The Rules for Disappearing (31 page)

ELSTON—Rules for DisappearinG_2ND PASS

stayed in a placement was ten weeks. Most we were only there four or five. It was hard, all the moving. Changing names, new schools, new towns. Mom didn’t handle it well.”

“Is that normal—to move that much?”

I shrug. “I don’t think so.”

A tear escapes, sliding down my cheek, and I brush it away with the back of my hand.

We pass a sign for a gas station at the next exit.

“Pull over. Let’s take a minute to talk.” Ethan says.

I take the exit and pull into the gas station, stopping in front of the pump. We turn to face each other in the car.

“Mom was a casual drinker. But she started drinking a lot once we were in the program. It was too hard for her. She was a very social person back home: lots of committees, lots of clubs. The suits took her to a detox facility last night. I don’t know where she is right now.” I’m crying now and can’t stop. I haven’t had anybody to talk to about this and now it’s just bursting out of me.

Ethan reaches behind the seat and tears off a paper towel from the roll Pearl gave us and hands it to me.

I mop up my face while Ethan watches and waits for me to

continue. “There’s something in Scottsdale that may help us stop running. I’m the only one who knows for sure where it is. I didn’t tell Dad I was leaving. With Mom gone, he has to stay with Teeny.”

Ethan smiles when I say Teeny’s name. “That’s the second time

you’ve called her that. What’s her real name?”

I let out a short laugh. “It’s Elena. Elena Boyd. Teeny has been S—

her nickname forever. It’s what we all call her when it’s just us. I N—

about died when I said it in front of you the other day.”

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Ethan shakes his head. “Does she have blue eyes, too?”

“No, just me. But we’re both blond. She was hardly speaking

by the time we got to Natchitoches. All this moving was getting to her, too.”

He looks like he doesn’t believe me.

“It’s true. She’s different around you and Pearl.”

“So what are you trying to find in Scottsdale?” he asks.

I lean back against the door and close my eyes. “I’d rather not tell you. You’re better off not knowing.” Especially when he gets questioned by the suits.

“I’m gonna see it whenever you get it. Open your eyes and look at me.”

My eyes open. Ethan holds my hands and pulls me in close. Our

faces are inches apart.

He speaks quietly. “I’m in this. It doesn’t matter if you tell me what it is or not, I know more than the Marshals or anyone else wants me to. I’m not gonna say this doesn’t scare me. It scares the shit out of me. But the best thing you can do is prepare me. Let me know what I’m up against. Keeping me in the dark is not going to help.”

He’s right. I tell him the whole story about Mr. Price and

Brandon and the scarred-face man named Sanchez. Everything,

including the loss of my memory and the accounting ledger I’m

hoping to find in Price’s wall.

He’s quiet a minute and then pulls me in for a kiss. It takes me by surprise but not for long. I’m kissing him back. His hands are in my hair and the scratch of his whiskers rubs me raw. His hands skim my sides, and I want to crawl across the seat, into his lap.

—S

Several quick raps on the window makes us both jump as if we’d

—N

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been shot. An old man in overalls is peering into the car.

“Either pump or move this car.” He turns and walks off.

Ethan throws on a baseball cap and hops out. God, we’re sitting in a parked car at a gas station, making out. I’m almost embarrassed to get out of the car. A few minutes of kissing and all rational thought flies out of my head.

No matter what, Ethan is in this all the way now.

With the gas tank full, we spare a few minutes in the store, then it’s back to the Mustang.

Ethan pauses before putting the car in reverse. “I’m starving.

Let’s eat real quick before we get back on the road.”

My stomach rumbles at the mention of food. We eat in the car,

picnic style, with the food from the cooler. Pearl threw in lunch meat, bread, cheese and mustard. We make some sandwiches and

share some chips out of the bag.

“If you’re gonna give the ledgers to the Feds, why didn’t you just tell them where they are and let them come get them?”

I take a drink of my Coke, thinking about the best way to

answer this. “I’m not. Sanchez, the man who killed my dad’s boss and his son, has sent someone after me. He knows I know where the ledgers are and he wants them back or he’ll kill my family. The suits can’t protect us from him. Dad wants to make a deal with him—the ledgers for our safety. He shot my friend Brandon, just for walking in the room. I don’t know how smart it is to make a deal with these people.”

Ethan has stopped eating and his mouth is hanging slightly

S—

open. “Holy shit.” He stuffs the rest of his food in the paper bag N—

we’re using for trash. “Holy. Shit.”

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I feel so guilty now. This is so much more than he thought he

was getting into.

“You can let me out here. I’ll find a way to Scottsdale. I’m so sorry for dragging you into this.” I start gathering my things and he puts a hand on my arm to stop.

“Can you please just give me a minute to let this crazy shit sink in before you decide to run away?”

He leans his head against the back of the seat. “So if you aren’t giving them to the Feds and you aren’t sure about giving them to this Sanchez guy, what are you going to do with them?”

I lift my shoulders and say, “I haven’t worked that out com-

pletely. The original plan did not include being chased by suits and killers! I was going to have some time to figure it out.”

Ethan gathers our trash and hops out of the car to throw it

away. I pack everything else back in the cooler.

Once he’s back in the car, he says, “Let’s worry about getting the ledgers first, then we’ll figure out what to do with them. We need to get back on the road. It’s already ten thirty. I’m sure they’ve been looking for a while now and we still have a long-ass way to go.”

Reality check. As much as I want this to be some great little

getaway with my cute boyfriend, it’s not. I look at the map. Long-ass way is right.

Ethan thankfully changes the subject once we’re back on the road.

“Tell me the worst place you lived.”

I sip on my water and answer, “Definitely our first move. It was Hillsboro, Ohio. None of us understood what any of this meant.

