Page 71 of Turn

“I see.” I turned all the information over in my mind.

Tristan had been staying with this Grady piece of garbage. Grady sounded like nothing more than a shitty dealer who prowled around high school kids but he likely had something to do with the trouble that drove Tristan out of town.

There was no telling why Tristan hadn’t reached out if he was in some kind of danger. Sure, we’d left the Empire Motel but he knew my cell phone number and he knew where I worked. He might have still been pissed off at me for a variety of reasons but Sam had said that he couldn’t come to me. Not that he didn’t want to. That was a world of difference. He might have been afraid. Afraid that Brecken and I would get caught up in whatever he’d gotten himself into.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said and she did look really sorry, nearly tearful. “I really hope you find him.”

Her friend whispered something in her ear and pulled her away.

The ride back to the house was far more subdued than it had been earlier. Brecken slumped in the passenger seat and stared out at the passing landscape with a grim expression.

“Breck.” I touched his arm. “We’ll find him.”

“You’ve been saying that for weeks now, Curtis.”

“I still think it’s true.”

My little brother shot me an accusatory glare. “Do you really? Or are you just saying that?”

I didn’t want to answer the question. I didn’t even know how.

Saylor and Cord were watching a movie together when we got home. Cord gave Brecken a high five and Saylor worriedly asked him if he was feeling okay. Brecken just nodded and went to his room.

“Teenagers,” Saylor said, smiling at me. “So it begins.”

Brecken obviously wanted to be alone and I didn’t want to encroach on Saylor and Cord’s time together but Saylor insisted that I sit down and watch the end of The Matrix. It might have been weird, hanging out with a middle aged married couple in their living room, but Saylor and Cord were such incredible people I couldn’t feel weird around them.

After the movie was over they retreated to their bedroom and I went outside to call Deck and brief him on what I’d learned from Sam and her friend. He agreed that it was helpful to have the name Grady to work with and said he’d start pressing his local contacts right away.

Then I called someone else.

Dietz wasn’t happy to hear from me.

“The fuck you want again?” he grumbled, slurring his words. He was from the old days, the Emblem Rioter days. We used to get up to all kinds of shit together. He served time, eighteen months for mugging a woman at an ATM, and by the time he got out everyone had scattered. He stuck around Emblem anyway and was never going to turn around and choose an honest life but right now I didn’t care because I needed him for something.

“I already told you, nobody around here has seen that fucking kid,” muttered Dietz. I heard a bottle open and the sound of greedy swallowing.

“I need you to ask around again,” I said. “I’ll make it worth your time.”

Dietz snorted. “You ain’t got shit these days, you dumb fucker. I know that.”

I clenched my fists. He was lucky things were different now. Otherwise I would have rolled down there to Emblem, ripped him right out of whatever cave he was hibernating in, and beat the warm piss right out of him.

Dietz must have had a change of heart because a moment later he sighed. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll keep listening. But nothing’s gonna come of it. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Not really.”

“Eh, you were always a dumb bastard, Mulligan. Don’t know how you always got all the good pussy.”

Dietz must have considered that a farewell because the call abruptly ended.

My feelings weren’t hurt. If I really cared what a douchebag like Dietz thought then I’d be exploring a whole new level of pathetic.

The street was quiet. I sat down on a wooden bench and listened to the sounds. There were crickets and desert toads but no coyotes yelping like I remember hearing in Emblem at night when I was a kid. All the homes here were neatly kept and all the families I’d seen looked happy and prosperous. At the end of the street was the entrance to a neighborhood park and playground. This must have been a nice place for Cassie and her sisters to grow up, safe and loved. I’d had that too I guess, at least until my dad was murdered. I couldn’t blame my mother for the way I went wild in my teen years. But I blamed her very much for being so reckless and selfish that she hurt the boys’ chances. If she’d made different choices then things wouldn’t be so rough for them. Tristan wouldn’t be on the run somewhere with no resources and no one to protect him. Brecken wouldn’t be shooting nervous glances my way every so often as if he was afraid I’d disappear on him too.

I sighed and scrolled through the call history on my phone. The numbers she called from were always international and never the same one twice, like she was moving around all the time or else trying to mask her location so I wouldn’t run to the authorities with whatever I knew. She must have chosen to say nothing for the same reason. Or else she was too afraid to hear the truth. The last three times the calls had come in I didn’t even answer them. I could have screamed in her ear, called her a shitty mother and let her know her middle child, her little boy, was gone and I didn’t know how to find him. Maybe that would have prompted her choke out some actual words.

Then again, maybe not.

---