I&#39ll Be There (19 page)

When Crystal was done and Emily finally looked up into the large oval mirror, she was surprised. She thought short hair would make her seem younger and that maybe she would now be someone who
would disappear completely in a crowd.

But she was wrong. It was so stylish. She looked older and more sophisticated.

No one would miss her now.

Crystal printed out the picture Rayford took of Emily and pinned it alongside the shot of Sam.

Emily found some comfort in the fact that they were together, even if only on the almond-coloured wall of the Superior Cuts located in the corner space of a mini-mall next to a dog
groomer’s (that, because of the bad economy, had been out of business for over a year). Wasn’t it just a fact that there were now a lot of dogs in town that looked shaggy?

Emily left the hair salon and went back to the bus stop’s foul-weather enclosure, where she took a seat and waited.

A silver pickup truck with three young guys, all sitting together in the front seat, slowed as it approached the bus stop and the red traffic light.

The guy closest to the passenger-side window leaned out and shouted, ‘Wanna ride?’

Emily looked away. All three guys were now laughing, and the driver was making some kind of hooting noises.

‘Come on, I know you wanna sit on my lap!’ More laughing from the truck.

Emily didn’t move. Her eyes remained glued to the sidewalk. Up ahead, the traffic light turned green. The truck stayed still. The driver leaned across his two friends and hollered,
‘You’ll be in my dreams tonight, pretty baby!’

The other two guys laughed again, and then Emily met their gaze. Her voice was so lacking in emotion as to be scary. ‘It would only be a nightmare.’

The driver exchanged looks with the guys sitting next to him and then stepped aggressively on the gas and the truck sped off. They wanted no part of her.

Emily looked down the road. What was that about?

Were women sitting by themselves always some sort of target? And did men think that women found that kind of attention flattering? Or were they just amusing themselves at her expense?

Emily exhaled. How had she ended up across town in the middle of the day waiting for a bus when she should have been in math class? And why did she feel like getting on a bus and staying on it
across the country?

Because what she wanted now, more than anything, was to escape her life.

Is that how knowing Sam and Riddle had changed her?

Clarence had been right about one thing, the state highway patrol was now thick in the area. Because of the various reports filed, and because there were minors involved,
Clarence had been upgraded from a suspect of stolen possessions to a man in flight with much bigger problems.

Detective Sanderson had been on the phone with Utah, and he had supplied more details about the two boys. He had half a mind to head out there himself.

And then he got a phone call from Tim Bell that there was a picture of the second boy, the younger one. That would help. It was from a hair salon, and the shot was only a few months old.

When the picture arrived, Sanderson posted the photo, along with the other one of Sam, on the hot site for missing children. It circulated to every law-enforcement agency in the country.

And then, while he probably should have returned to investigating a tip on a local businessman who was rumoured to be running a big marijuana business on some leased logging land, Sanderson
decided to dig around for more info on the boys.

He knew their ages. And now he had both of their photos. They had to have come from somewhere. The Bell family had told him that the kids had been on the road for years. So he’d start
looking back when they were toddlers.

It was the opposite of most of these kinds of cases.

Instead of photos of little children who had disappeared – photos that computers and artists tried to reimagine as missing teenagers – he had two images from today that he’d
like to connect to baby pictures.

Ten years ago, who had lost two little boys?

Emily sat staring out the bus window at the blur of small businesses that lined the street.

Two blocks up, the bus stopped, and a girl, carrying a Baine College backpack, got on with a guy right behind her. They took a seat in the row in front of Emily and before she knew it, they were
kissing.

It was suddenly very, very uncomfortable on the bus. Emily leaned her head against the glass and shut her eyes.

What was choosing someone all about, anyway? Did it come down to understanding how the way the person felt about you made you feel about yourself?

That seemed messed up, but maybe it was true. Were people really just mirrors for each other?

Did everyone want, really, just to be told that they were great? And did validation have more meaning if others saw the person who was telling you how great you were as good-looking or smart or
somehow unique?

