Page 79 of That's Not My Name

I turn to gauge her reaction, but I can’t read her expression. “Too far?”

She grins. “No. It’s absolutely perfect. I’m only angry I didn’t think of it first.”

A surprised laugh escapes me.

“Now we’re talking,” Max says. “The sleuthing continues. Destination: Alton.”

Autumn holds up a finger as Max starts the car. “One teeny tiny problem,” she says. “Eloise said Alton is a two-and-a-half-hour drive. Meaning we won’t get up there until nine, and most small-town stations close after five or six. They’ll probably have a couple people on call to handle bar fights and crap like that, but nobody who has the authority to take on the kind of information we have. We should wait until the morning. That way we don’t get laughed out of there by some random officer who’s annoyed at pulling the night shift short stick.”

That…makes sense. But I don’t want to admit it.

I look up the Alton police station on my phone and sure enough, it closed an hour ago. “Fuck. We have to stop somewhere for the night.”

Max shrugs. “We’re already going to be in trouble for skipping school and leaving town without asking. Might as well see this out before we go back to face the music, right?”

“We need to find an actualplaceto stay though,” Autumn says. “Because I’m sure as hell not sleeping in this piece-of-crap car.”

“Hey!” Max protests.

“Let’s find a place in Alton,” I say. “That way we’ll be close, and we can spend the rest of tonight gathering all our information and figuring out how to make them listen. We’ll take it to their precinct first thing in the morning.”

“Fingers crossed they’re better at being cops than Roane,” Max mutters under his breath. “Also, there’s nothing wrong with my car, you jerk.”

I’m positive Autumn heard him because she presses her mouth into a thin line. “I’m not sharing a bed with you losers. That crosses a line.”

Oh sure. Ditch school, impersonate a police station secretary, ambush a witness, get kicked out of a diner, steal security footage, cause an old lady emotional distress, and stay out all night—that’sall on the up-and-up, but sleeping in the same bed as a boy is where she finds an uncrossable line.

Max backs out of his parking space, and barely has a chance to turn out onto the main road before Autumn’s phone lets out a shrill ring from the backseat, making us all jump. She sucks in a breath.

“What?” I ask.

Her face is lit up by the screen. Illuminating every freckle on her nose and the worried wrinkle between her eyebrows. “It’s my dad.”

“What?” Max makes a sound like a mouse being squeezed.

Autumn looks at me and grits her teeth. She taps the answer button and puts it on speakerphone. “Hello?”

“Where. Are. You?” Roane shouts.

Damn if I don’t flinch.

“Busy.”

“Autumn! Don’t you dare start with me. I know you left school with Max and Drew.” Was it my imagination or did he spit my name out like a moldy piece of bread? “The security guard told the principal he saw the three of you leave, and now I’m getting call after call from some woman in Waybrooke who wants me to drive out and take her statement about seeing Lola Scott in her store? Says mydaughtergave her the number. What the hell are you up to?”

She glares at the screen. “I’mbusydoing your job. Maybe if you actually looked for Lola, I wouldn’t have to.”

And…she hangs up. “We should turn off our phones, so he can’t track them.”

I gape at her.

“What?” she says. “I told you, I’m all in. He’ll get over it eventually.”

“Oh shit,” Max mumbles. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

I catch his eye. Oh shit indeed.

When this is all over, I’ll have to watch my ass for years to keep Roane from turning a speeding ticket into an overnight in a jail cell, but I’m struggling to care about that as much as I should. Nothing is worse than losing Lola and having to wake up every single day not knowing if she’s dead or alive. Reliving every word we screamed at each other in that car. Scrambling for my phone every time it rings, for it to never be her.

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