Page 89 of That's Not My Name

She’s a seventeen-year-old from McMinnville.

She got her head scrambled.

She couldn’t even remember her name.

They have a girl who looks exactly like Lola, with her belongings, who can’t remember who she is, and it’s still a dead end? How is this possible? After all we’ve done, it still ends here?

A hand touches my shoulder and I startle. Autumn stands beside me and tears fall down both of her cheeks. She scrubs them off, but more replace them.

“Is it really not her?” she whispers.

Suddenly, I can’t be in here anymore. The despair on her face is such a mirror of my own. I can’t stand it. I pull away from the wall and head out the front doors. I lean against the cold brick outside.

This is too much. All of it.

I can’t come up with a scenario that explains Lola’s jacket being worn by an identical stranger, no matter how sure Officer Bowman thinks he is. A stranger so identical, in fact, that she’s mistaken for Lola by three people who grew up with her, the witness at the diner,andthe old woman in the thrift store.

But the officer is adamant. It’s not her up the mountain. It’s Mary freaking Boone.

What if he’s wrong?

I have no way to find out. They’re not going to show me a photo of Mary Boone for funsies. She’s a kid, right? And so are we. Unless I camp out on the mountain looking for her father’s creeper van twenty-four hours a day, I’m out of options.

I have to go home. There’s nothing more I can do for Lola here.

And that makes me want to puke on the nearest cop car. Instead, I have a breakdown outside the precinct that was supposed to help us.

I don’t know how long I stand there, but it’s awhile. Long enough for the cold to seep through the fabric of my sweatshirt and into my bones, and for the tears to turn my eyes raw.

The door opens and Autumn steps out. Her eyes are red and swollen. She stops beside me, leaning her shoulder on the wall. She doesn’t ask if I’m okay, which I appreciate. Instead, she pulls a piece of folded paper from her pocket and hands it to me.

It looks like one of Ben Hooper’s fliers. I flip it over and find her curly handwriting in sharpie on the back.

93 Ridge Road. Alton, Oregon.

“What is this?”

She shrugs. “I know you. I know you won’t be able to let this go without some kind of absolute. You have to see this Mary person for yourself. That’s Ben Hooper’s address.”

I almost drop the paper. “I’m sorry,what?”

“He said they were neighbors, right? Mary and Ben? So go see for yourself.”

“But how did you…?”

She points her thumb at the door. “When the redhead got up to argue with the other cop, he didn’t lock his screen. Ben Hooper’s file was still open on the desktop. I copied the address before he came back.”

This is Ben Hooper’s actual address.The Boones live right next door.Mary Boone—maybe Lola—is one house from the address in my hand.

“Go, Drew. For all of us. Go see if it’s her.”

“You’re not coming?” I ask, already taking a step toward the Liberty.

She shakes her head. “My dad will be here in, like, ten minutes. It’s up to you. Max knocked over the coffee pot in the back to give you a few minutes to slip out unnoticed.”

Of course he fucking did.

I hug her. She laughs. “Hurry up before my dad Tokyo drifts into the parking lot.”

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