Page 100 of Your Every Wish
“A clump of rocks. That’s what keeps coming to me.”
Again, rock outcroppings everywhere—the creek, the trails, the common space, the surrounding hillsides. I can’t tell if there are more rocks here in the park than trees.
“Is there a way to narrow it down?” I say.
“I’m trying but this is where it stopped. This is where I stopped seeing the rocks.”
I shield my eyes with my hand and take a look around. We’re about ten feet from the clubhouse. Nearby is the pool. And we’re surrounded by trees, oaks and pines, with rocks of all shapes and sizes. But nothing that would constitute a cluster, though it’s hard to conceive what a cluster actually is in the context of Misty’s vision.
“Were they big rocks or small?”
“Medium.”
“Okay, that’s progress. At least now we know not to look for boulders. And they were in a cluster? Like a formation?”
“Yes. Kind of. Like a stack.”
“Like in the riddle.” I pull out the notebook again and reread the passage aloud. “ ‘Beneath the dry stacks, where courts reside, my gift to my neglected daughters is tucked inside. ’ Do you think dry stacks refers to rocks?”
She closes her eyes again. “Yes. I’m catching glimpses of it but can’t altogether make it out. I’m sorry, Kennedy.”
“It’s okay. Let’s keep walking. That seems to be working. You lead the way.”
“I have no clue where to go next,” she says but walks back toward the creek.
“Are there any stacks of rocks around here that you can think of?”
She makes a beeline for one of the weathered picnic tables and sits down. “Let me see the riddle again.”
I join her at the table and pass her the notebook.
She studies the poem for a while, her eyes darting across the passage. “ ‘Where courts reside,’ ” she mutters. “What is he talking about? What are the courts?”
“Pickleball courts,” I say almost to myself.
“We don’t have pickleball courts. Tennis courts, though.”
“Are there any rocks over there?” I’m already on my feet. “Come on, let’s look.”
We ditch the trail for the paved road and cut across a couple of the residents’ backyards to save time. One of them has one of those rat dogs (or is it a pet nutria?) that hurls itself against a sliding glass door, yipping obnoxiously at us.
“That’s Nipsy,” Misty says. “He’s harmless.”
“He’s also fugly.”
“Yeah, not the best-looking dog. But Carmen loves him.”
We arrive at the tennis courts to find four men playing doubles. The courts could use new nets and that’s being charitable. The painted white lines are so faded that they’re barely distinguishable and the concrete surface is worn thin. One of the players waves to Misty, who waves back.
I climb up to the top of the splintered bleachers and stare out over the landscape for as far as the eye can see. “I don’t see any rock stacks, do you?”
“Nothing that stands out, no.”
I step down and plant my ass on the bottom bench to examine Willy’s passage again. “What are we missing? Because we have to be missing something.”
“Whatever it is, I’m not seeing it any longer.” Misty pushes my leg so I’ll scoot down and make room for her. “The last time this happened to me I was working for the Pasadena Police Department. A missing five-year-old who disappeared from the park while his twenty-two-year-old babysitter sat on a bench, texting her boyfriend. I saw it on the news and had an instant vision of a pizza parlor. The detective, a nice woman who claimed that her sister also had ‘the sight,’ arranged for my transportation to Southern California. But when I got there everything went dead inside me. Total static. I couldn’t describe the pizza parlor—the nearest one was two miles away and no one there had seen the boy. I was useless and the clock was ticking. They say the first twenty-four hours are crucial for tracking a missing child and there I was frozen. Good for nothing. It’s happening all over again.”
I pat her knee. “You did your best. And this, Misty, is only money. Not a missing child. Did they ever find the boy?”
