26
Wyatt
I woke to the rain on the roof. Some might call it a patter, but it was more like a deluge. My mother once said that, when it rained up here, you might as well cancel your plans. I knew what she meant, but today, my plans were with Rachel.
I knew I could never climb that tower in the rain.
I decided it might be a good idea to start the online courses I was supposed to be taking. That way, I could skip a day when the sun came out. So, after breakfast (Mrs. G. made waffles, which was the only good thing about the day), I logged on to start virtual economics.
No connection.
After unplugging and replugging the computer and an hour on the phone with the service provider, then another hour talking to someone in another country who clearly knew nothing about how bad it could rain here, I faced the fact that they were going to have to come service it. Tomorrow.
I went downstairs to see if Mrs. G. was watching Star Trek. Because this was what my life had come to.
“It’s not on now,” she said.
“I thought it was always on.”
“I wish. Do you want to play Rummikub?”
“What’s that?”
She reached down under the end table and pulled out a small leather suitcase. “It’s a game, sort of like gin rummy, only with tiles. You have to build groups of three or four of a kind, or straights. Your mother and Danielle used to play all the time. I haven’t played since . . .”
I couldn’t imagine my mother doing anything so nerdy, but maybe it was just that dull up here. “Okay?”
That was all it took for her to start putting together racks and piling on tiles. The piles were numbered and came in four different colors. She explained that you had to make either a group, meaning several of the same number, or a run, which meant all the tiles were the same color, but consecutive numbers, like 2, 3, 4, and 5. There had to be at least three tiles in each run or group. “But the fun part,” she said, “is you can steal from other groups that are already down. For example, if there are three 4s down, and you need one to make a run, you can take it—just not on your opening turn.”
I didn’t make my opening turn for about fifteen minutes because she said your tiles had to add up to fifty before you could start. Meanwhile, Mrs. Greenwood was building runs and groups, then stealing from them to make more. “It just all comes back to you,” she said.
“I wish it would come to me in the first place.” But, actually, I was just as glad to have her beating me. She seemed to enjoy it.
Still, she said, “You must have something.”
“You’re just better at this than I am.”
“Nonsense. You’re a smart boy. That’s what I like about this—it exercises the brain, helps with problem solving.”
I thought about the problem of how I was going to see Rachel. What if it rained for a week?
The joker Mrs. Greenwood had just put down laughed at me.
After she’d beaten me for the third time straight (and I suspected she was holding back), I asked her if there was anything else she needed repaired.
Maybe she saw the look of quiet desperation on my face. Or maybe she was just as bored of playing Rummikub as I was. In any case, she said, “You know, I think the library might have that internet service. Is there a way to bring your computer there and work?”
My head shot up quicker than a cartoon character’s. “What? Yes. Yes, there is a way. Where’s the library?”
“Well . . .” She played with the Rummikub tiles. I dimly remembered that Nikki and her friends used to make necklaces out of them. Nikki . . .
“It’s a little far,” she said.
What around here wasn’t? “That’s okay. Where, exactly, is it?”
“You pass the hardware store and get onto the Northway. Then, you get off in Gatskill.”
Gatskill? That had been where Zach had worked, at the Red Fox Inn. “About how far away is that?”
“At least half an hour I’d say. And you should drive slowly in this rain.” She glanced at her watch, a skinny gold thing I bet she had to wind each morning. “Maybe it’s too late to get started. They probably close at five.”
It was nearly two now. It probably was too late. But on the other hand, I was sure the bar was just getting started at five.
“No, I’ll go. I’d like to get something done today.” I started to put away the Rummikub tiles.
“Such diligence.” She placed her hand on my wrist, stopping me. “I’ll put them away.”
“I’ll get gas for your car too.” It was the least I could do, since I was the only one driving it.
“Sweet boy.” She made me a little map, which I took with me. I took my computer too, even though I had no intention of using it. I felt bad lying to her in a way I hadn’t felt bad about lying to my own mom. Maybe it was because I was still suffering with what had happened to Tyler or maybe it was because I knew she’d been lied to before, with great consequence. Still, I did lie, I just felt bad about it.
I went to the library first. It was surprisingly packed, by which I mean I saw eight or nine people, and I actually had to wait to talk to the librarian, an old lady who looked like she’d died a few years ago. Maybe everyone’s internet was out.
“Red Fox Inn?” she said when I finally asked her. “It used to be on Route Eight, just a ways down from the grocery. I’m not sure it’s there anymore, but I don’t drink.”
“Thank you.” I started to turn away.
“Do you want a book while you’re here?”
“Um, maybe later. I have to get there first. It’s sort of . . . ah, a scavenger hunt.”
She sighed.
“Don’t forget we close at five.”
It had finally stopped raining. In fact, the air was cold. I found Route 8, which I had passed on the way to the library, found the grocery store, and, very eventually, found the Red Fox Inn.
