in your footsteps.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “Jayesh is nothing like me, really. But that’s a good thing. When I was younger, I wanted to live dangerously. To change the world. But I’ve always been afraid of the consequences. So instead I came here to London, where the work is steady and the pay is good. A compromise for the sake of stability.” I start to object but Puloma cuts me off. “No, don’t get me wrong—I don’t regret it. It’s just that I want Jayesh to know that he doesn’t have to make the same choices just to make me happy. I want him to feel free to be bold, take risks, make mistakes. And not always play things safe. He’s more brilliant than I am, anyway—I can see it already. And the last thing I’d ever want to do is cage or restrict that kind of mind. That’s the privilege of genius—never to ask permission.”
I nod and look down at my tea. I’m glad Puloma has such trust and confidence in Jek, and I want to believe that he’s deserving of it, but my mind turns inescapably to the strange story Maia told me about Hyde using Jek’s bank account. If it’s true that Jek is friends with Hyde, does that mean Jek gave Hyde the cover-up money willingly? But why would Jek want to protect this creepy sex predator he barely knows? That just doesn’t sound like him—Jek has never done anything like that before, or hung around with that kind of person. It’s easier for me to believe that Hyde tricked Jek somehow, like making him think the money was for something else, something innocent. Jek can sometimes be too trusting for his own good.
I’m tempted to tell Puloma about my fears, just to get an adult perspective on the situation. If Jek’s a victim of some kind of con game, she should know. She could help. But she’s right that I’m not eager to become her spy. Everyone has their secrets, and I know as well as anyone what kind of damage people can do by spreading them. If Jek is hiding his work and his friends from his mom now, maybe he has a good reason for it.
After I leave Puloma, I spend the rest of the night flipping my phone in my hand, my fingers swiping to Jek’s name in my address book. I feel like I need to either warn him or reassure myself, but the last person with Jek’s phone was Hyde. Sure, he said he was about to return it to Jek, but what if that was a lie? Not much point in texting my suspicions directly to the criminal. I could call—I’d recognize Jek’s voice, of course, which is nothing like Hyde’s—but Jek always lets calls go to voice mail, so...same problem, there.
Eventually, I put my phone down and go to bed. I can track down Jek at school tomorrow. What damage could Hyde really do between now and then?
Jek is harder to get a hold of than I anticipated. I see him at various points during the school day—across the lunch room, at the other end of the hall between classes—but every time I try to catch his eye, he ducks his head and disappears behind a corner. I know we haven’t been as close as we once were, but it’s not like him to avoid me. I wonder if he’s figured out that I want to talk about Hyde. He might be feeling guilty or embarrassed about what happened. Still, I have to know for sure. This stuff about Hyde is too important for me to just let it drop.
Over the next several days, I try Jek’s house a couple of more times before, on a wild hunch, I keep driving up the hill until I reach the London Chem grounds. I pass the main buildings with their handful of desultory protesters marching across broad green lawns, then continue along the twisting, shadowy wooded paths until I break out into the open farmland stretching brown and muddy on either side of Twin Creek Road. From there, it’s a careful half mile through a filmy gray fog until the hulking form of the old, disused grain elevator comes into view. My hunch about Jek’s whereabouts is confirmed when I make out the burnt-orange of his bike through the fog; it’s leaning up against the side of the building, the green lock and chain hanging uselessly from the frame.
The grain elevator is a relic from when London was a small farming community without Lonsanto’s state-of-the-art agricultural facilities. Modern grain elevators, like the one Lonsanto currently uses on the other side of town, are smooth steel cylinders, but this one is the old kind—a rickety wooden tower, fat at the bottom and narrow at the top, like the silhouette of a giant. It hasn’t been used in years, so it’s gradually falling into ruin, the slats in the wall pulling free to let daylight through, and the roof starting to cave in. Signs warn people from going near the place for safety reasons, but that just makes it all the more appealing as a meeting point for kids looking to make out or get high. The whole area is littered with beer cans, cigarette butts, shell casings and the occasional used condom.
Tonight it’s too grim and damp for most people to want to hang out here, but Jek’s not most people. I’ve known him to bike out here even in the middle of a storm, if he’s craving solitude. I feel a little bad, busting in on his alone time like this, but it’s his own fault for avoiding me all week.
I park my car down a gentle slope so it won’t be immediately obvious to passing vehicles, then follow a muddy path across the old, weed-choked railroad tracks toward the broad entrance where grain was once dropped off for storage. Once inside, I tread cautiously through the dim space, past the rusted, broken-down machinery, until Jek comes into view at the far end. He’s standing in front of a fallen away part of the wall, nothing more than a dark shape outlined against the dingy fog outside. His silhouette is all ridges and angles, like a bird with its wings folded, and only a sliver of his profile is visible past the edge of his raised hood.
As my eyes adjust to the light, I’m able to pick out more details of his expression: his lips pressed firmly together, his brow furrowed. It’s the way he always looks when he’s deep in thought, so fixated on some knotty problem that the rest of the world becomes invisible to him. Some people find it off-putting, but I’ve always loved that look on him—that reminder of the incredible things his mind is capable of. I feel like I know him better than anyone, but when he gets like this, I know his thoughts are taking him way beyond anything I can understand. Maybe beyond what anyone can.
It’s clear he hasn’t heard my footsteps, and for a moment I hesitate to break in on his solitude, but I came here for a reason, so I announce myself with a pointed cough.
Jek springs to life as he whirls, stumbles and catches himself against the rotted planks of the wall.
“Jesus, Lu.” He rubs a hand over his face, then stretches it out in front of him as if checking it for tremors.
“Hello, stranger,” I say. “Feeling a little jumpy?”
He snorts, then lowers himself to sitting on an overturned crate, still panting a little. I pick my way gingerly through the debris on the floor and sit down next to him.
“Sorry to spook you.”
He takes a deep, steadying breath. “No big deal,” he says, flashing a friendly smile. “How’ve you been?”
“Not too bad,” I tell him. “Except my best friend seems to be avoiding me.”
Jek has the decency to look a little guilty at that. “Sounds like a dick,” he says. “Want me to kick his ass?”
“Mmm,” I agree, and I feel an unexpected swell of relief that we can slip so easily into our old friendly banter. “I’d like to see that.”
We’re not touching, but we’re sitting close enough that I can feel the heat of his body through the damp chill of the air, and pick up his usual smell of smoke and chemicals, like a match that’s just gone out. It might be off-putting on anyone else, but on Jek it’s homey and familiar. Stretching my legs, I notice a syringe set among the usual beer cans and cigarette butts on the floor.
“Geez,” I say, nudging it with the edge of my sneaker. “Since when did people start using this place to shoot up? I remember when this town was strictly smoking and snorting territory.”
“Strange days,” Jek agrees, eyeing the object.
“I guess it was inevitable the London Chem brats would get there eventually,” I observe wryly.
Our high school is