“What if he comes?”
“He won’t. He’s far away.”
“But—”
“Listen, if it is him, then that means he’s not here, right? He can’t be two places at once. No one can.”
He patted me one more time and left, ascending the cheap, squeaky stairs.
* * *
I woke up the next morning with the world lapping around me. I ran upstairs to see my dad, to have him sit me down and say, Son, we got him. But the upstairs was empty. No notes, no poems, nothing. I made peanut butter toast and tried not to think about the worst possible things. I stayed away from the basement, where the spiders lived. I stayed away from the stairs, which led to my dad’s room, which led to his closet, and to the tape.
My dad came home a half hour later. The Stranger tip had been a bust. Some bored teen playing a prank. I pictured a swarm of patrol cars swooping in on the battery factory, only to find nothing. Or they found a boy, my brother, grinning, hands up in a fake apology.
But my dad had to go back to work. The false lead had angered the Chief, who didn’t want to spend his last damn days on the job chasing a ghost. My dad needed to work hard, to work the morning after the night, if that’s what it took.
“Are you close?” I asked him.
“I think so,” my dad said. “Now grab your bag. I’ll take you home.”
* * *
The feeling in my chest was the lake without the dread. It was more excitement than fear, more last day of school than first. My dad could not drive fast enough; the streets were eternal. There seemed an unending number of houses and buildings, all in my way, all telling me to slow down, asking in Rick’s voice, Where’s the fire? Maybe that’s what the feeling was, inside my chest. Something I had to put out, that would burn until I saw my brother and told him the Stranger was nearly caught. There was nothing to worry about.
When we finally pulled into the parking lot I forgot to tell my dad goodbye. I didn’t answer when he said, Your mother’s waiting inside, right? and I didn’t say I loved him. There was no time, there was a fire. There was me slamming the cruiser door, me sprinting the sidewalk, shouldering through the pea-green door. The stairs were as long as the city’s streets. They belonged to a tower, not a two-story apartment. I braved through. I climbed the ladder higher and higher, ignoring the flames, the thick musk of the smoking lady’s smoke. And then I was at the door, and I was ready for whatever great thing was about to happen.
That my brother wasn’t there didn’t make sense. It didn’t fit the story my brain had worked so hard to tell me. I was a hero ready to play my part, but no one else got the memo. There was a note in the kitchen, which I skimmed, something about my mother having to run out. To where and for how long it didn’t say, and I didn’t care. I crushed it in my hand and searched the rest of the apartment, the bedrooms I knew were empty. What was left but to look for clues, to pretend if I put the pieces together, they would all add up. There were new fingerprints, etched in the dust. In our bedroom, shirts missing. Shoes. My brother’s favorite toys. The man torn between his family and revenge was long gone. He had chosen doom.
In the bathroom a towel was missing. A toothbrush. My brother’s trunks were taken from the tub. I sat on the toilet and put my head in my hands. I closed my eyes and tried to think it through. I held up all the missing items in my mind. I put them in my brother’s weekend bag. I put the bag on my brother’s shoulders and, with a cry, sent him down the street.
* * *
All that was left was the pool.
The apartment was empty, the laundry room humming but the same. Outside, the summer was its hottest. A hot wind shook the trees but offered no relief. I took the longest way possible around the other apartment building before finally taking a peek, seeing the thing I was most afraid to see.
Slicing the pie, I saw my brother. I poked my head around the far apartment building and I saw him. I saw Chris. They were not in the pool. They were behind it. They were at the top of the little hill and they were facing the woods. My brother had his bag around his shoulder, just as I had imagined, and was looking up at Chris, like a son would a father, like I would my brother. Chris put his arm around my brother. He squeezed him close. He took a look around, and as I saw his head twisting in my direction, I hid. I dissolved myself into the apartment bricks and prayed he had not seen me.
I caught my breath against the wall. I told myself to count to ten, then slice another piece of the pie. But like so many times before, when my brother was the hider and I was the seeker, I didn’t count as high as I was supposed to. Because I couldn’t wait. I had to look. I had to find him. I skipped a few.
If I had counted all the way to ten, I would have missed what happened next. I wouldn’t have seen Chris take my brother’s hand, hold his arm out, as if to say, This way, please. Are you ready? My brother nodded, but his mouth didn’t open. He stepped toward the woods, took one last look back. If I had counted to ten, if I hadn’t skipped three, five, and seven, I would have missed that look. That face that was so familiar. If I had counted to ten, I would have had no idea that my brother was afraid.
* * *
Many tens ticked away before I decided to act. How many it was hard to say. I was not counting. I was staring, at the hole in the world my brother had disappeared into. The door in the woods Chris had opened and taken him through. Magic.
What could I do? I could walk to the pool. OK. I could climb the little hill, stand before the door. Done. But then what? I could turn around, yes, the same way my brother had done. And I could wonder. Not about the things he was thinking; I didn’t want those thoughts. No, I wanted to know what was next. I wanted to know whether or not I should follow. My hand shielded my eyes from the sun, and I found our apartment. Our sliding glass doors. I could go inside, I realized, and call my mother, at Rick’s or at work or wherever. I could call my dad. The police. But what would happen in the meantime? Where would Chris take my brother, while a phone cried in an empty room?
In the end, it was not that much different from my first dive in the pool. I faced the trees and I squared my shoulders. I took a deep breath and told myself a story. About me. About my long-lost brother, separated at birth when our family was lost at sea.
He is out there, I said.
He is waiting for you.
I stepped into the trees, the story’s whisper tickling my ear.
Find him, it said. You have to find him.
* * *
Like my first dive, as soon as I stepped into the woods, I knew I had not fallen in right. Or, I had fallen in OK, but was in a place that was too big for me. Like the deep end, this was a place I didn’t belong. The trees were not the trees surrounding the golf course, loose and spread out. These were longer, thicker with leaves and needles, and much closer together. Some locked limbs or leaned into each other like they were sharing secrets. Insects buzzed from places unseen, alerting the world of my presence, warning the rest of the woods, and Chris.
I didn’t have a plan. Not a real one, other than to run. To push my way through brush and grass until I caught sight of my brother. Our dad once taught us how to tail a suspect, but I couldn’t remember how, not with my heart drowning my head, my chest swimming with worry. Only small pieces of memory found their way through. Don’t get too close … Blend in as best you can … Never work alone …
I paused, out of breath, and let the rest come back to me. Never work alone. That always surprised me. A good tail, our dad said, works with a team: two or three partners to pick up the pursuit in case the mark makes you. If one of you gets too close, if the suspect gets suspicious, fall back, let another follow. But won’t he see us? Won’t he notice us both? No, he said. People are dumb. Most focus on one thing at a time. They get so fixed on one idea, they ignore the obvious other.