Page 68 of Fragments of the Lost
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. The phone call he got, when he left me. I thought it was from his mom, but what if it wasn’t? I try to remember where we had gone. It was up north. Out of the way. Was it her school? Somewhere nearby?
“When did you see her?” I ask, though the words feel like sandpaper coming out.
“With Caleb. After the game. By the locker room. We were leaving, you guys had already said goodbye, and I went back for a drink at the vending machines. I saw the two of them, but he was saying goodbye to her, nothing sketchy or anything. I asked him who it was, and he just said someone he knew growing up. Maybe through his dad?” He shrugged. “I don’t really remember. It didn’t seem important.”
I think about the letter I found, his name on the envelope, with no address—as if it had been left for him somewhere, and not sent. I think of all the secret places Caleb had brought me: the library, the burned-out house, that hike. And then I think of the places he never brought me, but disappeared to: when visiting Terrance in college, the man who showed up for him.
Nothing makes any sense, and I can’t pull the answers out of the air. I open the message, the one from Ashlyn Patterson, and I write:I know that’s a lie.But the message comes back as undeliverable. She’s blocked me from making contact again. My grip tightens on the phone. It’s her. It has to be her.
“How far is this town from here?” I ask Max.
He looks between the phone and me, and he makes a decision. He doesn’t ask any questions. He looks at the clock on the dashboard and says, “We can make it if we leave rightnow.”
“Then let’s leave right now,” I say.
—
The longer we drive, the more weight seems to fall around us, until we’re trapped in silence and our own thoughts. “Max,” I say quietly, and he jumps, pulled from whatever dream he’d been running through.
“Yeah?”
“Should we call the police?”
He clenches his jaw. “And say what?”
“That something happened in that house.”
“What happened in the house, Jessa?”
I think about it, really think about it. If something happened in that room, I believe Caleb may be in trouble. I think Eve knew about it, and that’s why she’s been spending so much time in the locked garage, looking for evidence. But I can’t figure out why she has me in that house, if she knows. There’s a piece that doesn’t fit. It doesn’t make sense.
“I don’t know,” I answer Max. “I’m not sure. Maybe I’m wrong.” But it doesn’t feel wrong. The past begins to make more sense, the memories filtered through a different perspective.
“Look,” he says, reaching over the console for my hand. But once he has it, he’s not sure what to do with it, and he drops it again. Caleb is suddenly looming larger, between us in this car. “We’ll talk to Ashlyn and figure out what she knows, and then we’ll decide what to do. Okay?”
I nod, but as we pull into the high school parking lot, I realize the futility of our plan to find Ashlyn. Her school is massive. At least five times the size of our private school.
But Max seems undeterred. He walks up to the front doors, just as school’s letting out, and he starts asking.
“I’m looking for Ashlyn Patterson,” he says. He gets a few shakes of the head, a few tips of the shoulder, a few glances around, mumbledsorrys. But one girl stops and thinks. She makes a show of raising her eyes up under bangs, twisting her mouth, she adds anumfor good measure—and I know it’s because of Max. That he is our ticket in, because of the way he looks, and asks kindly, and doesn’t push.
“She’s probably working at the paper.”
“The paper?” Max asks.
“The school paper?”
“Could you show me?” Max says, and the girl looks around for her friends for a moment, then shrugs.
She goes back inside, and Max walks beside her, and I trail behind. “It’s that door, see?” It’s open, and the hall is silent. “Sorry, I really have to go.”
“Thank you,” Max says. She nods. I don’t think she’s even noticed I’m standing here.
—
Ashlyn’s just inside the classroom, and she’s alone. There’s a large monitor in front of her, and her glasses shine in thereflection—but it’s definitely her. It’s the long blond hair, and the confident posture. A pen rests between her teeth. She doesn’t seem to notice us hovering near the entrance.
I knock once on the open door, and she jumps, the pen dropping from her mouth. “Can I help you?” she asks. It’s obvious she doesn’t know who I am, but she’s working it out. Her eyes flash in vague recognition, and she’s processing it as she stands. I can tell the moment she figures it out. Her body stiffens, her face pales.
