Page 96 of The Girl in the Wind

Theo had gotten the address for Merlin Purdue’s trailer from the school’s online learning management system; apparently, they’d updated Merlin’s address after the divorce but before Leon had gotten himself emancipated. The trailer itself was a single-wide, turquoise on the bottom, white on the top, without curtains or blinds in the windows. In the late morning sun, it made the place look abandoned, but the Thunderbird in the driveway suggested otherwise. Someone had planted sunflowers, and they stood cockeyed in too-small pots, leaning against the trailer.

“I guess he’s home,” Auggie said.

“We’ll find out.”

They left the Focus on the side of the street and climbed the steps to the tiny deck. When Theo knocked, the door rattled in its frame, and Auggie looked at him.

“That wasn’t intentional.”

“It’s a curse, being so strong.”

“All right.”

“It’s all those muscles.”

Sometimes it was better to ride it out in silence.

“I’m surprised you don’t just explode out of your shirts when you flex.”

If he counted to ten, maybe. Although Auggie would probably love that.

“It was all that jocking around you did with the guys last night,” Auggie said. “And the showing off.”

“You started that nonsense last night, and I only went along with it because—” Theo miscalculated; he glanced at Auggie’s face, saw the wide eyes, the hint of hurt, and finished, “Because I love you, and because we all needed to blow off some steam.”

“I knew I had better puppy eyes than Jem.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

“They don’t tell you it’s like an ancient curse,” Theo said as he knocked again, and this time, he didn’t care that the door shook under his fist. “It’s like calling Bloody Mary or—”

“Or saying the name of He Who Must Not Be Named.”

Theo spared him a look. “You let one undergrad into your house, you feed him one Dorito after midnight, and that’s it, the end, there’s no getting away from him.”

“Didn’t you make me watch a movie about that?”

Yes, Theo thought. Silence was definitely better.

He readied himself to knock again, but the door swung open. He’d seen Merlin in the short video clip on Shaniyah’s account, but seeing him in person was a different experience. He was shorter than Theo expected, with a strong jaw and dark, wavy hair that was, Theo thought, suspiciously free of gray. Merlin Purdue had none of his son’s waifish build; he was thick with muscle, and he had a kind of juiced-up fullness to his face that made Theo think of every guy onJersey Shore(which Auggie, of course, had forced him to watch). When he saw them, his eyes narrowed.

“What?”

“Good morning,” Auggie said. “Am I speaking to Mr. Purdue? Mr. Merlin Purdue?”

“I go by Merl,” he said. “And I’m working—”

“This will just take a moment, Mr. Purdue. Mr. Harris—” He tipped his head toward Theo. “—and I were wondering if you wanted to make any comments about the disappearance of your son.”

Under the bronze of whatever tanning agent Merlin used, his face took on red. “No. Now get the fuck off my property—”

“Then we can run the episode with your partner’s comments and simply have the narrator explain to the audience that you were unwilling to participate in the episode?”

“What episode? What the hell are you talking about? What did Elise say? She’s a fucking bitch, are you going to tell the audience that?”

Auggie looked at Theo, and Theo swore silently and promised himself, for the hundredth time, he would never, ever, ever again fall for puppy eyes, or innocent eyes, or simply darkly beautiful eyes, which had a way of making him do all sorts of stupid things.

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