No Return

32

It took Wes seven minutes to get from the motel parking lot to the driveway of Lars’s house, his mission to find a hard drive all but forgotten. The truck that had been there the day before was gone, so Wes pulled in to its space and jammed the Escape into park.

The article he’d found on the motorcycle was clutched tightly in his hand as he marched up to the front entrance. Skipping the bell, he pounded on the door with his empty fist.

Nothing.

He pounded again, then strained to hear anything from inside. Silence.

He leaned over and rapped on the glass of the living room window.

Still no answer. Wes walked around the side of the house, unlatched the gate, and entered the backyard. The pool area was deserted, and a look through the back windows confirmed that the house was as devoid of people on this side as it had been out front.

“Can I help you?”

Wes nearly jumped at the sound of the voice. He turned and found a middle-aged man standing near the corner of the house, a rake held at his side.

“I … was just looking for Lars. He didn’t answer his door, and he’s supposed to be here.”

“You a friend of his?”

“Yeah,” Wes said, then added, “an old friend.”

The man looked at him for a moment, then nodded toward the front of the house. “His truck’s gone, so he’s not home.”

“Thought maybe he’d parked it in the garage,” Wes said.

“Never does.”

“Thanks.” Wes started for the gate. “Guess I’ll come back later.”

“Good idea.”

Once Wes was in the Escape, he pulled out his phone and tried calling Lars, but was sent straight to voicemail. Lars was either out of range or his phone was off-both real possibilities in this area of spotty signal strength.

He could be working. Of course, if that were the case, would he have suggested they get together early that afternoon? Unlikely.

Shopping, then? Maybe, but doubtful. Church? Not the old Lars.

What the hell else was there to do on a Sunday morning?

When the answer hit him, it was so obvious he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it right away.

Football.

Wes pulled out his phone and found an NFL schedule on the Web. Sure enough, the Pittsburgh Steelers were playing the early game. On the West Coast that meant game time was at 10 a.m.

Though Lars had grown up in the desert, he’d been born in Pennsylvania. And since his dad was a huge Steelers fan, the same mania had naturally passed on to his son.

If Lars wasn’t at home watching the game, he had to be watching it somewhere. A friend’s house? If so, Wes was going to be out of luck. There was another possibility, though.

He started the engine and threw the SUV into reverse.

He’d seen a few bars along China Lake Boulevard. If those didn’t pan out, there had to be others.

The plot of land Checkers Bar and Grill was located on had been empty in Wes’s day, and might as well have been empty now. There were only three cars parked in the lot, and none were Lars’s truck. A few blocks away was The Pile On. It had a dozen vehicles parked out front. Even better, two were trucks that were similar to Lars’s.

Wes parked and went inside.

A mixture of cheers and groans greeted him as he passed through the door. But they weren’t for him. Instead, they were aimed at several televisions mounted above the bar, each showing a different game. Wes scanned the crowd.

No Lars.

The next few places-including a stop at Delta Sierra-produced the same results.

It was in the fifth place, a sports bar off Ridgecrest Boulevard called Tommy T’s, built on the site of the old bowling alley, that he found his friend.

Lars was sitting at a table with Janice and Bob from the pool party, his eyes so focused on the Steelers game he didn’t even see Wes walk up. Pittsburgh had the ball and was barely ahead of Cincinnati, 14–12.

“Close game,” Wes said.

“Hey, Wes,” Janice said.

Lars broke eye contact with the television and looked genuinely surprised to see his friend. “Wes? Hey, great. Pull up a chair, and we’ll make room for you.”

Bob smiled and nodded. “How you doing?”

Wes returned the nod. “I’m okay.” To Lars, he said, “Think we could talk for a minute?”

“Sure,” his friend replied, his gaze already back on the TV. “Don’t worry. I’m listening.”

“Privately.” Wes glanced at the other two. “No offense.”

Both Janice and Bob waved it off like they understood.

Lars, though, waited until the end of a play, grimaced, then glanced at Wes. “Halftime’s in about five minutes. Can it wait?”

“No.”

Lars looked back at the screen for a moment, then sighed and stood up. “Fine. But I swear, if something happens while I’m away, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

Wes led them out of the bar and over to a spot near the back of the building where he thought they wouldn’t be disturbed.

“So what couldn’t wait?” Lars asked.

“This.” Wes handed him the article.

Lars looked confused as he unfolded the paper. Then, as soon as he saw the picture, his eyes widened in surprise.

“Not very subtle,” Wes said.

“Subtle? What do you mean?”

“You almost blew it. I took the car and not the bike, so almost didn’t see it.”

“Are you trying to tell me someone left this for you?”

“You should have just slipped it under the door to my room. That way there wouldn’t have been a chance I could have missed it.”

“You think this is from me?”

Wes could contain his anger no longer. “Of course it’s from you! Who the hell else could have left it?”

“I have no idea. But I do know it wasn’t me.”

Wes grabbed the article out of his friend’s hand. “Wasn’t having your people chasing Anna and me all around town while you had others breaking in to my room and taking all our footage enough for you? Or did you think that maybe you needed to do something a little extra to convince me to back off?”

“Slow down,” Lars said. “Broke in to your room?”

“Like you don’t already know. Your people took my computer and our backup drive. Not the camera, though, and it was probably the most expensive thing in the room. They knew exactly what they wanted, because you told them, didn’t you?”

