The Light (Morpheus Road) (15 page)

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asked. "The boy has got so much going for himself, but he insists on being so ... so ... I don't know, self-destructive."

I shrugged. I wondered the same thing.

"What happened before he took off?" I asked. "Did you guys have a fight or anything?"

"No! There was nothing like that. After all his complaints he actually seemed happy to be here. I think that has as much to do with the girl down at the marina as anything."

"Oh, yeah," I said. "Britt."

"Yes, Brittany. He was looking forward to spending time with her."

Britt Lukas lived in Vermont but spent her summers in Thistledown. She and Coop had had a summer thing every year since we were eleven. Coop was a fast starter.

"Does she have any idea where he might have gone?" I asked.

Mrs. Foley shook her head. "I haven't spoken to her. But you know what? I'm not going to. stress. I know he's going to come waltzing back here any second with some story about how he fell asleep on a train and woke up three states away with no money to get home. Or something else just as ridiculous."

"I think that's exactly what's going to happen," I said optimistically, though I wasn't sure why.

"I'm glad you're here, Marsh," she said sincerely. "You're such a stable influence in his life right now."

I couldn't argue with that. I was a stable guy. At least until I started having hallucinations about being attacked by imaginary demons.

"You look tired, though," she added. "Is everything okay?"

I thought about spilling it all and saying how I was being haunted by impossible visions and had barely escaped my

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house because I was being chased by a creature from my imagination, but decided to hold off on that particular purge until Coop showed up.

"I'm fine" was my answer.

"Good. Let's have some lunch!" she declared cheerily, putting on a happy face.

I was starved but didn't realize it until that very second. Being at the lake had already gotten me to relax a little about my own issues. As much as I was worried about Cooper, thinking about him got my mind off my own craziness. I felt safe at that house. It was a familiar place with great memories, and it was away from home. Home had gotten scary. In my mind I had left behind whatever it was that had caused me to see those frightening things. The only other possibility was that it had all happened in my head, but since I couldn't leave my head behind, I preferred my first theory.

The Foleys' cabin had two stories and three bedrooms. Mr. and Mrs. Foley slept in the downstairs bedroom; Coop and Sydney were upstairs. It was an old house that had been spruced up with some paint but still had the feel of a rustic cabin. The floorboards squeaked if you so much as breathed on them. The furniture was all secondhand. There was nothing fancy about the place. It was awesome. I dumped my pack behind the couch and went upstairs to deliver Sydney's bag.

She was in her room, sitting on her bed with her back to me, talking on her cell phone. I couldn't tell what she was saying because she was barely speaking above a whisper, but I could tell that she was angry with somebody. She hunched over the bed, resting her elbows on her knees. She cupped the phone as if to make sure nobody could hear what she was saying. I didn't want to eavesdrop, so I knocked on the door to let her know I was there. She whipped around suddenly. Her eyes were red. She was almost crying. Almost. I

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don't think Sydney knew how to cry. Still, it was awkward. I held up the bag to show her why I was there. She got up quickly, rounded the bed toward me, grabbed the bag, and slammed the door in my face.

"You're welcome," I said to the door.

After I found a place to put my things and went to the bathroom, I went into the kitchen, where Mrs. Foley had a bologna sandwich and some chips waiting for me. That was pretty much the outer edge of her cooking ability. It was fine by me. I inhaled it. Bologna is awesome, especially when you're starving. The kitchen was on the lake side of the house. I looked outside to see Mr. Foley walk out onto the dock. He was on his cell phone, speaking quickly and gesturing with his free hand for emphasis, which was lost on whoever was on the other end of the conversation. For as long as I'd known Mr. Foley, he was always on the phone doing business. He must have been successful, seeing as they had a house on a lake. He worked at some big Wall Street company in the city. He commuted from Stony Brook on the train, which meant he left early in the morning and didn't get home until late at night. I don't think the rest of the family saw him much. I know I didn't. I barely knew him. He was friendly enough, but he wasn't the kind of dad who got involved with his kids' stuff, at least as far as I knew. We never went camping or played ball or anything. Though whenever I saw him, he always greeted me with a big, boisterous "Seaverino! How the heck are you!" and shook my hand so hard, I thought bones would snap. I guess you'd call him a preppy type. He wore suits to work, but on the weekend he'd wear ridiculous yellow pants and pink shirts. He was kind of a cartoon, but I never said that to Coop. He was pretty nice to me when Mom died. Same with Mrs. Foley. I'll always remember that.

