I finished my burger and crumpled the foil sleeve into a ball. “You guys aren’t, like, hooking up, right? You’re just friends?”
Preston grabbed the remote and flicked off the TV. His lips twitched. “You want to hit that shit, don’t you?”
“I mean, she’s really hot. But she seems cool too. I just . . .” I trailed off.
Preston laughed. “Oh, it’s like that, huh? Maximus has a crush.”
“Screw you,” I said, tossing my foil ball at him. “I should have just asked her out without saying anything.”
Preston snorted. “She would have told me. She tells me everything. Blah blah blah, girls.” He grinned. “But you don’t have to ask my permission. Parv and I aren’t like that. Friend zone, you know?”
I believed him at the time. Maybe because he was convincing, or maybe just because it was what I wanted to hear.
I reach down, my fingers closing around a handful of loose dirt. I let it trickle out of my fist like sand from an hourglass. “Where is she, Pres?” I ask. “I know you felt the same way about her as I do.”
My phone buzzes sharply and I almost drop my flashlight. For a second I’m afraid to answer it, positive that if I do it’ll be a dead guy on the other end of the line.
THIRTY-SIX
THE PHONE RINGS AGAIN. I force myself to look at the screen. The caller’s number shows up as UNKNOWN. My eyes flick nervously around the darkened graveyard. Suddenly, I am not alone anymore. The gravestones are eyes; the night bulges inward, like ears struggling to hear.
Exhaling deeply, I answer the call. “Hello?”
“Max?” It’s only a tiny whisper.
Parvati.
“Where are you?” I try not to yell.
“I’m at the cabin.”
“Why?” I ask, my voice still louder than it should be.
“He says you have to come here. Alone.”
“Who?”
I hear the crunch of static that means someone is covering the phone speaker. Then, a muffled voice in the background. Male, I think. I can’t make it out.
“Parvati. Are you okay?”
“You have until midnight to get here,” someone whispers, low and growly. It’s a man, but he’s purposely distorting his voice. “If you call the cops, she dies.”
“What do you want from us?” I ask. “Why are you doing this?”
The phone disconnects, leaving a silence as still as death.
If you call the cops, she dies. “And if I don’t call the cops, we probably both die,” I mutter. “This is too much for me.” I slip McGhee’s business card out of my wallet and dial the number on it with shaking fingers. When the call connects, I dial his extension.
And get his voicemail.
In his gravelly voice, McGhee invites me to leave a message or to call 911 if I’m “experiencing an emergency situation.” 911 won’t help. They’ll think I’m some crackpot lunatic if I try to explain what’s happening. Even if the dispatcher believed me, the local cops would probably show up in uniform and knock calmly on the front door of the cabin. I can’t risk Parvati getting hurt. I don’t want anyone else’s death on my conscience.
I leave McGhee a semi-coherent message informing him Parvati is being held at her dad’s cabin and that I’m on the way up there. Hopefully he’s the kind of guy who stays up late and checks his voicemail after hours. If not, it looks like I’m on my own.
I check the time. Midnight is less than two hours away, and it’ll take me close to thirty minutes to walk home. Man, I miss my car. Abandoning the cemetery, I break into a jog and make it home in record time. I creep inside and snag Ben’s keys, which are thankfully in plain view on the coffee table. I grab my black hoodie from the back of the sofa and slip it over my head, pulling the hood up around my face. Quietly, I slink back out into the night.
It takes multiple tries to get Ben’s pickup to start. “Come on come on come on!” The clock on the dash reads 10:47. I turn the key again, and pray. The truck lurches forward as I shift into drive, and my knees ram into the console. I turn out of the driveway and onto the street. I figure there’s about a 50 percent chance I’ll make it up to the Colonel’s cabin without the engine falling out.
My breath whistles in my throat and I realize I’m gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my fingers are going numb. I need music. Music keeps me calm. I flip on the radio. There’s a commercial on my favorite station. I make my way through Ben’s presets. Classic rock. Talk radio. Static. My finger is hovering over preset number four when I hear the word “DeWitt.” The signal is weak, so the speaker’s voice is broken up by bursts of static, but he’s definitely talking about Senator DeWitt.
“. . . apparently not only decided against . . . Secretary of Labor . . . also resigning from the Senate . . . entire D.C. community shocked . . . wake of family tragedy . . .”
Holy shit! Preston’s dad is leaving politics because of Preston’s death. Why would he do that if he just killed off the only witnesses to his crimes?
“. . . rumblings of a possible divorce . . .”
I turn the volume up, hoping to hear more, but the radio station fades out.
The sprawling suburbs dwindle, gas stations and strip malls giving way to patches of vegetation and then the hills of the Angeles National Forest. I alternate between watching my rearview mirror for cops and watching the minutes on the dash clock tick forward. 11:18. Forty-two minutes to find Parvati.
As I lose the lights of the suburbs, the winding roads seem to fill with shadowy ghosts, swirls of darkness that condense and dissolve in the ravine at the side of the highway. I blink hard. It’s just the residual effects of my head injury, combined with fatigue. But the twisting shapes at the corners of my vision don’t go away. Suddenly, one of them darts out into the road, and I slam on my brakes. The shadow grows in size as it approaches the truck, but when it gets close I realize it’s not just a shadow.
It’s a boy, about my age.
Preston.
THIRTY-SEVEN
HE TAPS ON THE GLASS as I slow to a stop. I roll down the window, almost like I’m in a trance. Crickets sing in the high grass. Darkness wraps around the truck.
“Boy, Maximum Overdrive, am I glad to see you.” His hat obscures part of his face, but the voice is unmistakable.
I reach forward and flick on my emergency flashers. Obviously, that tree trunk did some permanent damage. Only Preston doesn’t seem like a hallucination. He looks real, sounds real, he even smells real—a little sweaty, like he’s been running.
“What the fuck, dude?” For a moment I’m at a loss for words. I touch one hand to the back of my head. The spot where I hit the tree is tender, but it’s not leaking brain matter or anything. I blink hard again, rub my eyes. But Preston doesn’t disappear. My throat constricts a little as I choke out, “We just . . . buried you. Everyone thinks you’re dead.”