Jex Malone (25 page)

“Little late to ask, don't you think?” I answer with a big smile on my face that assures him that I'm not.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asks, looking me hard in the eyes. “You know your friends … ”

“Little too late to ask that one, too,” I say, looking directly into his gorgeous green peepers. “I like my friends, but I always make my own decisions. I'm uh, an independent thinker.”

“Well, independent thinker, you're going to love this. You can see everything,” Cooper says in a serious voice, grabbing my hand again as we have liftoff.

“On a clear evening like tonight we'll be able to see every light in Vegas for miles,” he boasts, folding his fingers over mine.

The wheel begins to rotate and I expect it to pick up speed, but it doesn't because this ride is slow and smooth. We sit there awkwardly for a few minutes, Cooper's hands suddenly now folded in his lap politely.
Um, you know, buddy, you could put one of those arms around me
, I tell him telepathically.

But he just sits there. Stupid boy can't read my mind.

“So,” I start to talk just to break the silence. “How'd you get the name Cooper?”

He looks at me weirdly because, well, I deserve it for that question.

“My mom named me after Gary Cooper, the old movie star,” he answers. “She told me she always loved the strong, silent type, which is actually kind of funny considering she married my dad, who was the loud, screaming, hitting, drunk bully type. He wasn't a bad guy when he was sober, but he was a real trip with a bottle of vodka in his system.”

“Oh, wow, I'm sorry—I didn't know that about him,” I lie. “Has it been hard living in the same neighborhood all these years? I mean, you don't seem very happy there.”

Cooper clears his throat.

“Since my dad died, we've been kind of stuck there,” he explains. “No one would buy our house because of all the weird theories on Patty's disappearance. I've heard people swear she's buried in our basement because the police never searched it.

“My dad wouldn't let them without a warrant—or at least that's what my mom told me one of the few times I asked about details. What she told me was since they never could really prove a crime was even committed, they never could get a judge to sign a warrant to search the house. Then after my dad died, your dad asked if they could search the house again and my mom said no. She was too scared to say yes. She didn't know what my dad was capable of anymore, and didn't even want to know. She wasn't that broken up when he died, if you want to know the truth.”

I sigh. This is way heavier information than I thought I'd be hearing tonight. But Cooper keeps talking.

“So it ended up that we couldn't afford to leave, and it was beyond miserable to stay—but my mom took the little bit of insurance money she got after Dad's death and put it into a bank account that no one can touch but me when I turn eighteen.

“She wants me to apply to a college far from here and says she'll even pay for me to change my name, so I can start an entirely new life and be whoever I want to be instead of a Matthews.”

Cooper smiles weakly at me, perhaps thinking maybe this little talk isn't really the date-night confab he was thinking of having either.

“This is weird,” he announces.

“What? Weird in what way?” I reply.

“Sh … sorry! I didn't know John Malone had a daughter. Of course, there are a lot of things I don't really know,” he blurts out.

Wow—did he just almost cuss and bring up my dad in the same sentence? That's awesome.

“Well, I guess my dad doesn't really talk about me too much,” I add. “Kind of a sore subject. Does my dad ever talk to your mom—about Patty?”

I expect him to react to the mention of her name—to look away wistfully or maybe even tear up a bit. But he doesn't. He just shakes his head no.

“No, I think where they left off was your dad telling my mom that if he had any new leads, she'd be the first to know. But it's been years—as far as I know—since anyone has come up with any new information.

“My mom and I never really talk about it. Ever,” he adds.

“Cooper, I'm really sorry about your sister,” I say sincerely, only to remember a split second later it would have been a nice gesture to touch his hand while I said that. Why didn't I think of that sooner?

“I hardly even remember Patty; it's more like I have snapshots of her in my mind,” he tells me.

“I remember she was a nice sister. Kind. Sweet. I remember every now and then getting in trouble for messing with her stuff. But the only thing I remember about the night she disappeared was the storm.

