Box two: Bumble Bee brand tuna.
“Oh, and don’t get me started on his bad jokes. I could shoot Jake and Kevin both.” She waved her pricing gun in the air. “Especially when they get going on their blond humor. They think they’re so funny.”
Sandy was blond.
“Sorry to hear about that, too,” I said.
Box three: StarKist brand tuna.
Sandy shrugged. “What’cha gonna do? A guy’s a guy.” She stuck her tongue out at the four still-unopened boxes of tuna in front of us and lowered her voice so Dale wouldn’t hear. “And a job’s a job.”
“Yeah,” I murmured back. It would have been so much easier if I’d been able to follow my original career plan, which had been to graduate from high school and immediately go off to college at U of M, in the Twin Cities, a good ninety miles away. To study what, I didn’t know, but at least I’d have been out of this myopic little town.
A whisper of long-buried discontent resurfaced and swirled up around me as Sandy and I unpackaged, priced and shelved those final boxes. This was a sensation I hadn’t felt in nearly two years. Like an appendage that had fallen asleep, I had to shake off the prickles of pain that accompanied it. While I’d believed Gideon to be dead, I hadn’t allowed myself to resent him or my humdrum life here, but now…now…
The hours didn’t exactly fly by, but at least they were predictable. When it came time for me to leave, I didn’t look back for a second. I hung my ugly puce-colored Grocery Mart apron on its hook in the back room, grabbed my car keys and headed out of town—toward Alexandria, not St. Cloud.
As I drove down the main—and only—drag, I found myself looking at Chameleon Lake like the out-of-towners visiting over Memorial Day must’ve seen it. Like the way I always saw it after a weekend away somewhere.
Homespun and mostly harmless.
With a corner grocery store stocked with beer (and a God-awful lot of tuna) and a tiny post office where my dad and everyone in it knew your name after you’d been in there once.
A local garage/gas station where the workers fixed up cars, flatbed trucks or tractors and gave the ladies full-service fill-ups, all while listening to hard rock on the FM radio.
A town where Viking football was big, NHL hockey was even bigger and bowling in the alley on the outskirts of town was considered a recognized pastime.
Where guys would take off school or work to go deer hunting in the fall and everyone had ice skated in winter on the lake, grabbed a Super-Tastee burger in summer and dreamed of spending spring break somewhere—anywhere—warm.
Where most of the residents had gone to see the one and only featured movie showing in the Main Street Cinema, which was wedged between an eggs-and-sausage diner and a local bar known for its “Half-Price Tuesday” beer specials.
Welcome to Hometown, Midwestern America.
Had Gideon cataloged all of these things as he drove away two years ago? Since his car was missing, the police had a theory that it might have been stolen—maybe even with him in it—but no vehicle was ever found. They even dragged the lake for his 1974 Galaxie. Nothing. It still hurt like hell to think about it.
Maybe he was unconscious or blindfolded. Unable to notice the buildings as he left. But he must have been fully aware when he returned to hide the journal. What was he thinking when he saw our little town again? Did he feel stabs of sentimentality, missing it? Or, much as it squeezed by heart to even consider it, was he glad on some level to have escaped?
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was saying goodbye to Chameleon Lake, too. At least for now. I had an undeniable hunch—and I’d learned to trust my instincts—that the discoveries of the coming weekend might just change everything.
TWENTY-FIVE MILES of Minnesota farmland later, I drove into the covered garage in Alexandria, parked on the second level and scanned for Donovan’s Trans Am. I didn’t see it, which meant I’d gotten there first. Good. That was my plan, and I’d been kind of speeding to make sure of it.
I checked my watch—12:36—rolled down the window and slouched in the driver’s seat, waiting. My mind slid between memories like water around rocks in a ravine.
Gideon and Jeremy in the driveway.
Laughing.
Drinking bottles of Old Style beer.
Working on their cars.
Talking about girls they’d liked…or dated…or gotten frisky with at a party somewhere.
