“That wasn’t in the podcast,” Salem says, probably for Tegan’s benefit, but I listened to the podcast, too. Salem just doesn’t know it. “It’s one of the bits I cut.”
“I figured, if he took Charlotte—” He breaks off, mumbles an unnecessary apology, I guess for using our mother’s name. “If he took your mom somewhere where she felt she really learned about him, maybe it was to someone else who was in a similar line of work as him. So I did some research.”
Salem snorts. “More than a lot! Hawk probably knows about every living confidence man in the country by now. But I guess we’re taking advantage of that Ivy League education he’s got!”
This time, I break and look over at him, and it’s because I already know what I’ll see.
Tips of his ears: pink.
“Didn’t you go to some gigantic state school?” asks Tegan.
“Not for graduate school! He got his master’s in journalism at Columbia,” Salem chirps. It somehow sounds judgmental. “Were you the oldest in your class, Hawk?”
He shakes his head. I know I’m still staring, but I can’t seem to stop yet. The words from my mother’s postcard have been shoved back into the forgetting parts of my brain. The only questions I seem to want to ask are, once again, about the man sitting next to me.
But it’s funny, how he is. How he looks straight ahead and doesn’t offer anything else.
It’s funny how he reminds me of me.
Did he stand in front of his hotel mirror this morning, sectioning off his face to shave?
“MacSherry’s only agreed to talk to us for two hours,” he says, so clearly not wanting to talk about himself. “The address he’s given us is for a place in Signal Mountain, but I don’t think he actually lives there.”
“Of course not,” Salem snorts.
“This morning Salem and I discussed how we’ll use those two hours.”
It’s the most he’s talked in front of Salem since I met him—the first time I’ve seen him take the lead about the story.
It’s difficult not to notice the shift that takes place inside me when Adam is at the wheel of the process: It’s an arm out across my chest. A safer feeling I’ve had in relation to this thing since it started. I shouldn’t trust it, but it’s also difficult to ignore it.
He’s like that. Gigantic in his effect on me.
“MacSherry hasn’t worked in a few years,” he continues. “We’ve told him we want to talk with him about some of his most famous jobs. We haven’t focused on Baltimore in our preliminary contact with him. We haven’t mentioned our questions about his possibly meeting your mom.”
Again, it feels good, calming. Like something I can handle going in, something I can feel in control of. At this point I’m pretending Salem isn’t even in the car.
But my sister is, and I don’t think she means to, but once again she punctures that sense of control.
“Good luck with that,” says Tegan, her voice sarcastic.
I turn my head, see Salem stop typing and look over at her. “Why?”
Tegan shrugs and meets my eyes.
I know what she’s going to say before she speaks. After all, I was just thinking of it this morning.
“Because if he’s met our mother, you’ll know it as soon as he sees Jess. They’re like twins.”
Chapter 8
Adam
Iasked her if she wanted to stay in the van.
I tried to do it quietly, subtly, when Salem was gathering her things in the back and Tegan was already opening her door. I tried to do it without looking again at what I saw, thanks to her sleeveless shirt, in full view for the first time this morning: the black-ink tattoos on her right shoulder, fine-drawn flowers with long stems and slender leaves. I tried not to embarrass her.
On all counts, I’m pretty sure I failed.
