The Road to You

by Brant, Marilyn

  There was a white-haired librarian with a warm smile, and she seemed like a good prospect to me, but she was busy helping a group of four teenage girls find something. I heard one of the girls ask, “And can we get Donny Osmond’s address, too?”

  It was going to be a long wait.

  There was a somewhat younger staff woman, but she had an angry crease between her brows and wore a grim expression on her lips. She was filing cards in the card catalog and gave off the distinct vibe that she didn’t want to be disturbed.

  Finally, there was a third librarian—the youngest of them all and a guy—who was filling out forms at the reference desk. He looked to be just out of college, so about Donovan’s age. He had sandy-colored hair, circular wire-rimmed glasses that made him look studious, but also a playful grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Cute. I made a beeline for him.

  “Hi,” I said, slightly breathless from my hike across the library. “I was hoping you could help me locate some articles.”

  He looked up at me. “I’d be happy to.” He smiled, showing off his dimples. Wow. Really cute.

  I smiled back just as brightly. I couldn’t help it.

  Then I felt Donovan’s shadow over my shoulder and realized he’d finally caught up. I didn’t need to look behind me to know that Donovan must have been scowling. The librarian’s smiled dimmed a few watts.

  “Uh, what’s your topic?” Cute Librarian Guy asked.

  “Oh, right.” I took a quick glance at my notes. “We were looking into local trucking companies. The kind of routes they take. The kind of cargo they carry. The ones with the best safety records in the area.”

  He nodded. “Sure. I think I can get you started. Do you know the names of any of the companies?”

  “Americana Trucking,” Donovan piped up. “That’s the first one on the list. Alphabetical, you know.”

  Cute Librarian Guy eyed him with curiosity. “Great. So, you’re both working on this? Together?”

  “Yes,” I said cheerfully. “But it’s really my brother’s project.” I hooked my thumb in Donovan’s direction but kept beaming my warmest, most flirtatious smile at the librarian. I leaned in a little closer and lowered my voice. “He needs the help,” I added, just like a snotty younger sister might.

  This earned me a chuckle from Cute Librarian Guy and another flash of his dimples. He stood up and turned his back on us so he could grab one of the periodical indexes.

  As soon as he did, Donovan jabbed me with his finger in between my shoulder blades. “Better be nicer to me, Sis,” he hissed in my ear.

  I snickered. “Just as soon as you do the same, Bro.”

  With the help of the librarian, we soon had a stack of material to sort through. It took us over three hours of digging and reading archived microfilm, but Donovan and I finally unearthed something worth saving.

  In following the trail of Americana Trucking, we learned from an old Joplin newspaper clipping that one of the guys on Treak’s list—Timothy Wick—had been an executive with the Missouri-based company. That was, up until two years ago when he was arrested for the “unauthorized shipping of explosive material” that resulted in “an unfortunate accident in Amarillo, Texas.”

  “Oh, God, Donovan. Look at the date.”

  “August 5, 1976,” he read. “Was that…uh, when…?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s when, according to the decoded dates in the journal, Gideon and Jeremy were in Amarillo.”

  “Shit.”

  We looked up another newspaper article, this time from a Texas paper. There weren’t many more details, but we did glean a few new hints from the report:

  On the outskirts of Amarillo, late Thursday, August 5th, tragedy struck as an Americana Trucking semi headed for Albuquerque caught fire and, due to the explosive nature of the cargo, was destroyed before the fire department could be called for help. The truck driver was missing from the scene, but the manager responsible for the shipment, Timothy Wick of Joplin, Missouri, is being held for questioning.

  Donovan and I exchanged nervous glances.

  “This isn’t good,” he murmured.

  Then there was one final article, posted about a month later, with a follow-up to the story. It recapped what had been written before, adding that Wick had been jailed for illegally ordering the transport of boxes with explosives.

  But that wasn’t all.