I used to eavesdrop on them all the time. Despite their incredible mechanical skills and strong general intelligence, neither one had immediate plans for college. Once, when I’d asked them why not, they’d shrugged and mumbled something about “not wanting to sell out.” Then they snickered at my innocent questions and my girly-ness, certain there was no way I’d ever understand how their boy brains operated.
They were right. No matter how naturally perceptive I was, I never could crack the code on how or why they’d disappeared. I knew there had to be a good reason and, for months, I just couldn’t bring myself to believe they’d really died.
Everyone around me slowly but surely lost hope in their return or recovery and, eventually, I got tired of trying to defend my intuition. But I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for whatever puzzle pieces I’d overlooked until the day I finally figured out what really happened.
I squeezed my eyes closed to force back the tears that had risen up behind them. God knew, I’d already cried enough to fill up all of the Mississippi River and one or two of the Great Lakes...but a knock on the hood of my car had me jumping half out of my seat.
“You awake?” Donovan asked, peering at me through my open window, his dark eyes taking in more than I wanted him to see.
“Of course,” I said, irritated and not trying to hide it. I could’ve been an hour down the road to Wisconsin if it weren’t for him. I reached over to unlock the passenger’s side door. “Well, hop in,” I told him. “I want to get going.”
He laughed. “We’re not taking your car.” He studied the body of my Buick and smirked.
His Trans Am was parked a few spaces away and, with the parking garage’s neon overhead fixtures slanting a shaft of light upon it, his choice of vehicle couldn’t have looked more like an obscenely red beacon of obviousness.
“Everyone will notice your car, Donovan. Everyone who sees it will remember it. I’d like to be not quite so conspicuous when we’re asking people questions.” I crossed my arms. I didn’t know what skills he’d learned during his Army training but, clearly, basic covert operations didn’t top the list.
One glance at his expression, though, told me I’d be an idiot to say this aloud.
“Being inconspicuous is really big with you,” he said. “Why is that?”
Oh, I could think of a thousand reasons—the better to observe people, for one—but he didn’t give me a chance to say anything. He just tapped on the hood of my car again and said, “C’mon.” Then he waved Gideon’s journal at me, tauntingly, and he took several steps back from my Buick. None of those steps happened to be in the direction of his Trans Am.
I sighed, loudly enough to make sure he heard, then I got out. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To the diner. We need to talk.”
“Wha—talk? Jesus, Donovan! We can talk in the car. We’ve got almost four hours of driving ahead. Don’t you just want to get—”
“I’m hungry,” he said. “I want lunch.”
With a couple of flicks of his first two fingers, he motioned for me to follow him, turning his back on me with the certainty that I would.
And, damn him, I did. I couldn’t help how drawn I was to him. Like an unwilling magnet, I seemed to have no choice in the matter.
He strode ahead of me, his dark hair and dark shirt both catching the wind and dancing with it, until we were right in front of Johansen’s. Then he paused and held the door open for me when I got there. Such a show of being a gentleman.
As I breezed past him, he said, “Ask for a booth in the back.”
I shot him the evil eye and was about to tell him to ask for it himself, but the greeter guy was already there, looking expectantly at me.
When we were seated with menus in our hands, the waitress, who looked older than me by a few years, placed a bread basket in front of us and glanced at Donovan, then at me, then back at Donovan. She licked her lips and smoothed down one side of her strawberry-blond hair.
I tried to keep from openly scowling and just ordered a cup of their fish chowder and a Coke. I’d had this here once before, thought it tasted okay and knew it wouldn’t be too expensive. Donovan had snitched the journal and insisted we meet at this place, he could sure as hell buy me lunch for $1.09.
Donovan raised an amused eyebrow at my modest choices and ordered a Coke as well, plus a sausage rolled in thin lefse with potato dumplings and homemade gravy…and a cup of Sandvik’s stew…and a side of Norwegian meatballs…and a piece of lingonberry cake.
I stared at him.
