He gave her a wave, and headed toward the subway.
“Mr. Kirk,” she called, stubbing out her cigarette and chasing after him.
“Ms. Greenwood’s friend, Jax Morris? She calls every day. Marty won’t talk to her anymore, but she’s worried. She doesn’t think Wren just took off either.”
She handed him a folded slip of paper. “This is her number. Call her?”
“I will.” He was in touch daily with Jax; they were an unofficial team in the hunt for Wren.
He grabbed his phone, called up that picture again. How many times had he done it?
“Do you know this man?”
Beth looked at the phone a moment, bit at her lip and cocked her head. “Is he on Torch?”
A little adrenaline blast of hope. Was the ghost trawling again?
“Have you seen him there?”
She squinted at him. “Maybe?”
“Recently?”
“Yeah, like in the last couple of days.”
“Was he one of your matches?” He wasn’t really thinking of using her as bait, was he? Yes, yes he was. Nora would say this was because his judgment was clouded. But he and Nora weren’t speaking at the moment.
“Noooo,” Beth said, lifting a palm. Her nails were perfect opalescent squares.
“Why not?”
“Not my type. I’m not into dark and brooding. Truth? I like them pretty and vacant, up for anything—raves, weekends away. For now anyway.”
Up close he could see how young she was, a smooth freshness to her skin, a kind of mischievous innocence gleaming in her eyes. She didn’t know what kind of men were out there, lurking in the digital sphere, hiding behind palatable avatars, modern predators, just waiting for the right kind of prey.
“Girls just want to have fun, right?” she added when he didn’t say anything.
Did she even know it was a song from the eighties?
“Well, be careful,” he said, sounding like the grouchy old guy.
“Always,” she said breezily, like she knew the world, all its pitfalls and hard consequences. She didn’t. “And, Mr. Kirk, if Wren calls Marty, I’ll call you. People are not always nice, you know. Especially to a receptionist. She was always kind to me, remembered my name, sent me chocolates at Christmas. I hope—she’s okay.”
He handed her his card, earning a smile and a raised eyebrow. “Bailey Kirk, private investigator. That sounds pretty cool.”
Then she spun away, disappearing through the glass doors.
The fatigue he’d been carrying around seemed to lift some. He almost jogged to the subway, heading to Brooklyn.
forty-six
“The world of men. It’s a trap.”
The day is clear, sky a violent blue above the evergreen treetops, air cool but not cold. We sit beneath the tree, eating the cheese sandwiches he’d packed that morning before I even woke up, drinking water from a metal canteen we’re sharing. Here, with me among the trees, he’s calm and centered. He has a boy’s eyes—hazel today, sometimes bluish, and thickly lashed, wide, three days of growth on his jaw, golden in the sunlight. He slouches. His hands are as big as paddles. He never hurt me. But he hurt Mom and Jay all the time, so I feared him as much as I wanted to love him.
“It turns you into a slave. They teach you to want more and more and more. Encourage you to go into debt to buy the bigger house, the bigger car, a certain type of clothes. Then you have to work more and more for their companies to pay for the things you must have. You spend your life on a treadmill. You never get where you’re going. It’s never enough.”
I want to agree with him, but I don’t understand his anger, which I can see settled into his jaw, his shoulders.
“When all you really need is this, enough food, water, shelter, time in nature.”
The world of movie theaters and video games, slumber parties, friends, school, pizza delivery—it was such a distant memory that it was almost a dream. I, like him, like Robin, was one with the land, with our life there.
“When I’m gone, this place will belong to you and your brother. Not that he’ll want it. It will probably fall to you to care for it.”
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I mean when I die.”
The words send a shock through me. He sees it on my face.
“Not now, but someday.”
“Someday.”
“Everyone dies, kid. Your time comes and you return to the earth. Make sure you put my ashes out here on the land. Okay?”
“Okay.”