Mrs. Foley sat on a deck chair on the dock. I wasn't sure

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if she was there to listen to her husband's conversation or to get a tan. I hoped that whoever Mr. Foley was talking to, it was about trying to find Cooper and not working his next business deal.

"I've got to buy some groceries in town," Sydney yelled into the kitchen. "You can help."

It was more of a command than a request. I figured I'd better obey, so I dumped my plates into the sink and hurried after her. We drove into the town of Thistledown, though to call it a town is exaggerating. It was a single block of shops and restaurants on the shore of the lake that pretty much existed for tourists. Most of the places only opened during the summer. There was a mini golf course, a drive-in movie, and far more T-shirt shops than customers who wanted to buy T-shirts. I don't know how they stayed in business. Most of the businesses closed after Labor Day, when all the tourists went home.

But this was still June, peak season, and the street was humming. People were everywhere; Top 40 music blared from restaurants and cars, and the ice cream store had a huge line. It was your basic summer day.

The town was at the foot of Thistledown Lake, which was about seven miles long. You could rent most any kind of watercraft from the marina at the end of Main Street, so that's where all the tourists launched. The lake around the marina was always packed with a mess of people in canoes and Jet Skis and ski boats. You took your life in your hands if you tried to compete with that bunch because most of them had no idea of what they were doing. Cooper and I never took his fishing boat near town during prime tourist time. It was way too dangerous.

"This is on my mother," Sydney said as she locked up her car. "You want me to buy you an ice cream?"

I didn't know if that was her way of apologizing for

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slamming the door in my face, but I didn't appreciate it.

"Thanks. I can buy my own ice cream," I replied.

"Just asking," she said with a shrug.

We headed for the General Store, which served as a combination grocery, hardware, and sporting goods store. You could also buy live worms for fishing there, which grossed me out. Selling worms and milk in the same place was just wrong.

"I'll meet you back here," I said. "I want to see somebody at the marina."

Sydney didn't even acknowledge that she heard me and kept walking toward the store. I had to make sure to be back by the time she finished her shopping or I'd be walking the three miles back to the house.

Cooper's summertime girlfriend, Britt Lukas, worked at the marina. The place was only about a hundred yards from the center of town, right on the lake. The salesroom was built on pilings out over the water. Stretching out behind it was a spider web of floating docks that held the various rental boats and watercraft. There was also a gas dock, a repair dock, and a slip to launch private boats. Looming over the small store, tied to its own dock, was a huge, Mississippi-style stern-wheeler river boat that did tours of the lake. People rented it out for parties, too. Cooper and I used to buzz the boat as it slowly made its way to the top of the lake and back. I'd be at the wheel of the Foleys' speedy fishing boat while Cooper would stand on a wakeboard, trying to moon the partiers on board. It was totally embarrassing and a full-on crack-up.

I entered the small shop and was happy to see Britt behind the counter. She was a petite, cute girl with blond hair and freckles. She lived most of the year in a Vermont town called High Pine, but her family owned the marina in Thistledown, so she and her brother spent summers working there. I walked past the displays of outboard motors and

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Jet Skis until Britt saw me. I expected her to break out in a big smile and say, "Marsh! How are you?"

She didn't.

"Oh, great," she snarled. "What is this? Good cop, bad cop?"

"What?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"Tell him it's not going to work," she said.