When the waitress left, I hissed, “There are restaurants and grocery stores in Wisconsin, you know. You won’t starve there.”
He grabbed a sesame roll from the basket, took a big bite and pointedly ignored me.
“Fine.” I fiddled with the glass sugar dispenser at the edge of the table. “But you said you wanted to talk, so let’s talk.”
He held up his finger, waiting until the waitress brought out our food, and he insisted on paying up immediately. He slipped her a handful of dollar bills while scanning her nametag. “Thanks, Debbie,” he said with a wink. “Keep the change.”
She smiled prettily at him, scribbled a receipt and handed that to him in exchange. “Just let me know if you need anything else.”
He nodded, glanced at the receipt as she sauntered away and grinned.
I recognized that expression from somewhere. It took me several seconds to place it, but I finally remembered when I’d seen it last and who was wearing it. His brother Jeremy. Looking as proud as a Stanley Cup winner as he told Gideon about some cheerleader he’d felt up under the ice rink bleachers after a hockey game a few months before they graduated.
“She gave you her number?” I blurted to Donovan. “Already?”
He studied me with one of his assessing looks, which never failed to make me feel like I was twelve again and he was the big high-school senior—nearly a man—that I’d first met those long years ago. Too much of a child for him to trifle with…almost.
“Debbie’s off at six,” he informed me, pocketing the receipt. “But we’ll be in Wisconsin by then, won’t we?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe I’ll still just go by myself.” I reached for the journal he held hostage on his side of the table.
He grabbed it and put it on the seat next to him. Hmm. Fast reflexes.
“Just give me a chance, Aurora,” he whispered. “Okay?” The grin was gone and, in its place, a grimace laced with sorrow. If I read it right, a hint of fear mingled there, too.
“Okay,” I whispered back.
He poked a little at his meatballs with a fork as I blew on my chowder. “I read the journal three times last night,” he said in a low voice. “Cover to cover. There was nothing that jumped out at me until I got to the page you first told me about. The one with the two dates.” He paused, stabbed at another meatball and, finally, ate one. “I’m sure you noticed the city names slipped in between the various chemical compounds.”
I nodded.
“Except for Crescent Cove, all of them are south of us. And I didn’t find any city in the journal further east than Chicago. So, your brother, and maybe mine, too, seemed to be keeping tabs on something in the Midwest and West. What it is—or was—I don’t know.”
In a rush, I was reminded of Donovan’s stake in this. How close he and Jeremy had been. In his own way, delay tactics and all, I knew how much he cared about the outcome, and I could tell he’d spent some time trying to piece the unknowns of this puzzle together.
He might be skeptical of my conclusions and afraid of getting his hopes up, but I was certain he was just as haunted by our brothers’ disappearance as I was. Maybe even more so, though I didn’t understand why I was getting that impression so strongly. He had the look of someone about to set foot in a confessional.
“Any idea what they were trying to do with the chemicals?” I asked.
He scrunched up his forehead and downed a few scoops of mashed potatoes and a bite of lefse-wrapped sausage before answering. My chowder had cooled enough for me to have a few spoonfuls, but I couldn’t have been less hungry for it.
“I have a partial theory,” he said, “given the dates they went to Wisconsin. For one thing, I think they went there twice. It was the only city that seemed to be repeated, although it was abbreviated the second time. See?”
He opened the journal and flipped a few pages past the first mention of Crescent Cove—which had been on Monday, April 19, 1976—and pointed to an entry on Monday, May 10, 1976 that listed various chemicals and car parts but, also, in Gideon’s tight scrawl, included the letters: “J & I —> C.C.”
“So, in the spring of ’76, they went there and then, three weeks later, they returned. Maybe they ordered something from somebody and then had to go back to pick it up?” I suggested.
