Last Seen Leaving (11 page)

“Fortunately, it looks like they have more than enough rooms to spare,” Kaz remarked drily. “Still, though. Maybe January's
mom
is the animatronic one. Walker owns a software company or something, right? Maybe he built a replacement Tammy and installed the Anal-Retentive Rich Lady personality as part of the upgrade.”

“Actually, January made almost that exact same joke.” I smiled at the memory. “I wouldn't use the word upgrade when you mention it to her, though.”

“I can't believe she hates it here so much!” Kaz exclaimed suddenly. Doing a one-eighty, he walked backward next to me, spreading out his arms to encompass the receding mansion and the expansive, landscaped lawn. Even in late October, under gray skies, it was pretty impressive. “I mean, sure, it's a little over the top, but it's still freaking amazing. If I lived here, I'd spend all my time walking around these fields with my camera.”

“You're a photographer?”

“Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, not
really
.” He swung back around. “I'm still a total amateur. I wanted to make photography my major, but my parents—
Doctor
and
Doctor
Bashiri—weren't too amped about the idea, and they're the ones paying my tuition, so…”

“So you're studying premed?”

“Yeah. And, I mean, I don't
hate
it; I always liked my science classes and stuff, and my parents have been prepping me for a medical career since I was, like, four, so it could be a lot worse.” He sounded doubtful, though. “It's just … I don't
love
it.”

“And you love photography.”

“It's, like, my passion.” He kept his eyes on his feet. “I got my first real camera for my tenth birthday, and I immediately went outside and took, like, a hundred super-close-up pictures of our birdfeeder. They were all totally out of focus, but I decided that made them ‘artistic,' and I wanted to put them all over the walls of the dining room—because that was
our
feeder, get it?” He was laughing, but his face was pink with embarrassment. “I thought it was the deepest metaphor ever, and that if I took pictures of my pictures in the dining room,
that
picture could be put in a museum or something.
Ugh
.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “I cannot believe what a freak I was. Thank God I didn't have a Tumblr account back then.”

I was laughing a little now, too, in spite of myself. “I take it your ‘human feeder' project was not appreciated by the curators at the Museum of Modern Art?”

“My genius is ahead of its time.”

“I wanted to join the photography club at Riverside this year, but the only camera I have is this crappy little point-and-shoot digital,” I admitted after a moment. “Even if I see something really cool, and get it framed just the way I want it, it always looks like total garbage when I upload it to my computer.”

“Good equipment is really expensive.” Kaz gave me a strange, tentative look. “You're welcome to use mine, if you want. I mean, it's probably the cheapest professional-quality camera on the market, but I can show you how it works, and I guarantee you'll get better results than with your point-and-shoot.”

“Oh. Um … thanks,” I managed to reply, surprised by and wary of his generosity.

“Well, I'll be getting something out of it, too.” He smiled again, genially. “Don't forget that I didn't grow up here. I only just moved to Ann Arbor a few months ago for school, and I still don't know much about the area. You can use my camera, and I can use you as a guide to the spots that are worth photographing.”

I mumbled something, honestly not sure how to respond to the suggested arrangement. I couldn't figure out why he was being so nice to me, why he seemed to want to be friends despite apparently only ever having heard bad things about me. He'd cleared the air regarding the misleading stories January had induced me to believe about him, but I hadn't returned the favor; he was merely taking it on faith that she'd depicted me unfairly as well. If anything,
he
should've been the one still intent on disliking
me.

Even if he didn't feel the awkwardness between us, I did, and so finally I explained to Kaz the whole story behind the “disposable ponies” comment, and my strenuous efforts to make sure January hadn't felt bad about leaving Riverside. I didn't address her claims that I'd made her feel unattractive, because that was one can of worms I had absolutely no intention of opening—for anyone.

He was silent for a while after I finished talking, his perfectly sculpted features tensed and thoughtful. The grass we'd been trudging through had gotten much longer, the blades licking at our shins, and I couldn't see any other volunteers anymore. Behind us, a grove of cypress trees blocked our view of the Walker manse, and a murder of crows swooped eerily above their dark spires. At last, he sighed. “I'm sorry, man. I can't think why she did it—why she made things sound … the way she made things sound.”

