“It is,” she said. “It’s why I called you in the first place. I’ve found somebody.”
“What do you mean?”
“Actually, he found us. His name is George Pollard. I forwarded you his email.”
Quentin opened his email. When he clicked on his in-box, Summer’s forwarded one was at the top—the only unread email in his queue, George Pollard’s name the return address. He gaped at the subject line. “Oh, come on.”
“Don’t judge until you read it.”
The email came with an attachment, and Quentin opened that first—a faded, scanned photo from the ’70s of a thin, dark-haired boy in a gas station attendant’s uniform, posing between pumps.
“Pollard isn’t insane,” Summer was saying. “I talked to him. He’s actually very respectable—hospital administrator from Duarte, married for thirty years with three kids. President of his local rotary club...”
Quentin enlarged the picture. George Pollard was also movie-star hot in his youth, especially for a guy who came of age before going to the gym became trendy.
“He knew her,” Summer said. “He claims they were in love.”
“Yeah, and?”
“The video? The one he sent us the link to? Hello?” She said it as though he were an easily distracted kindergartner, and she was trying to teach him the alphabet.
“I haven’t looked at it yet.” Quentin zoomed closer in, to the handsome teen’s shoulder. His mouth went dry.
“Come on,” Summer said. “Have you even read what he has to say?”
Quentin hadn’t. But he didn’t need to. Over the shoulder of the young George Pollard loomed the gas station’s sign. It was an Arco station. He couldn’t make out all the details of the mural on the wall beneath the sign, but he could still tell what it depicted: Noah’s Ark and all the animals. George Pollard was standing in the spot where Kimmy Sharkey had been killed. Quentin’s gaze went back to the subject line, a chill at the back of his neck.
April Cooper is alive, it read.
Three
June 10, 1976
4:00A.M.
Dear Aurora Grace,
Did you know that if you were to drop a penny from the top of the Empire State Building and it was to hit someone, it would go right through that person’s skull? But if you hold that penny in your hand, it’s shiny and harmless. It can even be good luck.
We’re going somewhere, Gabriel and me. We’re leaving in ten minutes. I am in the bathroom, writing this very quickly, so if I spell things wrong, that’s why.
Before I came in here, Gabriel asked me if I’m on his team. I said yes. He asked if I still love him. I said yes to that too, and he took the gun away from my head. He told me I’m the best thing that ever happened to him, that we will escape from here and move far away where we can always be together.
I wanted to tell Gabriel that I’m not a thing to happen to him. I’m a person, a human being. But then I thought about Jenny and changed my mind. I told Gabriel it wasPapa Pete who made me break up with him and that I’ve always loved him and will love him until the end of the world, just like we promised. I hope Papa Pete forgives me for telling that lie, and that when I meet him in heaven, he will understand.
I made myself touch Gabriel. I put my hand to his cheek and felt a tear. Gabriel’s tear. I tried to make myself cry too, just to get him to love and trust me even more, but I couldn’t. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to cry again.
Gabriel called me his angel. I called him my lucky penny. He seemed to like that.
5:20A.M.
We’re in Papa Pete’s Cavalier. Gabriel is driving. I’m stretched out in the back seat. He thinks I’m sleeping.
He told me to pack a bag, and so I did. Here is what I’m taking, besides clothes and my toothbrush:
Once Is Not Enoughby Jacqueline Susann. (My favorite book. I found it in Mom’s drawer after she died, and I’ve read it three times. If I decide not to name you Aurora Grace, I may name you January Grace.)
Papa Pete’s college ring. It’s gold and it has a big red stone and it’s worn down smooth inside from never leaving his finger. I can fit two of my own fingers into that one ring of his, and it still feels warm from him. Papa Pete, I’m so sorry.
