Track 6

“Chances Are”

Present Day

Before I even dream about driving home from Eden, I rest my head on the steering wheel. The tears have dried up, but my heart’s still galloping harder than a thoroughbred in the Kentucky Derby. A series of text message alerts start firing out in quick succession. I fumble for my phone. The first is from Angie, obviously sent while I was in the mobile reception black hole.

Angie: Good luck with your mom!

Angie: Have you talked to her yet?

PC Brigade: Hi, Cassidy. It’s Javier. I tried to leave a voicemail, but it went wonky. Technical term. So, it’s bad news for your laptop. It’s dead. Sorry about that. Come pick it up anytime and I’ll explain everything. Thanks.

I groan. It’s not my laptop. It’s Mom’s. I “borrowed” it when I first got the idea to hunt for Jane Flanagan, but I couldn’t get it fired up.

Angie: You have to come to the lake party. Bringing Jacob so you can finally meet him. Love of my lice.

Angie: *life

Angie: What’s happening???

There are ten more messages from Angie, most of them containing single words or emojis. Sucking in my cheeks, I scroll down. I love my best friend, but the one message I was really hoping to see isn’t one of hers—and it’s not among any of the texts.

But then, Anna Kingston doesn’t strike me as a texting kind of woman. She did, after all, respond with an email when I first reached out to her.

Anna was a young White House intern when Jane Flanagan disappeared. She was named in an archived Washington Times article from 1985 that I found online. Wiki says she served in the Senate before retiring early when she became ill. I quickly check my inbox and find only newsletters from my favorite authors and sales alerts from Sephora. Nothing from Anna.

I tap out a text to Angie in case she’s already commissioned a search party for me.

Me: Hey Ange. It was so awful. The worst. You should have seen her.

My thumb hovers over the send icon. Chewing my lip, I decide against telling Angie my mother was less animated than a department store mannequin. Except when she told me to stay away from the Jane Flanagan case. No, giving Angie the unvarnished truth would only invite more questions from her, and frankly I can’t deal right now.

I jam my finger on the backspace key.

Me: Hi! I got to see Mom. She’s doing fine. Driving now. Talk later!

Angie’s reply is immediate: WTG Mom! So great. I’ll see you at the lake. Tell me everything then.

Feeling sharp stings of guilt from all the lies, I toss my phone face down on the passenger seat. I’m pretty sure I hadn’t committed to going to tonight’s pre-homecoming party at the lake. In fact, all I’m committed to is crawling into bed as soon as I get home. By the sound of things, Mom’s laptop isn’t going to be of any use, so it can wait till tomorrow.

Starting the car, I crane my neck to check for other vehicles and visitors before rolling back. There’s not much in the way of life here except for weeds poking up through a multitude of cracks in the asphalt and a couple of lizards. No other cars, either. The doc mentioned construction was going on. I guess the workers parked their trucks around back?

The surrounding forest casts long shadows. I frown at the dashboard clock. How could it be quarter to six already? Had I really been inside for two hours? It seemed like only a few minutes. Then again, it did take an excruciating amount of time for Mom to come down from her room.

By the unmanned guard’s hut, the front gate judders open for me. A little ways down the road, the steel-gray paint of an old pick-up truck appears. I tap on the brake and wait for it to pass. Only it slows down and eventually comes to a stop, blocking my exit. It dwarfs my tiny, adorable-but-not-the-best-vehicle-for-the-mountains Fiat 500.

“What’s your problem, buddy?” I mutter while gesturing for them to scooch a little farther so I can leave. But they don’t move. Groaning, I step out, just as the truck bunny-hops and stalls. I stride over the crumbling asphalt to the driver’s side.

A scratched window winds down manually.

And I’m face-to-face with Hayden McGraw. He stares at me with bulging brown eyes as he fumbles with the ignition. The engine starts, but he messes up with the clutch and the truck hops and stalls again.

“Hayden?” I step back as he opens his door. My fingers brush the windowsill, and a zap of static electricity makes the hairs on my arms stand up. “What are you doing out here? Are you lost?”

He climbs out of the car and rakes a hand through his hair, revealing a crumpled brow. His gaze darts from me to Eden, then back again.

“I…I was, uh, coming back from a job interview and thought I’d take a tour of Dawson…” Hayden’s lips quirk into a sheepish smile. A deep burgundy flush spreads across his cheeks and spills down his neck. He scuffs the soles of his Timberlands on the asphalt. “And, yeah, I’m lost now. My GPS stopped working around the turn-off from the highway back there. Weird, huh?”

“Very.”

“I feel like I’ve been driving in circles.” He tosses another glance at Eden. “So how about it? Can you tell me where on earth we are?”

My gaze travels back to the decrepit building beyond the fence. Just looking at it puts ice in my veins. I’m ashamed to tell him that’s where my mother’s living.

