Page 27 of After All The Wreckage
I returned to the table and my computer. My eyes felt blurry and tired, but I pushed on, logging into the Marlowe & Co.system with the password I’d thought was foolproof but had done nothing to keep Dad out of our system. That was my fault.
I took a moment I wasn’t sure I could afford to bring up the backdoor I’d set up into Dad’s computers and shut it down. Technically, we were both at fault for spying on each other. What kind of family did that? What kind of family had to resort to spying in order to get what they needed? I hesitated as I typed in the code, and decided to leave a little present he’d recognize as coming from me. A little Keith Mars epithet. Veronica’s dad had requested one time that they try to do something that normal dads and daughters did. Maybe this was the only thing my dad and I would ever have in common. A distrust of each other that had us digging in the dark for the truth.
After I’d left my gift, I clicked on the backdoor I’d placed in the Cherry Bay PD and brought up Monte’s file. Tweedledee had entered a report into the National Crime Information Center database, but that was it. No follow-up had been conducted yet with the school, his teachers, or his friends. Worse, no one seemed to have asked why a thirteen-year-old boy was “itching” to go to D.C. and meet a representative who wasn’t even from Virginia. Or if they had, they hadn’t written down the answer. No one had called the Capitol Police or Metro PD to make sure they were on the lookout.
I slammed the keys. The lack of follow through wasn’t necessarily incompetence given the family’s history. It wasn’t too far of a stretch to think that whatever caused Demi to drift in and out would have been inherited by one of her sons. I didn’t know Monte, and maybe he had inherited her wandering ways, but something told me that Gage was right. That Monte wouldn’t do this to the brother who’d given up everything to take care of him. At least, I hoped that was the person Monte had grown into.
I thought about what Gage had said. How Monte was tormented by the image of the congressman being shot. Whatkind of person could see that on repeat in their brain andnottry to warn the person? Real or not…I’d be tempted to do the same thing, wouldn’t I?
While I was in the station’s system, I pulled up Demi’s files. Holland Palmer had made his first report over twenty-three years ago. Gage must have been a toddler. Demi had shown up three months later. There were no other reports filed by Holland from all the times she’d gone missing when Gage was a kid, and I didn’t know what that said about Holland and Demi’s relationship. It was Gage who’d filed the next report, and that had been less than three years ago when she’d left Gage and Monte with their one-year-old sister and not come back. He’d had to file in order to gain custody of his siblings.
There was nothing in any of those files that would help me find Monte.
Had Gage been as scared the first time Demi had gone missing as he was now? He’d been so little that first time, maybe he didn’t even remember it. But he’d certainly remembered every time afterward. I’d heard the anger in his voice when he talked about it.
It had left wounds.
Wounds that would have spiraled and grown when he’d gotten the call about his dad.
Pain I understood all too well.
I’d been in a department store, splurging on Nan’s perfume for Christmas when Muloney had called. Seeing the Cherry Bay PD name scroll across the notification banner had made me instantly worry about my grandmother. I’d accepted the call as I’d stepped away from the counter. Muloney’s words had seemed like a nightmare. I’d stood there, frozen. Unable to move. Barely registering what he’d been telling me.
They’d airlifted Mom to a D.C. hospital, and when I’d gotten there, when I’d finally seen her, she’d been hooked to machinesthat were breathing for her. Much of her face had been covered in bandages. She’d already become some alternate version of my mother.
I’d had Nan and Shay at my side then, just like I had them now. Even Dad had shown up. He’d be there again if something horrible happened. His help might come with strings I’d hate, but he’d be there. Who did Gage have? River and Audrey were a pair of artists and part-time bartenders. They wouldn’t be able to help him navigate the system to find a missing kid.
I turned back to my computer. I’d be able to find out exactly when Monte had left the school on their cameras. I could figure out how he’d gotten to D.C. and follow the trail of video footage he’d left behind. Over an entire day had already gone by since Gage had last heard from Monte. That was a lifetime in missing kid cases.
I straightened, and my fingers found the comfort of the keys. Veronica Mars had taught me a truth. When tragedy tore through your life like a catastrophic storm, leaving nothing but destruction, you could deny the wreckage existed or you could stand up and find a way to rebuild.
I was trying to do just that. Gage had rebuilt repeatedly. But if he never saw his brother again… Somehow, I thought that might bury him beneath the rubble forever. I couldn’t let that happen. Iwouldn’tlet it happen.
I was going to find Monte.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gage
BORDERLINE
Performed by Ed Sheeran
I stared at the coffeepot,willing it to brew faster. I was going to need it to get me through the next few hours. Hell, the day.
I’d thought time and exhaustion might dull the agony I felt the longer I went without a word from Monte, but it hadn’t. Instead, the pain grew, eating away at my insides until I was sure there’d be a cavernous hole appearing before long.
After I’d left Rory’s, Audrey had stayed at the apartment while River and I had gone back to D.C. and retraced our steps. We’d driven around the back roads and alleys, getting side-eyes from shadowy figures as drug deals went down. Panic had shoved itself through me as I’d thought of Monte out on the streets with people who’d make mincemeat of him. Monte wasn’t small. He’d had a recent growth spurt that had broughthim close to six feet already, but he was young. Naive. Maybe a bit too trusting.
We’d driven around aimlessly for too long before we’d ended up at the Metropolitan PD and repeated the entire process I’d gone through with Muloney in Cherry Bay. They’d given me contact information for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Muloney hadn’t. I’d called the center on our way back to Cherry Bay, surprised to find it was available twenty-four hours. They’d assigned me a caseworker who told me they’d follow up with both police stations and keep me informed as well.
All night, I’d called Monte’s phone, hoping it had come back online.
This morning, after a couple of hours of tossing and turning but never sleeping, I’d showered and put on clean clothes. When I’d looked in the mirror, I’d seen the same ghost of a man who’d been there yesterday. Shadowed eyes with lines between my brows and around my lips that felt permanently etched there. I’d looked worse than I had after Dad had died. Even after I’d driven all night to get home to Monte… and Demi.
When I’d arrived in Cherry Bay from Kansas, our mother had told me, crying and sobbing, that Dad’s heart attack had been her fault. I hadn’t believed her. But then she’d told me about their fight, her pregnancy, how she’d tried to run, and how he’d tried to stop her. And I’d known the truth. She’d cracked Dad’s heart open one last time. If I hadn’t already half hated my mother, the fact she’d brought another chasm of suffering into our lives was enough to push me over the edge.
I’d wanted to send her away. I’d wanted to tell her to go wherever the hell she’d been heading before Dad had tried to stop her. But she was still legally married to him, and even though Dad had listed me as the executor of his estate, Demi still had rights… to the house…the tavern… to Monte. It ate at me,but it was easier to let her stay than to try to fight her for any of it. Because I knew the truth. She’d take off again, and then I could work my way through the mountains of paperwork it would take to keep my family safe. I just had to bide my time.
