Steve.â
âYou could stop talking to Cal,â Dan suggested.
âAnd let my parents win ? Not likely.â He peered around the center console at Dan, his bare feet propped up on the dashboard. Late afternoon sunlight glinted off the shiny new black lip piercing Jordan had insisted on getting in Louisville. âHe says physical therapy is a real shit show sometimes, but his life feels like paradise after New Hampshire College. Hey! I just realized that at Uncle Steveâs, Iâll be able to Skype with him without my mother the drama queen bursting into tears.â
Dan shifted again, even antsier now at the mention of New Hampshire College. If he let his mind wander or dwell, he would feel the heat of the flames that had engulfed Brookline and everything in it. He wanted to believe that Brooklineâseffect on him had ended that dayâthat the evil had died with Warden Crawford and Professor Reyesâbut his last moments at the college had given him cause to doubt.
Heâd had another vision. Heâd seen Micahâs ghost, waving good-bye.
He hadnât had any visions since then, and for that, Dan was grateful. It felt like a signal: it was time to let it all go and move on. Even the files and journals he had saved from the ordeal held no interest anymore.
Well, except for one small thing.
Before the trip, Abby and Jordan had threatened to subject Dan to a search of his things for any junk he might have brought from Brookline. Theyâd said it like a jokeâlike, no way Dan would really do that to them, right?
But in the end, they hadnât dumped out his bag, which meant they hadnât found the file he had brought along. The one that had been folded in half at the bottom of the stack theyâd rescued from Professor Reyesâs things. The one labeled POSSIBLE FAMILY / CONNECTIONS? , inside which heâd found a paper-clipped pile of papers, connected by a name that had made his heart shoot into his mouth.
MARCUS DANIEL CRAWFORD .
Nine months ago, that pile of papers had seemed like a gift, the reward at the end of a long, hard search for answers about his mysterious past. A sparse family tree had confirmed what heâd already suspected: Marcus was his father, and he was also the nephew of the warden through the wardenâs youngest brother, Bill. But a single line had also been drawn from Marcus to someone named Evelyn. Was that his mother? It seemedso incomplete. Heâd tried to find any Evelyn Crawford online who seemed like a match, but with no promising results and no maiden name, he hadnât had much else to go on.
There was more in the stackâan old postcard, a map, even a police report detailing a time his father had been arrested for breaking and enteringâbut maddeningly, nothing that would help him pick out his father from the numerous Marcus Daniel Crawfords he found online, and nothing else about his potential mother.
Still. Even after the pile of papers had come to feel less like a gift than a curse, heâd kept the folder hidden. And when heâd packed his bags for this trip, the thought of Paul and Sandy going through his room and finding the folder had been enough to make him bring itâto keep it in sight.
As if on cue, Danâs phone buzzed, not with Beyoncé but with the more subdued jingle indicating Sandy was texting. He checked the message, smiling down into the faint glow of the screen.
How are the intrepid roadtrippers doing? Please tell me you are eating more than beef jerky and Skittles! Call at the next good stopping place.
Dan texted back to reassure her that they were doing their best to eat actual, normal food.
âHowâs Sandy?â Jordan asked, craning around to look at him again.
âSheâs good. Just making sure we arenât stuffing ourselves with junk the whole way to Louisiana,â Dan replied. He flicked his eyes up to see Jordan swallowing with some difficultyâthe
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