Free Just One Day 02: Just One Year by Gayle Forman

it and she found my notes inside and chose not to respond. Knowing does nothing to change the situation.
    “Céline is off the table,” I say.
    “But she’s the strongest connection,” W protests.
    I don’t tell them about Céline and what happened at her flat that night, or what I promised her. “She’s out.”
    W makes a rather dramatic X through Céline’s name. Then he draws a circle. Inside he writes, “barge.”
    “What about it?” I ask.
    “Did she fill out any paperwork?” W says. “Pay with a card?”
    I shake my head. “She paid with a hundred dollar bill. She basically bribed Jacques.”
    He writes “Jacques.” Circles it.
    I shake my head again. “I spent more time with him than she did.”
    “What do you know about him?”
    “He’s a typical sailor. Lives on the water all year round. Sails in warm weather, kept the barge anchored in a marina, in Deauville he said, I think.”
    W writes “Deauville” and puts a circle around it. “What about other passengers?”
    “They were older. Danish. One married couple, one divorced couple that seemed married. They were all drunk off their heads.”
    W writes “Drunk Danes” in a circle way off on the side of the poster board.
    “We’ll consider them last resorts,” W says, moving to the next line. “I think the strongest lead is probably the most time-consuming.” Small grin there. Then on the bottom of the poster he writes “TOUR COMPANY” in large block letters.
    “Only problem is I don’t know which one it was.”
    “Odds are, it’s one of these seven,” W says, reaching for a computer printout.
    “You found the tour company? Why didn’t you say so to begin with?”
    “I didn’t find it. But I did narrow down the seven companies that do tours for American students that had a tour operating in Stratford-upon-Avon on the nights in question.”
    “Nights in question,” Henk jokes. “This is starting to sound like a detective program.”
    I stare at the printout. “How did you do that? In one night?”
    I expect some complicated mathematical theorem, but he just shrugs and says: “The Internet.” He pauses. “There may be more than seven tours, but these are seven that I’ve confirmed as possibilities.”
    “More?” Broodje says. “Seven already seems like lot.”
    “There was a music festival that week,” I explain. It was why Guerrilla Will had gone to Stratford-upon-Avon in the first place. Tor generally avoided it; she had a poisonous grudge against the Royal Shakespeare Company, related to her even more toxic grudge against the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, which had denied her admission twice. It was after that that she’d gone all anarchist and started Guerrilla Will.
    W writes and circles the names of the tours on the poster: “Wide Horizons,” “Europe Unlimited,” “It’s a Small World,” “Adventure Edge,” “Go Away,” “Teen Tours!” and “Cool Europa.” “My guess is that your mystery girl was on one of these.”
    “Okay, but there’s seven tours,” Henk says. “Now what?”
    “I call them?” I guess.
    “Exactly,” W says.
    “Looking for . . . damn.” Once again, it comes back to me: I don’t even know her name.
    “What identifying details
do
you know?” W asks.
    I know the timbre of her laugh. I know the heat of her breath. I know the cast of moonlight against her skin.
    “She was traveling with her friend,” I say, “who was blonde, and Lulu had black hair, cut short, in a bob, like Louise Brooks.” The boys all exchange a look. “She had a birthmark right here.” I touch my wrist. Since she first showed it to me on the train, I’d wondered what it would taste like. “She mostly kept it covered with a watch. Oh, right, she had an expensive gold watch. Or did have. I have it now.”
    “That’s hers?” Broodje asks.
    I nod.
    W scribbles this down. “This is good,” W says. “The watch, especially. It identifies her.”
    “Also, it gives you a cover,”