Avery’s mom was parked in front of the television, surrounded by crumpled tissues. “The Homecoming,” as they were now calling it, was headline news with at least two networks promising “constant coverage.”
Sarah and Adam were being interviewed by a daytime anchor with hard-looking hair. On the bottom of the screen, it said, VICTIMS OF THE LEAVING DON’T REMEMBER WHERE THEY’VE BEEN. Avery couldn’t stop staring at them, actually crawled across the floor to sit crisscross-applesauce in front of the TV to see them better. They looked like aliens, like fake people, maybe because she’d never imagined she’d ever see them for real. It was like reading a book, then seeing the movie and not liking the casting. What did the others look like? Would they also seem beautiful and fake and all wrong and not at all what she’d pictured, if she’d even pictured them, and she wasn’t sure she had, not in years, anyway.
The anchor dude was midquestion when Avery was able to focus her attention on what they were talking about. “. . . but you’ll cooperate with the investigation?”
Sarah and Adam swapped a look, and Adam said, “We’ve spoken to the police and FBI, yes, but beyond that, we really feel like we’ve met our obligation, and we won’t be submitting to physicals or mental evaluations. We’re within our rights. We wish we could help, but we don’t remember anything. And we really want to get back to normal.”
The anchor said, “Another of the returned, Kristen Daley, told one of our reporters that she is going to try to be hypnotized to see if she can recall some lost memories. Are either of you interested in pursuing hypnosis?”
Adam said, “I wish my fellow victims well, and obviously we’re all coping differently, but I prefer to keep my intentions moving forward private.”
Sarah said, “Me, too.”
“And surely you’ve heard about Lucas’s father. How Lucas is considered a suspect in that investigation. Does that resonate with what you know about Lucas? Is he capable of violence like that?”
“I have no idea,” Adam said. “We believe we were all together, but I can’t speak to anyone’s character. If he ever did anything bad or good in the past, I have no memory of either.”
Avery wanted to reach through the TV screen and smack them both—the anchor, too. Why weren’t they talking about Max?
Also, were they a couple? They seemed to be. That happened pretty fast. Or had they been together before coming back? And if they remembered that, why not other things, too?
What if they are all lying?
The topic of the constant coverage then turned its focus to Will’s accident. Her dad had been the one to tell her just an hour or so ago, when he’d finally arrived home.
She still hadn’t been able to bring herself to call Ryan.
Or cry.
That probably said something about her as a person, but she wasn’t sure what.
She was, however, sure that her attempts to motivate her mom to get dressed or to take a shower or to eat or to do anything would not work. Dad was upstairs sleeping, claiming jet lag. The landline had been ringing off the hook all morning—nothing but news stations, if the first few calls were any indication—and so Avery had unplugged it.
Now, peeking out the front window, she saw two news vans, so she went upstairs to shower and get dressed, then went down and out the side door and up through her neighbor’s yard, over a prickly hedge, and out onto the next block.
She blew past the fish market—with its sidewalk that smelled of bleached rot—and the psychic’s storefront. Maybe Madame whatever-her-name-was was worth another visit? Now that she had things to ask that didn’t have to do with when she’d lose her virginity? She went past the trailer park loaded up with RVs and half thought about hopping in one, driving away to someplace where no one had even heard of The Leaving, if there was even such a place.
She wasn’t even sure what her destination was until she was already there, sweating from having walked so fast.
Opus 6.
A news van sat about a hundred feet from the base of the drive, but the guys in it didn’t seem to see her. She ducked through the line of mangroves by the street and came out farther up the path to the house. A portion of the area was blocked off with police tape.
Were they really treating it as a crime?
Ryan would know more.