Again, I mumbled a noncommittal reply, but the truth was that I had a pretty good idea. She'd made Kaz sound like a smooth, older guy trying to steal her away, because she wanted me to get jealous; she'd made him think I was a manipulative asshole because she was hoping that, in spite of whatever he'd said about her not being his type, maybe she could trigger his white knight reflex hard enough that he'd be willing to date her after all, if it meant rescuing her from me. If he'd responded favorably, maybe she'd even have dumped me for him and saved herself from my apparent romantic indifference.

When we reached the creek, the water burbling softly as it snaked along in its narrow channel, I jumped to the other side and waited by the trees for Kaz to follow suit. It was then that he finally asked me where I was taking him. Pushing past the limbs of a sharp-scented pine, I said, “Here.”

The old barn loomed into view as we cleared the foliage, looking ominous and forsaken with its rotting gray face and the square black cavity of its hayloft window, and Kaz actually gasped. “Holy shit—this looks like Freddy Krueger's summer home or something! Does it belong to the Walkers?”

“They don't even know about it,” I told him, starting for the door. “I'm not sure
anybody
knows about it. I guess you could say it's January's secret hideout.”

I was valiantly maintaining a distant hope that I would find her safely ensconced in the abandoned, dilapidated structure, holed up with a sleeping bag, a stack of paperbacks, and an old transistor radio, camping out and laughing at the breathless news reports of her disappearance. In some ways, it was an explanation that made a lot of sense. I didn't think the police had searched out here yet, or they wouldn't be asking volunteers to comb the area; if January had been staying with friends or family, they would certainly have already found her; and if she'd been kidnapped, there'd have been a ransom demand by now. In other ways, however, it made no sense. Roughing it with no electricity, water, or indoor plumbing was not January's idea of a good time, and any point she had to make was surely made by now. Still, I clung to the possibility.

Heaving open the barn door, I stepped into the musty-smelling shadows, taking a moment to let my eyes adjust to the gloom. Light stabbed through gaps in the old boards, a constellation of pale slivers, and motes drifted in the haphazard bands of illuminated space, but otherwise the cavernous structure was as motionless and silent as a tomb. Not encouraging. Nevertheless, I called out, “January?”

There was no answer, my voice denied even an echo by the thick padding of straw that crunched underfoot. I was listening intently for the sound of movement or breathing, hoping that January was lurking somewhere and purposefully refusing to make her presence known, when Kaz barged in behind me. “This place is even scarier inside than outside. If that's possible.”

“I'm gonna check the loft,” I announced, heading for the ladder.

“What's in these stalls?” he asked, looking around as I gripped the rungs and started up. “Besides hay, I mean.”

“I don't know,” I called back brusquely. “Check 'em out.”

Reaching the loft, my last vestigial hope died. In the light that washed the space through the open square of the window, I could see that no one had been staying there. Everything was exactly as I remembered it from the Friday night January and I had our big showdown: Bales of fusty hay were stacked against the walls alongside old, empty crates, the little nest where we'd argued was undisturbed, and there wasn't even so much as a candy wrapper or crumpled tissue to suggest a human presence. It wasn't until I took it all in, though, that I realized how badly I'd been hoping to find her up there.

“There's a big, rusty aerator down here, but not much else!” Kaz hollered from below as I got to my feet and set about searching the loft. “It looks like something you'd find in a medieval dungeon. I'm not going to touch it, because I'm not sure my tetanus shots are up to date.”

“Keep looking around. See if you find anything that makes it look like someone's been staying here.”

Sweeping my eyes from side to side, I slowly advanced from the ladder to the window, deftly sidestepping the weak spot in the loft floor; the wood groaned pitifully anyway, and it was one of the few times I was particularly grateful for being small and skinny. Kaz was still talking, shouting out to announce every piece of long-forgotten debris he uncovered in the stables, when I reached the nest and sank dispiritedly into it.

