Free The Rivers Run Dry by Sibella Giorello Page A

suddenly, for no particular reason. “So, yeah, thanks for stopping by,” he said.
    â€œWe’re not done.”
    He glanced at the Asian men near the front door. They were hollering at each other in some foreign language as more teenagers streamed in the door.
    â€œI got one minute,” Kermit said. “That’s it.”
    I followed him toward the bathrooms in back, where a chrome pay phone was bolted to a wall with names and numbers scrawled across it, including what looked like slate-blue eyeliner proclaiming “Lauren loves Chris.”
    â€When was the last time you saw her?” I asked again.
    The rag dangled from his fingers. “I just told you. Not for a while.”
    â€œWhat’s a while, Kermit?”
    â€œTwo months, at least. You heard something else, it’s a lie.”
    â€œWhy would somebody lie about it?”
    â€œYou got wax in your ears? She broke up with me. I was upset. But I’m over her. History. Done. Take the l off lover, that’s what we got.”
    â€œWhy’d she take out the restraining order?”
    â€œHer old man put her up to that! Marty VanAlstyne wanted it to be one mile, get the idea? Even the police said I got a right to get to classes like anybody else. I told you, the guy’s just waiting to pounce. And have I bothered her? No.”
    â€œBut you did. At one time.”
    â€œShe broke up with me and wouldn’t tell me why. I got a right to know why she was kicking me to the curb.”
    â€œWhy was she?”
    His neck was cabled with ligaments, steel cords holding the suspension bridge of his shoulders. “Normal people, people with class they let you down easy. But she’s spoiled. That girl’s nothing but a spoiled brat.”
    â€œNobody’s seen her since Sunday. Her parents are worried.”
    He paused. “Nobody’s seen her?”
    â€œShe hasn’t been home. She missed her classes. No phone calls. Any idea where she might be?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œI heard you two made trips to Vegas.”
    â€œYou think I have something to do with this?” His face darkened. “Hey, she’s a big girl. She can handle herself.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œLeave me alone.”
    â€œWas she in any trouble, Kermit?”
    â€œTrouble?” He sneered. “Her daddy takes care of ‘trouble.’”
    â€œYou mean like when an ex stalks her? That kind of trouble?”
    His hand squeezed the rag, making a fist. “One night in Vegas I watched her run up a hundred and eighty grand in bad bets. When she couldn’t pay, she called Daddy, and the next thing you know Steve Wynn’s comping us another night at his casino. She’s spoiled.”
    A burly college kid with a two-day skid of beard across his chin squeezed past us into a narrow door marked “Restaroom.” When the bathroom door closed, Kermit lowered his voice.
    â€œLook, unless you’re arresting me, I don’t have to talk to you.”
    Even if I were arresting him he didn’t have to talk to me. But why ruin a good thing? I gave him my card, asked him to call if he thought of anything.
    Anything, I wanted to add, that came to light under the torch he still carried for Courtney VanAlstyne.

chapter seven
    T he next day was Saturday, and in the morning Aunt Charlotte shuffled into the kitchen wearing a set of lustrous pajamas decorated with burnt sienna butterflies. The color matched her short auburn hair, stiff and dyed, flattened in back. She poured herself coffee, grabbed toasted bread made from unsprouted wheat, and plunked down at the turquoise table, letting out a sigh.
    She asked me if I was sleeping all right.
    Fine, I told her.
    â€œYour mother’s kind of a night owl, isn’t she?”
    â€œShe keeping you up?”
    â€œI’m just not used to noise at night. Living in the city, I start thinking we’re having a break