“Jesus, Wes. I had nothing to do with any of this.”

“The shot of the pilot from the crash? You were the only one who knew I had that. So yeah, I think you might have had something to do with it.”

“I don’t care what you think. It wasn’t me,” Lars shot back.

“And this?” Wes glared, raising the article a few inches. “Not you, either?”

“I would never have left you that. Never. So back off!”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Wes said, trying to keep his anger from overwhelming him, “but there are only three people on this entire planet who could have known what this article would mean to me. I didn’t leave it for myself. So if it wasn’t you, then it would have had to have been Mandy. And I can’t imagine her ever doing this.”

Lars glared at Wes. “That’s not even funny.”

“Of course it’s not. Mandy would never do something like that. And if she didn’t do it, then it must have been you.”

“Shut up.”

Wes pulled out his phone. “Maybe we should call her. Just to clear her name from the list of suspects. Bet you don’t want me to do that, do you? Do you know if she’s still in town, or did she move away somewhere?”

Lars said nothing for several seconds, then the confused look on his face started to fade. “You … you don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“I couldn’t believe it when you didn’t show up. Just run away, forget about all your old friends, and don’t even come back when … God, I thought you were an asshole. Then I thought I was an asshole for considering you a friend. But you never knew, did you? That’s why you didn’t come back.”

“What are you talking about, Lars?”

“Mandy’s dead, Wes. She died a year after you left.”

Wes stared at his friend, stunned into silence.

“I was sure your dad must have told you,” Lars said.

Wes shook his head. “He didn’t say a word.” He knew instantly his father would have said nothing, fearing Wes would have tried to come back. “How … did it happen?”

Lars looked off toward the hills. “Suicide. Senior year.”

How was that possible? Wes thought. Mandy dead? Sixteen years dead? That couldn’t be right. And by suicide?

“She wasn’t that kind of person.”

“It happened exactly one year after that night,” Lars told him.

He didn’t have to say which night.

As Wes leaned against the wall, his body began shaking slightly. Lars reached down and picked something up off the ground. It was the article. Wes hadn’t even realized he’d dropped it.

“I didn’t leave this for you,” Lars said. “I would never have done that.”

“But no one else knew,” Wes whispered. It was true to a point. His father had known. But he, like Mandy, was gone. “How … how did she do it?”

“She took sleeping pills, then climbed into a bathtub full of water and never got out.”

“That … doesn’t sound like something she’d do.”

“Well, I guess you didn’t know her as well as you thought you did.”

“Why? Did you think that was something she’d do?” Wes snapped.

Lars leaned against the wall next to Wes. “No. I didn’t.”

An image of Mandy Johansson flashed in Wes’s mind. It was Halloween, junior year. She’d come to school dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and had spent most of the day teasing Wes about his attempt to look like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction.

“I’m sorry. I really thought you knew,” Lars said.

Wes shook his head, his mind still in the past. He should have kept in touch. Maybe that would have helped. Maybe he could have pulled her through the darkness that must have overtaken her.

“Tell me about the break-in,” Lars said.

“Like you don’t know,” Wes said, but most of the fight had left him.

“No. I don’t. Tell me what happened.”

Wes told Lars about the chase, and then getting back to the motel only to find that he’d been robbed. By the end, Lars was staring at him, stunned. If he was acting, his performance was Oscar worthy.

“Jesus. And the article?”

“I found it tucked below the handlebars of the Triumph thirty minutes ago.”

“So it happened sometime between after you got home last night and then.”

“Obviously.”

“I just mean, it couldn’t have happened during the break-in, because you were on the motorcycle when that happened.”

“They could have come back,” Wes said, but Lars had a point.

“You think they were just after your footage?”

“What else?” Wes said. “The only things they took were the things that held our shots.”

“But why? What’s the value in that?”

Wes stared at his old friend for a moment, trying to get a read on him. Finally he said, “Okay, for the moment, let’s say you had nothing to do with it. But come on. Even you should be able to see they wanted to take any proof I had that the dead pilot isn’t who everyone said he is.”

“The crash again,” Lars said, shaking his head.

“Hell yes, the crash again. And I did have proof.” Still had it, in fact, on his thumb drive. But he’d keep that to himself for the time being.

Lars took a couple steps away, processing. “I don’t know what else to tell you about the crash. Whatever you had would not have proved anything but the truth.” He looked at Wes. “Why does this matter to you so much?”

“The pilot who was trapped in the cockpit when I got there was not the same man the Navy is saying died. I was just trying to get you to actually listen to me, but everyone’s just been trying to shut me up. Why? You’re in the service, Lars. This is one of your colleagues. The question is, why doesn’t it matter to you?”

Lars opened his mouth to speak, stopped himself, then said, “Of course it matters to me. Do you think I ignored what you were saying? We’re handling this internally, and your prodding isn’t helping.” He paused for a moment. “Look, what if I could prove to you Adair was the pilot? Would you accept that?”

“Prove how?”

“Hold on.” Lars pulled out a cellphone, then walked out of earshot and made a call.

Wes looked at the article again. Mandy. Dead. He figured she’d grown up, moved away, gone on to better things. Not this. Never this.

As Lars walked back up, Wes slipped the clipping into his pocket.

“Come on,” Lars said.

“Where are we going?”

“To show you that you’re wrong.”