The Leaving (7 page)

The anchor said, “Another of the returned, Kristen Daley, told one of our reporters that she is going to try to be hypnotized to see if she can recall some lost memories. Are either of you interested in pursuing hypnosis?”

Adam said, “I wish my fellow victims well, and obviously we’re all coping differently, but I prefer to keep my intentions moving forward private.”

Sarah said, “Me, too.”

“And surely you’ve heard about Lucas’s father. How Lucas is considered a suspect in that investigation. Does that resonate with what you know about Lucas? Is he capable of violence like that?”

“I have no idea,” Adam said. “We believe we were all together, but I can’t speak to anyone’s character. If he ever did anything bad or good in the past, I have no memory of either.”

Avery wanted to reach through the TV screen and smack them both—the anchor, too. Why weren’t they talking about Max?

Also, were they a couple? They seemed to be. That happened pretty fast. Or had they been together before coming back? And if they remembered
that
, why not other things, too?

What if they are all lying?

The topic of the constant coverage then turned its focus to Will’s accident. Her dad had been the one to tell her just an hour or so ago, when he’d finally arrived home.

She still hadn’t been able to bring herself to call Ryan.

Or cry.

That probably said something about her as a person, but she wasn’t sure what.

She was, however, sure that her attempts to motivate her mom to get dressed or to take a shower or to eat or to
do anything
would not work. Dad was upstairs sleeping, claiming jet lag. The landline had been ringing off the hook all morning—nothing but news stations, if the first few calls were any indication—and so Avery had unplugged it.

Now, peeking out the front window, she saw two news vans, so she went upstairs to shower and get dressed, then went down and out the side door and up through her neighbor’s yard, over a prickly hedge, and out onto the next block.

She blew past the fish market—with its sidewalk that smelled of bleached rot—and the psychic’s storefront. Maybe Madame whatever-her-name-was was worth another visit? Now that she had things to ask that didn’t have to do with when she’d lose her virginity? She went past the trailer park loaded up with RVs and half thought about hopping in one, driving away to someplace where no one had even heard of The Leaving, if there was even such a place.

She wasn’t even sure what her destination was until she was already there, sweating from having walked so fast.

Opus 6.

A news van sat about a hundred feet from the base of the drive, but the guys in it didn’t seem to see her. She ducked through the line of mangroves by the street and came out farther up the path to the house. A portion of the area was blocked off with police tape.

Were they really treating it as a crime?

Ryan would know more.

She hadn’t been over to Opus 6 in a few years and, of course, it had expanded in new directions. She walked toward the round pool on the far end of the property, where she and Ryan had once gone for a dip when she was maybe eleven and still friends with him. She
remembered treating the whole place like a playground. Climbing and jumping and chasing salamanders this way and that.

Somewhere along the way, Avery had lost sight of the meaning behind Opus 6. The
purpose
of it. It was meant to be a physical reminder to them all of what had been lost, or taken. She felt mortified now that she’d ever let that happen, ever decided it was time to move on; she hadn’t even turned up at the tenth-anniversary vigil.

She heard a car and car doors and voices, and someone appeared at the far end of a winding path that led to a flat circle atop the main structure; for a second Avery thought it was her brother. She knew that Max had had brown hair. People had estimated he’d be around five feet ten inches by now.

Spotting her, he walked very slowly forward—like he was as suspicious of her as she was of him. “Can I help you?”

Of course it wouldn’t be Max.

“Lucas?” She saw no recognition in his eyes.

“Do I know you?”

It was really him.

They were really back.

Flesh and blood.

Not from central casting.

She hadn’t expected him to be so . . .
grown
.

Such a
guy
.

So . . . mesmerizing.

“You did,” she said. “When we were little . . . You know.

Before.” Before life got crazy, before the whole town turned search party, before everyone said dumb things about hugging your children closer at night, before closing beaches and dredging shorelines and ribbons on trees and candlelight vigils.

“I’m Avery.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I guess the polite thing would be to say it’s nice to see you again.”

“Where is he?” she blurted. “Why didn’t he come back?”

“Who?” Lucas’s eyes seemed blank for a second. “Oh.
Max?
”

“He’s my brother.” The air felt dense, weighted—like an invisible tarp was holding back a storm inches overhead.

Lucas looked tired and not at all like a murderer. Murderers couldn’t possibly have such soft-looking hair, such sad eyes. Could they?

He said, “I have no idea.”

“You were best friends.”

“I’m sorry”—he started to walk away—“but I don’t remember him.”

“I don’t understand.” Avery stepped forward. “You couldn’t forget a whole person. You must remember
something
. I remember
you
.” She raced around her mind for a specific memory. “Like remember they used to have a Halloween parade in the park over by the pier, and one year you were dressed as a sailor and Max was a pirate and you posed for a picture where he had his sword at your neck? Even I remember that and I was only four.”

Avery had been dressed as Smurfette, her face a chalky blue that matched her eyes. That had been back when her hair was white blond—not light brown like now. Back when her mother got excited about holidays and used to make jack-o’-lantern cookies and wrap the front porch in spiderwebs.

“How do you know that you remember?” Lucas seemed annoyed now, his jaw tight; he had the same eyes as Ryan but leaner features; he was, for lack of a better word, prettier. “Maybe you think you remember it because you have that picture.”

