Mapmaker (17 page)

Wait. There was no way Connor would have written such a long text, first of all. Second, after he wrote that my dad
was such a big influence on him, he completely misquoted my dad’s words. Then he spelled Piri Reis wrong. All of this wrapped up in a goodbye text?

Through the dark train windows the lights of the town we were passing by shone through the darkness. I felt freezing cold suddenly. Connor disappeared that night. The night we hacked into the emails. Harrison knew by the next morning and threatened me with criminal charges. Did he also threaten Connor? Did he punish him some other way? Did he force him back to California? Or worse, did he have someone kidnap him like they had done to me?

No. Harrison loved and adored Connor. He’d even given him a percentage of MapOut. No, I was just making up excuses for Connor. Making excuses, trying to find reasons why he could so easily just dump me as a friend. But it was still weird that he misspelled Piri Reis and even stranger that he misquoted my dad and that he talked about my dad at all in his text.

To change my thought process I focused again on the Alaska acronym I still hadn’t uncovered. If Alaska was an acronym at all …

A is for Alison

L is for Lake

A is for Aptitude

S is for Snake

K is for Kettle

A is for Arsenic

I was delirious again, clearly. But exhaustion was able to take hold. Somewhere between Richmond and Harrington, I fell asleep.

It was noon the
next day when I woke up. Fields spread out for miles and miles and the sunlight was a gold color. I took the Elk receipt and walked to the bathroom. I washed my hands and face at the small sink. I tried to fix my hair as best I could. Then I walked up the five cars to the café car.

I read the menu for a while, but for some reason I had no appetite. I bought a can of Sprite and sat at one of the windowed tables in the dining car.

A group of old ladies was playing gin rummy. They all had southern accents; they jabbered at each other over a large cooler of sandwiches and snacks. At another table sat a family, a mother and father, a boy of about twelve and his teenage sister. The parents were texting on their cell phones and the boy was playing Subway Surfers on his iPad. The teenage girl wore black eyeliner and glared out the window with her headphones on, a sour look on her face.

Lucky girl. As miserable as she was, she still had both parents and a brother.

I suddenly realized why I wasn’t hungry. It was because I felt a sickening dread. What if Harrison had already gotten to Cleo?

“Remind you of your family?” a voice asked.

I jerked up to see a strange man smiling down at me. He was wearing a white button-down shirt and tie with a brown faded leather jacket. I instantly placed him; this was the same paunchy middle-aged guy I’d seen in the souvenir shop back at Union Station.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I travel alone a lot for business and I sometimes find myself staring, too. Staring
at families that remind me of my own, when I’m feeling especially homesick.”

I shook my head, my mind whirling too fast for a response. This guy must have been following me. Which meant he must have been sent by Harrison. His ill-fitting suit smelled of stale cigarettes. Could he be the smoker who’d been with Alison?

His smile faltered. It went from apologetic, to confused, to something else. “I’ll leave you alone,” he said, hurrying off to get in line for food.

I ran back to my seat, lurching through the train cars and spilling my soda as I went. I switched cars, and then switched cars again. And then I waited for the man.

At 7:00
P.M.
, hunger
finally compelled me to return to the café car. The man was nowhere to be found—at least that I could see. I spent ten dollars as carefully as I could: the most food for the least amount of money. Chips, fruit, granola bars. No more beverages; I’d drink water from the little cone cups. As I returned to my seat, I saw the man sleeping, his hands on his lap. I headed to the very last car on the train.

The next thirty-six hours
were a blur of panic and hunger. But at three
A.M.
in Boyston, where I transferred to a new train, I made sure to pass by the man with the tie and leather jacket on my way out. He was on his cell phone, but he didn’t exit. His eyes met mine as I did. The kind conductor who’d saved me nodded as I exited. I wanted to hug him, to thank him, to get his name so I could somehow repay him, but I just waved.

The train pulled away, I clutched my ticket and phony receipt, hoping it would get me there.

The last two hours between Montgomery and Elk were the longest in my life. At ten o’clock in the morning, I stepped off the train. The sun felt warm against my skin, and the air smelled like grass and sand. Only two other people exited with me: a couple in their forties. I took off my sweatshirt and tied it around my waist. My undershirt felt sticky. I followed the couple around the train station—little more than a red clapboard shack—to the two-lane highway in front.

The hot sun glared off the sparkles in the asphalt road. The road was flat and long, running due east and west, parallel to the train tracks. The desert spread out on toward distant mountains on both sides, dotted with scrub brush and cactuses.

My ankle was sore again. What was I supposed to do now? From the east, I heard the loud roar of a motor. A moment later, a jeep appeared. A wild-looking, grey-haired woman in a bright sundress skidded up, and in hopped the couple. I was
half tempted to ask them for a ride, but I had no idea where I was going. The jeep sped off, leaving the smell of gasoline mixing with the sand and sun.

My mouth felt dry. I hadn’t been drinking enough water. Would my ankle hurt for the rest of my life, always reminding me of this time? I had to erase that thought from my mind; I couldn’t think of the future now. There might not even be one. I’d banked everything on finding Cleo here, and that might not happen. I needed to sit down; I needed water. I stared ahead at the desolate line of road, and then turned back to the station.

A furry grey cat slept in the sun on the doorstep as I made my way up, leaning heavily on the banister. As I walked from the bright sunlight into the shade, I suddenly felt dizzy. The station was little more than a single room cluttered with old junk, manned by one attendant, an old man with a shock of white hair who sat in a booth. A battered schedule hung from the wall facing him, surrounded by framed black-and-white photos of cowboys and desert scenes. A box of Astro Pops sat beside the man at his post, along with a cash register. Next to the booth stood a side table with the white pages and an old-fashioned, clunky rotary phone. The whole place looked like it was from another era.

