“What’s wrong?”
“Suzze T is dead?” Mickey asked.
“You didn’t know?”
“No,” Mickey said. “I just saw it on the news.”
“That’s why I came to see your mom,” Myron said.
“Wait, what does my mom have to do with it?”
“Suzze visited your trailer a few hours before she died.”
That made Mickey take a step back. “You think Mom gave her the drugs?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. She said she didn’t. She said she and Suzze had a big heart-to-heart.”
“What kind of heart-to-heart?”
Myron remembered something else Kitty had said about Suzze’s OD:
“Your mom seemed sure someone killed Suzze.”
Mickey said nothing.
“And she seemed even more scared after I told her about the OD.”
“So?”
“So is this all connected, Mickey? You guys on the run. Suzze dying. Your father missing.”
He shrugged a tad too elaborately. “I don’t see how.”
“Boys?”
They both turned. Myron’s mother was there. Tears were on her cheeks. A tissue was balled up in her hand. She dabbed at her eyes. “I want to know what’s going on.”
“With what?”
“Don’t start that with me,” she said in a voice only a mother can use on her son. “You and Mickey get into a fight-then suddenly he’s going to live with us. Where are his parents? I want to know what’s going on. All of it. Right now.”
So Myron told her. She listened, shaking, crying. He spared her nothing. He told her about Kitty in rehab and even about Brad vanishing. When he finished, Mom moved closer to them both. She turned first to Mickey, who met her eye. She took his hand.
“It’s not your fault,” she said to him. “Do you hear me?”
Mickey nodded, his eyes closing.
“Your grandfather would never blame you. I don’t blame you. With the amount of blockage he had, you may have inadvertently saved his life. And you”-she turned toward Myron-“stop moping and get out of here. I’ll call you if something changes.”
“I can’t leave here.”
“Of course you can.”
“Suppose Dad wakes up.”
She moved closer to him, craning her neck to look up at him. “Your father told you to find your brother. I don’t care how sick he is. You do what he says.”
27
So now what?
Myron pulled Mickey aside. “I noticed a laptop in your trailer. How long have you owned it?”
“Two years maybe. Why?”
“Is it the only computer you guys had?”
“Yes. And again I’m asking, why?”
“If your father used it, maybe there’s something on it.”
“Dad wasn’t much with technology.”
“I know he had an e-mail address. He used to write your grandparents, right?”
Mickey shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Do you know his password?”
“No.”
“Okay, what else of his do you still have?”
The kid blinked. He bit down on his lower lip. Again Myron reminded himself of where Mickey’s life was right now: father missing, mother in rehab, grandfather suffering a heart attack, and maybe you’re to blame. And you’re all of fifteen years old. Myron started to reach out, but Mickey stiffened.
“We don’t have anything.”
“Okay.”
“We don’t believe in having a lot of possessions,” Mickey said defensively. “We travel a lot. We pack light. What would we have?”
Myron put his hands up. “Okay, I’m just asking.”
“Dad said not to look for him.”
“That was a long time ago, Mickey.”
He shook his head. “You should leave it alone.”
No need or time to explain himself to a fifteen-year-old. “Will you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“I need you to take care of your grandmother for a few hours, okay?”
Mickey didn’t bother with a reply. He headed into the waiting room and sat in the chair across from her. Myron signaled for Win, Esperanza, and Big Cyndi to come out in the hall with him. They needed to reach out to the American embassy in Peru and see whether there were any rumors about his brother. They needed to call any sources at the State Department and get them on the case of Brad Bolitar. They needed to get some computer weenie to break into Brad’s e-mail or figure out his password. Esperanza headed back into New York City. Big Cyndi would stay behind to help with Mom and maybe see whether she could coax some more information from Mickey.
“I can be quite the charmer,” Big Cyndi noted.
When Myron was alone with Win, he called Lex’s phone yet again. Still no answer.
“It’s all connected somehow,” Myron said. “First my brother goes missing. Then Kitty gets scared and goes on the run. She ends up here. She posts that ‘Not His’ with a tattoo that both Suzze and Gabriel Wire shared. She sees Lex. Suzze visits her and then Alista Snow’s father. It has to all relate.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘has to,’ ” Win added, “but things do seem to circle back to Gabriel Wire, don’t they? He was there when Alista Snow died. He clearly had an affair with Suzze T. He still works with Lex Ryder.”
“We need to get to him,” Myron said.
Win steepled his fingers. “You are suggesting then that we go after a reclusive, well-guarded, well-financed rock star on a small island.”
“Seems that’s where the answers are.”
“Bitchin’,” Win said.
“So how do we do it?”
“It will take a wee bit of planning,” Win said. “Give me a few hours.”
Myron checked his watch. “That works. I want to head back to the trailer and check their laptop. Maybe there’s something there.”
Win offered to provide Myron with a car and driver, but Myron hoped the ride would clear his head. He hadn’t slept much in the past few nights, so he drove with the sound system on high. He plugged his iPod into the car jack and started blasting mellow music. The Weepies sang that “the world spins madly on.” Keane wanted to disappear with that special someone to “somewhere only we know.” Snow Patrol, in their search for their lost love, “set the fire to the third bar.”
Just right.