  The name of the driver was still being held in confidence by the police, pending further investigation, as there had been evidence of foul play. And the big mystery investigators had been working on was where the explosive material had been manufactured. It was rumored there were ties to Chicago mob activity, but the police didn’t know for sure where the bombs had originated…

  “Although we know,” I whispered. “And so did Treak, Ben, Jeremy and Gideon.”

  Donovan crossed his arms. “Probably why Ben and Treak are now dead. And who knows what happened to our brothers as a result?”

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  Then, as if trying to win the Understatement of the Year Award, he added, “Aurora, if we keep driving west, we’ve got to be very careful.”

  Tulsa, Oklahoma ~ Thursday, June 22

  WE’D BEEN in Tulsa for twenty-two hours…and arguing for a full fifteen of them. (But that was only because we’d slept for seven and neither of us talked in our sleep.) I’d managed to convince Donovan to enter the state of Oklahoma, but to say we did not see eye to eye on our next step since we’d gotten here would be an accurate deduction.

  An even more accurate deduction would be to say that, less than a week into our trip, we wanted to have a lightsaber fight to the death like a Jedi Knight battling one of the Dark Lords of the Empire.

  “What part of ‘Chicago mob activity’ makes you think poking your nose any further into this would be a good idea?” Donovan demanded, his voice rising. “Especially without police protection. Seriously, Aurora, you’ve reached the point of crazy with this road trip.”

  “You know we have to go to Amarillo. Not only did Gideon send Amy Lynn a postcard from there—just a few weeks ago—but that’s where the Americana truck exploded. It happened when our brothers were there! God, Donovan, we’ve almost cracked this mystery. We’re this close to finding Gideon and Jeremy. We can’t stop now.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, we can.” He crossed his arms. “And you’re wrong, you know that? We are not close to finding our brothers. They would have shown up if they’d wanted to be found. And we are not close cracking this mystery either. Not by a long shot.”

  He started pacing around the room. “With everything we find a partial answer to, there are fifty more questions that come up. Maybe Hal was our waitress’s boyfriend and he was a trucker for Americana, bringing explosives from Crescent Cove to Albuquerque via Texas. But why? And how did the Chicago mob get involved? And what happened to Hal? And what exactly did our brothers witness? It couldn’t have been an accident that they were in Amarillo at the very same time this happened, could it?”

  He shook his head and gave his sideburns an agitated rub. “Listen to me. This is not some little hick-town scheme gone wrong. This is major stuff. Maybe with a crime boss, just like in ‘The Sting.’ Just like real life, your brother wrote. Remember?”

  “I remember. And there was a dirty cop in Gideon’s movie reference, too, if you’re going to go that way with it. Police can’t be trusted,” I shot back. I shoved the journal at Donovan. “Look at this. We’ve got so much more information now, even if new questions have arisen.”

  He snorted. “You always say—”

  “Gideon wrote on July 27, 1976, ‘Tulsa with J.’ And below that he wrote, ‘Andy Reggio is OK, OK.’ And finally he wrote, ‘Bikes at 100N.’ These are valid leads! Names I can look up. Places and things I can find.” I was already pulling out the motel phonebook to search for this new name when Donovan all but ripped it out of my hands. He flipped to the R’s himself, his jaw clenched as he studied the page.

  �
�Reggio, huh?” he said. “Well, see for yourself. There is no Reggio listed in the Tulsa phonebook. Not an Andy or an Andrew. Not anyone with that last name. It’s just another puzzle. Another stupid clue in code. The next part of some new game your manipulative brother, or whoever’s impersonating him, is playing. And I’ve had enough.” He waited until I’d looked at the phonebook page myself. He was right. There was no one by that name listed.

  “Maybe it’s unlisted—” I began.

  But Donovan wasn’t going to indulge me with any more conjecturing.

