She could be anywhere. Anywhere at all. How am I going to find her?
But what if I’m overreacting? She could be at a restaurant having dinner, or even at her father’s house packing her things. I’m going to look like an idiot bursting in on her with nothing to say something’s wrong but the fact that she hasn’t picked up her cell.
Next to me in the car, Uncle Billy has a bottle of wine in one hand and my cell in the other. He calls Paige’s cell periodically and then hangs up when it rings into voicemail. Clutching the steering wheel tightly in my hands, I run a light more red than yellow. Someone leans on his horn, and Uncle Billy says mildly, “What’s his problem?”
It takes us fifteen minutes to get across town and then turn into Dr. Shum’s neighborhood. I’m suddenly thankful for the times I came here to help Mrs. Shum load and unload supplies so I make no wrong turns. But will I be fast enough?
I leave the truck idling and run to the house. The lights are on, but nobody comes when I ring the bell. I peer through the glass panels flanking the door. The place looks empty. Circling around, I find a side gate, but it’s locked. Through the wrought-iron bars, I see the translucent glow of the pool lights, and more lights shining through the windows of a barn-like structure.
It takes me less than fifteen seconds to climb the gate and drop into the Shums’ backyard. They’re probably going to think I’m crazy, barging in on them like this, looking for Paige, but then Dr. Shum has always seemed like a fair man. He’ll listen to me. He has to.
The door to the studio isn’t fully closed, and calling out Paige’s name, I push it open and step into the cool interior. The room looks empty, abandoned with its sheets draped over the easels. I’m about to leave when my gaze falls on an overturned chair. It’s the only thing out of a place in a spotless room, but the sight of it draws me closer.
I walk deeper into the room, and then see what I couldn’t from the back.
The cracked pieces of a sculpture lie scattered on the floor. Kneeling, I pick up one of the larger pieces and find myself staring into half the face of a girl. Emily Linton.
A sick feeling spreads through me as I sort through the fragments. A man—Dr. Patterson? No, the nose is wrong. But then I find a finger and I see the wedding band. Dr. Shum.
Fear clouds my brain, panic overriding reason. All I can think about is how the Shums must have killed Emily, and Paige must have figured it out. Now they have her. It’s going to happen just like my uncle said it would. She’ll die, and it’ll be my fault. I kick myself for letting my pride get between us.
I have to stop them, but how? Trust your instincts, Uncle Billy’s voice says in my head, but all my instincts scream that time is running out.
Adrenaline courses through my system, putting me in motion before I even know what I’m doing. Heart racing, I scramble over the gate and race to the truck. “Call 9-1-1,” I yell at Uncle Billy, who hastily puts the wine bottle down. “Tell them Paige Patterson has been kidnapped by the Shums. Ask them to meet us at the ruins.”
I don’t know that she’s there, but it’s the only place I can think of.
Uncle Billy makes the call as I jerk the truck into reverse. The tires spin on the pavement as I accelerate onto the road. As we race through the quiet neighborhood, I hear Uncle Billy say, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask my nephew that,” and hands me the phone.
I know they’re just doing their job, but it feels like they’re idiots asking me to repeat information over and over, to explain things in such detail that I want to scream. The best I can talk them into doing is transferring me to Detective Rodriquez, and then I have to go through everything all over again. When I’m finished, there’s a long period of silence. And then she seizes on the one irrelevant detail that I’ve told her.
“So you had a fight with your girlfriend. Is it possible that she’s fine and just not speaking to you?”
“No,” I shout and then slam the cell down.
I push the old truck to its limit when we hit the highway and hope that the engine won’t shake itself apart before we get to the park. When we exit onto the dirt road, I’m going so fast the truck skids and I can barely hit the brakes before we crash into the long, metal arm of the gate that runs the width of the road. I careen around it, the belly of the truck scraping the ground. For a few seconds, we lean hard to the side, but then somehow we’re on the road again.
The wide, open expanse of the parking lot lies ahead. It’s dark, but through the moonlight and the beams of my headlights I see it’s empty. Where is the Shums’ car? If they haven’t brought Paige here, then where is she? Jerking to a stop near the main gate, I turn to my uncle. “I thought they’d be here. But I don’t see their car. What do I do?”
