“What did you and Preston do after you went surfing?”
I didn’t know if it was the tiny break or just the absence of Gonzalez that calmed me down, but I sensed an opening to squeeze in a little bit of the truth and took it. “He split early, actually. Said he wasn’t feeling well.”
“About what time was that?”
I shrugged. “Didn’t look at my phone. Maybe nineish.”
Gonzalez came back with a pitcher of water and three glossy paper cups. I accepted my drink with a polite thank-you and then guzzled down half of it in one swallow.
“Max was just telling me that Preston left the beach early on Sunday. Apparently he wasn’t feeling good.”
Gonzalez made a face like I had just taken a dump in my pants. “Oh yeah? A little too hung over to surf?”
It didn’t sound like a real question, so I didn’t answer him.
“Do you know if he went straight home?” McGhee asked.
I sipped my water. “I figured. But he didn’t say.”
McGhee nodded to himself again. “Did you and Preston take a walk along the top of the cliff on Saturday night?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He was fooling around by the edge. Pretending to fly, stuff like that.”
“Did you guys argue?” McGhee asked.
“What? No.” Preston and I never argued. I had known him over a year and couldn’t remember a single fight. “Why would you ask that?”
“Just following up on a tip. Probably irrelevant.” He flipped his notebook closed. “I think that’s all the questions we’ve got for now, Max. But if you think of anything else, please give me a call.” He slid a business card across the table.
I slipped it into my wallet behind my health insurance card, back in the section of stuff I almost never looked at. “Thanks,” I said.
Gonzalez stopped twitching long enough to give me one more glare. I stood up, unsure if I was just supposed to leave or if I had to wait for one of the agents to walk me back out to the front.
“Isn’t it kind of early to assume something bad happened?” I asked. “I thought you had to wait forty-eight hours just to file a missing persons report.”
“That’s actually a myth perpetuated by TV shows,” McGhee said. “There’s no required waiting period in California. And it’s been over forty-eight hours since either of his parents saw him. You’re the only one who has seen him in the last couple of days.”
I nodded. I wished I hadn’t brought it up.
“We don’t know anything for certain,” McGhee continued. “But we need to consider the possibility that Preston’s disappearance is politically motivated until we can rule that out.”
“What? Like . . . terrorism or something? Don’t you think that’s a little unlikely?”
“A high-profile senator’s son disappearing right after an election? We’re just trying to stay ahead of the curve,” McGhee said. “Which reminds me. We’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk to anyone about what we’ve discussed this morning.”
I nodded. “Am I done? Do you know where my parents went?”
“I’ll show you where they are.” McGhee pushed his chair back and stood up.
I followed him out of the room and back down the hallway, past the desk sergeant and out into the police station lobby. Darla was chewing on her lower lip as she paced back and forth across the scuffed floor. Ben sat in the chair nearest to the door, his canvas sneakers crossed at the ankles. He was flipping through a sports magazine and swilling down a cup of coffee. Man, talk about opposites attracting.
“Max.” Darla headed over to me, arms wide, like I’d just woken up from a coma.
“Jeez, Darla.” I wriggled out of her grasp. “I was only gone for twenty minutes.”
“I know. It’s just the thought of your friend missing . . .” She trailed off.
“Have you ever met him?”
“Not officially, but I’ve seen you two surfing,” she said. “Just because you don’t bring your friends around doesn’t mean I don’t care about them. I can’t even think about what I would do if it were you.”
I resisted the urge to tell her she could always replace me with another broken child. Maybe upgrade to a nice amputee, or a blind kid. “I’m sure he’s fine,” I said. “He probably just needed to get away from all the political stuff going on at his house.”
“You think so?” McGhee asked. His voice made me jump. I didn’t realize he had stopped at the desk for a moment and could still hear me. “Did he ever say anything about taking off?”
“He said something about Vegas not too long ago,” I hedged. Maybe I could dole out the truth in tiny pieces that, once assembled, would make a picture that resembled a reality in which I hadn’t done anything wrong.
Darla put an arm around me. She cleared her throat meaningfully, and Ben looked up. “We all done here?” he asked. Reluctantly, he returned his magazine to the basket in the corner. The three of us headed for the door.
“One more thing, Max,” McGhee said. “Did you and Preston both park at the overlook?”
“Yeah,” I said, without much thought. “Why?”
He flipped his notepad open again and made a quick notation with his chewed-up pencil. “Just a routine question.”
TEN
I MADE IT TO SCHOOL just in time for lunch. After tossing my backpack in my locker, I checked in at the attendance office and then headed for the cafeteria. I passed a group of freshmen arguing loudly about football, two boys in college sweatshirts pushing and shoving across the table as they made a friendly wager.
It made me think of Preston, how he hadn’t wanted to surf because he was avoiding Jonas Jacobsen. I scanned the caf. Jonas’s brother Jared stood in the salad line, fiddling with his puka shell bracelet while the cashier made change. He took his tray to the condiment station and then headed toward the lobby. It looked like he was going to eat outside. I used to do that too, before Preston transferred to Vista Palisades.
I followed Jared through the glass doors and out into the sunlight. “Hey,” I said, plunking down on the front steps next to him. As usual, his nose was peeling a little, new pink skin emerging from beneath his perpetual tan. The wind whipped his blond dreadlocks around his mouth, obscuring part of his expression.
“What’s up, Cantrell?” His eyes flicked around the parking lot and then back to me. He picked up a shrink-wrapped vegan cookie and popped the package open.
“How much money does Preston owe your brother?”
Jared set the cookie down on his tray next to a wilted spinach salad. He shook his dreads back from his face. “What makes you think DeWitt is doing business with Jonas?” he asked slowly.
“He told me he was avoiding your brother because of the UCLA game.”