Or what was left of it, which was merely a skeleton of a building, burned out by fire. A sign still remained, its charred letters saying Red Fox Inn. I started to drive away, when I saw there was a second building, a little shack or house. It had looked equally abandoned at first, but then, I noticed some movement. When I turned, I saw a grimy window shade drop down. I got out of the car.
Then, I stopped. Was I crazy? I mean, really, was I crazy? I was out here in a rural area, exactly the type of place where people disappeared and were never seen again. Add the abandoned, burned-out building and some kind of squatter living in it. Possibly, it could be some harmless Boo Radley type—or it could be Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th parts one through twenty. In fact, I’d passed a boarded-up summer camp on the way there. Sure, it might just have been closed for the winter, but what if it wasn’t?
I got back in the car.
But then, I remembered Rachel, saying she thought there was something she was destined to do, trapped in a tower over her poor, murdered mother. Who had put her there? And why? Would she ever get away? There was something weird going on in this town, and finding the guy who had given Danielle those creepy leaves seemed like the key.
I thought too, of Mrs. Greenwood, all alone. I needed to find out what had happened to Danielle.
Then, someone tapped my window.
I jumped. It was just like Zombieland! And me without my shotgun. My feet searched for the gas pedal, not finding it.
“Can I help you, son?”
The face at the window was an old guy, but he in no way looked dead. In fact, he was sort of a harmless old guy, older than anyone I’d ever seen, blue eyes surrounded by a spiderweb of wrinkles, looking out from under a Yankees cap.
Running him over would probably be considered an overreaction. I rolled the window down, which took a minute because Mrs. Greenwood’s car had these crazy window cranks you had to turn. Despite this, the old guy left his hands on the glass the whole time. On the up side, I could see his hands, and he didn’t have a knife.
Still, it could be in his pocket. I put my right foot over the gas, just in case. I shivered. The air was cold now.
“Yeah, do you live here?” I asked.
“That, I do. Are you lost? Need directions back to the Northway?”
I relaxed a little more. Zombies didn’t usually offer directions back to the Northway. They just ate your brains.
“Um, no. I’m okay. But do you know anything about this place?”
“The Red Fox? Sure, I’m the owner. At least, until it burned to the ground—Poof! One second it was there, the next gone. I didn’t have money to fix it up. It was named after me, Henry Fox. I used to have red hair.” He flipped up the Yankees cap to show his balding scalp. “Back when I had hair. But you won’t find much around here except ashes and memories. There’s Mahoney’s about a mile down Route Eight if you’re looking for someplace to watch the bowl games. In fact, I was headed there myself.”
“Oh, thanks. No, I was just wondering. If you’re the owner, maybe you know a guy that used to work there. His name was Zach, played in a band there. It would have been about seventeen or eighteen years ago.”
The old man looked confused. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Then, a glimmer of recognition filled his eyes. “I do remember Zach. Nice kid. But that was a long time ago. You couldn’t have known him.”
“No, I . . . that is, my mother knew him. From school. She’s on the reunion committee and trying to find people. Zach hasn’t been to the Facebook page.” I knew as I said it that the old guy had never heard of Facebook, but that was okay. Harmless babbling was okay. “Do you know any of his relatives? Does he still have family in Gatskill?”
“Who’s your mama? I know most people in these parts.”
“Emily Hill.”
“Emily Hill . . .” He got a strange look on his face, then smiled. “Nope, don’t know her.”
“It’s okay. She hasn’t been here in a long time. I’m staying with an old friend of hers, just for the Christmas holiday.”
I didn’t know what made me lie except, in that second, I realized that not a single car had come down the road in the time we’d been talking. And something about his questions was making me nervous.
He asked another one. “Who you staying with?”
Again, I lied. “Astrid. Astrid Brewer. She’s my cousin.”
“I thought you said she was a friend.”
“Well, she’s like a cousin because we’re such close friends. I need to get back soon, for dinner. So do you know anything about Zach?”
The old man shook his head. “No, can’t say we’ve kept in touch. But he was friends with my brother, Carl. Maybe he would know something. If you give me a phone number, I could call if he does.”
“Great.” I was just looking for a way out of there. I found the receipt from the hardware store and wrote down my essentially worthless cell phone number. “Leave a message if I don’t answer.”
“I’ll do that. Hey, I’ll be seeing Carl tonight at Mahoney’s. Sure you don’t want to come?”
Poor old guy. He probably just wanted companionship, and here I was, treating him like an ax murderer. But I shook my head. I was entertaining enough old people already. “Nah, I gotta get back. Thanks, though.” I handed him the paper.
He took it. “I’ll be sure and ask.”
“Yeah, thanks. See you around.”
I waited, as politely as possible, for him to back away. Then, without bothering to put the window up, I tore out of there.
I went to the library and spent the next hour on old microfilms of the town’s newspaper. There was nothing about Danielle’s disappearance, not anywhere. They weren’t treating this as a cold case, but as no case at all. The police obviously assumed she’d run away.
I went back home, had dinner, and went to bed. Right before I turned in, I noticed it had begun to snow again.