Did everyone simply just struggle to feel special and to be acknowledged for that?

Or was there something else?

Was there some ingredient to the connection that was unseen and not able to be measured? Was there something other than mutual validation that made a bond?

Emily remembered that her grandmother Risha had told her that it was important to remember, always, what made you first love someone.

Long before Emily knew that Sam could play the guitar like some kind of protégé, and before she knew how devoted he was to his brother, she knew he had empathy. He had come to see
if she was okay after she had sung one of the worst solos ever heard at the First Unitarian Church.

So he had compassion. And she responded to that. But what Emily really knew for certain was that there was something in him that challenged her. He was so different. Sam might have been so
intriguing to her because there were so many doors to unlock.

And maybe unlocking them made her feel good about herself.

But when it came down to it, hadn’t she failed?

Hadn’t she been kept out of the biggest part of his life?

Riddle hit rocks and trees and tumbled down, down, down. When he stopped, when his right arm finally caught hold of a branch that was connected to a dead tree, he was close to
the bottom of a deep ravine.

He slowly got to his feet and squinted up into the hard light. He’d fallen a long way. But he was, miraculously, in one piece. His left foot hurt, and he had a cut over his right eye.

Blood, like warm gravy, was oozing out of the gash, but otherwise, as his mind cleared, he realised that he’d thrown himself off a cliff and he’d survived.

It was only now, staring up and looking at where he’d come from, that he suddenly got afraid. He felt a kind of panic sweep over him.

That was very, very, very far. And that was very, very, very dangerous.

I’m not doing that again.

Ever.

Ever.

Ever.

He called out, shouting now. ‘
Sam!
’

But he heard nothing back.

Clarence could hear Riddle’s distant voice echo up from far below.

How had Riddle ended up down there? And how had he ended up here on this rocky ledge?

He’d fallen.

That was the only part he remembered. And he had to have broken his right leg when he hit the rock. It hurt like hell. He looked down and saw that part of the bone had splintered and was
sticking out of the skin. He could see blood but also bone and cartilage that was yellow and not what he thought it would look like.

His collarbone on the same side as the busted leg must have snapped, because if he put his hand there, he felt a lump. And when he moved, a shooting pain, like being shocked, jolted straight
through his system.

He shut his eyes and tried to concentrate.

The road was up above him. And the bottom of the basin, the river, was way down below. He was stuck between the two.

Well, he’d be damned if he was going to freeze or starve to death on a rocky ledge partway down the side of a mountain.

He hadn’t gotten this far in life by sitting back and taking the easy way out. He could hear Riddle’s voice, hoarse now, still hollering for Sam. He’d never heard him shout so
loud. Clarence had to get away from them.

He suddenly threw up. The world started spinning. Now he had two things to get away from. The boys and this stinking mess.

He looked up again. He wasn’t even halfway down the incline. That’s when he made his decision. He’d pull himself up the jagged side of this damn mountain back to the road.
There was vodka in the truck. And saltine crackers in the back. He’d give anything for one of those crackers.

It hurt to move his throbbing, bloody leg, but if that’s what it took, then that’s what it took.

Slowly, slowly, reach and pull. And like a bug, move up until you are there. Like a bug, travel on all fours and keep moving.

Because there are saltine crackers up on top.

Riddle continued, for what seemed like hours, shouting out Sam, Sam, Sam. And he heard nothing, nothing, nothing.

So he began working his way across the rocks and through the trees.

He knew that if he looked everywhere, very carefully, he would find him. So he made a map in his head of the bottom of the gorge. Like he was making a drawing. The three biggest rocks. The
tallest trees. The river down below. And then he started to search each part of the map that was in his head.

And when the light was low in the sky and night was almost upon him, he finally saw a shape. A lump. A body.

Sam was on his side.

Was he dead?

