Page 74 of That's Not My Name

He mumbles something about not being appreciated and hits abutton on his phone. Mine vibrates in my pocket. “Are you calling me?” I ask, but when I look at the screen, it’s not ringing. He’s sending picture messages. Lots of picture messages. I open the first and step back in surprise.

Lola.

I swipe through a dozen grainy black-and-white photos. Dark hair, cut to the chin, floral-sleeved jacket, white hat, and the strange man sitting across from her in a booth. The same fucking booth we sat in tonight.

She’s smiling in a few of them—but the man’s face is turned away from the camera at all times. Even if he weren’t, the image quality is terrible. I doubt anyone would be able to place him from this. It looks like someone held a grayscale photo under a greasy magnifying glass covered in scratches. I can barely make out a sharp nose when he turns his head the right way.

“How…how the fuck did you get this? Did Sandra show you the tapes?” I ask.

He laughs and opens his door to get into the Liberty, forcing me and Autumn to climb in to hear his response. He pulls a banana from his back pocket before he sits and takes a bite of it as he slams the door. “You’re joking, right? There’s no way she’d ever help us. I knew that from the start.”

“Then how?”

“While you guys were asking like sweet baby angels, I found the security system in the closet across from the bathroom and rewound it until I found the lunch footage from yesterday. I snapped a few photos, grabbed a snack from the kitchen, and I got outta there. I told you—sleuthing.”

I clap him on the back. “I love you so much.”

He beams at me, and for a moment, he looks so much like my Papá. A stab of guilt fissures through me and I have to look away to shake it off.

Autumn’s head pops up between the front seats, her whole body vibrating with excitement. “I want to see.”

I hand over my phone and she beams from the backseat. “We’re really doing this. We’re going to find her.”

I smile back. “First, we find Nana.”

TWENTY-ONE

MARY

DAY FIVE

I’m somewhat aware of Wayne coming into my room to help me pack up the rest of my stuff. He rolls up the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” poster and tucks it into the side of the box. Kicks my shoes toward me. He throws the yellow afghan from the sofa on top of my box, tosses me my jacket, and then I’m outside, stumbling down the steps toward the van. Everything feels far away, like the whole world took a step back, and I can’t reach anything that makes sense anymore.

My body numbs. I don’t even feel the cold bite of November through my shirt.

Wayne puts my box in the back of the van. Ben’s flier is tucked safely into a sock at the bottom. I don’t know what’s happening. Wayne lied to a police officer. He lied to me. He stole my business card. He might have stolenme. And I don’t know what to do.

I don’t have any options, apart from getting into the van and letting Wayne drive us to wherever we’re going next. I don’t have anywhere else to go.

Except there’s a voice in my head screaming at me not to leave with him.

Never let them take you to a secondary location.

The thought makes me freeze. When I stop, Wayne backs into me. He whirls and catches me by my shoulders in surprise, but his fingers dig a little too hard into my arms. “Mary, watch where you’re going, please.”

I mumble a sorry and step to the side to let him pass. As I watch him go up the stairs, I feel the ghost of his hands forming fingerprint-shaped bruises. He reemerges a few seconds later with another box, this one full of pots and pans and a duffel bag I’ve never seen before. He dumps them into the back of the van and heads back to the living room where another couple boxes are waiting. The duffel bag shifts and starts to slide. I reach out to catch it, stepping into the van’s open back doors, and a blast of ice-cold memory hits me straight in the face.

I’m inside the empty van, deep in the back.

Bumping down a dirt road.

Going around a corner and rolling into the side wall.

Face pressed against carpet and pine needles.

Dark windows.

And panic.

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