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  “Are you kidding?” Pike said. “I love having people butt in.”

  “The projected Chico episode, will that involve your parents as well?”

  Pike could see where she was going, he’d blurted out the stuff about his dad and then left it hanging.

  “My dad was making it with Mrs. Milburn,” he said.

  “I suspected that was a possibility,” she said.

  “So is it all related? I guess, though who knows what the story is with my dad. Something he said not too long ago, which I should have paid attention to, that there’s not a whole lot to do in this hick town. ”

  “And your fear, is it that should you succeed in re-routing the Milburns away from Beacon, your dad may still wander.”

  “That’s one of the many,” Pike said.

  Chapter 11

  Wait a second. Hold on here. Pike was halfway down the stairs coming out the front of the library. But what was he thinking?

  There’s no way Audrey rode back with him from Manhattan Beach any more, and then presented him with the binder paper information obviously, because he’d botched the whole thing up, and they never were an item.

  Did that piece of paper even exist now? He’d stuck it in his desk drawer at home, and hadn’t opened the drawer in a while, and definitely not since he got home from his travels yesterday.

  Heck, did that possibly mean I drove Hailey down there and she gave me all the same information?

  He was extremely curious to find out what the story was, and whose handwriting was on the paper. If there was one.

  But regardless of the confusion . . . the important thing to zero in on was that he had Mr. and Mrs. Milburn’s address from before they moved back to Beacon. If he remembered his conversation with Aubrey in the car (from previous reality when they did drive home from Mitch’s together) her parents would have been in their early 20’s when they lived in Chico.

  Just a few years out of graduating from Hamilton, actually . . . So not much older than he was, which added another layer of weirdness to the set-up.

  Pike got home around 3:30. His mom and brother and sister were in the kitchen decorating some kind of cake and they asked him if he wanted to help, which they knew would never happen, and Pike went upstairs and closed his door.

  This was a good time to call Dani, it would be 4:30 out there Idaho, and he had some privacy.

  But first . . . He opened that desk drawer, and there it was, though this time not a sheet of binder paper but an unlined piece of copy paper, folded in half. There were bits and pieces of information filled in, not nearly as much as Audrey’s had contained, and there were several question marks scattered throughout.

  Pike had no idea what Hailey’s handwriting looked like, but it was hard not to suspect this was it.

  Leaving that thought and the ramifications alone for the time being . . . he called Dani.

  “Hey again,” she said. “I kind of wish you were out here, frankly.”

  “Now why’s that?” Pike said.

  “I don’t know, just a shoulder to vent on . . . so to speak . . . who might be the one person who completely understands me.”

  “I miss you in that way too,” he said, “I won’t deny it . . . But how can you say I completely understand you, when another dude bites the dust.”

  “Do you have to put it that way?”

  “I looked it up, the basics . . . This guy Chuck, he had a heart attack, or drowned, or what?”

  “I think so.”

  “You think so? It said you tried to CPR him.”

  “That’s true . . . Between you and me, I hoped it wouldn’t work.”

  “Unreal,” Pike said, though he had to admit--and he couldn’t relate it to a specific situation of his own--but he could maybe understand her attitude.

  If the guy was positively evil, or something.

  Okay well perhaps he could relate to it. Mr. Foxe, for example . . . if he were in need of medical attention after he’d just mowed down Mrs. Milburn and Pike happened to be on hand? Yeah, Pike would give it to him but he’d also hope it didn’t work. So there you go.

  Pike assumed that was human nature, and if it wasn’t--too bad. That’s how he saw it.

  Anyhow . . . “So either way,” he said, “you’re okay with the police and stuff? . . . Or you’re not.”

  “I feel I’m not . One significant mistake I made, in retrospect, was leaving Palm Springs early.”

  “Even though they told you to stick around,” Pike said.

  “Yes. How’d you know?”

  “A wild guess . . . It never looks good, at least on TV in those situations, when the perp kind of slaps the authorities in the face.”

  “Perp . . . gosh, you’re pretty funny. And way off.”

  “What happens then, they take it personal. Then they work way harder on it, because they don’t want you to get away with it.”

  “I see. Not get away with the embarrassing-them part.”

  “Yeah, forget about whether someone actually killed the guy or not. They don’t like you treating them rude.”

  Dani laughed, though she reined it in pretty quick. She said, “You seem quite worked up today, I must say. Is everything normal on your end?”

  “You’re right, and you read me pretty well . . . No, if you want to know the truth. There are about 25 things wrong, and those are just the bigger ones.”

  “Ooh. Anything I can do, at all?”

  “Thanks for asking, but you’ve got your own mess. I can tell . . . So the bottom line is what?”

  Pike could hear Dani shuffling around, like she didn’t really want to get into it. She said, “Are you still 18? ‘Cause you seem somewhat wiser about the ways of the world than when I met you in person . . . How long ago was that, anyway?”

  Pike was jarred for just a second by the thought: On top of everything else that’s going on . . . Could I somehow be older?

  Fuck.

  He dismissed it. There was no way that’d be logical . . . Even though you could say that about most of the rest of it . . . But no.

