Mine (20 page)

When the mechanic saw Joel approach the shop, he set down the alternator he was working on and met him at the garage doorway.

“So?” Joel asked. “How’s it look?”

“I’m surprised you were able to make it here.” He rattled off a list of things that needed fixing.

“What’s the least amount of work I can get away with?”

“The least? A full tune-up, I guess. Though you’re going to have problems soon if you don’t take care of these other things.”

“How much for the tune-up?”

“It’s not cheap,
señor
.”

“How much?”

The man quoted him a number that was indeed not cheap. If Roberto did turn out to be innocent of the rumors about him, Joel thought he might still have to beat a little sense into the guy for price gouging. For the moment, though, he didn’t argue about the cost and only asked how long it would take.

“Should be done by tomorrow morning, ten, maybe eleven o’clock.”

“Okay, let’s do it.” Joel looked out the garage door at the sun-drenched road. “Can I use your phone? The hotel said they’d pick me up if I wanted a ride back, and it’s getting damn hot out there.”

“No problem. It’s in my office.”

Joel entered the small room, pulled the door shut, and put his phone away. As quickly and quietly as possible, he searched the desk drawers and the cabinet by the wall. All contained what they should have contained—invoices and work orders and parts catalogs. He did, however, find a suspicious envelope secured to the underside of one of the cabinet drawers. He was pretty sure it contained nothing work related.

He opened it and found it full of pictures of women, clothed and unclothed, all in candid poses with Roberto, and clearly not knowing they were being photographed. Joel recognized several of the women from around town.

With the envelope hidden under his shirt, he exited the room, thanked Roberto, and left.

Perhaps this was why he hadn’t woken with any signs of an oncoming fight. All he had to do to take Roberto down was put the evidence into the right hands. Not the police chief’s, though. Perhaps the man wasn’t worthy of Joel’s attention, but there was something corrupt about him. If the police were going to get the package, it would have to come from someone who would make sure the chief followed through with appropriate punishment.

Rosa, the owner of the hotel where Joel was staying, would do. He would pick up his car in the morning, go back and get his things from his room, and leave the envelope and a note explaining where it had been found.

As he entered his hotel, sweaty from his walk, he gave the kid behind the desk a nod and headed toward his room.

“
Señor
,” the kid called, and held out a folded piece of paper that had Joel’s room number on it. “Message for you.”

The hair on the back of Joel’s neck rose. It must have been a mistake. No one knew he was here.

“Who’s it from?”

“I don’t know. It was here before I started work.”

Joel reluctantly took it from him. The paper had been folded in half then half again, and had a piece of tape holding it closed.

“Is this
Señora
Rosa’s handwriting?” Joel held up the side with the room number on it for the kid to see.

The boy studied it for a few seconds. “It doesn’t look like it.”

Joel said, “Thank you,” and went to his room.

When he was inside and the door was closed, he opened the note.

One line:

Joel, come down to Casa Carmen’s when you get a minute.

The words appeared to be written in the same hand as his room number had been. No signature. The note was written in English, not Spanish, and by someone who knew the language well. The most disturbing aspect, though, was the use of his name. No one in town knew it, not even the people at the hotel. He’d checked in with a fake ID.

The desire to grab his bag and get the hell out of there was almost overwhelming. But San Ernesto was at least fifty miles from the nearest town, and until he picked up his car, he would be going nowhere fast. He could catch a bus, but the only one he’d seen came in the evening.

His choices, then, were either to hide out somewhere until he could get his car, or see who this person was.

Actually, he thought, he could do both. Casa Carmen’s was a bar on the same block as the hotel. He’d spent a couple of hours there his second night in town, and knew he could probably sneak in the back door without being noticed.

He packed his bag and left the hotel through the room’s window in case someone was waiting for him in the hall. Sticking to the alley, he made his way to Carmen’s and hid his bag under a car parked in a space marked
CASA
CARMEN ONLY
in Spanish. He then slipped through the back door, eased past a storage room, and stopped just shy of the bar area.

For a small place early on a midweek afternoon, Carmen’s was doing a decent amount of business. He scanned the customers, trying to guess who’d left him the note, but no one stood out.

He didn’t like this. Not at all. It felt like a trap. Like if he stepped into the room, a swarm of men would storm the place.

Screw this
.

He left the way he’d come and reached under the car to retrieve his bag. When he stood back up, he found a young, tall Hispanic woman standing nearby.

“Do you always store your luggage that way?” she said in perfect, unaccented English.

He looked around, but she was alone. “You’re the one who sent me the note?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not who you’re looking for.”

“You’re Joel Madsen. Age twenty-four. Left high school early to attend Stanford University. Received a double major in physics and pre-med six years ago, and though you were accepted to grad school, you never went. You have a knack for helping those who can’t, or won’t, help themselves. Am I close?”

His eyes narrowed. “Who
are
you?”

Something passed through her eyes. Hurt? Disappointment? It happened so fast he couldn’t be sure.

“You don’t recognize me?”

“Should I?” he asked.

“What about the way I sound? You couldn’t have forgotten that.”

“The way you—” He stopped.

No
, he thought.
It’s not possible.

“I believe you thought of me as the Voice,” she said.

He stared at her, unable to move. How could this woman be the Voice?

“We knew each other before that, though,” she said. “We held hands once. Please tell me you haven’t forgotten that.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. From inside she removed a piece of paper and unfolded it. “You gave this to me when we were kids.” She held it out.

A Hershey’s chocolate bar wrapper.

“You do remember, don’t you?”

F
ORTY-NINE

Leah

T
HE EXPERIENCE LEAH
had
gained from finding her own way to Mike’s Secret Place helped her finally defeat Joel’s wall.

