Both Cody and William did not answer their phones, making Cassidy more and more angry so that by the time she realized that she was driving west, she felt like her Subaru was being propelled by fury alone.
Didn’t they know Izzy was missing? Surely they realized that everyone had seen the video by now.
Of course, Cassidy realized, once again feeling stupid. “They’re ignoring me,” she said out loud.
By the time Cassidy reached Eugene’s city limits, the sun blared low on the horizon. She had eaten an apple during the drive, and even though her insides still felt hollow, she didn’t have the courage to eat anything else. Using the map program on her phone, Cassidy followed the directions to Cody’s address from the printout Richard Gorman had given her to a few miles south of campus and parked across the street from a gray, one-story house. Giant oak trees lined the street’s planter strip, their full green leaves shiny under the streetlamps. Crumbling concrete steps led to a small unkempt yard and a narrow, arched entryway.
Cassidy shut her car door but the sound was muffled, as if the night had swallowed it. She detected an odd smell from her car’s hood as she rounded the front end and made a mental note to check her radiator. A dog barked in the distance, rising over the sound of cars passing on the busier thoroughfare two blocks away. Dried leaves crunched under her feet as she crossed over the dry grass planter and up the steps. The house’s windows were dark. Cassidy checked her watch: almost ten o’clock. Her knuckles tapped on the thick wooden door. While waiting, she examined the entryway. The light fixture above her head gave off a pale glow, illuminating the collection of dead bugs inside the globe. The floor mat, a plain, straw-colored rectangle, was so threadbare Cassidy doubted it served its purpose.
Cassidy heard shuffling behind the door. And then it opened, the jamb sticking so that it scraped loudly against the floor.
A male face with freckles peered out at her. He looked vaguely familiar, though Cassidy couldn’t place him. Former student? Work-study grunt she’d hired to file research papers?
“Dr. Kincaid,” he said as recognition took over his face. “Remember me, Eli Grayson?”
Cassidy did—Eli had attended one of her lectures during her years as a post-doc. Sat in the front row. “Hi Eli,” she said. “Um, does Cody live here?”
“Yeah,” Eli said, looking surprised.
“Is he here?” Cassidy asked. “I need to talk to him.”
“Oh, uh . . . well, he’s out.”
Cassidy paused. Did Eli know about the video? “Do you know where he is?”
Eli’s face scrunched into a look of concentration. “He left a few hours ago. He didn’t tell me where he was going.”
“I’ve been trying to call him,” Cassidy said. “But he doesn’t answer.”
Eli looked back at her blankly.
“It’s important that I talk with him as soon as possible.”
“Well, he could be at the Whit,” he said, looking pensive. “We played pinball at Blairalley last night. He talked about going back. There’s a tournament tonight.”
“But you didn’t go?” she asked.
Eli shook his head. “I had band practice.”
Cassidy imagined Eli singing his heart out into a microphone. “What do you play?” she asked, unable to suppress her curiosity.
“Mandolin.”
“Oh,” Cassidy replied, a little surprised. She had imagined the drums, or keyboard maybe. Mandolin seemed too . . . peaceful for a young person, though she didn’t know why she felt this way.
“Well, if he shows up, will you please tell him to call me back?”
“Sure,” Eli agreed. She wrote down her number on the back of an unpaid bill Eli fetched from inside the house.
Cassidy returned to her car, wondering if she should try the arcade—a place she had heard of but never visited. Video games were more Quinn’s thing than hers during their childhood. Reeve had been into them too, she remembered.
She had a sudden thought—could Cody be with Izzy? Had he gone to pick her up?
Though it felt irrational, Cassidy’s instincts told her that Izzy was nowhere near Cody or William now. But they hold the answers, she thought, and started her engine.
Cassidy decided to visit William’s apartment, located in West Eugene, first because the arcade was a longshot—Cody could be anywhere.
As she followed her phone’s navigation app through Eugene’s streets, she imagined Izzy searching for a place to sleep tonight. An old Nirvana song began to play in her head, rising slowly: My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me, tell me where did you sleep last night? Cassidy and her friends used to watch MTV unplugged, back in the day, and she remembered those haunting lyrics that spoke of sadness and secrets.
Would Izzy stay in a hotel? Crash at a friend’s? Could she be at William’s right now? Or was she roaming the streets of Bend, searching for shelter. Cassidy imagined bright headlights and a shivering Izzy, cowering in some dirty back alley.
Where would I go if I was Izzy? Cassidy thought, picturing herself stopping at every hotel in town until she found her.
If only Izzy would use her ATM card again. That she hadn’t was beginning to feel purposeful. Either she knew people were looking for her, or the account was empty. If Izzy was out of money, where would she spend the night?
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines, tell me where did you sleep last night?
Emily had told her a story once about how she’d stretched her money using her Eurail pass. Instead of paying for a bed in a hostel, she would hop on a night train and sleep on a bench, or sometimes she’d get lucky and find an empty sleeper compartment. “It makes for not much sleep, but then you wake up