“That’s what I was thinking.” He shook his head, as if trying to shake loose the direction of his thoughts. “Look, this is nuts. I don’t know what to make of it. And I think it’s way too farfetched to believe this journal means anything, but there’s something else you need to know.” He hesitated, slurped some Coke and shifted in his seat. “April nineteenth didn’t ring a bell when I read it, but the May date did. Two years ago, May tenth was the day after Mother’s Day.”
“And that’s memorable to you…why?”
“Because Jeremy wrote me a letter that day,” he explained. “I got it later that week, but I remembered the date. I was stationed out at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia then, but I’d sent Mom a card for Mother’s Day, and Jeremy told me she’d gotten it in time. That she’d been really excited to hear from me.” He stopped talking and massaged his temples.
“Oh, God, Donovan. Do you have the letter with you? What else did he say?”
I watched as he exhaled a long stream of air. “I wish I’d kept it, Aurora. I’ve wished that for two years,” he admitted, bitterness in his voice. “It was the last letter I ever got from my brother—and I threw it out.”
He closed his eyes and shoved back whatever emotion he didn’t yet want to share with me. “But I remember it was just a short note. There was that little bit about Mom. Then he was bragging about some Wendy person he thought was real foxy. And, finally, there were a couple of lines about your brother.”
Donovan opened his eyes and looked up at me. Held my gaze in his, and I caught my breath at the intensity of it.
“He said the two of them had something ‘fun’ planned for the summer. Something they were working on. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it. I thought he’d meant their secret graduation party up in St. Cloud. Since I was taking three days’ leave in June to come home for his ceremony, I figured Jeremy would fill me in then, but—” A troubled expression washed over his face, revealing the worry lines etched at the corners of his eyes and the tight brackets on each side of his mouth.
“But he didn’t?”
“No,” Donovan whispered. “I mentioned his ‘fun thing’ when Jeremy was driving me back to the airport. Told him the party had been great and congratulated him again. But he just laughed. He said what he’d been talking about had nothing to do with graduation at all. That he’d write and tell me about it ‘next month.’ In July.”
The month our brothers disappeared.
I left the words unspoken because, of course, both of us knew the timeline.
“You didn’t tell the cops about that when they were investigating?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I tried to, but it was a pretty weak statement. They didn’t take it seriously, and I
had no other info then. Nothing to tie it to the disappearance until you showed me the journal yesterday. When the cops called the base to ask me questions, they wanted to know about major things—unusual behaviors or anything strange or out of character that I’d picked up on when I last saw Jeremy or heard from him. But I honestly hadn’t noticed a single thing at the time that was different. Maybe I wasn’t looking closely enough. Or listening hard enough.”
Or maybe the cops were the ones not looking and listening.
I still wanted to strangle the police for their lousy investigation. Difficult to imagine a more ineffective one. Even more difficult to imagine me working jointly with Donovan on anything. Our approaches couldn’t have been less similar, our temperaments weren’t exactly complementary and, God, just being around him made me jumpy.
But on this very first step…well, pairing up with him might not only be helpful, it might also be necessary.
“So, our brothers were involved with something that—at least initially—they both thought would be really fun,” I said. “And what they were doing was premeditated. Weeks in the making. Lots of planning. Something that may have had its origins in Crescent Cove.”
I flipped back to the first Crescent Cove mention on April 19, 1976 and Gideon’s note in the upper right-hand corner of that page, dated Monday, May 29, 1978.
Start here. G.
“Sure as hell seems that way,” Donovan muttered.
We both managed to finish about half of our meals, though mostly in silence after that. At one point he pushed the small plate with the lingonberry cake toward me and said, “I got this for you. Eat some of it.”
And, because it was easier than talking, I took a few bites. It was sweet and moist, but it tasted like paste in my mouth.
As we walked back to the parking garage afterward (he slowed his pace enough for me to keep up this time), I studied the planes of his face, his shoulders and his chest. He looked every bit of his five years older than me. Every ounce of him was masculine, Army tough and uncompromising. I knew, even if I put up a fuss, I was going to lose the battle of who’d get to drive.
The Road to You Page 3