  “People have died already. Other people are missing,” he said. “Most, if not all, of them were doing illegal things. It’s not our job to bring them to justice. We need to get back home and get on with our lives and our own jobs. If any more answers are out there—”

  “If? Donovan, of course there are more—”

  “Then the police can be the ones to find them,” he said. “We’ve got something legitimate that we can give them now. A solid starting point. There’s a storage facility with pipe bombs near Crescent Cove. There’s probably a trucking connection with this Hal guy. Maybe that’s how boxes of explosives were brought to Amarillo. These details ought to give some weight to our claims. And once they’ve cleared up that whole bomb mess, then maybe Jeremy and Gideon’s story will naturally emerge. If they’re dead—” He paused to gulp a few lungfuls of air and fight for his usual sense of control. “Then...then, I guess, they’re dead. But, if not, they could safely come out of hiding then.”

  I chose to ignore Donovan’s attempt at a dispassionate speech. Why the hell did I still have to struggle to get his help despite all of the evidence I’d gathered?

  I gritted my teeth in frustration and returned my focus to the phonebook and the name while Donovan blathered on. Why wasn’t Andy Reggio in there? I glanced again at the journal:

  It was written under Tulsa but what if my brother meant that Andy wasn’t only “okay,” as in a person we could trust, but also that he was in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma…which would be the next big stop on Route 66? Maybe the front desk at our motel had an Oklahoma City phonebook. Or maybe we could contact the telephone operator there…but, if not, we were going to have to drive there so I could look this up in person. And, always, talking to people face to face was a better move.

  Donovan may have set a limit on the amount of ambiguous information he could hold in his head, but I hadn’t. I had to know the answers to these questions, even if they led to a thousand other ones. I had to go to Oklahoma City and Amarillo and maybe even Albuquerque. Following the trail that Gideon laid out for us had stopped being optional for me days ago.

  “…so we’ll leave tomorrow morning and we should be back home by Saturday night. Monday, after we’re both done with work, we can go into the police station, okay?” he said.

  “What? No! That’s not okay.”

  “Fine. We can see if anyone’s around on Sunday and, maybe, we’ll—”

  “I’m not going back with you, Donovan.” I crossed my arms and held my ground as I watched the anger color his face. “If you want to drive home, you can do it. There are buses that go to Oklahoma City and Amarillo, and I can take one of them.”

  “For God’s sake, Aurora! I promised your dad I’d keep you safe. There is no damn way you’re staying down here without me.”

  “I’ll tell him I insisted.” I paused. “That I forced you to go. Or that I ran away from you. Whatever it takes.” I glanced at the door. It wouldn’t be too hard to do that for real. To sneak away in the middle of the night. Scary as hell, sure, but not complicated.

  Donovan saw where I was looking and shook his head. “I won’t let you,” he said hoarsely. The look he gave me was almost as desperate and resolute as the way I felt.

  A combination of emotions welled up deep in my chest. I fought it, or tried, but my heart and lungs were constricting. Breathing became harder and I felt those tears of aggravation—tears I didn’t want to show anyone, to Donovan least of all—gathering behind my eyes, making it too difficult to see him in front of me.

  “C’mon,” I managed to whisper. “You know I’ve been lying to my parents about where we’ve been for the past six days. But what you don’t get is that I’ve really been lying to them for years. Not just about this, not just about the search for our brothers, but about everything.”

  Donovan, of course, didn’t really understand what I meant. He was focused on the trip, on his promise to my dad, on our safety.

  “They’re just lost in their own pain,” he said, trying hard—I could tell—to be empathetic. “I haven’t been able to tell my mom everything either. But whatever worry she’s able to spare, she’s spent it on me anyway. I know your mom and dad have to feel the same way, and I know you don’t want to hurt them by worrying them even more.”

  “Of course I don’t but, Donovan, don’t you need to know where Jeremy is and what happened to him? Don’t you have to find the answer?”

  “Not if it’ll hurt someone else too much. I mean, yes, I’m haunted by his disappearance and by whatever the cause of it was, but we know so much more now than we did. After watching that film at Amy Lynn’s that he and your brother made—” He paused and I saw him battle with his own emotions and memories. “I…I felt better, you know? Their intentions weren’t bad. It was just that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had their reasons for what they did.”

