JAVIER
“I’ll be there in ten,”I say, not bothering withhello. I’m already late to dinner and Family Game Night at my mom and Gerald’s rental, so it’s not really a mystery why she’s calling.
“What? Where? Do you know where she is?”
“Who? Thalia?”
My mom loves to lead with a rhetorical question when she’s calling to complain to me about a sibling.
“Madeline!”
My heart gives an involuntary kick.
“No, where is she?” I ask as I pull my shitty, paint-stained shirt off and paw through a drawer for something more presentable. Vaguely, I wonder where Madeline could be that my mom’s calling to complain about it. A Satanic ritual sacrifice, maybe?
“I don’t know! That’s why I called to ask you. To see if you know where Madeline is,” my mom says.
I swallow and hope she can’t hear it, one hand on my phone and the other tight around a black T-shirt. “No, I don’t.” My voice sounds calmer than I feel. “Why? Is everything okay?”
“She was supposed to be back an hour ago,” my mom says. “The other day Gerald and I went to dinner and Gerald fellin love with—I don’t know, some red wine, but everywhere in town is out of stock and I wanted to surprise him, so Madeline volunteered to drive out to the winery…”
My mom keeps talking, and I turn to look out the windows. It’s completely dark outside because it’s—shit—nearly six. I’d only meant to work on some papier-mâché experiments for a possible art project until four or four thirty, but now I’m late and Madeline is…also late.
Madeline is late and my mom thinks I might know where she is, and that combination has my lungs in a vise.
“I’m sure she hit traffic somewhere,” I say.
“She would call.”
“Maybe she’s out of cell range?”
“How would she be in traffic for this long? What traffic?”
I pull my shirt over my head and run a hand through my hair. My heart’s pounding. “Wyatt’s got a long story about being stuck in a traffic jam behind a rogue cow once when he was in high school,” I say. “Maybe there’s a cow?”
“He says maybe there’s a cow.” My mom’s voice is a little distant, like she’s pulled the phone away from her face. I rub my knuckles across my forehead because that’s not what I said,Mom, I was trying to give an example of why she might be perfectly fine, but I don’t start that argument now.
“A cow?” Gerald is saying, and yeah, he sounds pretty bad.
“Mom, I’m coming over.” I grab a sweater off a pile on my bedroom floor. “Don’t do anything before I get there, okay?”
“—supposed to go down into the twenties tonight?—”
“Okay, see you soon,” my mom says. Before she hangs up, I hear, “Gerald, stoppacing. Javi is coming over, and he’s familiar with?—”
I put on shoes, a coat, and practically run out the door, but as I start my car I wonder if this is the first time my mom has ever sounded relieved about my participation.
“That’s not a problem,”I’m saying for, I think, the fifth or sixth time. “I’m borrowing a vehicle with four-wheel drive.”
“But what ifyouget stuck?” Gerald asks, pacing back and forth in front of the kitchen island. “Or what if it’s worse? What if she stumbled across some sort of—illegal activity or she was carjacked or she’s been carjacked by the gun-running drug gangs?—”
“Gerald,” my mom says gently. It’s a little odd, watching her be the calm one. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Chances are she drove into a ditch and we’ll hear from her any minute now.”
“Sorry. I know.” He tries to smile at her. There’s a noise outside, the rustling of tree branches near a window, and Gerald practically jumps. It’s spooky. I get it. “Javier, you said you’d done research into the rum-running routes through the mountains?”
It wasn’t research so much as it was an after-midnight rabbit hole I fell down. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it.
“I think we should focus on real roads first,” I say, and he just nods, still pacing. “My friend with the truck will be here in a few minutes, and we’ll drive the route between here and the winery. She’ll probably call you to say she’s fine before we’re five minutes down the road.”
