“She’s Charlie’s brother,” Lena says, then snorts when she catches herself. “Sister. Was Charlie’s brother? God, that sounded weird.” I’m barely listening to her. I’m already moving toward the door, every nerve end in my body firing away. “Aubrey, we’re probably better off here,” Lena insists. “What if we can’t get back in, or miss her somehow?”
“That’s why we’re going back to the bar,” I explain. She’s being oddly dense for someone who’s usually so streetwise. “We’re going to sit there and watch her and make sure she doesn’t leave our sight until we get those passports back, along with our plane tickets.”
“What about finding a hostel?” Lena asks. I’m halfway out the door but for some reason the question sends a searing pain through my temples and into my skull. I whirl around.
“Why are you being weird?” I demand. “Dana was being weird. You’re being weird. Who cares about a hostel? I’m pretty sure we’re both past placing that high on our list of concerns for the evening. What’s your deal?” Lena avoids my eyes. Tugging at her black T-shirt, she follows me.
“I’m probably just being insane,” she starts, skipping a little to match my stride. I’m the taller of the two of us, and although I usually match her pace, I’m tired of being courteous all the time. I just want to find Dana again, see our passports in her hand, figure out what it is she wasn’t telling us, because all of a sudden it’s feeling pretty important. We’re missing a crucial piece of the puzzle, and Charlie’s nearby. That’s part of it: I half wonder if Charlie will get back in touch with Dana.
“There is no part of this that isn’t insane,” I inform her. “But I think we need to be open with each other.” I hesitate before deciding whether to finish my thought. Then I go for it; Lena and I have only each other in this whole crazy mess. “Just tell me what’s on your mind. We need to have each other’s backs. There’s a chance I’ll even have something useful to add,” I say wryly. I quicken my pace and Lena hurries to catch up, and for a few seconds it feels like role reversal. It’s the first time on this trip that I’ve felt in charge. I’m filled with an unfamiliar surge of confidence as I retrace our path to the bar. I’m not expecting what Lena says next. When she speaks up, it nearly knocks the wind from my lungs.
“I have the letter with me here,” she tells me. “I keep reading it and rereading it.” I stop, disbelieving.
“The letter,” I repeat. “The suicide letter?”
“Yeah,” Lena says. She looks at the fruit stall beside me, the beer vendor to our left, the smog-sodden sky. Anything but my eyes.
“Why didn’t you show me?” I ask. Still, I resume my pace. I won’t show her how this latest betrayal hurts me, but it does. It sends a pain through my heart so sharp that I wonder how, in such a short time, I could have come to rely on someone so much.
“Mostly, I didn’t want you to have to see it,” Lena says. “But I don’t know. I guess part of me wanted to keep it private. I know it’s just as much yours, though. You can see it now if you want.”
“It belongs to his mother,” I point out. “And I don’t want to see it. I don’t need to anymore.” Lena is quiet. “Look, there’s no room in this for us not to be on the same side,” I say. “It’s okay. I get it. I understand why you think Charlie was more yours than mine. I just wish you would have trusted me with it. And I wish you weren’t still wanting to keep any part of him close. Mostly because I can’t understand why you’d still want to.”
“I don’t want to,” Lena says quickly. “I don’t think I do. I did. It’s different now, though. I just . . . I don’t know. But there’s something in the letter that he says. He says ‘When I’m gone’ and ‘death takes a long time to orchestrate.’ But he never actually says he’s going to kill himself. Not verbatim.”
“Right,” I tell her. “It was a setup. He disappeared.”
“But why did he disappear?” Lena presses on. “Why was it important to vanish?” The bar is twenty or thirty yards away now. It’s late Saturday afternoon, and because it’s open air I can see the crowd that’s begun to form within. It looks like a healthy mix of tourists and locals. My heart is in my throat; part of me wonders if Dana will be there at all. Part of me wonders if all this is a trap. Charlie feels so close; Dana’s story was so bizarre.
“You’re still thinking this was a setup?” I ask abruptly.
“I think maybe he never meant to disappear for long,” Lena responds. “I think he meant for us to find him.”