  I massaged my forehead with my fingertips. Caught up as he was in preserving his positive mental image of our brothers, he truly wasn’t getting any of this. At least not from my perspective.

  “And that knowledge is enough for you?” I asked. “That feeling of everything being fine because you don’t think Gideon and Jeremy set out to kill anyone or bomb any buildings? You can just stop looking now?”

  “If Jeremy were still alive he would’ve contacted me,” Donovan replied with complete and utter certainty. “So, yes, I found out what I needed to know.”

  I studied his face, realizing how different he and I were in this way. “But it’s not all I need to know. And even if we weren’t talking about a life and death situation involving people we love…even if we weren’t talking about our brothers at all, it still wouldn’t be enough for me.” I bit down on my bottom lip to keep it from quivering. “I can’t keep pretending that my problems are so straightforward, Donovan. Don’t you see? No one understands me. My parents least of all.”

  He shrugged. “Everyone thinks that about their parents when they’re growing up.” He said it gently, softly, not trying to be condescending, but, nevertheless, unable to be anything else.

  But I knew I didn’t have typical teenager issues, like the kind most parents wrote to Ann Landers to ask about. My daughter watches too much TV, Ann. What should I do to encourage her to read books instead? The advice columns were filled with inconsequential crap like that.

  No. As frustrated as I was with Donovan’s overprotectiveness combined with his inability to grasp what I was saying, the problem wasn’t just that he didn’t see the connections I’d been constantly making…or comprehend the sheer need I had to figure out the clues hidden in Gideon’s journal. The problem was my overwhelming helplessness in facing my true self.

  I didn’t know how to stop myself from understanding too much. From perceiving too many signals. From being so aware that it hurt.

  My life was a constant source of painful realizations. I craved an ignorance-is-bliss existence. I was envious of Betsy’s sweet simplemindedness and Donovan’s ability to turn perplexing problems over to others. I wished I could be as easily satisfied and as habitually transparent.

  But, in my reality, I knew that wasn’t anywhere close to the truth. That it might never be. For that to happen, I’d have to trust in another person more than I’d ever been capable of doing. Believe their perceptions were stronger or at least equal to mine.

  And how could I explain to somebody that what gave me my identity was the very thing that kept me from
sharing myself with anyone else?

  I couldn’t stop the tears from coming, hard as I tried to hold them back. Even worse, I couldn’t seem to just cry softly, silently. No, I was sobbing. Loud, gasping moans and snivels.

  Donovan looked at me in panic. I could tell he hadn’t expected this. That he wanted to comfort me but didn’t know how. To be honest, I didn’t know how either.

  “Hey, it’s okay.” He gingerly placed his palm on my arm, like a toddler might approach the petting of an unpredictable puppy—one that might nip his hand at any second.

  But it wasn’t okay. Really, how could it ever be okay?

  “S-Sorry,” I whispered between sobs, blindly reaching for the edge of the bed so I could sink onto it and hide my face from his searching expression.

  I was aware of him moving around the room but, before I could figure out what he was doing, he was back in front me. He held a box of tissues that he’d found somewhere and pulled a couple of them out for me. I cried even harder into them.

  He sat down next to me and, again, touched my arm with that awkward petting motion. “Aurora, it’s going to be all right. I—I didn’t think you’d get this upset.”

  I knew he didn’t have a clue what had actually set me off, just that he somehow realized there was a much deeper issue at stake. Score one for his insightfulness.

  “Look, if it means that much to you, I guess we can go to Oklahoma City for a day. It won’t take that much time…” He paused. “Would that help? I’m not trying to be unreasonable or to make you mad. It’s just that I think we’re walking into really dangerous territory here and we should go back soon.”

  “I know you do,” I murmured, wiping some of the biggest splotches of wetness away from my cheeks and blowing my nose.