twenty-seven

Jude says he charged his phone this morning at a nearby diner. I think I know the one he means but I say nothing until he  pulls in. It’s the one I figured, a diner lifted straight out of the fifties—a mock-futuristic building that looks like a spaceship.

As we park Jude says, “Guess I should have asked if you’re okay with this place. You know it, right?”

“It’s the first stop we made when we moved here. Our dad remembered it from when his family would come here in the summer.”

We walk across the lot and I continue, “My sister, Cadence, and I were so tired from the drive. Then we got here and it looked like something from a movie. Dad let us order whatever we wanted. I got a cheeseburger and rings and a root beer float. It was…”

My gaze sweeps the diner as we walk through the door. “It seemed like a sign, you know? That things were looking up. That we’d reached someplace special. And we had reached someplace special. The end of the line.”

He looks over, and I rub my face.

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m just tired.”

“You want to go somewhere else?”

“This is fine.”

I walk to one of the red vinyl booths with an outlet nearby. As I slide in, I remember how the vinyl shone that first time. How the chrome gleamed. How the Formica tabletop felt smooth as glass under our hands. Now I see the cracks in the vinyl with dingy stuffing poking through. I see the scratched chrome. I see initials carved with penknives into the tabletop. I wonder if that’s just a sign of the diner’s age, or if I saw it with the eyes of a nine-year-old hoping for better.

Jude already has the phone plugged in. He opens the menu, notices I haven’t taken one, and says, “Cheeseburger, rings, and a float?”

I shake my head. That will be my last meal, before I leave Reeve’s End forever. Not that I’m telling him that.

“Get whatever you want. It’s on me. You’re helping me find my brother. I’m going to buy you dinner. Don’t argue. It’s just awkward.”

I order a burger, fries, and a shake, and Jude seconds it, changing only the flavor of the milk shake.

“You know, I always wondered about that,” I say, when the server leaves and silence falls.

“About what?”

“Whether anyone actually orders vanilla when there’s a choice of actual flavors.”

“Vanilla’s a flavor.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

He shakes his head, but his eyes have warmed, acknowledging that I’m trying to make lighter conversation, as lame as it may be.

When the shakes arrive, Lennon’s phone is finally ready to turn on, and Jude exhales as it bleeps to life, undamaged. He goes straight to messages.

“Last text sent was…” He frowns. “Tuesday? That can’t be right.”

He taps the screen, checking a few things, and then says, “Yeah, it was definitely Tuesday. It’s to a friend of ours—well, Lennon’s friend now….” Jude rubs his thumb across his mouth, his gaze on the screen. When he walked away from home, he’d have left behind more than credit and debit cards.

He continues, “He hasn’t texted our mother in a week. Again, that’s normal but…”

“But he—or this phone—apparently sent a text yesterday.”

“It definitely didn’t. There are unread ones from friends received up until Wednesday night. That’s when it must have turned off—new messages are downloading now.”

“So the number was spoofed.”

“Spoof…Oh, right. You mean the text seemed to come from him but didn’t. That must be it. But it definitely didn’t come from Lennon, and it wasn’t scheduled from him either—it’d show up in his sent messages.”

The food arrives, and he digs in, wolfing down half the burger and fries, and I wonder if he paused for lunch today. Or breakfast. As he slows, he resumes checking the phone, flipping through screens.

“Is Edie’s call on there?” I ask.

His fingers keep tapping the screen. “I don’t see it.”

“So he deleted the record of the call. You can do that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“He must have deleted it by accident. Or maybe he was worried about it being found.”

He’s stopped checking the phone and is just sitting there, staring into space.

“Jude?”

He snaps to attention. “You shouldn’t get involved in this. I was wrong to ask. In fact, I should have insisted you steer clear.” He puts down the phone with a clack. “You were trapped in a mine by a guy who killed two dogs. The same guy presumably who took your friend. That should have been the point where I said ‘enough.’ ”

“And you’re just realizing this now?” I shake my head. “It’s my choice. I know the risks. I choose—”

“I’m going to ask you to drop this, Winter. I have Lennon’s phone. I can get Roscoe to check a few things, and then I’ll take what I have to my parents. I’ll find a way to make them look into it. But you need to step aside.”

“You don’t actually get to decide that, Jude.”

“Yes, I think I do. It’s my brother.”

“Who went after my friend. My missing friend.”

He cuts me off with a clatter of plates as he gets to his feet and slaps money on the table. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride back to Reeve’s End.”