Jex Malone (31 page)

“Get in here,” Cooper growls.

In a matter of seconds, he has my backpack open and unrolls the pictures on the hood of his beater of a car.

“I'm sorry, but I just don't get it,” Cooper says, tossing his hands in the air.

“Serial killers leave a trail. They document what they do to their victims; they keep souvenirs of sorts,” Nat begins. “There is enough evidence to show that Mr. Foster was the reason why your sister disappeared. We just have to follow the clues to where he left her body. I think it's somewhere outside of Los Angeles from the look of those pictures.”

“Fine,” Cooper says in a voice that's angry and scared at the same time. Obviously, he can't focus on the emotions running through him, but lasers in on the task at hand. The first step is putting the pictures back in the backpack and throwing the pack into the front seat of his ancient green Dodge station wagon he bought with his earnings from mowing lawns.

“I'm going to California,” Cooper announces, getting into the driver's seat. The girls are speechless when he reaches under the dash and produces a set of keys.

The car's engine fires up with a loud coughing spurt that settles into a steady rumble, but he can't shove it into gear while all four of us stand directly in front of the vehicle.

“I'm going with him,” I announce. In a flash, I'm at the passenger's side door. I open it quickly and slide in next to Cooper.

“No way!” he shouts. “Get out, Jex!”

“I want to see this through until the end—and I will,” I say in a calm voice. My eyes are so steely that Cooper can't even begin to argue. He's speechless as I settle back into the vintage pea-green pleather.

Deva makes the next move.

“Nat, Cissy, go home,” she barks. “No one will even miss me. For days. They won't even know I'm gone.”

With those words, she races over to the passenger's side door and slips into the backseat.

“I don't want to even hear it,” Deva says to both Cooper and me. “I'm going.”

Nat and Cissy look at each other as booming thunder rumbles in the vicinity.

“Ciss, go home. They need to follow the clues carefully. They need my help and my mom thinks I'm at your house for the night. Call her and say I'm staying the weekend. Buy me some real time—that's all I ask,” Nat says, racing to the car and jumping inside beside Deva, who looks so shocked that she hugs Nat fiercely.

Cissy is stuck—for a moment.

Then she moves away from the car, steps outside of the garage, and just stands there alone in the rain. Water is pouring down on her in rivers to the point where it's impossible to distinguish between the rain and her tears.

Cissy starts to shake her head violently.

“I can't. I can't,” she shouts. “I just can't go. My parents … I can't, I can't!”

Cooper looks at me and I nod.

“Go,” I say to him, wiping the rain off my forehead.

“Go,” Deva cries.

We pull slowly out of the driveway while Deva and Nat turn around to stare at the girl who still stands solo in the storm. By now, the monsoon has arrived in full force and the lightning jags across the sky to make the moment as bright as a sunny day.

I'm frantically worried that a bolt will hit Cissy when slowly I see the girl begin to run, but it isn't in the direction of her house.

She runs toward the station wagon.

“Cooper, stop. Now!” I yell.

By now, Nat is opening the car door
while it's moving.

“Jesus, Nat! You're supposed to be the smart one,” Cooper snaps, smashing down on the brakes.

That open door is enough to make Cissy run at top speed towards the car. When Cooper slows the car, she tosses her body inside and keeps repeating over and over again, “We're doing this for Patty. We're doing this for Patty.”

“We're going to Cali,” I tell Cooper, who flips on the car's lights and carefully glides it down the now-flooded streets of suburban Nevada on what looks like the night the world is coming to an end.

By the time he reaches the end of the block, the heavy car begins to sway and then hydroplanes. The wheels are literally surfing on the water, leaving the driver with no control.

“Hold on!” Cooper shouts and I close my eyes as we dangerously careen towards a large oak tree.

The station wagon narrowly misses crashing into our first obstacle as the rain continues to pour down in thick, blurry sheets. With every thunderclap, the old car rocks and the distant sky is lit up with blinding, flashing bolts that seem suspended forever in the endless canvas of the night sky.

Cooper steers the car onto Interstate 15 where drivers are flying past us, oblivious to the weather. Water kicking up from their tires smacks us hard as the windshield wipers work furiously to offer some kind of clear view, but it's hopeless.

It's obvious that the power is out and we're driving almost blindly down the interstate. Without any warning, we run into the flashing lights of a police roadblock. Giant tree branches have been blown onto the inky black pavement, and two soggy cops with flashlights are diverting the traffic off the interstate and onto Old Vegas Highway, an even darker two-lane road that has absolutely no overhead lighting.

“Before they built Interstate 15 in the late 1950s, Old Vegas Highway was the only way to California,” Cooper says like some sort of mechanically speaking tour guide. “Buckle up; it's going to be a really bumpy ride. No one uses this road anymore. The city hasn't filled in the potholes for years—if ever.”

In some ways, it's like driving into a dark, pitted void, and the car protests loudly when it slams into the dips and sways carved into the rutted pavement. The hard rain is still relentless, and Cooper clutches the steering wheel tightly and leans forward to peer through the windshield, cursing when a huge RV going the opposite way blinds us with searing bright lights.

The girls in the backseat unconsciously start to hold hands, and by now Cissy is shivering hard. I grip the side of the front seat so tightly that I think my hand might break. With each crash of thunder, my mind races thinking about my dad, I mean Det. Malone, finding out I'm missing and calling my mother to tell her that he lost me. Again.

Don't think about anything but getting through the next five minutes alive.
I grab the torn material of my seat even harder. The water is pooling on this old highway and splashes in big wakes as the heavy car plows through the deluge.