  Maybe the whole experience these last few months had matured him a little bit. Or maybe it was just his current bad mood putting a no-nonsense spin on things, so he sounded smarter.

  If he couldn’t at least hold on to the simple fact of being 18, he was in major trouble.

  “That would have been October 22nd or 23rd,” Pike said. “The reason I remember, that was the weekend I flew, so it was a big deal . . . So today’s what . . . wow, we got December 1st. So what’s that make it, six weeks?”

  “Speaking of that,” she said, “football, have you confirmed any plans for next year.”

  “Nah. I haven’t been pushing it. The better schools, I’m pretty sure I’m not on their radar. Or if I’m on it, low down . . . The worse ones, the D-2 schools no one’s ever heard of, one or two of those may want me. Not sure I want to do anything about it though.”

  “Well don’t feel obligated, you need to be true to your heart,” she said. “That tennis player, Djokovic, he doesn’t like the game apparently.”

  “Wait a second,” Pike said, “he became number one in the world. So what if he doesn’t like it?”

  “Okay, I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

  “Nah, I get you . . . but you keep changing the subject on me. You’re in some trouble, how?”

  He could picture her taking a couple of deep breaths. “Well, it could be entirely harmless, but the two detectives who were involved when Marcus passed away, they’ve been talking to me again.”

  Pike was processing it. “You mean they got back involved because of the California thing? The Palm Springs cops hooked up with them?”

  “I’m not sure. It may have been as simple as the Chuck thing being on the news out here, since he’s local . . . Their issue now, these detectives, is that it’s quite a coincidence. That’s how one of them put it, and the other one added the word ‘indeed’.”

  “Ooh boy,” Pike said. “Y
ou have a lawyer, in case?’

  “I do. But what I’m worried about is the autopsy coming back . . . In case he might have struggled or something while he was drowning . . . Do you think that would show up?”

  “All right,” Pike said, feeling suddenly like he was in damage mode. “Don’t ask that kind of question to anyone else. Don’t google it. Nothing.”

  “I haven’t. And I won’t,” Dani said. “The other part that’s not great, that the detectives here seem interested in, is we had an argument, Chuck and I, and I slipped away and got another hotel. He stalked me and found me that night.”

  “Oh . . . The news article didn’t mention that part . . . So the cops are curious about the similarities. Bad guys bothering you, and both coming up empty.”

  “So to speak, yes.”

  Pike heard a car door close outside, his dad getting home from work.

  “Well now you’ve ruined my day worse,” he said to Dani.

  “Oh I forgot,” she said. “One more thing, on maybe a brighter note . . .”

  “Yep?”

  “Well it’s bittersweet, actually . . . Do you ever roam around online, hoping to find any clues to our . . . condition?”

  “No. I did the first couple days. That was enough. You get people weighing in with all kinds of unrelated stuff. You think it could be you for a split second, and then you realize they’re off the deep end.”

  “Well I have. On and off. In a roundabout way I ended up in a forum . . . Women whose husbands--or boyfriends, partners--have unusual physical characteristics that they hide.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Typically, they are--”

  “Don’t even tell me,” Pike said. “First of all, it sounds like one of those adult kink chat rooms.”

  “That’s not it at all,” Dani said.

  “And what are you doing in there? Don’t you have the physical thing you’re hiding, not any boyfriend?”

  “Very true. As I said, it was a circuitous route to find my way there. But I met someone. Don’t you want to hear about it?”

  “No,” Pike said.

  “Okay then . . . Before we get off though, tell me anything else new in your life. Did you have a nice Thanksgiving, and all?”

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Sorry for being so grouchy.”

  “Well very quickly . . . I met a woman named Erline. She’s from New York. Her husband was a police officer, speaking of which. Sadly he was struck down during some sort of shootout last summer. It was on the 4th of July, which shouldn’t have anything to do with it, but makes me even a little sadder.”

  “Me too,” Pike said.

  “At any rate, Erline is convinced he had a condition similar to ours, that he tried not to share with her.”

  “Convinced how?”

  “I believe the first time it became apparent was when they were Christmas shopping in the middle of New York City and a runaway taxi cab came barrelling toward them in the middle of a crosswalk.”

  Pike couldn’t help anticipating what might be coming next. And for whatever reason, vehicles were sure figuring into a lot of this stuff. Him lifting the front end at CVS to screw up the thief, the tossing of the road construction guy, the re-directing of the arguing driver in Santa Monica, the business where he ripped the steering wheel off the car outside the party, thinking it was Foxe’s though it wasn’t.

  “How far back did that happen, the taxi thing?” he said.

  “I believe it was the most recent Christmas, so I guess 2015? . . . He scooped her up and then more or less broad-jumped them both from around the center of the crosswalk to the curb.”

  Wow. “What else?” Pike said.

  “She said there were little indications here and there, but that he vehemently denied his ability whenever she’d attempt to bring it up . . . But then after he passed, his partner, on the force, he took Erline aside and told her about, you know, other superhuman things Don had done. That was his name . . . The partner said he didn’t want to freak her out, but he felt she should know.”

  So, okay, maybe another one surfaces. What could you do? And did it really matter?

