Found

CHAPTER 30

I called Ema, but it went straight into her voice mail. I sent her a brief text: Found Jared. He’s safe. Call if you have any questions.

“I blew it,” I said to Rachel.

“How?”

“Got too aggressive.”

“You were mad.”

“It’s just… when I think of Ema waiting by her computer…”

Rachel smiled. “You’re sweet.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t even ask him the important question.”

“That being?”

“Why is Jared home? Why isn’t he still at school?”

“We didn’t come to change his life,” Rachel said. “We were supposed to find him. Mission accomplished.”

I knew that she was speaking the truth. Jared had vanished-and we had found him. Period. The end.

But something felt very wrong about it.

When we arrived back home, I got a text from Brandon Foley: Anything new on Troy’s test?

I thought about it. I simply was not buying that Buck’s mother would suddenly be granted full custody and that he would have to move away. Sure, I had heard of some pretty strange arrangements in cases of divorce, but who would move a kid when he was seventeen years old and already into his final year of high school?

It might make sense in a vacuum-if that was all that had happened. But at the same time Buck decided to leave, his best friend and cohort in crime, Troy Taylor, failed a drug test.

Coincidence?

I didn’t think so. Troy insisted that he’s innocent, and most of the guys on the team seemed to believe him. I started drawing little lines in my head, trying to make things connect.

My brain started to hurt.

I needed more information, so as soon as I made sure Rachel was home safe and sound, I decided that it was time I had a heart-to-heart with Troy.

I was going to text him, but I didn’t have his number. I guessed that I could ask Brandon for it, but I was already in the neighborhood. One of the few things I had learned was that there is no substitute for face-to-face. No, I’m not going to bemoan the smartphones or how we all constantly text or check social media. It is what it is. But when you want information, when you want to see whether a person is telling the truth or lying, there is nothing better than to look them in the eye and watch their body language.

At least, that was what I thought.

When I arrived at Troy’s door, I hesitated before knocking. I had been here before. Sort of. Rachel had “distracted” Troy-ugh-so that Ema and I could break into Chief Taylor’s home office off the back kitchen. Ah, good times. Now I was knocking on his front door, like a real visitor.

Suppose Chief Taylor answered the door?

No “suppose” about it. Two seconds after I knocked, the door opened. Chief Taylor, still in full uniform, appeared. His eyes narrowed when he spotted me on the stoop. “Mickey Bolitar?”

“Hi, Chief Taylor,” I said too cheerfully.

“What do you want?”

“Is, uh, Troy home?”

Chief Taylor frowned at me a few more seconds. Then he stepped aside and said, “Troy is in the basement.”

“Thank you.” I wiped my feet a few hundred times on the welcome mat and stepped into the house. He gestured toward a door across the room. I opened it and started down the steps.

“Troy?”

Nothing.

The room was dark and silent. I kept moving down the stairs. An eerie glow started providing some illumination. When I reached the bottom step, I saw what it was. A video game with plenty of blood and guts was playing on the big-screen television. I spotted Troy lounging on a gamer chair. Headphones covered his ears. His finger danced across the game controller.

He still didn’t know I was here. He was lost in the game, shooting, dodging, changing weapons. I had never gotten into the video game craze because when we were overseas I didn’t have access to it. When we first moved back to the United States earlier in the year, I had tried to play them, but I wasn’t very good. Like anything else, video games took practice. I’d started playing too late, and maybe this was a weakness of my own, but I didn’t like to do things I wasn’t good at.

“Troy?”

He still didn’t hear me. I touched him on the shoulder. He jumped up, eyes wide, as though ready to attack. When he saw it was me, confusion crossed his face for a split second, but it was quickly replaced with his ready smile.

“Hey, Mickey.”

I didn’t know what to think of this guy.

“Hey,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you.”

He took off the headphones and put the controller down.

“Have a seat.”

I sat in the gamer chair next to him. It felt odd, sitting in this dark room, the television providing the only light. On the screen, the game characters continued on as though nothing had happened. They ran and shot and dived and hid.

“So what’s up?” Troy asked.

“I need to ask you about Buck.”

That seemed to surprise him. “What about him?”

“You two are close, right?”

“Best friends.”

“Were you surprised when he moved away?”

“Surprised? I was more like shocked.” Troy turned toward me a little more. “Why?”

“It’s just odd,” I said.

“What is?”

“You were close to Buck, so maybe you didn’t see it. He put on a ton of size in the off-season.”

“He was lifting hard,” Troy said.

“That might be all it is, then.”

Troy’s eyes narrowed like his father’s had upstairs. “But you don’t think so?”

“I just wonder. He showed all the signs of steroid use. Increased size. He was nasty and aggressive. I heard he had a really good baseball season.”

“Great season,” Troy said. “He showed a lot of improvement.”

“Too much improvement?” I asked.

Troy looked troubled by something.

“What?” I said.

“You think Buck may have been taking steroids.”

“Yes.”

“But what would that have to do with me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

Troy looked away.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Troy, you asked for my help.”

“I know. But I didn’t want that help to come at the expense of a friend.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“No?”

“I’m trying to find out the truth here,” I said. “That’s all. So what’s troubling you?”

Troy took a deep breath. “Buck felt threatened by you.”

I leaned back. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Look, we treated you wrong. I told you that.”

“What does that have to do with Buck?”

Troy started fiddling with the controller in his hand. “I think one reason we gave you so much flack was because, well, we know how good a player you are.”

I said nothing.

“The five of us had been starters on the basketball team forever. But one of us was about to lose his starting position to you. It wouldn’t have been Brandon, the center, or me, the point guard-”

He didn’t finish the thought. I finished it for him.

“It would have been Buck.”

Troy nodded. “Think about it. You know all the pressure he was already under with his brother being a superstar, right?”

“Yes.”

“Now add you in the equation. It got to him. Bad. To lose your starting job in your last year…”

I saw where Troy was going with this. “So you think he took steroids.”

“I’m not saying that. He’s my friend. But at some point, Brandon and I wanted to lay off you. We knew that you could help us win. That’s all that really mattered to me.” He leaned closer to me. “But, see, I would still be a starter. Buck was the one on the fringe.”

We sat there, in the dark, and watched the video game characters run rampant.

“He hasn’t called me back,” Troy said.

“Buck?”

“Yeah. He sent me a few texts, but he won’t talk to me.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Troy shrugged. “I don’t know.”

My cell phone rang. It was Ema. I got myself out of the chair and headed over to a quiet corner. “Hello?”

“You found Jared?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Where are you?”

“We just got back home.”

“I’m on my way.”