Chapter Thirty-Six
Rocky
After learning about Carlsbad, one of the last places I want to be tonight is in the back booth of a 24-hour donut-scented breakfast diner—but here I am. The things I do for my brother.
I thought it’d be better to let Phoebe have her loft to herself and not deal with the messiness of a potential stalker there. So I left with Trevor and walked down the street to this local place. It’s taken all of my energy not to peel my ass off this booth, give a finger to Seaside Griddle, and go back to her.
If she’d given me permission, I would’ve been on the first flight to California. Gun in my bag. I would’ve hurt those entitled sick fuckers who hurt her. Made them pay in ways they didn’t. In ways they should’ve.
I still feel like doing it.
Still feel like inflicting sheer pain on someone else, and that darkness tries to burrow further and further inside me and make a home in my core.
A small con might be the perfect distraction from my homicidal thoughts, and anyway, ignoring Boyd’s presence in Connecticut would be a major mistake that I’m not going to make.
I rub at my swollen eyes, the light from the laptop starting to wear on me. Sitting on the same side of the booth as me, Trevor clicks through Nathan Deering’s social media profiles. Prep for a sweepstakes scam isn’t usually this intensive, but since Boyd is a repeat mark, we need to be extremely careful.
“This isn’t half bad,” Trevor says, stopping on a YouTube video of Nathan. In the clip, Boyd’s second cousin reviews a new postapocalyptic video game. I hear him talking through the right earbud of my headphones. Trevor’s wearing the left.
I mentally catalog some of his frequently used words. Dude. Like. Whatever. Dope.
The audio quality is the best we’ve come across in two hours. “Run it through the program,” I tell my brother, and then I stab my fork into a stack of double chocolate chunk pancakes.
I smell hash browns and hear the sizzle of oil. The staff consists of two college-aged girls, and according to them it’s been a slow night. They’ve only had to serve us and an older man at the bar. Pete Morris, a calc teacher at Victoria High. Made small talk with him when we entered. He said he has insomnia.
I wish trouble sleeping was my biggest problem.
Trevor clicks a couple buttons and opens a new window on the laptop. He rotates the screen more toward himself. Away from me and Grace, the young waitress who meanders over to refill our coffees.
“Can I get you anything?” Grace asks Trevor. He hasn’t ordered food yet.
Without looking up from the computer, he says, “The sweet potato pancakes.”
“That’s a good choice,” she tells him, then slips me a friendly smile before leaving our booth.
I glance over at him. “And here I thought you didn’t eat food. You just feasted on the souls of the damned.”
“There’s not enough damned souls to consume when I’m in a no fun zone.” He taps another key.
“Mine’s not enough for you?” I quip and take a swig of coffee.
“You’re not damned.” He’s typing. “You’re just emo.”
I mess his hair. “That’s what I let numbskull little brothers believe.”
He lets out a laugh, then slips me a shadowy smile. “You are more melodramatic than Machiavellian these days.” I’m about to tease him back, but as he trains his gaze on the screen, he says, “PG rubbing off on you?”
Mention of Phoebe locks my shoulders in place.
Trevor picks up on it. He scans me like he’s casing a locked safe. “I sense tension.”
“You sense me dropping this subject,” I snap. “Just plug in the recording.”
“I already did. I have to wait for it to process.”
With enough high-quality recordings of Nathan, the voice-changing software can alter my ingoing voice to sound like Nathan on an outgoing call. Technology has made duping people infinitely easier—it’s what my dad always told me. Even the rise of the internet created more pathways for people to be deceived. But in the same breath, there are more ways to get caught.
Trevor’s attention hasn’t left me. “So...” He flips over a sugar packet, watching me.
I’m staring at the screen. He’s not going to let this go. “I’m doing you a favor right now—” I start.
“I’ve never seen her cry like that.”
I grind my jaw, pushing back an avalanche of gnarled feelings. “Just drop it, Trev.”
He overturns the sugar again. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah.” I tell him what Phoebe would want me to say. “She’s fine.”
Trevor rips open the sugar. “She’s fine but she’s bawling in my brother’s chest when I’ve never seen her sob like that in my life.” He’s killing me, and he’s frustrated that I’m not giving him details after seeing Phoebe cry, which must’ve disturbed him, but it’s something I’m not repeating. Even if I could claw out the fucking words, it’s not for me to share.
He adds, “Clearly she likes you.” It snaps my eyes to him. “In the most kindergarten way.”
“You never went to kindergarten,” I remind him. “How would you know?”
Trevor reaches for his coffee. “You never went to law school and you still believe you’re the judge of everything.”
“I’m only judging your cologne, shithead.”
He almost smiles. “It’s vintage.”
“It smells like burnt sage and ass.” I don’t let him quip back. “This isn’t relevant right now.”
“You mean Phoebe,” he deadpans.
“Yeah.” Boyd. Stalkers. Sweepstakes scams. This is the path we need to be driving down. “Let’s just stay on fucking track.” I squeeze his shoulder to show I’m trying to be here. For him.
“Fine.” He nods and sips his coffee slowly before gently setting down the mug. He goes rigid. “Shit.” He shoots forward to the screen and taps a key.