—S

We were jerked out of our home, lost our friends. I was used to

—N

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Scottsdale. It was the first two weeks of the summer before my senior year. Always sunny, always something to do. They plopped us down in this ridiculously small town. School was out so there was no real way to even meet people. They put us in this tiny little house in a semi-bad area. I had no car, nothing. It was horrible.”

“How long were you there?”

“Not long. Maybe four weeks.”

“What was your name there?”

“Madeline Holmes. Teeny’s name was Hayden.”

Ethan moves his cap over his head a few times. “Do you get to

pick your names or what?”

“The suits give us our last name and we get to pick our first

name. Teeny picks people off TV.”

Ethan laughs. “What’d you do? Just come up with a name?

This is crazy.”

I laugh back. “It is crazy. Picking my name was the hardest part for me. Each time we moved somewhere, I thought I better pick a good name because I’ll be stuck with it forever. Never thought I’d go through so many in such a short period of time.”

This seems to be fascinating to Ethan. “Okay, so why did you

have to leave Ohio? Did something happen?” he asks.

I curl up in the passenger seat with the blanket. It’s really cold out in this barren part of west Texas. “That placement was only a transitional one. They explained to us about the program and what would be involved. We knew going into Ohio that we wouldn’t stay there long. I didn’t stress as bad about my name there but it was still S—

a big deal because it was my first fake name.”

N—

“So where after Ohio?”

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“Springfield, Missouri. After being in Hillsboro, I was actually excited about this move. Springfield was tons bigger. Our house was decent and there were kids our ages down the street. We moved

there in the middle of July.”

Ethan bought a cheap pair of sunglasses at the last stop so I

can’t see his eyes, but I can tell he’s getting a kick out of this for some insane reason.

“What was your name there?”

“Isabelle Mancini and Teeny was Vanessa.”

Ethan pulls down the shades and says, “Italian, really?”

I imagine myself back in Springfield. My high hopes there and

how naïve I was. “Yes, and I really embraced it. Made sure my first name sounded Italian, too.”

“So what caused that move?”

I look down into the folds of my blanket. “That move was my

fault.” I tell him about going to the party and then my drunken escapade on the Internet. And the birth of the go-bag.

“That sucks. How fast after you used the Internet did they come get you?” he asks.

“I’m not sure. I passed out next to the computer. Maybe a couple of hours.”

Ethan stares out the front windshield and I know what he’s

thinking. This kind of response time does not work well for us and our current situation.

“We were only there about four weeks,” I add.

We travel the next few miles in silence. Ethan seems lost in his thoughts. I pick at the blanket. Finally, he turns to me again, recov-

—S

ering some of his earlier enthusiasm.

—N

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“Where next?”

“Naples, Florida.”

“Avery Preston. I was wondering when we were gonna get to her.”

I snuggle in the blanket. “I loved Naples. It reminded me the

most of Scottsdale. We lived in an apartment three blocks from the beach. We were there the longest, ten weeks maybe. You said you fished Paradise Coast?”

“Yeah. Me, Dad, Ben, and his dad. I was ten.” He pushes his hat up on his head.

“Y’all
were
close.”

He smirks. “Listen to you.
Y’all
. You’re halfway to being a southern girl.”

I pull the blanket up to hide my grin. “What’s the other half?”

“You gotta eat a piece of Pearl’s Cajun pizza. And love it.”

I make a fake gagging motion. “No way in hell. That’s just

wrong to put all that on a pizza.”

“What was Teeny’s name in Naples?”

“Sydney.” I wonder if they hounded her this morning about

where I was, or if she shut down with Mom gone.

“Naples is cool. We stayed there one night.”

I nod. “That was the hardest one to leave. I made friends, joined some clubs at school. We were there until the end of October. It was tough when we left.”

“What caused that move?”

I shrug. “No idea. They just showed up and we were gone.” It

seems forever ago that I sat in that apartment and waited for Tyler.

S—

Leaving him was nothing compared to what it would have been to N—

leave Ethan.

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Ethan takes his sunglasses off and rubs his hands over his eyes.

“You know how bizarre this is, don’t you? I can’t imagine moving like that, changing names.”

“You have no idea.”

He voice gets soft. “When did your mom’s drinking get worse?”

I swallow hard and beg myself not to tear up talking about this again. “When we left Florida. The suits dropped us in Bardstown, Kentucky. Talk about shell shock. It was almost worse than leaving Scottsdale for Ohio. Florida was doable. I could have stayed in Florida.” Knowing he was about to ask, I add, “I was Olivia Taylor and Teeny was Amanda.”

“How long were you there?”

I lean back against the door and run my hands through my hair.

“Almost two months. We left right before Christmas. And I don’t know what happened there either.”

“Okay, so that’s four places. One more before Natchitoches?”

“Yeah. Conway, South Carolina. I was Gabrielle Chandler and

Teeny was Sabrina.”

He laughs. “You went for fancy names didn’t you.”

Madeline, Isabelle, Gabrielle, Olivia. “Yeah, I guess I did.” I hadn’t really thought about them all together like that.

“Meg was a good choice. It fits you. The others are a little

too . . . I don’t know, too much. So how was South Carolina?”

“Pretty cool town, better than Bardstown really, but my family was going down the drain. We could’ve been anywhere, it wouldn’t matter. We were there until I came to Natchitoches. It was a scary move. They came in the middle of the night and yanked us out of

—S

bed.”

—N

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Ethan’s eyes get big. “You’re shitting me?”

“No. One minute I’m sound asleep, the next I’m in the van.”

“And then you’re sitting in the office of my high school. No

wonder you didn’t want anything to do with anybody. I’m surprised you talked to me at all.”

Warmth spreads through my chest. He gets it. He understands.

I reach my hand over and hold his.