As we reach the edge of the city, everything changes in a forever type of way. In a split second, there is utter peace and calm. It's as if someone flipped a switch, stopped the rain, and canceled the storm. This is typical of desert storms that start and stop on a dime.

It's almost as if the entire desert is transformed into a large painting of deep navy blues, dark onyx, and twinkling white stars that illuminate the tops of the mountains like some sort of brilliant connect the dots.

Finally, Cooper relaxes and I glance away, peering out the window and welcoming the deep quiet of the night that's all around us. What time is it? Ten? Eleven? Midnight? I don't even know. Except for the occasional billboard in the distance promising some fabulous $49 hotel stay or extra cheap, extra greasy two-buck breakfast, we're driving into a big black void.

The old highway is nearly empty, save for a few tractor-trailers and a lonely SUV, all of which speed past us. Cooper's car can't go much faster than sixty miles an hour without the frame shaking like it's about to crumble, so he keeps it at fifty miles an hour as we glide toward our uncertain futures.

The desert on the way to California is absolutely quiet and the realization of what we are doing begins to sink in slowly. We're tracking down the dead bones of a girl our age that perished over a decade ago and her own brother is helping us.

We are also technically runaways now—and there isn't even a remote chance we'll pull this off without getting into serious, life-changing kind of trouble.

For a moment, a sick-funny thought enters my warped brain. If I have to write one of those “What Did You Do on Your Summer Vacation?” papers, well, I have plenty to describe in my essay. There's nothing quite like going AWOL from your long-lost dad to find the dead body of his teenage neighbor. I'm figuring no one else will be able to write that exact paper. Score one for creativity. At least there's one kid who didn't spend her summer watching mindless reality TV.

“We'll stop to get some gas in an hour or so. I don't want to get way out there into the Sierra Nevada mountain range and run out,” Cooper says. “I forgot to tell you guys, the gas gauge is broken on this thing.”

“Great,” Deva snaps, her familiar tone welcome for once. “Quick FYI: I'm not pushing. I just got my nails done.”

Flicking on the radio, I scan the dial looking for a station, but all I get is a preacher giving a sermon about repenting.
A little too late.

I find a news station, but figure it's too soon for the radio to be reporting on five runaways. Maybe even Katt could cover the story. Suddenly, it crosses my mind that it will be hours before my dad even gets home, and it will be midmorning before he even realizes that I'm gone.
Just like Patty.

Nat's calm, informative voice breaks the silence and interrupts all of these horrifying thoughts.

“Let's stop in Death Valley—sorry, but that's the name of it. It's right over the border, there will be a ton of stuff there, and we can get gas and something to eat, and probably a map of Los Angeles,” she suggests.

That's about it for the chitchat.

His jaw set and his eyes intense, Cooper doesn't say a word as the miles click away, taking me in the opposite direction of my reason for coming out west this summer. After navigating one particularly narrow mountain pass, the car is spit out on the other side where in the distance I spot a bright light. A billboard announces the Death Valley truck stop and world's largest thermometer 5 miles ahead.

“We'll get gas there,” Cooper announces.

I am here for a reason. And as the Drew-Ids rules were stated a long time ago (or so it seems), we (plus one) are in this together and we have to see it through.

To the end.

Pulling his junker car in between the big rigs at the pumps, Cooper grabs what little cash he has in his pocket, pays the attendant, and fills her up.

For a moment, I let myself pretend that we're all on some fun road trip or vacation and this is just our first pit stop. It's stupid, but I glance over at Cooper, who runs a hand through his hair and offers me a brief sad smile like perhaps some of what we have been doing will be forgiven. My heart does a flip and then … reality sets back in. We're not on vacation, but are five fools who have gone missing. We're all probably grounded. For life.

But not tonight.

At least tonight, we're free.

The trucks rumble and hum all around me as the sickly sweet smell of exhaust fills my nose. Inside the truck stop, I can see big burly guys sliding into booths for cheeseburgers and cups of sleep-proof coffee while waitresses in itchy pink polyester dresses carry big trays of food to them.

“I'm starving; let's go get something to eat,” I say, a little too excitedly. Now that I have my emotions worked out, this is starting to feel like an adventure.

“Sir, you have no call to get snippy with me! I'm just doing my job here.”

—Marge Gunderson,
Fargo

Minutes later, we're sitting in a circular booth while Deva freshens up in the ladies' room. Gliding out of the bathroom, she pushes the door with her elbows to avoid touching it with her hands. A scowl seems permanently tattooed to her face.

“I can't believe we're actually eating in this dump!” she practically shouts.

“Oh, just sit down and try to enjoy yourself,” I laugh. “Who knows, you might develop a taste for corned beef hash.”

A plump waitress in a white apron appears, a pencil stuck in her brassy red ponytail. Before we know it, the table is crowded with plates loaded down with fluffy pancakes and runny eggs, gooey cheeseburgers and crispy fries, and open-faced turkey sandwiches drowning in gravy. Deva orders a chef's salad, but then changes her order to a tuna melt after deciding the lettuce probably isn't going to be organic. “The apple pie isn't organic either, but I'll have to overlook it and detox tomorrow,” Cooper informs her.

What the place lacks in gourmet dining, it makes up for with speed of getting your food to the table. Just like other condemned people, we dive in as if we haven't eaten in days and for many minutes the only sound from the table is muffled chewing, cutting, scraping, and slurping.

“So,” I say, breaking the contented quiet as I turn to Cooper. “There's something I've been meaning to ask you.”

“I can't go out with you tomorrow night. I'm a fugitive now,” Cooper says and flashes a small smile. He goes back to the ocean of gravy that's drowning his sandwich, but still manages to give my hand a tiny squeeze under the table.