“She’s not home, Laura.” An awful pause. “How far away are you?”
“I don’t know . . .” Panic had seeped into her voice. “I guess about forty-five minutes.”
“Just get home. I’ll keep making phone calls.”
The ride home was unbearably long and silent.
Four hours later, the police were sitting on the living room couch. Detective Samuel Shanks did most of the talking. Back then, Ben had thought Shanks a big man: tall as well as hefty. Three years later, they were around the same height, although Shanks still outweighed him by fifty-plus pounds.
The detective spoke earnestly. He asked questions: Has she ever done this before? Any problems at home? At school? What about with her friends? With a boyfriend?
Ellen had no problems with anyone. Everybody loved her.
Ben’s younger sister, Haley, sat stone-faced with her best friend, Lilly. They were two little eleven-year-old sticks, huddled together. Finally, Mom noticed their terror. “Ben, take the girls outside.”
“Outside?” he said. It was dark.
“No, not outside.” Mom was flustered. “Call up Lilly’s parents and tell them to pick her up.” Then Mom changed her mind again. “Ask if Haley can stay over there.” And a third time. “No, just have them pick her up . . . Lilly.” Finally, she had lost it. “Just . . . go to your rooms right now. I need to think.”
Then Sam had asked to speak to their son privately. His father seemed confused. “Ben? Why?”
Shanks didn’t answer the question. “Just for a few minutes.”
Once in the privacy of his room, Ben felt numb. Shanks tried the sympathy approach. “I’m sorry this is happening to you. A lot of times, these things just work themselves out.”
Ben nodded, but he was dubious.
“You know, brothers are kind of protective of sisters, right?”
“Ellen’s older than me.”
“But she’s still your sister. I bet you notice things, being closer in age than your parents. Do you think your sister might be keeping something from your parents?”
“Like what?”
“You tell me.”
“Nothing to tell. Ellen doesn’t do drugs. She doesn’t have a secret boyfriend. She doesn’t have a secret life. I’m not making her perfect, but everyone loves her.” Ben locked eyes with the detective. “This isn’t like her. Something’s wrong.”
Shanks moved to his desk and picked up a picture. “Your friends, Ben?”
“Yeah.”
“This one over here.” He pointed. “He’s big for fourteen.”
“He’s fifteen.”
“Yeah?” A pause. “Being your friend, he must have known Ellen.”
Ben felt himself stiffen. He knew what this Shanks guy was implying. “No.”
“No what?”
“Just no.” End of private talk.
Lists were made—phone numbers and addresses of friends and acquantainces. Then Sam passed out cards with his cell number. It was dutifully entered into all of their contact lists. Within a day, Ben had committed it to memory. His former life ceased to exist. He was hurled into overdrive.
First was the passing-out-flyers phase: have you seen this girl?
Next was the endless-searches phase: on the hiking trails, in the mountains, and at the riverbeds, in neighboring towns to Albuquerque and beyond.
Mom calling Shanks ten times a day; Dad calling him twenty. Shanks became a household word—what he did, what he didn’t do, what he was doing. Shanks this and Shanks that.
“Ben, call up Shanks and tell him that she was seen on the Plaza in Taos.”
“Ben, call up Shanks and tell him there was a sighting of her at the caves in Carlsbad.”
“Ben, call up Shanks and tell him someone spotted her in Las Vegas.”
He called and reported the latest sighting to Shanks.
“New Mexico or Nevada?” Shanks asked.
Ben cupped the house-phone receiver. “Mom, was it Las Vegas, New Mexico, or Las Vegas, Nevada?”
She yanked the phone from his grip. “I’ll do it myself.”
Hundreds of calls along with hundreds of leads that went nowhere. Every weekend, Ben rode his bike to the mountains and searched, hiking on and off the trails until almost every square inch of the Sangre de Cristos had been trampled. Most of the time the searching became ritualistic, done without conscious thought. Always on his own, always alone. And then after Ellen was found— “Hey, Vicks.”
Ben jerked his head up from his book. He’d been on the same page for the last five minutes. Back to the present. Exactly where he didn’t want to be. “JD.”
“You busy?” He sat down without asking.
Ben studied the guy. Over the summer, he had really grown into his quarterback status: six three and muscular as hell. Remez High was all about football and JD was the football god. He could pass, he could run, he could anticipate, he could fake, and he could score because JD was smart. He won a lot of games in his junior season. Senior year was here and everyone was waiting for the sweep. JD was being scouted by almost every major university. Not just scouted—wooed. JD was the BMOC with his brown feathered hair falling across his forehead, his cleft chin, his swagger, and his white-toothed smirk. JD’s favorite line was “After JC, it’s JD.” The guy wasn’t really a friend, but he wasn’t an enemy either.
Not that Ben had any enemies . . . or any real friends, for that matter.
Unless you considered Sam Shanks a friend.
“How’d your summer go?” he asked.
“’S’right. I saw a lot of suits going in and out of your house,” Ben told him.
“What can I say?”
“You make a decision?”
“Schools are like girls. So many options, so little time.”
“It’s a hard life but someone has to live it.”
“Exactly.” JD smiled with his white teeth. “I’m leaning toward Duke.”
“Good choice. Free ride?”
“All the way.”
“Sweet.”
“I still want to keep my options open for the Ivies. Most of them don’t give athletic scholarships, so I’ll need merit. Which means . . .” JD handed Ben two sheets of paper filled with calculus problems. “It’s for entrance to AP Calc. Twenty-four problems. Could you look them over?”
“You’re not supposed to get help on the entrance exam.” JD waited for a more favorable response. Ben said, “So you want me to cheat for you?”
JD said, “Hells yeah.” A pause. “Just look over my answers and say yes or no.”
Ben took the papers. Ninety-three seconds later, he said, “Look over eighteen and twenty-four. The rest are right.” He handed the test back. “Who’s teaching AP Calc this year?”
“Lowen.”
“He’s a good guy.”
“I’m just looking for the A for the first grading period. Then it’s party time.” A wide shark’s-tooth smile. “Are you TA-ing for him, Vicks?”
“For Lowen, yes, but not AP Calc. This year I’m doing regular calc and geometry.”
“Which regular calc?”
“Afternoon session.”
“Ro’s in that class. Say hi for me.”
“Ro?”
“The new girl who moved here in June.”
“The blonde.”
“So you’ve noticed her.” JD smirked.