  So far now you had someone in Florida, someone in Utah, the Texas dude who had the filling taken out, which then disappeared . . . Who else? . . . You had Reggie Riley’s brother, the soldier, who Pike couldn’t remember the first name of, was it Billy? And of course there was himself and Dani, and now quite possibly this Don.

  Pike said, “Did you ask her if he had any recent dental work?” He realized he was sounding like Mitch now.

  “Not yet,” Dani said.

  “Anyone else seem to connect with her in that forum? . . . Or just you.”

  “My sense is mostly me. Why?”

  “Because they’re all going to think she’s mentally ill. We don’t, necessarily, because we can relate.”

  “Well anyhow . . . I thought you’d be interested in that.”

  “Yeah, but you said it was on the brighter side. What does that mean?”

  “Only that I feel like I’m helping her . . . plus it helps me too, knowing they’re more of us out there.”

  Pike didn’t like visualizing this. “You told her about your condition too? . . . And about people like me?”

  “No, no. Please . . . I’m not stupid. I’ve simply told her I’m interested in the subject, and open-minded to it. She’s fine with that.”

  Pike thought of something else. “They have any kids there, this Don and Erline?”

  “They did not. Which I’m sensing she regrets . . . The one bright spot in that regard, they donated his organs.”

  Pike didn’t respond to that one.

  Dani said, “Are you okay? Are you following me?”

  “Yeah, I heard you,” he said.

  “Well at least I thought that was a bit of good news,” she said. “The main thing, this way she feels he’s still around. She thinks of the donations as a shining light.”

  “Unh-huh. Could be,” Pike said.

  “You seem preoccupied. I must be rambling on my end.”

  “No that’s fine . . . talk to you soon?”

  She said that sounded good, and they hung up.

  One more thing new now, which Pike needed to know about like a hole in the head. Even though it was back in New York, or wherever--what might happen to the next guy, after receiving the first guy’s organs and blood and whatever else?

  It was definitely something to run by Mitch.

  On a related subject, he was trying to remember, did he ever tell Dani about Mitch tracking down the silver from that mine, that went into Pike’s and the Texas guy’s--and maybe Dani’s-- filling?

  Of course, how would it help anything, really, to know that might be the case? Dani had more serious concerns now, it sure sounded like.

  Chapter 12

  It actually didn’t feel too bad to be back at school Friday, after he spent the three days serving out his suspension for pulling the letter H off of the elevated platform of the football field.

  There was a routine, a normal element to it, that in all honesty he’d never appreciated before, but sort of was now.

  Pike wouldn’t go so far as to call being back to school refreshing, but it was nice not having to make a million decisions.

  A few kids asked what he did over the three days, which was a joke. He told them he’d watched TV and went to the library once, and that was the truth.

  The only stressful part of being back was what to do about Hailey. She’d been texting him on Wednesday after he returned, and then it tapered off yesterday, mostly likely because he wasn’t answering her.

  They’d obviously kept up some kind of friendship, in the revised world these last two months. Pike wasn’t sure how he felt about that. She was a nice kid, they’d had a good time that Saturday when he had those hours to kill before the incident, and she was good to him when he stopped over at her babysitting gig after he thought he’d been successful in saving her mom.

  Today there’d
be situations when he’d run into her. He supposed he could talk to her, and by being a little cagey could find out straight-up what was going on.

  Or he could pretend he didn’t see her, and not deal with any of it, which seemed easier and a lot more reasonable, and the day passed smoothly, without any more texts and without any drama.

  When Pike was downtown yesterday at the library he spotted a new ice cream place. He wasn’t sure if the place only opened up in this new reality, or if it had been there for a while before, and he just hadn’t noticed it. But that wasn’t the point, today he felt like some, so stopped there on the way home from school.

  Of all people, there was Hannamaker inside at one of the little metal tables, by himself, polishing off some type of large sundae.

  Pike tightened up for a second and then remembered no, he had no issue with the guy at this point. He hadn’t muscled in on Audrey, and he hadn’t had to fight the guy at the water fountain and mess up his jaw.

  So he sat down with him. “Hey Gillette, sup.” Jack said.

  “This place been here long?” Pike said.

  “A couple weeks I think. All pretty good, but anything with white chocolate is money.”

  “That’s not even chocolate,” Pike said. “It’s fake vanilla. All marketing.”

  “So don’t then.” Hannamaker had an amused look. Pike thought he probably wasn’t a bad guy.

  “Lemme . . . run something by you, if you don’t mind,” Pike said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You know Hailey Milburn, right? Audrey’s sister?”

  “Duh, what do you think?”

  “Am I going out with her, would you say?”

  Hannamaker stopped feeding his face for a second and stared at Pike. “How should I know. You tell me.”

  This was an answer Pike didn’t expect. He said, “You mean, it’s not obvious, one way or the other?”

  “Man,” Jack, “I seen you playing tennis with her one time. Didn’t know that was your sport, by the way, I think I’d stick with football . . . What it is, past that, that’s your business.”

  “Oh,” Pike said. Jeez, so maybe they just hit tennis balls around. Not that he was much of a fan of the sport. But that would be good, if that was the extent of it.