33

I stood in the dark parking lot, my heart pounding. I could see the people through the diner windows: a waitress leaning over a table, a man throwing back his head and laughing. I couldn’t see Kit. I couldn’t see Wicker. There was no sign of anyone outside. The blue pickup was parked at an angle, slightly away from the other cars and the two big trucks. What if it was locked? It hadn’t been before.

I steadied myself and walked over to it. I kept my eyes on the door of the diner. It stayed shut. With one hand, cautiously, I tried the passenger handle. It lifted easily and the door swung open. The overhead light in the cab flashed on, and I reached up quickly to flip it off. I set the can of soda on the ground and carefully, tremblingly, tugged the bracelet out of my pocket. I crouched next to the passenger foot well and hesitated. If I hid it in the litter of bottles and wrappers, he might find it. Or worse yet, gather it up with all the other junk and throw it out by mistake.

I kept shooting glances at the diner. Should I put it between the seats? Under one of the seats? Gingerly, I reached my left hand under the passenger seat. My fingers swept over a crinkly mess: more paper, a bottle, the hard handle of something. I stood up slowly and cradled the bracelet in my palm. I looked at the charms again: the hourglass, the treasure chest, the horseshoe, the heart. I thought of how easy it had been to unclasp the bracelet and slip it out from under the girl’s arm. It was the only thing left from that night. After a minute, I pushed it deep beneath the seat, into that tangled, sharp-edged darkness.

I looked again at the entrance to the diner. There was no sign of anyone. I flipped the overhead light back on and quietly closed the door to the truck, nudging it with my hip till it clicked. But then, as I turned, I tripped over my can of soda. It rattled on the rocks, a low rumble of noise that seemed to echo and magnify in the stillness. For a minute I was groping frantically in the dark. Then I felt the cool side of the can and clutched it against my chest. I crossed the parking lot, and went into the diner.

*   *   *

Kit was sitting in a booth under one of the windows, talking on his cell phone. I could see him smiling into it and hear the charge in his voice, the coaxing, generous pauses. It was Lara. Obviously. He glanced up at me. His eyes were vaguely challenging.

“Sure,” he said into the phone. “Definitely. Sorry about before. Yeah, well, nobody calls me that, I don’t know why she said it.” He made a face at me. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” His voice softened. “You too. Bye.”

I slid into the booth, setting the soda can between us, not saying anything.

“What took you so long?” Kit said. He nodded his head in the direction of the bar. I saw Wicker sitting at one end, hunched over a plate of food, just a guy in a nondescript plaid shirt and jeans. His pale eyes flickered toward me, then away.

“Where were you?” Kit said again. “I already ordered.”

I paused. “I couldn’t get the door to the room open,” I said. I was going to tell him about the bracelet, but not now, not with Wicker watching us.

He frowned. “What’d you do? Get another key?”

“No,” I mumbled. “I finally got it open.” I picked up the menu and pretended to study it. “What’d you get?”

“A burger. Fries.”

The older woman came to the table, the one who’d taken our order that morning. I asked for a hamburger and a milk shake. She scribbled it on her pad, looking at us curiously but not saying anything.

“I thought you wanted your soda,” Kit said.

I looked at the can. “I changed my mind.” I leaned forward, lowering my voice. “So what’s he doing?”

Kit bent so close I felt his breath on my cheek. He whispered, “Eating.”

“Come on, be serious.”

“Well, what do you think he’s doing? He’s having dinner. Pretty suspicious. I mean, what does he think this is, a restaurant?”

“Stop.”

He leaned back, smirking.

When the food came, we ate in silence. The waitress ripped the check off her pad and left it on the table. I wanted to look at Wicker, but I could feel his gaze on me and it gave me chills.

“Is he watching us?” I asked Kit.

Kit glanced at him and frowned slightly. “Yeah. But not us. You.”

I cupped the cold milk-shake glass in both hands and huddled in the corner of the booth. “Tell me when he leaves.”