My uncle’s hooded eyes regard me intently. “What you came here to do,” he says calmly, and in his hands are the bolt cutters we bought at Walmart.
For just a second, I hesitate. Once I cut the fence, I’m vandalizing government property and there’s no going back. I could go to jail. I could end up exactly like Uncle Billy.
I’m probably crazy, but I take the bolt cutters from his hands.
It takes seconds to cut through the chain link fence and slip inside the park. Uncle Billy follows. As he straightens, I turn to him. “Uncle, you need to wait here. Give me an hour, and if I’m not back, call the police.”
“No,” he says. “I’m going with you.”
I look at his frail body, the wine bottle he clutches in his hands. “Uncle, you’re not climbing the cliff.”
His shoulders straighten. “You’re wasting time,” he says calmly. “Coyote will want to hide the blue corn maiden. We need to go. Now.”
“Uncle,” I say, forcing patience into my voice. “I can’t save Paige and make sure you make it safely up the cliff. Please don’t make me choose.”
“You can’t go up there alone.”
“We don’t even know she’s up there.”
My uncle looks at me for a long moment. “You know she’s up there,” he says. “And so is Coyote.” He takes his bottle of wine and turns it upside-down, emptying the contents onto the packed earth. “Take this. You’ll need it.”
“What I need is for you to promise to stay at the bottom of the cliffs.”
He nods, but his chin lifts as he thrusts the wine bottle into my hands. “Tuck it into the back of your shorts. And, Jalen,” he says. “Be careful.”
I scramble up the cliffs faster than I have ever climbed before. The moon has shifted, leaving the side of the mountain so dark the ladders are barely more than black scratches on the surface. It doesn’t matter that I’m almost climbing blind; it’s like something else has come awake in me and I give myself to it.
A faint glow of light illuminates a chamber in the ruins. The skin on the back of my neck prickles, and my heart beats faster as get nearer. Voices – a man’s and a woman’s drift through the darkness. It’s the Shums and he’s saying something about his lovely corn maiden.
My blood roars through my ears as I turn sideways, squeezing myself through the T-shaped entrance. Immediately, I see the Shums standing with their backs to me. They’re blocking me from seeing something, and with a terrible certainty, I know it’s Paige.
Uncle Billy’s terrible prophesy flashes through my head. “You won’t help her and she’s going to die.” With a bellow of rage, I charge forward, pulling them off Paige. They scatter like rats at my attack and I drop to my knees, see the plastic bag covering Paige’s head. Her eyes are closed and I can’t tell if she’s breathing.
I try to rip it off, but my fingers fumble with the tape and then both Shums are on me, hitting and clawing at my hands. Someone punches me hard enough to make my ear ring, and a kick to my spine makes me grunt in pain. I ignore the blows and focus on getting the bag off Paige’s head.
Beside me, something falls to the ground with a low clunk. It’s the wine bottle. The one Uncle Billy insisted I bring. I fumble for it, grab it by the neck and swing it blindly.
It connects with one of them and breaks. There’s a scream of pain, and the series of blows raining on my head stop, Mrs. Shum cries, “Ray?”
“Hold on, Julia. I’m bleeding.”
“What?”
“My eye! I have to make sure there’s no glass in it!”
While they’re distracted I grab a shard and cut the plastic bag off her head. “Paige,” I say loudly, “wake up!”
She lies limp, doll-like and boneless. I shake her lightly. “Wake up!”
I know there’s only a few moments before the Shums attack again. “C’mon Paige,” I say and shake slightly harder. “Wake up!”
“Don’t be such a baby!” Mrs. Shum snaps. “Get him!”
Paige isn’t waking up. I lean closer, trying to tell if she’s even breathing. There’s no time to be sure. Placing the heels of my hands on her chest, I begin the compressions, pausing to blow into her mouth. C’mon, C’mon, C’mon. I will her to wake up. Moments pass, the panic rises in me. I push harder on her chest wanting to reach all the way into her and force her heart to start beating. Live. Oh, shit. Please Live.
My arms ache; salty sweat stings my eyes. I’m going to break her ribs if I push any harder, but I can’t help it. I blow more air into her lungs, and then she stirs. Her whole body seems to hiccup and her eyes open wide, locking onto mine with desperation and something like surprise.
“Welcome back,” I start to say, but then something hard smacks into the back of my head and the ground rushes up to meet me.