“Well?” Janice asked.
“He wasn’t home. Just his wife.”
“So what are they going to do?”
“Wait until he gets back.”
“You don’t want to stay?”
He shook his head. “Can you drop me off at the Desert Rose Motel? You know, just the other side of the hospital?”
Ten minutes later he was standing in the motel parking lot, the taillights of Janice’s Mustang quickly fading into the distance.
He got Wes’s room number from the office, then proceeded there and knocked. When no one answered, he scanned the parking lot. Wes’s motorcycle wasn’t around.
He settled against the wall, his gaze drifting across the parking lot toward the northeast, toward the base. He could see the emptiness that had once contained base housing. He remembered riding through those streets with Wes on the dirt bicycles they’d put together themselves. His had been painted red, while Wes had gone for a combination of orange and black. The Halloween bike, some of the kids had called it.
Lars remembered one time when they had ridden all the way to the Shopping Basket grocery store next to the indoor pool. There they ran into a couple of other kids they knew from junior high. For some reason, Lars had allowed one of the kids to talk him into shoplifting a candy bar. Since it was the first-and last-time he’d ever done anything like that, it was no wonder he was nervous. That was undoubtedly why the store manager stopped him at the door and made him empty his pockets.
“What’s your name?” the manager had asked. “I’m going to call your parents.”
Lars was terrified. More of his father than of the store manager.
“If you won’t tell me, I’ll just have to call the police.”
Lars tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“It’s not his fault.” It was Wes. He was standing a few feet away.
“Oh, really?” The manager held up the candy bar. “So this just jumped into his pocket?”
“No, sir,” Wes said. “I put it there when he wasn’t looking.”
The manager stared at Wes.
“He didn’t know,” Wes went on. “It’s my fault.”
The manager turned back to Lars. “Is that true?”
Lars stole a glance at Wes. His friend gave him a tiny nod.
“Yes,” Lars whispered, hating himself for it.
Unbelievably, the manager let Lars go, telling him he was banned from the store for a month. Outside, the other boys, having seen what was going down, were long gone. Lars wanted to leave, too, but he waited by the bike rack for almost forty minutes until his friend joined him.
“Did he call your parents?” Lars asked as they rode away.
“Nah,” Wes said. “He just took me back in the office and acted like he was going to. Then he told me I could leave.”
“He ban you, too?”
“Six months.”
“Whoa.”
Wes shrugged. “What do we need to go in there for anyway?”
They rode between the baseball fields and Murray Junior High, heading home.
“Thanks,” Lars finally said.
“Sure,” Wes replied. And with that they settled the matter, in the way only boys of a certain age could do.
Why had he ever doubted Wes? Not about the pilot, but years ago, when he’d been angry at Wes for leaving town? Angry at him for not showing up to Mandy’s funeral? Lars knew better. He’d just forgotten.
An SUV slowed, then turned in to the lot. Lars recognized the women inside as Wes’s crewmates from the shoot in Red Rock Canyon.
Lars raised his hand and waved as they got out. “We met the other day,” he said. “I’m Wes’s friend.”
“Yeah, we know,” the tall one replied. What had her name been? Adrianne? Alyssa?
The shorter one-Dione, he recalled-shut her door and moved around the front of the SUV. “You’re the one in the Navy.”
“Right,” he said. “Lars.”
“What do you want?” the tall one asked.
He looked at the women, confused by their tone. “I’m just waiting for Wes.”
“He’s not here,” Dione said. “Come on, Alison.”
Lars stepped in front of them. “I see that. Any idea when he might be back?”
“No.”
“Okay. Did he and Anna go to dinner or something?”
The women looked at him as if he’d suddenly gone crazy.
“What did I say?”
“Are you the backup?” Alison asked. “In case Wes didn’t show up?”
“Show up for what?”
“You know what.”
“No,” Lars said. “I don’t.”
“You’re working for Commander Forman, aren’t you?”
Lars tensed. “Forman?”
“You should leave,” Dione told him.
“You need to tell me what’s going on,” he said, now all business.
Without a word, the women started to walk away. Lars immediately took up pursuit. “What did you mean ‘working for Commander Forman’?”
“Like you don’t know,” Alison said without turning around.
Lars reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her. “No, I don’t.”
“Let go of me!” she yelled, trying to twist free.
“For God’s sakes, Forman’s had me locked up since last night. You’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”
Alison stopped struggling. “Locked up?”
Lars let go of her arm. “Last night, Wes went with me to get some information that would prove he was right about the pilot of the crash last week. I found what I could and gave it to him. Then some of the commander’s men showed up and took me in. I wasn’t released until less than an hour ago.”
“That information came from you?”
“He told you about it?”
The women shared another look.
“So you’re not working with Commander Forman?” Alison asked.
“I’m the one who just turned him in. Base security is looking for him right now. Please tell me what’s going on.”
Again the women glanced at each other. Finally Dione nodded, and Alison told him about Wes’s plan.
“Once they’d left La Sonora, I called Dione to come pick me up,” she said.
Dione frowned in annoyance. “I’ve been told they decided it was best I didn’t know. So the first I heard about anything was from Alison just now on the ride back here.”
“If we told you, you would have tried to stop us.”
“Yes. I would have.”
“Then we did the right thing.”
“Wes thinks Forman has Anna and this Tony guy?” Lars said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“But the stuff about the crash is true, isn’t it?” Alison said. “That means he must have them.”
Lars was impressed, but not necessarily surprised, that Wes had been able to put it all together from the scant information he’d given him the night before. But no matter what, this latest bit didn’t fit.