“It was so loud it sounded like a train coming through the neighborhood and driving right through our living room window. Even if Patty had screamed that night, no one would have heard her over the noise of the howling wind and the torrential rain.”

Enough!
I scream inside my head. What is this? That awkward moment where the boy you like starts talking about the night his sister was kidnapped by a psycho? This is not in the Dating 101 handbook.

“Yeah, I am sure it's changed a lot about your life,” I offer as a condolence.

“You have no idea,” he answers. “I'm pretty much kept on a short leash—I go to school, I mow lawns for gas money, even though I don't really get to drive too far, and I go to the movies. In my mom's book, the only thing worse than having one kid disappear is to have it happen a second time.”

“You mom seems like she's done a pretty good job—considering the circumstances,” I offer, again being super understanding.
What additional proof do you need when it comes to my girlfriend aptitude?

“It's not her fault what happened,” I add, just to emphasize my superior empathy skills.

“Well, you'd be the only one who thinks that,” Cooper scoffs. “You'd be surprised how many totally random strangers have written nasty letters to her telling her it's all her fault. Telling her that God punished our family for something she probably did or telling her that if she had just not been letting her kid run around at night with a boyfriend, Patty would be alive today.

“People always blame the parents—and of course you know the cops really think my dad had something to do with Patty's disappearance. And maybe even that my mom helped him cover up the crime.”

“Cooper, what do you think happened?” I ask, this time not at all being fake in my concern.

“I don't know, Jex, I honestly don't know,” he answers as the Ferris wheel grinds to a stop and our carriage perches at the very top, the whole lighted blanket of Vegas and the surrounding metropolitan area spread like a twinkling diamond blanket beneath our feet.

Almost like he's physically shaking it off, Cooper leans forward and looks into my eyes. Then he takes two fingers and gently tilts my face west. “Look way out there. You see all the lights and then just pure darkness,” he says, a little too close to my left ear. “It's like those tiny lights are leading the way, only to be swallowed whole by all that nothingness.”

“I don't understand why you're not more fascinated with this! I mean, we could be living next door to a murderer, Larry.”

—Carol Lipton,
Manhattan Murder Mystery

Wednesday. One week later.

The first complication of the evening is announced on the TV set. Steve Storms, the hotshot weather guy from Katt's station, consumes the tube with a frown on his chiseled face while he draws big dark red circles around the entire state of Nevada, which is about to be in a state of emergency—if you believe weather guys, which I don't.

“It's not often that I tell my audience to stay close to home,” the weatherman begins. “But if my readings are correct, we're due for a monster monsoon storm. We'll be able to thank Mother Nature for the real Fourth of July fireworks in the sky this weekend, too, because these monsoons that are coming have dangerous lightning, thunder, and even golf ball–size hail in them.”

Daddy-o isn't watching one of our three channels. Instead, he's endlessly spritzing himself with some God-awful-smelling cologne because he has a date-like thing going on tonight with the blonde no-brain.

As for my social life, I haven't even heard from Cooper since the night of the big nondate. I did eventually tell the girls, filling them in about the few particulars I learned about the Matthews family.

“You went on a secret date with Cooper!” Deva practically screamed in joy. And then her brows clenched together. “God, I hope you wore that white skirt because nothing else you have would do.”

“I wore the skirt,” I told her.

“Let's get back to the case,” Nat said. “We don't have time for this fashion nonsense right now.”

“Nat is right,” I said. “But the skirt did look pretty awesome. Thanks, D.”

“Of course, now back to doom and gloom. Take it away, Nat,” Deva sniffed.

Speaking of doom and gloom … tonight we have a date to do some sleuthing at Mr. Foster's house, where I know we'll find proof that he had something to do with Patty Matthews's disappearance. Somehow I'm going to fail to mention the evening plans to the good detective. Of course, he has his own ideas.

“Honey,” my dad begins in a somewhat authoritative voice, poking his head into the den where I'm snuggling with the dog. “I don't want you going out tonight because this is a serious storm. I'm just going to go with Sandy down the street to Sushi Island. Do you want to go with us or hang out here?”