Worried he’d banish her again and build a barrier ten times as thick and a million times as high, she’d nibbled away at the darkness for months, digging a spy hole through which she could look but not disturb him. It took her another several weeks to figure out where he was. As soon as she did, she’d flown to Mexico City and driven east toward the gulf. She’d planned on approaching him in the town of Ramona near Tampico, but by the time she got there he was gone.

Tracking him, she’d arrived in San Ernesto less than twenty-four hours after he did, taking a room in the same hotel.

She had wanted to go to him right away but was afraid of how he might react. What finally prompted her into action was a sense he would be moving on again soon. She had left the note for him on the front desk when no one was there, and then returned to her room where she watched from her window as he climbed out of his.

And now here they were, standing in front of each other for the first time in over ten years.

“The camp,” he said, low, almost to himself.

“Red Hawk.”

“We were the ones who came back.”

She nodded. “Two of them.”

“The ones who didn’t…”

“Dooley and Courtney and Kayla and Antonio.”

He was silent for a moment, the names doubtlessly hitting him in much the same way they had hit her when she’s read them on Mike’s brochure—names neither of them should have ever forgotten.

“Mike,” he said. “He came back like us, too.”

Though she said, “Yes,” she knew Mike had not come back quite like them.

Another pause, then, “
You
were the Voice?”

A gust of wind blew down the alley, giving flight to an old plastic bag.

“Yes.”

“How?” he asked.

“How did I get in your head? Or how is it that we are both smarter and stronger than we should be? Maybe how am I able to see things a fraction of a second sooner than the rest of the world? Or how is it you can wake up some mornings with the wounds of someone you’ll hurt later in the day?” She paused. “
How
is a complicated question, and I don’t know the answer. Not yet. I was hoping you could maybe help me find it.”

F
IFTY

Joel

“O
R HOW IS
it that we are both smarter and stronger than we should be?”

Joel’s head pounded so loudly it was a wonder he could hear anything else she said. How could she be experiencing the same things he was?

And then came the question that revealed she knew about his darkest secret—his phantom wounds.

He opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say. He’d been isolated by his differences since he was thirteen.

His mind seized, unable to process anything. All he felt was a deep desire to flee.

So he ran.

“Joel!” she yelled. “Joel, please. Can’t we just talk?”

He weaved through the streets of San Ernesto and into the desert, not stopping until he came across a shack somewhere north of the village.

The building was long abandoned and would be as good a place as any to hide out. He could wait there until dark, and then make for the main road where he could hitch a ride to wherever.

He fashioned a place to lie down out of discarded cardboard boxes, and stretched out. Suddenly exhausted, he closed his eyes. His sleep was bombarded by short bits of memories: his first day at Stanford, playing Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 at the arcade with Justin, the shirtless guy in apartment 319 saying “I didn’t do anything” right before Joel punched him in the face, Joel’s mother passed out on the couch as the TV played on and on.

And a forest trail in the dark of night, a hand slipping into his and making him feel—for a moment, anyway—like the luckiest boy in the world.

Leah.

He had forgotten her name. Had forgotten that moment. Had forgotten everything about Camp Red Hawk.

When Joel woke, the dying embers of the setting sun filtered through the hut’s only window. He sat up, wanting to get moving as soon as possible. But as he started to stand, he saw Leah sitting quietly in the corner.

“Jesus!” His heart jumped in his chest.

“Sorry,” she said softly. “Would it have been better if I woke you?”

“It would have been better if you just left me alone.” He picked up his bag and headed for the doorway.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t,” she said, still sitting.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The connection between us is stronger now than it’s ever been. I think seeing each other in person triggered something inside us. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it, too.”

He scowled. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. All I want is for you to stay out of my head.”

He walked quickly into the desert, but made it no more than half a dozen yards when she called to him from the doorway. “You can try to build up the wall between us again, but it won’t keep me out. I’m always going to know where you are, Joel.”

He stared down at the dirt for a moment before looking back. “Just because you know where I am doesn’t mean you have to follow me.”

She stepped outside. “You’re right. And I won’t if that’s what you really want. But Mike needs our help in a bad way, and I know you can’t turn your back on him.”

“Watch me,” he said and started walking again.

“If helping him doesn’t mean anything to you, then come with me for yourself,” she called. “Help me find out why we are the way we are.”

He didn’t stop.

F
IFTY-ONE

Leah

L
EAH REMAINED IN
the doorway of the hut for an hour, staring out at the desert before she allowed herself to accept that Joel wasn’t coming back.

She had failed.

Wrapped in despair, she returned to the hotel. It felt like she was both there and not, the world becoming a blur that could easily have been a dream—the normal kind, not her special brand.

In her room, she sat on the bed, lights off, staring at the wall. How long she stayed like that before crawling under the covers and falling asleep, she didn’t know. When the sun woke her in the morning, she was still fully clothed and stinging from Joel’s rejection. It would have been easy to stay in bed all day, but she couldn’t let herself fall into that trap.

Thirty minutes later, she was on the road again. If Joel wasn’t going to join her, she would have to move forward on her own.

__________

L
EAH FLEW FROM
Monterrey to Dallas, Texas, where she transferred to a flight to Colorado.

Since moving to California, she’d traveled back to her home state once or twice a year to see her folks in Denver. She wouldn’t be stopping by on this trip, however.

At the airport, she rented a sedan and drove an hour and a half south to Colorado Springs. Though she had been able to get into Mike’s Secret Place, she still hadn’t figured out where he physically lived. From the items that filled his infinite room, she did discover several things that, when taken together, pointed her to where he’d grown up, hence her current destination.