“She stuck with you all afternoon, all night?”
“Mostly. I hung out with my club.” He indicated the lumps of bedrolls scattered nearby.
“Could she have taken off with someone from your club?”
“Nah,” Dutch interrupted. “Biker’s code.” He looked around. “Plus, they’re all here.”
Lars ran a hand through his hair again.
“Any idea where she would have gone?” Cassidy asked.
Lars shook his head, his lips tight.
“Where were you headed next?” she asked, watching him curiously.
He looked surprised. “Medford. I gotta work tomorrow.”
“Did Izzy know this?”
Lars frowned. “Not sure it came up.”
“Do you think that someone . . . ” Cassidy began, catching both of their eyes “ . . . could have taken her?” She looked around, trying to imagine the scene from the night before. Across from the parking lot stood a stage. It looked junky and sad in the daylight, with its faded boards and rickety lighting. “Or could that guy from the rest area have tracked her down?”
Lars frowned. “He drove a yellow VW bus. I haven’t seen it.”
“Different crowd,” Dutch said, tilting his head, as if thinking.
“So, you’ve rescued her twice,” Cassidy said, “and she doesn’t even say goodbye? Thanks?”
Lars poked out his bottom lip for an instant, like a pout from a little boy, but then it was gone and she was once again looking at a grown man with glassy, hazel-colored eyes. “She didn’t owe me anything.”
“Who else would have seen her go?” Cassidy asked, switching tactics.
“Anyone,” Lars said, shrugging. “It was dark by then, though.”
“Has she texted you back?” Cassidy asked.
Lars checked his phone, then shook his head.
“So,” Dutch said, swiveling to her just enough that she caught the shrewd sparkle in his eye. “Do oceanographers drink coffee?”
Seventeen
Cassidy sat across from Dutch at a metal picnic table outside a food vendor’s stall, sipping hot coffee from a cup crafted from some kind of plant matter. It said so on the sign, but she hadn’t taken the time to read the details.
“What’s finding this girl to you, anyway?” Dutch said.
Cassidy knew he was wondering about her outburst. Though she certainly would never share the reasons behind her reaction with him, she wondered if she would ever be able to talk about it with anyone besides Jay.
“You’re a long way from home now.”
Not really, she wanted to say, but held it back. “I care about her,” she said, surprised that of everything she could have said, this is what came out of her mouth. Of course, it was true, but Cassidy had other reasons to find Izzy.
Dutch seemed to read her mind. “Sure, ya do,” he said easily. “And?”
Cassidy stared into her coffee. “Ultimately, I’m responsible for her.” She took a sip and wriggled her toes, which were gritty from the field’s silty dirt that she’d picked up while searching high and low through the fairgrounds for signs of Izzy. Once there were more people awake, she would circle once more and ask campers if they’d seen her.
She told Dutch about the field camp van ride and tracing Izzy to Bend, though left out Preston Ford.
“I think she might be out of money,” Cassidy said. “I don’t think she planned to be gone this long.”
“Does she have any family or friends she might be headed towards?” Dutch sat back a little and crossed his biceps. “I mean, if you look at her route so far, it’s pretty much due south. Sacramento? San Francisco? L.A?”
“Her friend disappeared last spring,” Cassidy said. “One of the people I spoke with thinks maybe she was talking to her.”
Dutch sipped his coffee.
“It’s possible, but I don’t know where she is, either.”
“How about family?” Dutch asked.
“Her dad’s in L.A.,” Cassidy said.
Dutch made a an “aha” with his intense blue eyes.
Cassidy shook her head. “Maybe,” she said, even though she didn’t believe this was Izzy’s destination.
“Is her mom in L.A. too?”
“No idea,” Cassidy said. “I only know what one of her friends told me, that she’s on her own. I guess Izzy worries about her.”
“Maybe she’s trying to get to her for a visit.”
“Then why would she linger at a biker rally?” Cassidy pushed the image of Lars injecting Izzy, the needle plunging into her skin. Why? She wanted to ask Izzy. Why would you do this? She took a deep breath. “And why wouldn’t she have just returned to Eugene in the first place? She could have hopped in her car and driven anywhere she wanted to go.”
Dutch just looked at her, thinking. “Sounds like maybe she spent her money,” he said.
Cassidy let that hang. Had Izzy bought drugs of her own in Bend? It seemed frivolous when she knew her money was running out. Why didn’t she get on the bus the following morning? Instead she got high with a stranger then hitched a ride with him to another party.
Dutch’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Sounds like she was running away from something, or running to something.”
“Could it be both?” Cassidy asked. “It feels like . . . like an escape.”
“From what?” Dutch asked, cradling his coffee close to his chest.
Cassidy shook her head. “I thought maybe it was what happened to her that last night at field camp. But I’m starting to think it’s something else. Something bigger.”
Just then Cassidy heard footsteps. She turned to see Lars, his long legs striding fast toward her, a harried look in his eye.
“I know where she went,” he said as he arrived.
“Did she text you?” Cassidy asked, already on her feet. Though she was embarrassed for losing her cool, she was still angry with him, evident in the coolness of her tone.
But Lars didn’t seem to notice. “No,” he said, and gave a heaving cough that jostled the smoker’s phlegm in his lungs, then turned to the side and spit. “But I think she’s in San Francisco.”
Something in his look made Cassidy pause.
“I don’t know what the hell she’s playing,” Lars said, glancing back and forth at the both of them. “She’s with Saxon Pike,” he added.
Cassidy watched Dutch’s face twitch. He clucked his tongue.
“What?”