“He’s leaving now. He just paid. Okay, don’t freak, but he’s coming over here.”

I stiffened, but before I could even react, Wicker was standing at our table, looking down at me. His eyes flitted over my face. They had the same flat quality I’d noticed before, as cold as metal. I swallowed.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” he said.

“No,” I said. My voice sounded high and uncertain.

“So where you from?”

I hesitated. “Kansas.”

He laughed, a short, nasal burst, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob and jerk, so that the untanned part of his chest was exposed, just for a second, above the collar of his shirt. “Kansas! What are you doing all the way out here?”

“We’re just driving through,” Kit said. “Crossing to Arizona.”

“Huh.” He kept looking at me. I couldn’t drag my eyes away. “Be careful. This place isn’t like Kansas.”

I nodded mutely. And then, as suddenly as he came, he was gone. The diner door slammed behind him, and we watched him through the window as he drifted across the dark parking lot toward his truck, shoulders hunched, head down.

I set my milk shake on the table, unable to drink the rest. “I put the bracelet in his truck.”

Kit stared at me. “What?”

“I put it in his truck, under the front seat,” I said.

“You’re not serious.”

“Listen, Kit. It’ll prove she was there. We can call the police and—”

“What do you mean you—Wait. That’s what you were doing? Getting the bracelet?”

“Yes. I put it in his truck. Kit, if we don’t do something, no one will ever know. They’ll never catch this guy. And it’s not just the girl! There were others. You saw what was in that box. And someone like Elena, you said yourself she can’t go to the police. The bracelet, it’ll prove the girl was in his truck.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kit pushed violently back from the table, banging hard against the booth. “Listen to me: It doesn’t prove anything.”

“But—”

“I keep telling you. The police don’t know the bracelet belongs to the girl. For that charm to mean anything, they’d have to find the bracelet with her, not him. Don’t you see?”

“But—”

“Besides, you don’t know whether that girl was ever even in his truck. You don’t know.”

“But she was! Kit, I know it.”

“Look, you may think that, but it’s not up to you. You can’t just decide the guy is guilty, and then, like, plant evidence in his truck. I mean, who do you think you are, the goddamn judge and jury?”

He glared at me.

“But—”

“But what? You can’t just make this stuff up as you go along.”

I shrank back from him. “I wanted to fix it,” I said miserably. “I just … I can’t stand for him to get away with it.”

“Get away with what? We don’t even know if he did anything!” Kit yanked his wallet out of his jeans and tossed a twenty on the table. “Shit,” he said, standing up.

“Wait,” I pleaded.

He picked up the soda can and banged it against the edge of the table, gripping it tight. “Now we have nothing. We can’t even show the bracelet to the cops and tell them what happened. They’ll never find it now. They have no reason to search that guy’s truck. And even if they did, the bracelet could belong to anyone—his girlfriend, his daughter, anyone.”

I felt a surge of shame.

“You’re right,” I said.

“Yeah. Now you tell me.”

He turned and strode to the door. I scrambled out of the booth and followed him.

“Kit, wait.” I ran after him, grabbing his sleeve.

“No,” he said. “Go back to the motel. You’ve got the key.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What do you think I’m going to do? Get the bracelet back.”

“But how?”

He barely looked at me, jerking free and walking toward the highway. “I know where he lives.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No.”

“But you don’t know where I hid it.”

“Under the seat. I can find it.”

“Kit.” My fingers circled his arm. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really sorry. Let me go with you.”

He shook free and kept walking. I ran after him. “You need someone to read the map.”

“No, I don’t. I know how to get there.”

“Kit, please.”

We stood there, at the edge of the parking lot, separated from the motel by a moat of pavement. The neon cactus flickered urgently above us, full of its own bright, false assurance. Kit gave me a long, angry look.

But then he shrugged, and when he crossed the road in the darkness, I was right beside him.