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The kid reaches for his small backpack. He retrieves a Polaroid that shows him standing next to one of those street performers who dress like superheroes and sell photos to tourists.
To be a kid, when life is so simple and your prized possession is a photo with a sweaty dude in a dirty Spider-Man costume.
The boy has large eyes and sucks on a piece of hard candy. He asks, “Why are you coming to England?”
To find the man who abducted my girlfriend. To find the man who ruined my life.
“Are you on holiday?” the boy adds.
“Something like that.”
“Where’s your family?” The kid looks around the cabin.
“My mom and dad are in the States. Have you heard of Kansas?”
He nods. “In the middle of the U.S.”
He’s bright, this kid.
“Are you married?” the boy asks.
Ryan chuckles. “Not yet. I’m still in school.”
The boy digests this.
“Girlfriend?”
“No, you?”
The kid blushes.
“I won’t tell,” Ryan says, smiling.
“A gentleman never does.”
It goes on like this with the kid for the entire flight. Ryan doesn’t mind. One of the other passengers huffs at the chatter and puts on large headphones of the noise-canceling variety. But Ryan realizes he needed this. Needed the purity of this boy. A reminder that there are bright spots in the world.
After Ryan has landed and gone through the usual airport nonsense, it’s late, the rental car companies are either closed or booked solid. Ryan searches for the cheapest nearby hotel he can find, and forty minutes later he’s in line with other weary-looking travelers at the Heathrow Holiday Inn Express.
Inside his room, he takes a shower—makes the water as hot as he can without scalding himself—and he cries. What’s he doing? He should be in Rome with his friends—with Nora—having the time of his life. He should’ve moved on by now. But he’s simply unable to get over that night.
It’s not just because he loved Alison. Though he did truly love her, they weren’t perfect like everybody thought. There is no such thing as a perfect couple. During their senior year, Ali had feelings for another guy, kissed him. It was a mistake, she said. And Ryan would’ve never found out about it if she hadn’t unburdened herself. When they got into arguments, as every couple does, he sometimes threw the indiscretion in her face. He’s not proud of it. But he forgave her. Even refused to know who the guy was, lest rage take over. Honestly, he understood Ali’s temptation. As the star of the basketball team, he’d had no shortage of opportunities. He sometimes wondered what it would be like to be with another girl. He and Ali were so young. And Ryan’s parents, with their obnoxious meant-to-be story, were, frankly, an oddity. That last night at Lovers’ Lane, Ryan wondered if it was a goodbye for a reason.
His phone pings with a text. He scans the device. Nora:
i take it you’re not coming to Rome
Ryan should text her, tell her that he’s tracked Pinky Man down, or at least that he’s in England. But he doesn’t want her doing something rash, flying here. And if he’s honest with himself, this sudden rush of memories about Alison makes his feelings for Nora seem almost like a betrayal. So, he responds the way everyone from his generation responds to a question they don’t want to answer: He ignores the text. Then he closes his eyes and hopes to fall asleep.
31
LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS
Episode Eighteen of the Treehouse podcast is troubling. Poppy listens on her phone’s tinny speaker as she drives home from Ziggy’s house. Tonight, the interstate is crowded with long-haul trucks. Unlike the police, Ziggy had identified a witness, a thirty-year-old woman who claims to have seen a suspicious man at Lovers’ Lane the night Alison was taken. Ziggy’s voice sounds higher in the interview than when Poppy met with him.
“What did you see?” Ziggy asks.
“My boyfriend at the time and I were parked at Lovers’ Lane, the section that’s farthest from the road. He got out of the car to take a pee and he said he saw somebody prowling around near the other car.”