No, his chest was moving. He was asleep. And he wouldn’t wake up. But he made small noises. Little sputtering sounds. But his eyes stayed shut and he wouldn’t answer, even when
Riddle got frustrated and yelled at him to
wake up now!

Then Riddle went down close to the water, which was a wild river, and he cleared away all the rocks in an area where the earth was soft and there were brown pine needles all over on the
ground.

But there were also still small patches of snow. Maybe that was okay. Maybe the snow would feel good, because Sam’s face was red and hot.

Riddle snapped off branches with new green needles, because they weren’t crunchy but were bendy, and he made a pillow. And then he went and got Sam, which was maybe wrong.

Sam was so heavy, and Riddle wasn’t strong enough to lift him. He had to drag him by grabbing the top parts of his shirt and pulling.

At first he could tell he was hurting him because Sam’s face tightened, but he still didn’t wake up.

But Riddle pulled him anyway. He could sleep down by the wild river, and there was water there. It took some time, but he got him to the spot he made.

And then he laid him down to rest.

Sam opened his eyes, and it was dark.

He was dead. Obviously.

So this was what happened when you died. You just saw black. And you felt fuzzy. And sick to your stomach.

But then his eyes slowly adjusted, and he could see something inside the black. It took a while for him to realise he was looking at stars. An entire sky full of them.

And then he heard something. A hooting. A bird. An owl?

Maybe he wasn’t dead.

He closed his eyes and tried to sort out the many, many sensations in his body. The first was cold. He was freezing cold.

The next realisation was that his shoulder was throbbing. And so was his chest. The side of his chest. His ribs on the left side of his chest.

And then he heard another sound. Very close. Movement.

An animal. A large animal.

So he hadn’t been dead before, but now, he was about to die. Okay. Bring it on. Because maybe when you die, it’s not so cold, and the pain in your left side doesn’t hurt so
much.

He shut his eyes and moaned. He couldn’t help that. It just came out. So go on, animal. Do it. And then the movement, the animal that was so near, said, ‘Sam?’

The animal spoke.

Sam opened his eyes and they adjusted again to the dark and then he saw the sky field and then he saw the silhouette of his brother. ‘Riddle?’

And then Riddle put his arms around him and started to cry. Deep, full sobs. And it really hurt. The squeezing on his shoulder was a new torture to add to his other sensations.

But he just let Riddle hold him for what seemed like forever and ever, though he knew it wasn’t forever and ever, and then finally Riddle pulled back and managed to say, through his tears,
‘Are you okay . . . Are you okay, Sam? Are you? Sam? Are
you okay? Sam?
’

He now realised that his mouth was very dry. Like cotton. Like dirt. Like sand. Like sand with ground glass mixed in with it. Like bloody sand. It was hard to even move his tongue. But he
managed to say, ‘Is there water . . . ?’

Riddle got up. Sam could see that. Riddle could walk.

Well, that was good. But he walked funny. Sort of limping. Was he dragging his foot? It was too dark. He couldn’t see. Riddle came back, and he was now holding out a shoe. A shoe filled
with water.

Riddle held it to Sam’s mouth and he lifted up, a small bit, and it was a mistake. A huge mistake, because now the pain was shooting down his shoulder and into his ribs and across his
hips. His head now was going to explode.

But Riddle understood and he moved the shoe and the water touched his lips and it was icy cold and sweet and it ran down the sides of his mouth, but he was able, despite the pain, to
swallow.

He now knew he was alive.

He drank the whole shoe full of water and if he moved, even slightly, it felt as if his shoulder were on fire.

Someone had a blowtorch aimed at his shoulder and was burning a hole straight through the top of his arm and into his neck.

He cried out in pain, and Riddle began to touch him again as he frantically said, ‘Are you okay, Sam? Are you?’

And Sam shut his eyes and now realised that his head was resting on branches of pine needles that had been piled up. Like a pillow. Riddle must have done that. Sam said, ‘I’m cold .
. .’