caleb, “and I already told them that Val had been staying here up until last week.”

“Ms. Fowler says she won't press charges as long as the girl is returned home,” says the detective. “So if you cooperate, this should all go smoothly.”

“If we can trust
Ms. Fowler
,” Randy grumbles.

“Have a seat,” says the officer, her face impassive.

Caleb and I shuffle to the kitchen table. Detective Reyes sits across from us. She leads with a smile. Trying to put us at ease. But it fades as she flips open her notebook, a pen poised over blank lines.

“So we know most everything,” she begins. “Obviously you both care about Val, and you thought you were helping her by harboring her. Certainly having her in your home was safer than letting her sleep on the streets. Also, she's been part of your band.”

“She's family,” says Caleb.

“Of course. We understand the last time you saw her was in New York, is that correct?”

“Yes,” says Caleb.

“And you haven't been in contact with her since.”

“No,” Caleb answers immediately.

Detective Reyes glances at Caleb, then jots down a note. There's something about these quick looks she gives us, like she can see right through any lie we might tell. I imagine
her writing
liar.
“We'd like to get a few more details about the events in New York,” she says, the searing glance aimed at me this time, and I feel my nerves explode. “Maybe we can start with your trip to the Fowler residence on February nineteenth.”

Damn.

I don't want to look at Caleb. He stares hard into the table, but he might as well be glaring at me.

I never told him about my trip with Val to her old house.

Val didn't want me to. I'd meant to afterward, but there hasn't exactly been a chance. But now it looks like I've been holding out on him.

“We, um,” I say, “Val wanted to get some things. She didn't want to go alone so I agreed. We kept it a secret because she knew it was risky.”

Detective Reyes checks her notes. “Melanie says that Cassie stole money in the form of a blank check. Princeton police confirm that Val's fingerprints were on the checkbook and nightstand.”

“It wasn't stealing,” I say, although I guess it maybe was. “Val just wanted Melanie's account number so that she could send her money for her medical bills. Her boyfriend got the check back, anyway.”

“We're not so concerned with that issue,” says Detective Reyes. “The mother doesn't want to press charges for the breaking and entering or the theft, though technically she could. Our only concern is finding the girl and returning
her to her home. We're just trying to get all the facts here. Did you take anything else from the Fowler residence?”

“Just a few personal things. Val grabbed her notebook, a shirt. I think that was it.”

Detective Reyes's pen scribbles across the page.

I glance at Caleb. He's still staring into the table. “She didn't want me to tell you,” I say to him. “But I was going to when we had the chance.”

Caleb nods. “It's okay.”

“I think that's all we need to know about that for the moment,” says Reyes. “We have a pretty good idea of what happened outside the club last Friday night. Sounds like a disagreement between the boyfriend and your band member, Matt . . . And that's when Val ran off. Is that right?”

“Yeah,” says Caleb.

“And you're sure you haven't had any contact with her since that night.”

Time seems to stretch and the universe becomes untrustworthy. How fast should we respond? It feels like anything we do or say, even how we breathe or where we look or if our hands move will convey our guilt.

Caleb sighs. “Nothing since last Friday. I keep trying to text her, but . . .”

He sounds convincing, and Reyes nods. But now her eyes shift to me. I shake my head, feeling like every single movement I make screams guilt. “I haven't heard anything, either. I went back to the apartment where she
was staying,” I add, just to say something. “But she was already gone.”

The officer speaks up. She's been still and expressionless this whole time. “If we checked your phones, or subpoena the phone records from your carriers, we wouldn't see any evidence of you communicating with her.”

“You can't do that without a warrant,” says Randy.

“Which we could get if it came to that,” says Reyes sharply.

“No,” says Caleb, stoic and believable.

“Nope,” I add, hoping I'm half as convincing.

Detective Reyes traces over her notes with the back of her pen. I worry that she can see the truth, right there in everything we're not saying. . . .

She closes her notebook. “Those are all the questions we have at the moment.” She glances at Charity. “You have our number. Because Ms. Fowler has filed a formal missing person's case, it is your legal obligation to let us know any information you might gain about Cassie's whereabouts.”

“We understand,” says Charity.

Detective Reyes stands. “I know that Cassie had her reasons for running away, and I know you want to help her. Once she is found, we've assigned a social worker to her case to monitor the home. But for the moment, from a legal standpoint, the best thing you can do is help us get her back to her mother. Remember that you're risking a civil suit if you don't cooperate.”

Caleb and I nod quietly.

“Thanks,” says Randy.

“We'll be in touch if there's anything else we need,” says Detective Reyes.

After they leave, we all retreat to the living room, slumping to the couches.

“You've heard from her, haven't you?” says Randy, rubbing his hands over his face.

“She's okay,” says Caleb. “Staying with a friend.”

“Do you know where?” Charity asks.

“No.”

Charity sighs. “I don't know if I want to know whether you're lying or not.”

“Mom . . . ,” Caleb starts.

“No, I mean it, Caleb,” says Charity. “Believe me, I don't want Val going back to that woman, but . . . I feel like we can defend our decision to help her out, but the reality is that we harbored her for four months. If Melanie decided to come after us, she'd have a pretty good case.”

“Except for the part where she's not a responsible parent and she hit her kid,” says Caleb.

I think about the real story that Val told me: the fight she had with Melanie on Christmas Eve and how technically Val hit her first.

More secrets that only I know.

“But we can't really prove she's irresponsible,” says Charity. “Can we?”

“Their house is a mess,” I offer. “There's evidence of drug use everywhere.”