“I swear I remember it.” She was not, however, sure.

“Swear all you want. It doesn’t mean you do. I bet if you look at a picture of your kindergarten class, you won’t remember all of them.”

Avery felt herself getting annoyed, too—a tingling in her fingers and on the tip of her nose. “It’s not
my
memory that’s the problem.”

He looked hurt but only for a millisecond. “All I remember is one ridiculous thing. I remember riding a carousel. So if Max had a thing for carousels, maybe that’s a clue for you. Otherwise, sorry.”

She and Max had ridden a carousel at Disney World once, the summer before The Leaving. There were pictures of that, too.

“You have to help me,” she said then, desperate. “I need to find him.”

“Listen—what did you say your name—”

“Avery.”

“Right. Avery. I’ve kind of had an insane twenty-four hours and—”

“Everything okay?” Ryan was walking down the main path now, and Avery rushed to him, hugged him. “I’m so sorry.” She should have called him the second she heard; she knew that now.

Ryan looked at Lucas and said, “Can you give us a minute?”

Lucas seemed relieved to have a reason to leave.

“You don’t think he did it, do you?” Avery asked when Lucas had reached the house.

“I don’t know what to think.” Ryan rubbed his eyes. “Still no sign of Max?”

She shook her head, not finding words at first, then settling on, “I never thought any of them would come back. I figured they were dead or had new identities somewhere. I never imagined it would go like this.”

“No one did,” he said. “I mean, I’m happy he’s back. At least I think I am. But it’s just . . . It’s so messed up. I actually had a thought today, that I’m
jealous
that he was the one who got taken and I was the one who was here.”

“We don’t know what they’ve been through,” she said, now feeling bad about pretty much attacking Lucas. “What Max is
still
going through.”

“Neither do they!” he nearly screamed. “And us, on the other hand, we’ve had to slog through
this
for years.”

“I have to find Max,” she said as she turned to go, almost to remind herself why she’d come. It had been a slog, yes. Depressed parents. Obsessed parents. Drunk parents. Absent parents. Anger. Grief. Miserable vigils and limbo. But to suggest they’d had it harder?

“It’s not promising to be a story with a happy ending, Ave.”

“I know,” she said. “I just need to
know
. So we can all move on one way or another. Do you trust him?”

He looked off toward the house, then back at her. “I don’t know. I can’t think. I mean, this day. My
dad
. . .”

“Of course,” she said. “Ryan, I’m so, so sorry.”

She went to hug him again and he let her, and she tried really hard to have the moment just be about that—about him, his dad—but she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t hold it in. When she pulled out of the hug, she said, “What if they’re lying?”

Confusion flashed across his features.

“What if they remember everything?” Her voice sounded sinister even to her. “What if they’re
hiding something
?” Then, “I have to
do
something.”

“You need to leave it to the police,” Ryan said.

She stared at him for a second—he just didn’t get it—then took off down the path. “Yeah, because that worked so well the first time.”

At home, she went to the back door and then changed her mind.

Going around to the front of the house, she walked up to a news van and knocked on its side, then knocked on the other one, then stood on the front porch steps as newsies set aside their Starbucks and applied lipstick and fired up their cameras and microphones. The camera lights were bright even under full sun.

Go-time.

“I’m Max Godard’s sister, Avery.” Her voice cracked a bit, but she cleared her throat and went on. “And I want to say that we’re really happy that Lucas and Kristen and Sarah and Adam and Scarlett are back home.”

She could see in their eyes how excited they were, these people who’d been sitting around for hours, waiting for something—anything—to happen.

“But we miss Max as much today as we have since that first day and every day in between. And, well, I think they might know something. The others. I think they’re hiding something.” She took a breath and licked her lips, the last of her lip gloss gone—who even cared?—and thought for a second about Lucas, the bewildered look in his eyes, the curve of his shoulders. He was so . . . lovely . . . and yet.

“One of them remembers riding a carousel,” she said slowly, clearly. “There must be more they remember. Things that could help us find Max. And our family fully expects answers, and justice. Thank you. That’s all.”

She turned to go inside as they shouted questions. “Who remembers the carousel?” “Which of them have you spoken to?”

The front door was, luckily, unlocked, so she walked in, then closed it behind her and leaned against it.

Oh god
. What had she done?

No, it was good. Someone had to say it, so why not her?

She pushed to standing and went upstairs and changed into her swimsuit, then went out to the pool lanai and dove in. Surfacing, she pushed back into a float and looked up at the clouds—one of them the shape of a cow’s head, another long and sharp-looking, like a knife.

S
c
a
r
l
et
t

“I
knew
they’d find something.”

The smoke from her mother’s cigarette seemed intent on blowing Scarlett’s way instead of out her mother’s open window.

“I just
knew
it.”

Scarlett sat in the passenger seat with her hands resting on her belly. The smoke was surrounding . . .

. . . suffocating . . .

. . . like it was trying to strangle her from the

The doctor had said they couldn’t tell what it was.

That the shape was obviously wrong for it to be a coin, that the detail wasn’t sharp enough.

That she’d have to keep an eye out for when it passed.

“Steve’s never gonna believe it.”

Of course he wouldn’t.

Scarlett couldn’t believe it, and it was inside
her
.

And all she could do was . . .

Tick

Tock

Tick

Tock
. . .

. . . wait?