“Peter’s not here.”
“He’ll be back tonight. He comes back to youeverynight,” Claire says confidently. “He thinks you’re beautiful and clever and everything.” I feel myself blush, as if I’m back in high school and Claire has told me that the head of the basketball team thinks I’m the cat’s meow, which would never have happened because I was “artsy” and he wasn’t. His name was David, and the girls in my class used to call him “Dreamy David,” one of the stupidest and most apt nicknames I’d ever heard. His locker was next to mine senior year, and he said hi to me every day, but that was the extent of our relationship. Wish I could have told my high school self to suck it up and talk to him—worst that could have happened was a total rebuff and public humiliation, which would have ended with graduation anyway, and then I could have consoled myself with the knowledge that anyone who peaks in high school is doomed to have a miserable adulthood...unlike my oh-so-stellar one. I think of how Peter slept in my bed last night—and how he left again to search for the Missing Man.
Tiffany crosses her arms, clearly trying to look tough. “If you refuse to help me...I know a lot of people who’d like to know where you are.”
Standing, I raise my eyebrows and look at her. It’s easier to face her than to think about Claire’s assessment of Peter’s feelings, which may or may not be true, and my old high school insecurities, which I wish I’d left behind in high school. Ah, emotional baggage—the only kind of luggage I bet no one ever lost. “Blackmail? Really?”
“Just making a deal.” Tiffany drops her arms. “It’s what we do in Lost. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. Barter system.”
“If you turn me over to the mob, then I can’t ever help you,” I point out.
“I could bribe you,” Tiffany says.
I shake my head. “I don’t need anything that’s worth—”
“I know where Claire’s parents are.”
Words die in my throat. I look at Claire. She’s paled. Her tiny hands clutch each other, balling up the hot pink satin skirt. Her lower lip quivers. The white glow skitters over her skin. “Where?” I ask.
Tiffany smiles. “Go into the void, find me what I lost, and I’ll tell you.”
“How do I know you know?”
“Wow, you are suspicious. Can I say a little bird told me?”
I cross my arms and glare at her. “No.” Claire is looking back and forth between us as if watching an intense tennis match. I think she’s holding her breath.
“Okay, then, I saw the newspapers from when she disappeared. Lots of newspapers show up in Lost. I skim them for anyone who might be here, and there was the cutest little picture of our cutie-pie in several of them. Her parents had given a tear-filled press conference.”
Claire’s eyes are huge. “They did?”
“Claimed it was a mix-up. Your dad thought you were with your mom, and your mom thought you were with your dad, and they didn’t compare notes until the end of the day. By that time, you’d wandered out of the police station and poof! You were gone.”
I reach over and hug Claire’s shoulders. “See, Iknewit was an accident!”
“Or they said it was,” Tiffany corrects.
Squeezing Claire, I say to her, “They miss you!” She seems numb, limp like a cloth doll. I shoot a glare at Tiffany. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell her this sooner.”
“Because it gets bad. Here’s the kicker—for a while, your parents were suspected of killing you. No proof was ever found, of course, since, you know, you’re here. But must have sucked because they moved. One paper even said where.”
Claire’s mouth forms a perfect O.
“Where?” I ask.
Tiffany shakes her head. “That’s for me to know and—”
“You have to tell us,” I say, my arm still around Claire. She’s trembling now. “You can’t torture a little girl like this. Where are they?”
“Help me, and I’ll help you.”
“She’s a kid! You can’t—”
“I’m a kid, too, or I was,” Tiffany says. “I don’t know why I’m here. Until I know why I’m here, I can never leave. Do you know how that feels, to know that even if the Missing Man were to return tomorrow, I can’t leave? I have to spend eternity in this dead town with these dead people in the same dead job...” She sucks in air. “Please. Please, try!”
Claire clutches my hand. “Lauren. She knows about my parents.”
I look in Claire’s eyes and know I can’t say no. I’ll be careful this time. I’ll...think happy thoughts. If I’m trapped in the void again, I won’t panic. I’ll listen for the train. Or maybe I’ll walk out of there myself. Ididdrive in and out of the dust several times... And Peter will be back by nightfall. He always is. I’ll have a few hours to find what Tiffany needs, and then if I can’t leave myself, Peter will fetch me. So long as I don’t lose hope, he can find me.