“What?”
“We’re only at fifty percent recognition.”
We need another audio recording. Maybe two more. I run a hand through my hair and then glance at my watch.
Fuck, it’s late. Any hope of going back to the loft before midnight flies out the window. We’ll also need to call Boyd at a reasonable time. It’s unlikely he’ll pick up a three a.m. phone call from his distant cousin.
Taking out my cell, I shoot Phoebe a quick text.
This is taking longer than I thought. Sorry.
She’s quick to respond.
Phoebe: no rush.
I grimace and reread the two words. Part of me wishes she would’ve asked me to hurry back, but that’s not Phoebe. I’m not even shocked at her next text. Just fucking dejected.
Phoebe: going to sleep now, see you tomorrow or whenever I do.
My eyes burn the longer I reread it. All I can do is type out a similar casual-toned response.
Sleep well. I’ll stop by tomorrow.
Phoebe leaves me on read.
It’s not that unusual. My text was basically an endnote to our conversation, but my lungs are tight. The only thing keeping me focused is my brother beside me.
He scours the internet for more recordings and finds a couple five-second clips from Instagram. Still not enough to hit a hundred percent, but it’s progress.
I try and come up with a vague idea of what I’m going to say. Not a script. That’d be stilted. But the wording also has to be authentic to Nathan.
“Hey, dude,” I whisper under my breath, sounding it out. I’ll probably say something about it being a while since we’ve spoken. Keep it vague since I don’t really know how long it’s been, besides their interactions on socials. “I had this all-inclusive trip planned to Cancún, but I can’t make it. There’s snorkeling and cave tubing. It’s pretty dope.”
I wince.
Trevor also winces. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“Give me a fucking second,” I snap. I don’t like impersonating real people. I like being someone new. Someone molded by me. This... this is going to take time.
“You have a second,” my brother says. “You have five. Ten. However many you need, Rock, just make sure he believes it.”
“I’m trying,” I say dryly. “But I’m not God.” And this is exactly why we don’t have repeat marks. It complicates everything.
Trevor studies me. “Once upon a time, you could have made me believe you were.” He goes back to his coffee. “I was five,” he deadpans. “So keep your ego in check.”
“My ego is still right where I left it...” I taper off, skimming Nathan’s socials again and figuring out his mutual friends with Boyd.
Trevor takes my silence as doubt, but I’m not that afraid. “I’m dead serious, Rocky. He has to believe it.” The urgency. It’s something I won’t get used to from my brother.
“I know,” I tell him. “I know.”
After the prep is done, pancakes eaten, and voice recognition complete, we pay the bill and return to the loft. Quiet in the living room, we’re on the couch where he’s been crashing. It’s one a.m.—almost too late to make the call, but both Boyd and Nathan regularly post photos on Instagram around this time, so there’s a chance he might be awake.
I have the burner phone to my ear, but the end of it is plugged into the laptop to run my voice through the software in real time.
The phone rings and rings.
Pick up, Boyd.
He answers. “Who’s this?”
“Hey, dude, it’s Nathan. I got a new phone—sorry, I know this is out of the blue. How have you been?”
Trevor’s leg jostles, and I clamp a hand on his knee to stop him. I mouth, Get out. He glares, but he can’t make any noise and like hell am I putting this on speakerphone so he can listen.
Boyd starts talking. “Pretty good... Is this about Trish?”
Trish. Their mutual brunette friend. I only know they all went to some line dancing club together five years ago.
“Nah, nah, nothing like that.” I keep it casual, but Trevor is unblinking and too intense, probably internally freaking the fuck out—so I stand up with the laptop and move to the window. Away from him. “Funny enough, I have, like, this thing I booked, and I can’t go.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah.” I sound bummed. “It’s super dope. All-inclusive to Cancún. Leaves soon. There’s snorkling and shit.”
“Huh...”
I hate his skeptical huh, but I try not to linger on the sound. “It’s nonrefundable, and I didn’t want something like this to go to waste. I’ve, like, been going through my list—”
“And I’m on it?”
“Yeah, but come on, you’re not that high up.”
He laughs.
That’s good. “Everyone else can’t make it out but I thought, Like, this might be a Boyd thing to do. Take a trip at the last second. Seize the moment or whatever. It’s not a cheap cruise either. So you want it or do I need to go ask Randy?” Boyd’s brother.
“No, I’m interested,” he says fast. “Text me the details.”
“Sure, but there’s documents and shit. It’s not easy to text.”
“Okay, email me at...” I memorize the address and quickly rush to Hailey’s notebook on the kitchen counter. I jot down his email while we’re saying goodbye.
Once I hang up, Trevor asks, “And?”
“Good chance he’ll take the cruise.”
Trevor eases back against the couch, hands laced on his head like his scrawny ass just completed an Ironman Triathlon with no training. I tell him to rest easy tonight. He thanks me, and as I get ready to leave for the boathouse, I stop at Phoebe’s room.
Her door is ajar, and I peek inside. She’s sound asleep beneath the comforter, her TV off. I battle the urge to wake her and say and do so much more, but I can’t fucking destroy the kind of peace she’s in. So I close the door and go.