“They could have been pulling our legs, too,” Chubs said. “That’s what irritates me the most. If East River is so great, why were they leaving?”
“They were going home; remember, the Slip Kid—”
While they were arguing, I slipped the map out from under Liam’s hands and squinted at it, trying to make sense of the lines. He had given me a very vague rundown of how to route a path from point A to point B, but it was still overwhelming.
“What are you guys thinking?” I asked. “What theory were you working with?”
“We ran across the kids right around the Ohio state line,” Liam said. “They were coming from the east, headed west. If you add that to the other bit about D.C. and Raleigh, the likely candidates become West Virginia, Virginia, or Maryland. Zu said Edo is another name for Tokyo, but it seems a little far-fetched he’d be there.”
“And I think it’s a code,” Chubs said. “A cipher of some kind.” He sat up a little straighter, turning to face me fully. The way the smile spread over his face made me think of a nature documentary we watched once in school, about the way crocodiles flash their teeth as they skim through the water toward their prey. “Speaking of codes, didn’t you say the League broke you out because you were a world-class code breaker?”
Crap.
“I didn’t say world-class . . .”
“Oh yeah!” Liam’s face lit with the most heartbreaking expression of excitement. “Can you take a stab at it?”
Double crap.
“I—er, I guess,” I said, careful to keep my face neutral. “Zu, can I see the notebook again?”
They were all staring at me; they might as well have been sitting on my chest for how paralyzing it was. It was near freezing in the van without the heat on, but my body felt heavy with hot, sticky panic. I was holding on to that notebook like it was a prayer from heaven.
I knew there were kids out there who could plug in a few dozen letters into their brain and spew out complex coordinates or immediately spot a riddle hidden in a puzzle, but I definitely was not one of them.
Chubs snorted. “Looks like the League picked a lemon.”
“Hey,” Liam said, his tone sharp. “We’ve been mulling over the damn thing for two weeks and have figured out exactly nothing. You can’t even give her an hour to think about it?”
Could I sub out the letters EDO for numbers? 5-4-15? God, what other kinds of codes were there? A railroad code? No—that wasn’t right. Or was it not a code? That would make a hell of lot more sense, actually. The riddle had to be something that kids both in and out of camps could figure out, and it couldn’t be too difficult, otherwise no one would ever get it.
Lie, I thought, reaching up to smooth a stray piece of hair back from my face. Just lie. Just do it. Just say something! What did three-digit numbers usually represent? A price, a time, an area code—
“Oh!” If I was right, Oh God was more like it.
“Oh?” Liam repeated. “Oh what?”
“I’d forgotten—well . . .” I corrected myself. “I could be remembering it wrong, so don’t get too excited, but I think it’s a Virginia area code.”
“There’s no area code that’s four digits,” Chubs said. “Five-four-fifteen doesn’t work.”
“But five-four-zero does,” I said. “People sub out O for zero when they talk sometimes, right?”
Liam scratched the back of his head and looked over at Chubs. “Five forty? Does that sound familiar to you?”
I turned toward Chubs, suddenly seeing him in a new light. “You’re from Virginia?”
He crossed his arms and looked out his window. “I’m from Northern Virginia.”
Well, that figured. “Five forty is western Virginia,” I explained to Liam. “I’m not sure how far north and south it extends, but it should be right around this area, I think.” I showed him on the map. I didn’t just think, I knew. 540 had been my area code when I lived with my parents in Salem. “There are a number of cities and towns, but there’s also a lot of undeveloped land—not a bad place to hide out.”
“Is that a fact?” Liam kept his eyes on the road and his voice even, but there was something maybe a little bit too casual about it. “Did you grow up near there?”
I looked down at the notebook in my hands again, feeling something clench in my chest. “No, I didn’t.”
“Virginia Beach, then?”
I shook my head. “Not any place you’ve been or heard of.”
I heard Chubs’s tongue cluck as he opened his mouth to say something, but there was a sharp cough from the driver’s seat. The topic had been dropped, and no one was willing to try picking it up again, least of all me.
“Well, it’s as good of a lead as any, though I wish the area was a little smaller.” He glanced my way. “Thanks, Ruby Tuesday.”
A not unpleasant warmth rushed up from my center. “Don’t mention it.” And if I’m wrong . . . I let the thought trail off. It was a good lead.
With one last glance down the alley to make sure it was clear, Liam refolded the map and tossed it back into the open glove box. Betty came back to life with a low growl.
“Where are we going?” Chubs asked.
“It’s a place I know.” Liam gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Someplace I stayed before. The drive shouldn’t take us that long—maybe two hours. If I get lost, though, one of you Virginians is going to have to step up to the plate and help me out.”
It had been a very long time since someone had labeled me like that—as a person with a home. It was true, I had been born here, but Thurmond had been my home for nearly as long as it hadn’t. Gray walls and concrete floors had bleached out almost every memory of my parents’ house, stripping away first the small details—the smell of my mom’s honey-soaked biscuits, the order of the pictures lining the staircase wall—before going on to devour the bigger ones, too.
I used to wonder—at night when it was quiet enough in the cabin to think, when I let myself get to the point of wishing for home—if the home in my heart was supposed to be the place where’d I’d been born, or if it was the place that was raising me. If I got to choose it, or if it had somehow already claimed me.
The truth was, when I looked at my reflection in the window, I couldn’t see any bit of the Ruby that had lived in a little white house at the end of a lane, honey sticking to her fingers and hair falling from her braids. And it made me feel empty in a way—like I had forgotten the words to my favorite song. That girl was gone forever, and all that was left was a product of the place that had taught her to fear the bright things inside of her heart.
We passed exit after exit to Harrisonburg and the turnoffs for James Madison University. Driving down a major highway with nothing more than a prayer that no one would pull us over wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time, but, for now, the risk seemed worth it—at least for the view.
I loved the Shenandoah Valley, every inch of its gorgeous spread. When I was little, my parents used to pull me out of school early for a long weekend of hiking or camping. I never brought books or video games for the drive—I didn’t need them. I would just stare out the window and drink it all in.