Now Gillian wiped her face. “I have to go. My mom will be calling any second.” I stood up. She said, “Something fell out of your pack.” Buster was sniffing at whatever it was. She bent down and lifted a folded piece of paper from the grass. It was the page of Young Harley mug shots. Part of one of the photos was showing. Gillian unfolded the paper. “Who is this?”
“It’s some old pictures of the guy who took me away from the Bad Time. The one who died.”
“Was he a crook?”
“Kind of, I guess. Kind of a friend, too.” I’d never thought of Harley that way before, but now, in a way, it felt true.
Gillian stared at the photos. “That’s wild. Well, I can see why he took you.” She refolded the paper and handed it back to me.
“Why? Because they paid him.”
She squinted at me. “That’s not what I meant. You look just like him.”
“What?”
“You do. It’s like an older you, with a moustache and bad hair.”
I didn’t know what to say. I unfolded the paper and looked at Young Harley. I had no idea what she was talking about. Young Harley gave me the same blank, smart-ass look he always did. Me? That was me? It was too much. I put the paper in my pack and walked back up the hill with Gillian. Just before we got to her place, I tugged at her sleeve. “Gillian.” We stopped and kissed. It was mostly teeth. I was pretty bad at it.
“Sorry. I’ve never done this before,” I said, and it was true.
“That’s okay,” Gillian said. “Neither have I.”
“We could try again.”
It was better the second time. Gillian’s cell phone rang in her pocket. We stopped kissing. “That’ll be my mom,” she said. “I have to go.” Up at her house, I could see the front door was open.
“I have your email,” I said. “I have your cell.”
She nodded. I patted Buster and she was gone.
I watched from the shadows until Gillian and her mom were inside. Then I walked; I had to keep moving. I told myself I was making a plan for how to get away as fast as I could, but I was tired and wired and my mind kept drifting. To Gillian. To Michael Bennett Davidson, 61472, out of Dayton, Ohio; arrests in San Fran and Portland, might have lived in Portland for a while. To me shouting and Harley lying in the parking lot, his head in that red puddle. To Ty. And then I’d start trembling. I told myself it was getting cold. I started for the little railway station, thinking I could just hang there until the morning train. I knew it would be deserted at night: there were only two trains a day that stopped in town. But when I got there, a police cruiser was idling in the parking lot, and I flashed crazily that Griffin had ratted me out. I turned away. I’d known where I had to go all along.