The search has been called off due to rain and darkness, and I was going to stay with Phoebe, sleep upstairs so she wouldn’t be alone, but she said, “Just go home, Suze. I need to be alone.”
“Phoebe, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She gave me a murderous look, as if somehow this were my fault. “I want to be alone.”
“Are you—”
“I can’t, Suze! I can’t talk.”
Which made me think about that letter, the letter she never gave me, and I want to shake her, but I also want Jasmine home, safe and sound, and on some level, I know Phoebe is barely hanging on. In this moment, out of respect for my long love of her, I can give her some space.
Even if a hole is burning through my chest.
Ben shook his head, so Joel drove me back up the hill. “We’ll keep calling, looking, okay? She’s somewhere. We’ll find her.”
At home, lying in the dark, I find myself praying. An actual prayer, not the wordless things I sometimes send up out of habit, the pleas or the longing, or the apology, things I can’t seem to get out of my system. Once upon a time, I liked praying. It soothed me.
So lying there on my back with Yul Brynner on my belly, purring, I pray, specifically to Jesus, the nice God, the one who loves children (all the children of the world). “You know where she is, Jesus. Please send extra angels to look out for her. Keep her warm and dry. Don’t let anything hurt her. Show us where she is.”
It gives me peace to hand it over, and I start to drift off.
Until I wake up suddenly.
I know where she might be.
The night she stayed over with me, we walked to the beach by going down through town to pick up snacks. On the way, we passed the church and the bus, the paint Phoebe and Victor applied faded to almost nothing.
Did anyone check it? I fling the covers off and yank clothes on over my pajamas. I don’t have a car here, so I’ll have to walk, and it’s very dark. Pressing my lips together, I wonder if I should call Phoebe, but what if Jasmine isn’t there and it just gets her hopes up?
I should call Joel to go with me, but as absurd as it is, I don’t have his actual number. We haven’t made that connection yet.
It isn’t far, maybe two blocks down the hill, and then another two to the lot where the bus is. Maui is with me, and I have good boots and a flashlight. It’s pouring down rain, which will keep everybody but me inside.
I don’t have a leash for Maui, and I’m worried that he might take off after some little animal, so I tie a long scarf around his neck and he accepts it happily. “You’re such a good dog. Maybe I need a dog.”
His calm eyes agree with me. I have my phone in my pocket, an umbrella over both of us, and a flashlight in my leash hand.
It’s really dark. The road is awash in mud and puddles that make a mess of my hems. Maui doesn’t seem to mind, trotting out slightly ahead of me.
A sound behind me, cracking or a snap or something not quite right, makes me spin around, the flashlight creating an arc that catches on a figure, then swings by, and I try to swing back but my hands are shaking and I miss the first time, then center in on—
Joel.
“What are you doing?” I cry. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“What are you doing? I slept in the truck in case anyone bothered you.”
“Joel!” It shatters me. I close my eyes. “I would have let you stay.”
“It doesn’t matter. What the hell are you doing?”
I grab his arm. The more the merrier. “I might know where Jasmine is. Also, you need to give me your number.”
“Do you want to just drive? It would be a lot drier?”
I pause. “Yes. That would be much better.”
The old block is deeply creepy at night. I’ve never been out here except in the daytime. My old bedroom window is shattered, and the house is decrepit. “Why haven’t they torn all that down?” I ask as we pull up. “Turn off your lights so she doesn’t know we’re coming.”
“What difference does it make?”
“I want to scare the shit out of her, that’s what difference it makes.”
We creep up to the bus. “What if she’s not even here?” he asks.
“I can’t think about that.”
The door is broken and stands open. I tiptoe up the three stairs as quietly as possible, peeking over the edge of the half wall, holding my breath. Please be here please be here please be here.
A lump of blankets is pressed against the wall on one of the platforms. I tiptoe over and reach under. Just before I do, my LA mind kicks in and I’m afraid it might be a homeless person, but my hand closes around a small ankle.
She wakes up, yelling at the top of her lungs. “Go away! I’ll hit you with a rock!” Then she sees me. “Suze! You scared me half to death!”
“I scared you?” I snatch off the blankets and grab her, hugging her grasshopper body to me, her hair in my face. Tears spring into my eyes at the smell of her, the safeness of her, the physical reality of her when I thought we might not—
I squeeze my eyes tight. “Holy shit, kid, you scared the hell out of us!”
“Nobody was listening to me,” she says.
“Get your shoes on. Everybody is looking for you and your nana was half out of her mind worrying that a kidnapper had taken you or a moose gored you.”
“I left her a note so she wouldn’t worry!” She shoves her feet into the Crocs she wears constantly.
“Oh, is that right? A note! Well, I don’t know why we were freaked out, then. Oh, wait.” I grab her junk into a ball and point toward the door. “Because you’re ten! You’re not supposed to be out here by yourself.”
She turns around and stands her ground, arms crossed over her chest. “Nobody was listening to me. I don’t want to move to London. It’s my life, too, and I should have a say in this.”
Good for you, kid, I think. Tears well in my eyes. She has fire. She has moxie. She will need them both to live in a world that will try to devour her. I fall on my knees and hug her again, tears in my eyes. “Baby, I was so worried about you. I’m so glad you’re safe.”
As we climb in the car, I text Phoebe. I found Jasmine. Got her and heading to you.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Phoebe
I’m standing at the open front door getting splattered with rain when Joel’s truck pulls up. Suze gets out and carries Jasmine to the door, running through the rain, and deposits her in my arms.
As her long arms and legs wrap around me, I burst into tears, and bury my face in her shoulder, so relieved, so grateful. “Jasmine, baby,” I murmur, shaking, smelling her hair. I sink down on the couch, still holding tight, and I feel her hug me back.
“I’m sorry, Nana,” she says. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You did.” I rock with her, and try to get my emotions under control. I lift my head, wipe my face. “Do not ever do that again. Do you hear me?”
She nods, chastened.
“You know how you worry about tsunamis and bombs that are never going to fall and all those other things?”
“Yeah.” She twines her fingers through my hair.
“I worry about you. My whole job when I’m with you is to keep you safe and make sure nothing hurts you, do you get it?”
“Yes.” Tears are spilling from her eyes, too. “I’m sorry.”
“Go take a warm shower and get in my bed. I’ll be up soon.”
She nods, keeping herself small. Before she runs upstairs, she gives Suze a hug, too. I see that my friend’s hair is unbrushed and she’s not wearing a bra—she jumped out of bed to go find her.
When Jasmine goes upstairs, I say, “We need to call the sheriff.”
“Already done,” Joel says. He cocks a thumb toward the porch. “I’ll wait outside.”
He touches Suze on the shoulder and there’s that spark, the lingering that catches my eye. “You can go,” I say wearily.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“No. I’m not.” All the roaring emotions surge through my body, and I’m shaking from head to toe. I can barely breathe, overcome with both the aftermath of terror and the relief. I sink on the couch, bend my head to my hands, and weep. “Oh my God.”
Suze sits down beside me, wraps her arms around my shoulders. “It’s okay,” she says. “She’s safe. Everything is okay.”