“But they'd clean that up before any lawyers or police could find it,” says Randy. “Maybe in time the social worker would figure it out. And ultimately, Val only has to make it another year until she's eighteen.”

“But it's not fair,” says Caleb. “We haven't just been harboring her, we've been
helping
her. Doesn't it matter that she's getting her GED and pursuing emancipation? She needs us if she's going to finish all that. Plus, it's not like she's really going to go home. If we turn her in, she's either going to run again or self-destruct.”

“I know,” says Charity.

“Can we talk to Melanie?” I wonder aloud. “What if you told her all this?”

Charity shakes her head. “I tried.”

“You did?” says Caleb. “When?”

“Over the weekend. I called her after you told me Val had run again. Let's just say it didn't go well. I barely got past ‘hello' before she started cursing me out. My call is probably what led her to go to the police. That woman . . .”

As we talk, I have this strange sensation, like there is a ghost at the table. A dark space missing from all of this . . .

It's Eli.

Missing not just from his son's life, but from his daughter's, too. His
family.
Except he's not a ghost. He's flesh and
blood and hiding out in another world, and no matter what his legal issues would be, he's leaving his children without a parent. Val needs a dad. Especially with a mom like Melanie. She needs him around even more than Caleb does. Even just to have an opinion about what she should do. To be someone for her.

All of us are picking up the slack for Eli White.

And it's not fair.

The table has gotten quiet.

“You texted before,” Randy finally says. “You wanted to talk to us about something?”

Caleb glances at me, and I try to tell him telepathically what I now realize we need to do. Luckily, he seems to be thinking the same thing. “It's nothing,” he says. “We were going to ask you guys what you thought about the record label stuff . . . but it doesn't matter right now with all this going on.”

“Are you still thinking Candy Shell?” Randy asks. “Didn't they want an answer today?”

“We were,” I say. “And they do, but . . . we're not sure if we can do it without Val.” That might not be the whole truth, but it is some small part of it. “We'll ask them for an extension.”

I can feel the secret of Eli nearly bursting out of us, but we hold it in. We can't tell them, especially not now.

We have a short, hollow conversation about the record label options. The Candy Shell versus Jet City Records
debate was the biggest thing in Dangerheart's world not much more than a week ago, but that now feels like something distant and barely visible.

Caleb says he's going to drive me home. We walk out, and I try to smile as I say good-bye, to fight the feeling that walls are closing in tighter all around us, that there's barely any room left to breathe.

3:42 p.m.

We are silent until we're in the car and around the corner.

“Did we do the right thing?” I wonder. “Not telling them about Eli?”

Caleb shrugs. “I wanted to, but . . . how can we right now?” He half whispers like there could be microphones anywhere. “We have to assume we're all being watched by the police. It's bad enough that my mom could get sued for harboring Val. If we tell her about Eli being alive, we're making her an accomplice to that, too, aren't we? Eli is a fugitive; he faked his own death and he's been hiding out in secret. And my mom is not one for breaking the law. With this Val stuff already going on, I don't think she'd last two seconds before she'd want to turn Eli in.”

“She'd probably be right to want that,” I say. “What if we only told Randy?”

“Maybe,” says Caleb. “But the police will have their eye on him, too. And besides, wouldn't it be a crime for either
of them to aid a runaway in flying out of the country . . . ?”

“That might be a crime for you and me, too.”

“Maybe we should go, just the two of us.”

I love that idea the second he says it. Just us, jetting off to London, like something out of a novel, and yet I can't believe I hear myself saying . . . “This is too important for Val, though.” I tell him my thought back in his house, about Eli's ghost. “Eli should know how he's messing up everyone's lives with his absence. And Val needs him just as much as you do.”

Caleb frowns. “You're right.” He sounds so defeated. “So where exactly does that leave us?”

“I don't know . . . ,” I say, “I think we have to ask my parents.”

Caleb laughs. “You mean not only to let you go, but also to pay? Isn't that crazy?”

“Yes. It's completely crazy.”

“What about your aunt Jeanine?”

I've already thought about her. She helped me pull off San Francisco . . . but this is different. “She's not going to go along with me leaving the country unless my parents are on board. That would be too big a lie.”

“But your parents are still mad about the weekend.”

“I know.”
Believe me, I know.
“But they don't know about Val's runaway past. And Aunt Jeanine could help pay, if money was the only issue. I'm sure she would. So
really, I just have to make them see how important this is.” These thoughts feel shaky at best, but maybe, just maybe . . .

“What if I show them this email from Andre?” I say. “It would let them know that I'm still the girl they want me to be. I could even frame the trip as like, part of something I want to resolve before college.”

“I know you don't mean it,” says Caleb, “but it sounds like
I'm
something you need to resolve.” He smiles, but it's for show.

“No, I don't mean that in a million years.” And that feels like nearly the truth.

“But if you tell them Eli's alive, won't they want to tell the police?”

“Yeah, probably. Maybe I could just say that the trip is to find the third song. That's still pretty epic.”

“Except they already grounded you over the trip to find the
second
song.”

“I know,” I say with a sigh. My nerves ring. This still all comes back to me being honest with them. About what's really at stake for me. I mean, they do love me. And they do know, I think, deep down, how important music is to me.

They
must
know that. Right?

And if they don't?

I guess it's time to find out. I don't know if I can make them listen. But I have to try.

3:56 p.m.

We park in my driveway. Both my parents' cars are here. Mom works for a real estate company and business is slower in the winter. Dad gets up at like five every day because he's a nut about beating traffic. Also most of his business is with offices in other time zones. So they're both almost always home by the time I get home.