All the Little Raindrops(37)

He heard his father on the phone, talking to some form of law enforcement, relaying to them what Evan had described regarding the general direction of the building they’d been kept in and the fact that it was on fire. Whoever it was on the phone sounded displeased. “I wasn’t going to trust anyone with my son’s safety. You failed to find him,” his father spit out.

Evan drifted off and then woke. His father was sitting stonily, his jaw set as he stared out the window. He turned his head and met Evan’s eyes. “Do you have any ideas about who they were?” his father asked.

Evan shook his head. “None.”

His father studied him for a moment but didn’t ask any more questions, and for that, Evan was grateful. Perhaps his father didn’t want to know the details of what had happened to him. Maybe he was scared to find out. That was fine. Evan didn’t want to tell him anyway. He didn’t want to tell anyone. He and Noelle knew. It was all that mattered.

Finally, too exhausted to keep his eyes open, he slept again, the car rocking him into a chaotic dream in which he relived their escape, only this time making different choices that resulted in terrible outcomes where he watched Noelle die in horrific ways over and over.

His father shook him now and again so that he came awake, choking back a scream. “Shh, son, it’s okay,” his father said. “You’re safe.”

He slept through most of the drive to the border and then across it. He realized that his father had Evan’s passport, but how would they get Noelle across the border? He bolted upright in a panic and turned to look out the back window, breathing out a sigh of relief when he saw the three SUVs still trailing them.

However they’d worked it out, she was still with him, just a car away. He slept again.

It was almost morning when Evan opened his eyes, wiping the sleep from his face and sitting up. They were in the parking lot of a police station, the SUV still idling. He was alone. How long had he sat here sleeping?

His head swiveled, taking stock, looking for Noelle. The other cars were parked nearby, a bevy of news vans all around, the logos telling him they were in San Diego. What the hell was happening? His father was just outside the car, talking to a man in a suit. Evan opened the door. “Evan,” his father said, moving forward and wrapping his arm around him as he got out. Cameras flashed, news anchors yelling questions at him, only disconnected words that didn’t form full sentences making it to his ears.

“I’m sorry,” his father gritted. “Someone from the police department leaked it to the media that we were on our way. Fucking vultures.”

He rushed with his father and the other man into a side door of the building, the calls and clicks muting as the doors fell shut. “Noelle?” he asked. “Where’s Noelle?”

“She’s with a detective,” his father said. “Don’t worry about her right now.”

Don’t worry about her right now.

But Evan didn’t know how to do that. Her well-being had been connected to his for so long. He didn’t know how to separate himself.

He whipped his head around, looking for her, but a tall man in a blue suit stepped in front of him, extending his hand. “Evan, I’m Agent Crokin. If you’ll come with me, we need to get a statement. Time is of the essence.”

“Noelle!” he called, pushing past the man and turning his head one way and then the other.

“Evan!” his father said sternly. “Stop it. She’s poison. Her family is poison. Whatever you experienced together, it’s over. And thank God for that. Thank God.”

His father didn’t understand. All that old stuff, it’d ceased to matter. It wasn’t even real.

Everything buzzed. The lights. The people walking by. His head. He couldn’t get his bearings. And so he let the agent lead him down a hall and out into a wide area filled with desks. He saw Noelle sitting on a bench, her head in her hands, as a woman knelt beside her.

Evan broke free of the man guiding him and ran to Noelle, going down on his knees next to the woman. “Noelle, what’s wrong? What happened?”

She raised her head, her eyes bloodshot, face wet with tears. Her expression crumbled as she leaned toward him, and he wrapped his arms around her. “My dad . . . he’s dead,” she said. “He died while I was missing.”

“Died?” He didn’t understand.

The woman who had been comforting Noelle had taken a seat next to her on the bench. “It was a heart attack,” the woman told him, and Noelle sucked back a sob. “Right after Noelle went missing.”

He felt a hand on his arm, and his father pulled him up, his arms falling as Noelle sat back. “They need your statement now, son. If we have any chance of catching the people who did this, you need to tell the agents everything you can remember. Then we’ll get you to the hospital. Your mother is flying in. She’ll be here in the morning. And then we’ll fly home.”

“All that can wait,” he said, yanking his arm away and stepping back toward Noelle.

But she shook her head. “No, Evan, go. Tell them what you can. I will too.” The sound of footsteps moving quickly made him turn, and there was Noelle’s friend Paula, red ponytail bouncing as she rushed toward Noelle, two older people hurrying behind her. Paula’s parents. Someone obviously called them to jump on a flight. Maybe his father. More likely the police. He’d slept through a lot.