I wake up hours later, after the sun has set. Dusting the pine needles from my clothes, I creep out of the woods and cut across the road to the Burger Barn. I lean up against the back of the trash Dumpster and watch the Flaming Engine parking lot from a distance. The cars parked behind the gas pumps are unidentifiable black blobs. I turn my phone on just long enough to check the time and messages. It’s right at 8:00 p.m. Parvati hasn’t called.
I order more food and take it back to the woods to eat in safety. Every fifteen minutes I turn on my phone again to check my messages. Just before midnight, Parvati sends a text that simply says here.
Flipping the phone off again, I jog slowly toward the truck stop. Parvati is parked around the back in her mom’s silver Honda. She’s wearing a choppy blonde wig and pointy glasses that sit low on her nose.
“Your mom’s car?” I say, sliding into the passenger seat. From grand theft pants to grand theft auto, just like that. I am so dead.
Parvati shrugs. “That’s what she gets for confiscating my car keys.” She gives me a pointed look. “Plus the Jetta is purple, and has your license plates, remember?” She leans under the leather brim of my hat to give me a kiss on the cheek. Then she peels out of the parking lot. “Nice look,” she says. “Old-man chic?”
“You should talk. You look like a librarian.” I glance down at her hoodie and baggy jeans. “Masquerading as a middle school boy. Are those your mom’s glasses too?”
Parvati ignores me. She gestures to the fuel gauge. “We’ve got enough gas to get to Vegas. I mapped all three addresses for Violet Cain.”
“How long do you think it’ll be before Colonel Dad notices your absence?”
She looks at her watch. “About five or six hours.” She turns onto a bigger road.
“How long until we get to Vegas?”
“Four hours.”
“We’ll have to work fast.”
“That’s the plan,” she says grimly. She bears down on the accelerator and then punches the buttons on the steering wheel to activate the cruise control. Trees quickly become desert, and before I know it we’re on Interstate 15, the only highway into Las Vegas.
“So did McGhee and Gonzalez get you to give up my hiding place or what?”
Parvati shakes her head, and fake blonde hair swishes back and forth. “Of course not. But they grilled me about my relationship with you and Preston. Some of our wiseass classmates seem to think we have threesomes.”
The videos on Pres’s hard drive of Parvati and me having sex flood my mind. I swallow hard. Now is not the time to bring those up. “What’d you tell them?” I ask finally.
“My parents were listening, Max. I told them that you and I broke up and that the three of us are all just friends who hang out together, mostly in school.”
“I guess they didn’t buy it.”
“Guess not.” Parvati jabs at the radio’s power button. “When they were done interrogating me they asked to speak to my mom and dad alone. I tried to call you to warn you, but you didn’t pick up the phone.”
The ringing sound from my dream—it was Parvati trying to call. I swear it felt like McGhee and Gonzalez busted in just seconds later.
“Still no ransom note?” I ask.
“Nothing.” Parvati makes a face as she flips through her mother’s presets. She mashes the tuning arrow with her finger until she finds a station playing something she knows we’ll both like.
Miles of dark highway fly by. In the moonlight, I can just barely make out the mountains of sand and rock on either side of us.
“Are you tired?” Parvati asks me suddenly, tweaking the volume down on the radio just a hair.
I shake my head. It feels weird not having my bangs flop in front of my eyes when I do it. “I crashed out in the woods for a while today.”
“You look exhausted. You should sleep more,” she says. “I know the way to Vegas. I’ll wake you when we get there.”
“Really. I’m fine,” I tell her, but I take off my hat and settle back against the seat anyway.
“Oh my God. Your hair,” Parvati says. “It looks ridiculous. I love it.”
You would, I think, letting my eyes fall shut. Parvati loves anything that most people consider weird. Something about the way the Honda purrs its way across the desert lulls me to sleep. The next time I open my eyes I see a line of bright lights in the distance.
TWENTY-ONE
THE CLOCK ON THE DASHBOARD reads 4:11. Less than two hours before the Colonel wakes up, notices Parvati and the Honda are missing, and calls the cops. By now McGhee and Gonzalez have me on obstruction charges and whatever crime it is to point a loaded gun at two FBI agents, not to mention what they might have tacked on to the list if they found my car and the blood in my trunk. I’m seriously screwed if we don’t find Preston in a hurry.
“We made it?” I ask, rubbing sleep from my eyes.
“Almost.” Parvati tosses me a Megaburger from the Burger Barn.
My mouth waters on cue. “You are the best girlfriend ever.”
That makes her smile. “It’s a couple hours old. I went through the drive-through right before they closed. You didn’t even wake up.”
I sit up in the seat and start to unwrap my burger as Parvati takes the exit for North Las Vegas. The burger is gone in about five bites. Time to check out our three Violet Cains.
The first listing is for a simple brick home in a lower-middle-class neighborhood. These people are going to think we’re crazy waking them up so early, but there’s no time for skulking around. I head straight up the driveway to the porch and bang on the front door. A wreath made of tiny green bells jingles each time my knuckles meet wood. No one answers. I knock again. I see the curtains flutter out of the corner of my eye.
“What do you want?” a female voice yells through the front door. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Sorry,” I say loudly. “It’s an emergency.”
Parvati stands beside me, one hand resting on my lower back. She transfers her weight from one foot to the other as we wait to see if the woman will open the door.
The door opens a crack. A woman peeks out. She’s got brown hair instead of blonde, but she looks about the right age. “Yeah?” she asks sleepily.
“Are you Violet Cain?” I ask.
“I was. It’s Violet Armstead now.”
“Are you friends with Preston?” I ask.
“I don’t know no Preston.” She rubs her eyes. “Is this some kind of joke?”
I take a closer look at her. Her face is the wrong shape, and even in baggy pajama bottoms and a T-shirt I can tell she doesn’t have the same body as the girl in the pictures.
Parvati comes to the same conclusion. “It’s not her,” she says.
“Not who?” the woman asks.