“You okay, miss?” he asked.

“Just thirsty,” I said.

He pointed to the bench under the schedule. Beside it sat a metal bucket of ice with bottled water. I took one of the bottles and started chugging.

“You wouldn’t happen to sell aspirin?” I gasped, once I’d drained nearly half the bottle. “Or ace bandages?”

He reached into a drawer, taking a bottle of aspirin. He poured two out in the palm of his hand and extended out the booth window. It took me a moment to figure out he was giving them to me.

“Thanks.” I washed them down. “How much for the water?”

“On the house. No ace bandage though.”

There was no way I could make it any distance on my ankle. “Is there a cab service around here?”

“There’s a guy in Jackson,” the man said.

It didn’t sound promising. “Can I use your phone? I’ll pay.”

He grinned, as if he’d heard this question a million times from out-of-towners like me. “Sure, but don’t talk for too long.”

The white pages were labeled
ELK
,
JACKSON
,
RHINE
, and
CANE COUNTIES
. They were half an inch thick. I flipped to the letter
W
for Wright.

I ran my finger down the names.

Mr. and Mrs. Allen Wright

Brett Wright

C. Wright 725-445-3897

The number looked familiar, but I couldn’t be sure. I knew I needed it to be hers, so my mind could be deceiving me. I picked up the receiver. My hands were sweaty. I put my finger in four, pulling the dial around and letting it go. The only other time I’d ever used a rotary phone was at Beth’s grandmother’s house. It didn’t work. I’d tried it just for fun. Now I pressed the heavy handset to my ear, listening to the faraway sound of the ring. I had a hopeless, sinking feeling that she wouldn’t pick up.

“Hello?”

Cleo
. I took a sharp breath in, stunned. “Cleo. It’s Tanya. Don’t hang up.”

There was silence on her end.

“Cleo, please.” I blinked and realized tears were streaming down my face. Relief that she had answered the phone turned to fear that she would refuse to speak to me, that she would hang up on me like before. “I’m begging you—”

“Tanya, just tell me where you are.”

I took in a gulp of air. “I’m at the Elk train station …”

“Hang up the phone and don’t move. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

I did as she said. The receiver felt as heavy as an anchor in my hand as I placed it back on the hook. I gave the man a dollar bill, the last I had, for the call. He asked me something as I left, but I was still in shock, too dazed to hear his words or respond as I stepped outside. The door swung shut behind me. I sat down on the steps next to the sleeping cat. The air was still and hot. I held my ankle where it throbbed.

The cat stood and stretched, then nuzzled against me. I rubbed her soft grey fur and stared out at the empty highway. Another tear fell from my cheek. Did she remind me of Bootsy? I couldn’t tell. A secret part of me wondered if I’d already died, if I’d reunited with my dead pet at some bizarre weigh station on the way to the afterlife.

I wasn’t sure how
much time had passed, five minutes, twenty, an hour, when I heard the distant purr of an engine. The speck that appeared in the distance became a forest-green Range Rover speeding toward me. It pulled up in front of the
station, and there she was: a vision with that wild blonde-streaked mane and that freckled face I remembered so clearly, shaded by round brown sunglasses and a cowboy hat. The radio blasted some old classic rock song; it was one my father loved, about a woman named Maggie.

“Get in,” Cleo commanded over the music.

I hesitated, but then she flashed a smile. It was wide and easygoing, with a little trace of impishness, just as I remembered, too. Her tanned, toned arms gripped the steering wheel. She had on a white tank top and a silver chain with a turquoise star. I stared as I limped toward her, not because I realized then that she was one of the most gorgeous women I’d ever seen—something that had always eluded me about her before—but because I still couldn’t believe she was really here, in front of me, waiting.

There were so many questions I wanted to ask.

“I am so happy you did what I’d hoped you’d do,” Cleo murmured before I could utter a word. I crawled in beside her, slamming the door. She lifted her sunglasses and her nose wrinkled. A look of worry set in her eyes. “I want to hear it all. I’ll feed you, too. And I’ll get you in the shower first thing.”

“Cleo …” I started to speak.

“Shush.” She took me in her arms, holding me to her. I felt myself sigh, and the sigh turned to tears. “You’re gonna be okay,” she whispered.

Her eyes went to a flat computer screen on her lap, glowing purple. It was about the size of an iPad but four inches thicker. She held her finger over her lip and I knew not to say another word. I looked behind me, but no one was there.

“Buckle up.” She clasped the wheel, cranking the radio.

The car went from zero to forty to seventy. The wind whipped my hair straight out behind me. The Bears hat flew off my head and tumbled back behind us, down the desolate road. She put the computer on my lap.

“Raise your hand if you see orange or red.”

“It’s just purple now,” I yelled over the wind and music. I gripped the handle, forcing a smile, even though I felt queasy. I didn’t want Cleo to see me weak, or know that I was afraid of being in a speeding car. Finally, after ten-plus miles, she slowed a little so I wouldn’t have to shout over the wind and music.

“Now tell me what happened,” she said. “But remember if you see orange or red, stop talking.”

I took a deep breath. “So what happened was I had a summer job working at MapOut with Harrison’s son, Connor. One night we broke into my dad’s computer to look at his emails. He had three security gates set up but I figured out his code.”

Cleo smiled. “Good work.”

“But the next day, Connor wasn’t at work. Harrison found out what we’d done and threatened me. He told me Connor had decided to suddenly go back to Stanford.”

Her eyes flashed to the computer screen, then back to the road. “Did you hear from Connor again?”

“Just one weird text saying what his dad said, minus the Stanford part. I guess MapOut is going west, too.”