I looked out the window, staring at the spot where I'd last seen January, and let out a breath. It was clear that there was nothing to be found in the barn, and I suddenly felt overwhelmingly lost and defeated. Where else could I look? Who else could I talk to? I felt like I'd exhausted every lead I knew to check and had come up empty. Out loud, I mumbled, “Where
are
you, Jan?”

Down below, Kaz was moving toward the ladder, calling out and asking what I'd found in the loft. As I turned my head to answer him, something caught my eye. I froze. The bleached light of the early afternoon, slanting sideways through the barn, picked out an irregular pattern that seemed to be etched into the soft wooden boards of one wall. It was a strange assortment of grooves and bevels that emerged from the shadowy space behind a large crate. Scrambling to my feet, I pushed the obstacle aside and took a startled breath at my discovery.

“Kaz!” I shouted. “Get up here!”

Gouged into the soft wood, cut with a small knife or maybe even a house key, were a series of jagged hatch marks. I counted twenty-five of the spiky, uneven lines, which were organized in groups of five like someone keeping track of points in a poker game. I was staring at them, their furrows deep and emphatic, when Kaz scrambled up the ladder and popped into the loft.

“What is it? What did you find?”

“I'm not sure.” I touched the marks with my fingers, feeling the sharp indentations. They definitely weren't old. “I think January carved something here.”

“What's it say?”

Before I could answer, he was starting across the loft, feet banging down hard as he headed eagerly for my side. Instant alarm sent adrenaline streaking through my limbs, and I thrust my hands out in a futile attempt to stop him, words of warning on my lips at the same moment that I realized I was already too late. “WAIT, DON'T!”

Confused, he faltered, and one foot came down on the decayed floorboards. The wood wheezed and splintered, dropping sharply under his weight, and time seemed to slow as the horror of realization appeared in Kaz's eyes. The planks were buckling and giving way, breaking apart like dry twigs, and I launched myself at him with my arms outstretched. At the same moment, he pitched forward, hands grappling with the air as he fell, and we met somewhere in the middle.

Our combined momentum threw us sideways, Kaz's feet clearing the fracture in the floor only an instant before it turned into a gaping hole, and we crash-landed on a pile of dirty straw. Despite the padding, the impact was so great that it shook the entire barn, weathered timbers shifting and groaning under us until I was positive the place was about to collapse. But the shuddering slowed and finally stopped, the rafters creaking, until at last the only movement in the loft was the airy swirl of dust kicked up by the violent disturbance and the painful banging of my heart rebounding off my rib cage.

Kaz was on top of me, breathing hard, his gold-and-olive face gray with fright. “Holy shit, dude.” He let out a shaky exhalation, his mouth so close I could smell coffee and spearmint gum on his breath. “I think you just saved my life!”

“I think you just broke my ribs,” I joked weakly in return, my head whirling a little with the air I'd lost when he'd flattened my lungs.

“I can't believe you
dove
at me like fucking Batman!” He giggled a little bit, nerves escaping through laughter. “It was kind of badass, actually.”

“That's me. The high school badass.”

I'd meant it as another joke, but once I'd said it, the moment seemed to shift. Kaz's expression had transitioned from shock to relief to an emotion I couldn't quite put my finger on, and he was staring at me, his hazel eyes dark and intense. Something in his face softened perceptibly, and his eyelashes fluttered with a strange caution. “Flynn…”

He moved closer, hesitated … and then he kissed me.

The pressure was almost unbearably gentle at first, his lips soft and warm against mine, and an electrical storm erupted in my stomach as conflicting emotions rolled like thunder from my scalp to my toes. Then Kaz's bottom lip maneuvered my mouth open, his fingers tightening on the collar of my jacket; I felt heat and hunger, my head zooming like a carousel, and when his tongue touched mine, all the blood in my body made an immediate, mad rush to a certain point between my legs, like a horde of Black Friday shoppers at the opening bell.