No, not living. Existing.

I don’t want him to think my family dumped her in a place like that on purpose. God, if I’d known how bad it was here, I would have tried to stop her somehow. Barricaded her in the house. Anything.

“We’re outside a ‘health resort,’” I say with air quotes, feeling my throat constrict. “It’s for people with anxiety issues and things like that.”

He squints at Eden, then at me. “Looks more like a last resort.”

“That’s what I thought, too. Apparently, they’re in the middle of renovations.”

“But they’re still treating people while that’s going on? As in-patients?”

Good point. Flying sawdust, construction workers yelling over the buzz of power tools, demolition shaking the foundations—all of those things would only add to the patients’ stress levels. Mom’s stress level.

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s not how I’d run things if I were in charge. I didn’t actually see any construction or contractors.” On the first floor, a dim light turns on behind filmy curtains. Could that be Mom’s room? Tentatively, I wave, despite not seeing anyone moving.

Hayden catches me waving. There’s a mix of curiosity and warmth in his eyes that makes my insides wobble. The atmosphere around us seems to throb, like it does when summer storms approach. Except it’s fall.

“Do you know someone in there?” he asks, face softening.

A lump of emotion in my throat stops me from answering. I can only nod.

“I’m sorry.” He starts to reach for me, but then thinks better of it, folding his arms tightly across his broad chest. I’m glad he didn’t hug me or anything. I would’ve totally lost it.

“It’s fine.” A blatant lie. He tilts his head like he knows it, too. Brightening my voice, I say, “The inside is nothing like the outside. It’s kind of old-school opulent. If you like antiques and oil paintings of unhappy-looking subjects. Not the mid-century aesthetic she likes, but it could be worse.”

His smile is a reassuring one. “I bet your mom will be out of there in no time.”

“I hope so—” My eyebrows knit together. “Wait, how did you know I was talking about my mother?”

Hayden’s leg collapses for a second. His entire face turns an even deeper shade of burgundy this time. Plum, even. “Sorry. When you said ‘she,’ I…I just assumed.”

I peer at him closely. Does he have a sixth sense? I cast my mind back to our morning biology class, a lifetime ago, where he seemed to react to what I was thinking. Then there was the “last resort” comment, which echoed my thoughts about Eden exactly. Maybe we’re in tune somehow.

It also could be my imagination running away with me. Wouldn’t be the first time.

But am I also imagining the electric current pulsing in the air?

I shake my head. Of course I’m imagining it. I’m letting Angie’s melodramatic influence get to me. She believes in romanticisms like sparks flying and chemistry bubbling between two people. The only electricity here is coming from the power lines running parallel to the road.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” I say, keeping my fingers crossed that Hayden really isn’t a mind reader. “But don’t spread it around. Most of my friends know my mom’s getting help, but they don’t know every detail.”

He nods solemnly. “I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me.”

My stomach churns as I look at Eden. Once again, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s the wrong place for Mom. I swing around to my car and send a glare in the general direction of Dr. Davis.

“I take it visiting hours are over?”

Tossing my head, I say, “They don’t have visiting hours, period. I’m surprised I got in today at all.”

“That’s weird.” He stares at me for a long while. “You’ll get back in there.”

“Oh, I intend to.” Sighing, I say, “I’d better head home, though. There’s not a lot I can do about it now.”

Short of a court order. Or maybe a SWAT operation.

“Right.” He snaps his fingers. “I’ll get out of your way.”

“Thanks. And, uh, you’d better follow me.” I hide a grin. “Can’t have you driving aimlessly. You might end up in Canada.”

He laughs, sheepish. “It’s okay. I’ll figure it out. Besides, I need to stop for gas. I don’t want to hold you up.”

We lean on our respective car doors and stare at each other, just ten feet apart. It doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.

Then I remember how it doesn’t seem like he’s gelled with anyone at school yet. He must be dying for company.

“Hey, uh, you should come to the lake party tonight,” I say. “Hang out for a bit.”

“T-together?”

His doubtful expression drills a tiny hole in my heart, but I push that aside. “We don’t have to go together together. I mean, it’s a traditional senior class thing and you’re new in town and people are curious about you.”

Hayden recoils. I’m not sure if that’s because he finds my rambling distasteful or if he’s uncomfortable about being thought of as a curiosity. “Uh…”

“Look, it’s no pressure. I understand if you want to skip it. It’ll just be kids standing around a bonfire and seeing who can burp the loudest and longest. And that’s just the cheerleaders.”

A deep, genuine laugh erupts from Hayden, making me feel like a comedienne.

“Fine. I’ll think about it, but just to let you know, I’m physically incapable of burping, so I’d sit that contest out.”

Rolling my eyes, I say, “Sure, Hayden. But one day you’re gonna have to prove you’re human like the rest of us.”