Pressing my hands to my hot face, I struggle not to sob. I won’t let him make me cry again.
I gather up the other self-portraits I’ve printed, some enhanced with ink and watercolors, and hide them in a folder under my mattress.
The front door slams shut. I hurry to my father’s room just in time to see his car heading down Dearborne Street, red taillights glowing in the dusk.
We’ve never not said goodbye.
Turning, I cross the hall and go into Darius’s room.
The air is alive. He was here recently, maybe even earlier today. Though he’s taken more of his belongings to Volkov Bay, his camera bag is still in its usual spot on the chair, papers are stacked on the desk, and a quick glance at the closet reveals several shirts and suits.
I search the bookshelf and find a dog-eared, spiral-bound atlas containing road maps of West Coast states. I’d scrutinized the atlas endlessly when I was younger, looking for all the cities where Darius had made his mark.
I flip to the section focusing on California. After locating Grenville on the map, I chart the route leading to the jagged, isolated half-circle of Volkov Bay. Even in the dark and the rain, it would be a relatively straight path following the ocean until the highway diverges into the whorls and curlicues of the coast.
But there are dozens of inlets and roads twisting around the ocean and farther inland. I could drive around endlessly looking for the house. I have no memory of any landmarks and no idea what the address is.
I scour the room for something, anything—a receipt or a repair order with his name and the address. I riffle through the papers on the desk and look inside the drawers. There’s a worn notebook on the nightstand with several pages torn out, but all the other pages are blank.
Tears threaten again, along with a burst of anger toward Darius for thinking that locking himself away will solve anything.
There are a bunch of crumpled papers in the trash. I take them out and spread them open. Some are printed pages of what appears to be the start of his book—I am Darius Hawke.
Resisting the urge to read them carefully, I scramble through the trash, unpeeling crushed sticky notes and torn pages from the notebook. On one ripped paper near the bottom, scrawled in almost illegible black ink, are the words Heritage/L. Valley.
Heritage means nothing to me, but L. Valley sparks a memory of driving through Lost Valley on the way to the beach house.
There had been a gnarled cypress tree arching from a rocky cliff. My mother had called it the Wicked Witch Tree and said it was populated with gnomes and elves. The Wicked Witch Tree in Lost Valley.
I open the atlas and look it up. There is an actual area called Lost Valley, and there’s also a Lost Valley Road that intersects at one point far north with…Heritage. The intersection is too far from the coast for it to be the beach house address, but right now it’s all I have.
Grabbing the atlas, I go downstairs and pull on my sweatshirt. I take the car keys from the rack in the foyer and leave the house.
CHAPTER 29
Nell
I drive for what feels like hours. The rain turns into a heavy storm that obliterates my view from the front windshield.
Water pools and splashes over the road. Headlights flash past me on the other side of the highway, but the traffic dwindles as I move farther up the coast. Darkness closes in on all sides. I pull over several times, using a flashlight from the glove compartment to peer at the atlas.
Close to midnight, I finally locate a small sign pointing the way to Lost Valley. Swerving off the two-lane highway, I follow the sign onto an uneven, muddy road.
This isn’t right. I can’t see a damned thing past the rain and the dark, but it doesn’t feel anything like the route to the beach house or Volkov Bay.
I grip the wheel tighter and fight a wave of fear. I haven’t passed a gas station or even any sign of civilization for miles. My gas tank is running low. I slow the car and try to read the passing street signs on the crossroads.
After another fifteen minutes, a horizontal row of lights appears through the wet gloom. I can’t tell what it is, but lighted windows usually mean people.
As I get closer, a flash of lightning illuminates a dilapidated old warehouse. Dozens of cars and trucks are parked haphazardly over a weed-filled lot.
Even from the safety of my car, I feel the sinister aura pulsing in the air.
Heritage and Lost Valley. Though every single instinct I possess is telling me to turn around and drive away, I’m almost out of gas and likely to end up stranded on the side of the road.
I park on the street and get out of the car. I’m drenched in seconds. Pulling up the sweatshirt hood, I slog my way through the mud-filled lot to the warehouse.
A single lightbulb illuminates a side door and a black vehicle that looks like the same make and model as Darius’s SUV. As I get closer, I see the Monarch High School parking permit sticker attached to the right corner of the windshield.
The sinister atmosphere grows stronger, almost smoky. I don’t like anything about this.
Rough shouts and commotion vibrate from the warehouse. Pushing open the back door, I peer into an empty darkened corridor.
The noise increases, flowing from another room. My heart hammers. I feel like a character in a horror movie who keeps going forward despite certain doom.
The odors of cigarette smoke and alcohol flood my nose. Heat pushes against the air, heavy and menacing. I creep toward the door at the end of the corridor, already dreading whatever lies on the other side.
Men crowd the open space of the warehouse floor, six or seven deep, their hoarse yells rising like a flock of bats. They clog the metal stairways to the upper walkways and are packed in a circle around a focal point I can’t see. Cigarettes dangle from their lips, and they’re all clutching beer bottles or plastic cups filled with liquor.
Get out of here.
Danger, edged with outright violence, emanates from every single man.
I start backing away.
A collective yell rises suddenly, bottles lifting in reaction to something in the center of the vast room. A chant starts, a single syllable puncturing the air like a bullet. It pushes through my head before taking a recognizable shape.
“Hawke! Hawke! Hawke!”
My heart plummets.
Jesus Christ. What’s going on?
“Fuck ’im up!” shouts a long-haired, bearded man leaning over the railing.
Another roar, bloodthirsty and harsh.
I force myself to creep through the door. I make my way around the edge of the space, struggling to breathe in the thick, smoky air. He’s somewhere in this mess, and I don’t know how to get to him. The men’s bodies are a sweaty, constantly shifting wall.
I pull my sweatshirt hood down farther, ensuring my wet hair is fully tucked underneath it. Unfortunately, no one will mistake me for a boy, but maybe if I keep my head down and try to be unobtrusive…
Steeling my spine, I ease my way through the crowd. The sour stench of body odor hits my nose. I slip past a dozen men—huge, tattooed bikers, skinny boys wearing gold chains, older men with worn ball caps.
“Whoa, what the hell are you doing here?” A meaty hand closes around my arm.
I almost choke on a breath and try to pull away. His grip tightens.
“Let me go.”
“I said what the hell are you doing here?” He jerks my arm, forcing me to look at him. He’s a middle-aged guy with a jowly face and pockmarked skin, his eyes glassy from either alcohol or whatever mob mentality has gripped the crowd.