30

Once again, I’m back at the library for research, but this time, it’s easier. I only have to figure out how to get to Laughlin. The hard part is over.

I can’t quite believe it. I’ve been looking for All_BS for weeks, and at times, it has felt like chasing a ghost. But he’s here. I have an address. Last night Harry called me once more, this time with all of All_BS’s—Bradford Smith’s—contact information.

“You are a fucking genius, Harry Kang!” I told him.

“I don’t know about effing genius, but I’ll take genius,” he said. And I could hear the smile in his voice once again.

“Thank you, Harry. Thank you so much.”

“No. Thank you,” he said quietly. “It was fun. But it also felt good. Like maybe I could do something for Meg.” He paused. “Are you going to the police now?”

“I’m not sure. I was thinking I might go there myself first.”

Harry went quiet. “Be careful, Cody,” he said after a bit. “It seems abstract when you’re dealing with people online, but they are still people, and some of them are not nice people, not the kind you ever want to be in a room with.”

Sometimes you don’t even need to be in the same room for the damage to be done. “I’ll be careful,” I promised. “Thank you, again.”

“Like I said, I’m glad to do it. And it’s not that hard to find someone.”

“Really?”

Harry laughed. “Maybe not for me.”

And that’s when I had the other idea. “Do you think you might be able to track down one more person?”

x x x

The Greyhound to Laughlin takes thirty hours, requires three transfers, and costs three hundred dollars round trip. I have the money, and I can take off the time if I need to. But when I start to contemplate sixty hours alone on the bus, I begin to feel a little sick, the darkness clawing at me. I can’t do this alone, with only Bradford and Meg keeping me company.

I list the people I might ask to go with me. There’s no one in town. I’d never ask Tricia, and the Garcias are obviously out. The friends from school, never all that close, have fallen away. Who else? Sharon Devonne?

Maybe the Cascades people. Except Alice is still working at Mountain Bound. Harry is in Korea until mid-August. That leaves Stoner Richard. It’s not the worst idea in the world. He’s home in Boise for the summer, and that’s on the way. I could catch a Greyhound to Boise, and we could drive from there.

There is one other person. And as soon as I think of him, I understand that there is no other person. Because he is somehow as linked up in all this as I am.

His voice mail is still on my phone. I never listened to it, but I haven’t deleted it. I listen to it now. All it says is this: “Cody, what do you need from me?”

Words can have so many meanings. That question could be harboring exasperation, annoyance, guilt, surrender.

I listen once more. This time I let myself truly hear that familiar growl of fear and concern and tenderness behind his words.

Cody, what do you need from me?

And so I tell him.