“What’s going on?” Palmer asked, when I’d hung up. “Is your dad okay?”
“I don’t think so.” I looked down at my phone once more. “Topher said this thing he’s doing today—this rally—might not actually be so good.”
“Wait, so he’s running again?”
“Apparently,” I said as I pulled up my dad’s number and called it. It didn’t even ring, just went right to voice mail, and I suddenly remembered a campaign tic of my dad’s—he turned his phone off every time he was going to be interacting with voters. He always said he didn’t want to be tempted to take a call, or look at a text, or do anything that might be read as not giving them his undivided attention. “His phone’s off,” I said, scrolling through my contacts again. “I’ll just call Peter.”
But Peter’s number went right to a recording that told me the number was no longer in service. I lowered my phone, realizing that Peter must have gotten a new phone during my dad’s leave of absence.
“No good?” Palmer asked, as I lowered my phone and bit my lip.
“No,” I said, looking at the time. I didn’t even know where this event was in New York, but it must have been close-ish. If it was starting in less than two hours, it couldn’t have been up in Albany or anything. I tried to do the driving math and realized that there was no way I’d be able to go stop my dad and then get back home to see Clark before he left for his bookstore event. Because it was looking like I’d have to go up there—I wasn’t going to let my dad just get attacked like that. And there didn’t seem to be any other way of contacting him. I let out a breath and turned to Palmer. “Up for a road trip?”
Palmer grinned at me. “Always.”
Twenty minutes later I looked across at Palmer from the passenger seat. She was driving, and had been since we’d stopped by the gatehouse. I’d taken three wrong turns just trying to get us out of Stanwich Woods, which was when Palmer suggested that maybe I should just ride for a while.
It wasn’t a bad idea, especially since my thoughts were spinning triple time. We’d done some preliminary research into the governor’s schedule, only to find out that he was speaking at three events today. Rather than waste time—and also because it was getting really hot out on the driveway—we’d gone inside to see if we could find anything about the location of today’s event in my dad’s study.
I’d gone to my dad’s desk to try and find any information while Palmer had made herself useful mostly by looking at all the paraphernalia on the bookcases. His laptop was on the desk, and even though I was pretty sure that I would need a password, I opened it up just in case I could get into his calendar. To my surprise, it wasn’t locked—and there was a window open to a fan site for Clark’s books. I smiled at that, then minimized it, only to see a document with my dad’s speech for today. I didn’t get any further than glancing at his opening remarks before I minimized that, too. I started to pull up his calendar when I realized I was looking at the background image on his screen. I knew it—I knew it better than almost anything—but I’d never seen it like this before.
I found myself sitting down in his leather chair and leaning forward, trying to understand what I was seeing. Because it was Stars Fell on Alexandra—but not the painting. It was a photograph.
It looked like it had been taken at early dusk, with long blue shadows everywhere. There was no flash, but you could still see details—you could see my yellow Converse and their broken laces. And you could see that I was looking off to the side, just like I was in the painting—but that I was looking at my father.
He was standing just at the edge of the frame, waving at me, and I was smiling at him like I’d never been so happy to see someone.
Clark had been right after all. I had been looking at something—at someone.
I’d been looking at my dad.
My mom had wanted her last work to be the two of us, in frame, together.
“Did you find it?” Palmer asked, making me jump and shaking me out of this reverie. She walked around behind me to see what I was looking at, and I heard her draw in a breath. “Is that . . . ?” she asked, and I nodded. “Wow,” she said softly, shaking her head. “We’ll have to tell Tobes. She’ll flip.”
The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment before I cleared my throat and said, “Okay. Goals. Address.” It had been the first item in my dad’s calendar for today, and we’d grabbed bottles of water for the car and hit the road.
Now I looked down at my phone, holding my hair back in one hand to keep it out of my face. Palmer was a windows-down driver—it was one of the fights she always had with Bri, who liked to keep the Grape Escape air-conditioned and as close to the temperature of a meat locker as possible. Normally I liked a windows-down drive as well, but it was hot enough that it was beginning to feel like a hair dryer was blowing in on us.