Page 203 of Finding Us

“But I need to eat something before we go.” He sets his coffee down and takes some cereal from the cupboard. “You want some?”

“Sure.” I grab the bowls and spoons while Garret gets the milk.

We pour our cereal and take it over to the couch. Garret turns on the TV. A morning news show is on and the woman at the news desk is talking.

“…at the upcoming debate. Now that Kent Gleason has secured the nomination he’s putting all his focus on preparing for the debates in the hopes that he can boost his poll numbers in some of the swing states. Gleason’s poll numbers overall have gone up significantly since he resuscitated a six-year-old boy on a beach in La Jolla last Friday.”

A video shows Kent Gleason running up to a little boy lying on the sand with his mother next to him, crying out for help.

They cut to the mother being interviewed on the beach. “My son was swimming and the current just took him away. When I got him out of the water, he wasn’t breathing.”

“Garret, does she look familiar to you?”

He’s eating his cereal, not really watching. “Who?”

“That lady. Look.”

He glances at the TV. “I don’t know her. Why? Should I?”

The mother is still talking. “Thank God Mr. Gleason came along when he did. He saved my son.”

The camera pans out to the beach and shows the kid again, this time on a stretcher with Gleason and the paramedics around him. I spot an oddly shaped, large rock off in the distance behind them.

They cut to the newswoman again. “The boy was taken to a nearby hospital and is expected to make a full recovery. In other news…”

I take the remote and turn the volume down.

“That was weird,” I say to Garret.

“What was weird?”

“I know I’ve seen that woman before.”

“The mom of that kid?”

“Yes. I know I’ve seen her somewhere.” I take a moment to think. “I saw her last summer at Kiefer’s party. I think she was one of the servers. I remember because she kept offering me shrimp even though I kept telling her I didn’t like shrimp.”

“Huh. Well, that’s too bad about her son. I hope he’s okay.”

“And that beach they were at. Didn’t that look familiar to you?”

Garret sets his cereal bowl down on the table. “No. Why? Are you trying to tell me something here?”

I set my bowl next to his. “We’ve been on that beach, Garret.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That was Harper’s beach. It was the private beach behind her house.”

“Jade, it wasn’t the same beach. They said it was in La Jolla, not Malibu.”

I jump up and get my phone and bring it back to the couch. I swipe through my photos until I find the ones I took of the beach behind Harper’s house. “Look at this.” I show it to Garret. “The slope of the sand, the red buoy in the water. It’s the exact same as what they just showed. That kid was lying right here.” I point to the spot on the photo.

“It’s similar, but it’s not the same beach. They have those red buoys all over the place.”

I swipe to a different photo. “See that rock? It’s the same one that was behind the kid when he was on the stretcher. When we were eating lunch with Harper’s family out on the patio, I told you how I thought that rock looked like a mini volcano.”

“Yeah, I remember you saying that, but I didn’t see the rock in the video they just showed.”

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