This Side of Salvation

CHAPTER 21

NOW

Mara grabs my arm before I can leave John’s room. “What are you talking about?”

“Remember when we left my phone in Dad’s car and he drove to upstate New York with it?”

Mara gasps. “Do you still have the coordinates?”

“They’re in a notebook. You guys stay here.”

I run into my room, which fell into such a state of chaos during

the past few weeks that I’m embarrassed for Bailey to see it. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t drag her to my bed a few minutes ago. (Well, maybe not a good thing.)

Last semester’s notebooks are piled in my desk drawer. I grab the one for English composition class and dash back to John’s room, flipping to the dog-eared page from November. “Got it!”

“Mara just explained how you did this.” Bailey takes the notebook and slaps the page. “So you guys knew your dad was traveling to this place in upstate New York, and it’s just now occurring to you that that’s where they are?”

Mara snatches the notebook from her. “Hey, when your parents disappear into thin air, let’s see how clearly you think.”

Bailey crosses her arms, chastened. “Good point.”

Mara turns back to me. “We can’t just drive up there without knowing what we’re getting into. We need more information than just a set of GPS coordinates.”

“True.” I sit on John’s bed to think. “We should go through every inch of Dad’s office and their bedroom.”

“I don’t know, guys.” Bailey sits beside me. “If your parents didn’t want to be found, wouldn’t they be careful not to leave any clues?”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look.” Mara holds up her phone. “After all, Mom texted me. If Dad left his phone here, she was probably told to leave hers, too. If she disobeyed that order, she might disobey others.”

“Like an order to leave no evidence,” I finish.

“I guess.” Bailey unties her loose braid, which came partyl undone while we were rolling around on the floor a few minutes ago. “Except, she disobeyed at the last second, when you guys weren’t with her. Maybe she sensed something was wrong with the escape. But when she was destroying evidence, she was thinking you guys would be going. She’d want to protect you by following all of Sophia’s rules.”

“Ugh, you’re probably right.” Mara stares at her phone. “Maybe she’ll send another text.”

“Either way, we still need to search their stuff.” I usher the girls out ahead of me, then reach back to close John’s door.

Something makes me stop and open the door wider. When I walk away, his room is open, letting out the light.

I splurge on delivery pizza for me and Bailey and Mara, figuring we don’t have time to cook, and because our parents aren’t there to tell me not to have pizza two nights in a row.

We eat while we work in Dad’s office, no longer being careful to put everything back in its place. Juno and Tod wander in and out, thrilled to explore previously forbidden territory.

“Stop chewing that.” Mara tugs the corner of a credit card statement from Tod’s mouth. He bats at it as she pulls it away. “That reminds me, David, just as Kane was leaving, the pet sitter showed up. She said Mom hired her to come once a day for the next two weeks, then wait for further instructions.”

“I wonder what’s at the end of two weeks.” I watch Juno pounce on a dust bunny, then dance around it on her hind legs. Bailey gives an adorable laugh at the spectacle.

“Maybe the cats would be put up for adoption?” Mara suggests. “Anyway, I had to think fast. I told the pet sitter our ‘trip’ was canceled, so we wouldn’t be needing her after all. I also gave her twenty-five bucks for her trouble so she wouldn’t bitch to her friends about us canceling last minute. The fewer people who know something’s wrong at this house, the better.”“Good thinking.”

Dad’s office provides no more answers, and Mom still hasn’t sent another text, so after our late lunch, we move on to their master bedroom. Mara assigns herself Mom’s dresser, I take my dad’s, and Bailey heads for the nightstands.

“Just warning you.” She kneels next to my father’s side of the bed. “This is where my parents keep their fun stuff.”

“Fun stuff?” I ask her.

“You know, books like the Kama Sutra. Various oils. Toys.”

Mara puts her hands to her cheeks in horror.

Sweet baby Jesus, please let my parents’ nightstands be free of oils, toys, and the Kama Sutra. I will never, ever ask another favor as long as I live.

I’m glad when Bailey’s search turns up nothing but Bible-study books and foot cream. On the other hand, I’m also embarrassed my parents are so boring.

“Aww, this is cute.” Bailey holds up an inspirational plaque on my mom’s nightstand that reads, “God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.” “And kind of creepy.”

“I got it for her as a joke last year,” I tell her. “When we were kids, she convinced us that Santa used Mrs. Claus as a spy, so he’d know who’s naughty or nice. Mom claimed that each year, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mrs. Claus shared her powers with all mothers.”

“That’s still kind of creepy.”

Mara snorts. “Says the girl whose mom keeps sex toys in her nightstand.”

“In the real world, that’s considered normal.”

I change the subject before they can bicker. “Do you need to do Mother’s Day stuff with your mom?”

Bailey sets down the plaque. “I made her breakfast in bed. But she knows I have an O chem final tomorrow, so I can’t stay late.”

I remember Bailey’s complex carbon-hydrogen diagrams, and give a brief prayer of thanks that as a history or theology or philosophy major, I’ll never have to take organic chemistry.

As we search the dresser drawers, I try to remember the last subject I turned in for homework in Math Cave. Improper integrals? Parametric curves? On the day I quit, what was the homework I offered to share with Francis?

My mind sifts through the events of that crappy day in reverse— Bailey dumping me, Bailey wrapping her thighs around mine while I kissed her on the kitchen counter, Mr. Ralph lecturing me while we loaded his freezer with ice cream and boxed soft pretzels.

I press pause on the mental rewind. “You guys.” I slam the drawer shut. “When I told Mr. Ralph I was quitting Math Cave because of the Rush, he said something to me.”

“Other than ‘you idiot’?” Mara asks.

“He said I wasn’t the only one. Somebody in his other section quit. He wouldn’t tell me who.” I think for a second. “But I bet I can find out.”