“Here,” I say without a moment of hesitation.

“Okay, but I actually want you to stay in the house,” Dad says in his best parental voice. “You can have the girls over. They can even sleep over. Set up camp in the living room. Eat everything in the fridge. Order pizza.” With those words, he hands me another crisp twenty-dollar bill.

At this rate, I'm going to be a zillionaire.

“Uh, thanks,” I say, flipping stations on the TV and landing on an old rerun of
I Love Lucy.
I love classic TV and adore Lucy, too.

“Honey, these storms are serious business. You've never seen anything like them. The dust blows so hard you can't see your hand in front of you, and the floods can come out of nowhere. We had a kid hit by lightning last summer, too. It was really ugly,” Dad explains.

“Uh huh. Ugly,” I repeat.

I'm saved by the bell—sort of.

All of a sudden, I see Sandy standing at the front door in what looks like the tightest tank top and white skirt ever invented. I'm wondering for a moment how actual blood still finds room to course through her veins. Her extraordinarily white teeth are blinding to the point where I ponder if I should dim the lights in the room.

“Hi, party people!” she chirps, walking into the house like she owns it. “Are we all feeling very energetic tonight?”

Somehow, I manage to paste on my best fake, talk-to-the-teacher type of smile.

“Oh, we're raring to go,” I announce and Dad gives me “The Look.” We still don't know that much about each other, but he can still do that parental gaze that says everything.

Another bell saves us. Dad's cell phone rings and he jets off into the kitchen to answer a few questions from the station about a drug bust that afternoon. Sandy takes that as a sign from up above to plop down next to me on the sofa in my room. It dawns on me that we don't need to share anything, especially my Strawberry Shortcake bed.

Can I get a restraining order?

Then another idea pops into my head as I remind myself that Sandy is one of the few people who actually knew the entire Matthews family.

“Sandy?” I say sweetly. She looks at me adoringly like it's the first time she has ever heard her name.

“Do guys have to follow the same advice about the carbs?”

“Oh yes,” Sandy says confidently. “The male waistline is also susceptible to weight gain from trans fats and glutens.”

“Fascinating. I'm asking because there is this boy in the neighborhood who is pretty nice and he looks like he hardly eats any carbs,” I lob back.

“Good guy,” Sandy says, and her eyes do the happy dance. “Do we like this boy? You can tell me anything, honey. Let's bond!”

I don't say what I'm thinking.

Bond?

In your dreams.

“Uh, he's okay. His name is Cooper Matthews,” I say, forcing myself to give her a gooey-eyed,
I-Got-a-Crush
smile. “But his mother, Ricki, looks like she eats lots of bad fast food. She probably even eats KFC, extra crispy. Shocking, I know … You know she was the mother of that girl who disappeared, too.”

“No, no, no!” Sandy says, her tone suddenly serious.

“No to her eating KFC?” I inquire. “Sorry San, but she looks like the fried-chicken, extra-biscuits-with-extra-gravy type to me.”

“No, no, no to her being Patty's mother,” Sandy says. “She wasn't her real mother. I mean, her blood mother, or whatever is the PC way of saying it these days. Blood mama. Bio mama. Honestly, it's all so confusing.”

This bomb drops quietly from Sandy's lips, although booms are still going off in my ears.

“Wha … What!” I say, trying not to sound too interested, although I'm
dy-ing
for more information.

“Oh, that boy Cooper is Ricki's natural son. She gave birth to him, I mean. But Patty was Ricki's stepdaughter. I know this because when I was teaching gym at the high school, I made her come to school a few times to talk about Patty's situation,” Sandy says.

“Ricki was the step to Patricia. Married Patty's crazy father a year or so before they moved here. The real mother died in some freak accident when Patty was a baby. Car crash or something. The dad raised her alone for years, poor lamb. And then he married Ricki, who wasn't much better than having no mother. If you ask me.”