"Uh ... do you know who I am?" I asked, thinking she was mistaking me for somebody who might know what the heck she was talking about.

"I know exactly who you are, Marsh, and if Cooper thinks he can send you in here to apologize for him, he's wasting his time."

A big guy stepped into the store through the back door. "This guy giving you a hard time?" he asked gruffly. It was Ron, Britt's older brother.

"What? No! I just came in to say hi!" I assured him.

"I'm fine," Britt said to her brother. Good thing, too. Ron was scary. During the winter he worked at a ski area in Vermont, grooming the snow. For all I know he did it with his bare hands. The guy was built, with huge arms and a ruddy face from working outside in the sun too much. You wouldn't want to mess with the little sister of a guy like that. I don't know how Cooper survived.

Something hit the window behind the counter, making us all jump.

"What the . . . ?" Ron barked and glared out of the window.

Standing on one of the floating docks outside was a guy who looked to be around my age. He had messy, sun-bleached blond hair and was wearing baggy shorts and a bright green T-shirt. He stood there looking impatient with his arms out and palms up as if to ask, "So?" Obviously, he had just thrown something at the window to get attention.

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"Who's that?" Britt asked.

"Some rich weenie from the camp. He wants me to repair the hull on his newest toy. Yesterday," Ron groused. "Like I live to serve him."

"He can't come in to talk?" Britt said.

"Why would he do that? He's special," Ron said with sarcasm. He then added, "But we need the business."

Ron left to handle the impatient guy.

Britt looked at me and scowled. "Are you still here?" She turned away and busied herself doing paperwork.

"Cooper didn't send me here, Britt."

"Bull."

"But I did want to talk to you about him."

"See! Here it comes! What's his excuse this time?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"Coop is missing. He took off a couple days ago and nobody's seen him since. The police put out a missing-person report on him."

Britt's expression froze. It was like she was trying to process the information and it wasn't sinking in.

"But . . . oh, man." She sat down on a stool behind the counter as if her legs wouldn't hold her.

"Have you seen him?" I asked.

"He came in here a couple nights ago. He was all cute, as usual, like it wasn't ten months since we'd seen each other and he hadn't even bothered to text."

I was beginning to get the picture as to why Britt was less than thrilled with Cooper. I wasn't surprised that he hadn't contacted her. Coop was always on to new things. He's an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of guy. His girlfriends didn't see things the same way.

"How was he?" I asked. "I mean, did it seem like there

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was a problem? Did he say anything about taking off?"

"No!" she said quickly. "He wanted to take me out on the lake to watch the stars . . . like he was really interested in stars and wouldn't be all over me the second we left shore."

"So you didn't go?" I asked.

"No way!" she shot back. "He didn't call me all winter. What did he expect? Like I was going to just pick up like no time had gone by?"

I was sure that was
exactly
what Coop expected, but that's Coop.

"So what did he do?" I asked. "Was he upset you didn't want to go?"

"Cooper?" Britt said with a sarcastic laugh. "You're kidding, right? I'm sure he went out and found some other girl to go with him. He's a dog, you know."

I knew. Though Britt was being kind of harsh. Going out on the lake at night to watch stars is actually fun. We used to do it all the time. We'd power to the center of the lake and kill the lights so it was totally dark, then lie on our backs and drift. It was awesome. The only thing you could hear was the lapping of the lake water against the hull. Best of all, you could see billions of stars. Maybe that was all Coop wanted to do with Britt. Yeah, right.

"So that was it?" I asked. "He just left?"

"Yeah. He said he was spending the summer at the house and hoped we could hang out. He wasn't mad or anything, but does he ever get mad?"

I'd seen him get mad, but not after getting turned down by a girl. Probably because that didn't happen much.

"Where do you think he went?" Britt asked, showing genuine concern.

"I don't know. Nobody knows. That's why I came in. I was hoping you might have an idea."

Britt shook her head and shrugged.