Page 55 of That's Not My Name

Autumn hits the skip button.

“Thank you,” I mumble.

The next recording plays.

“Hey, there. Ya know, that Lola girl is in Texas. My aunt just saw her here. She joined the rodeo circuit. You can see her on the Rodeo Austin website—”

Skip. Yeah fucking right. Lola in the rodeo. She’d rather die.

Autumn groans and hits the pause button. “So what’s the plan here? Do we listen to all of them? It’s going to take a while to sort through five weeks of prank calls and it’s already after eleven.”

I dig my phone from my pocket and hand it to her. “Here. We can download the recordings onto our phones and split them up. If we each take a set, we can get through them three times as fast.”

“Cool. Catch.” Max whips his phone across the room, and Autumn snatches it from the air before it hits me in the face.

Fifteen minutes later she’s back in her spot on the couch, headphones in, listening to the thousands of S.L.09.29A recordings from the first week. Max is lounging in his beanbag, listening to S.L.09.29B and S.L.09.29C, and I’m on the other side of the couch, staring at the dozens of “D” and “E” files now in a playlist. Each of us has a notebook, but I have a feeling tonight is going to be more skips than scribbled notes.

I listen to people insist they saw Lola wandering around town or eating in the Dairy Queen dining room. The same man calls six different times to say he saw her being abducted by aliens. Three separate old ladies call to say they hope we find her, all with vitriol for that “evil boy” who turned on her. Apart from the quick interruption of Autumn’s vegan pizza being delivered, we don’t move for hours. Some callers give their names, some leave phone numbers, but most of them spew garbage and hang up. It’s incredibly frustrating, but tip-line sleuthing is a marathon, not a sprint.

By about three in the morning, my brain is a slurry of annoyance and people’s voices. Mr. I’m-So-Pumped-I-Could-Stay-Up-All-Night is straight-up snoring, and Autumn nods off, then changes positions on the couch to wake herself up at least every five minutes. I stand, and my back cracks a thousand times. “Let’s call it a night before we all fall asleep here.”

Autumn looks up at me and pulls out a headphone. “Hmm?”

“I’m going to be toast if my dads wake up and I’m not in my room. Plus, can you imagine what’ll happen if Roane comes home from his shift and finds us all here?”

She shudders, and Max lets off another throat-rattling sound that makes us both flinch.

Autumn gathers her phone and her laptop. “That’s a good point. We can pick this up again tomorrow after school. He’s back on shift at one.”

Her conviction, like it’s not an option to quit until something worthwhile comes of it, makes me smile. “You hang onto the USB though. Just in case? This is the last place he’d look for stolen data from the precinct.”

“Yeah, of course.” She nods toward Max. “Get him home too, please. The last thing I need is my dad thinking I’m sneaking around with Max.”

I nod, and kick at his foot until he sits up with a snort.

“Where’s the…what?” he mumbles.

I laugh. “Come on, Sergeant Sleep Apnea. Time to get up.”

“Huh?”

“Go. To. Your. Car.”

It takes him a full five minutes to pull himself to his feet, and another three to get to the front door. The cold wakes him up though, and by the time we get to the Liberty, he’s making grabby hands for the keys so he can drop me off.

The sleeping town slides by around us. Hundreds of recordings ring in my ears.

That evil boy…

Nobody in this town sees a teenager when they look at me. Or even a person. They see a threat. A warning. A red flag. Someone they wish disappeared in Lola’s place. I think the only way I’m ever going to feel at home againinmy home is if I find her. I have to fix this.

Max pulls up to the curb a couple houses away from mine, and I reach for the door handle.

“Hey, Drew?”

I look back at him. “Yeah?”

His eyes droop with exhaustion, but he smiles. “You’re pretty great for doing all of this, you know.”

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