Installment 13

            There was a silence. It stretched out for a few seconds, then a couple of seconds more.

            I had nothing to say to Travis.

            A memory popped into my head -- a memory of Larson mentioning mind games. I realized that maybe this was what he was talking about. Travis Thatcher had given me an impossible situation, a situation that forced me into doing what he wanted. I had only a couple of choices -- either leave like Travis had told me to, or stick around. If Clara and I did stay in town, it was more than likely that we would get captured. If we left, we were doing what Travis Thatcher wanted, and I didn’t trust him.

            I understood now why Larson seemed to dislike Travis so much.

            “So, kid,” he finally said. “What do you say?”

            I didn’t answer. An idea had just presented itself to me -- an idea that was not fully formed.

            “You said to look at this newspaper?” I asked suddenly, grabbing the paper that he had suggested. Travis rested his chin on his hands.

            “Yup,” he said, unconcerned.

            I glanced over and through it. As I looked through, I commented, “Okay. We’ll leave in an hour.”

            Travis raised his eyebrows. “Just like that? Really? I won’t have to deal with you?”

            “Nope,” I said lightly, turning the page.

            Travis cocked his head to one side, then shrugged. “All right, then.” He stood up.

            “Be seeing you, kid. Or not.”

            I nodded. “Sure.”

            Travis stood up. I glanced up -- and there was something in the way he was watching me that unnerved me a bit. It was the same way I had felt when he had first talked to me…as if he had seen me before. As if he knew me.

            As if somehow I was supposed to know him.

            I quickly stared back at the newspaper.

            “See you, kid.”

            When I glanced back up, he was gone. Just like that -- one moment there, gone the next.

            Clara returned in about three minutes, with a huge stack of papers tucked under her arm.

            “I cross-referenced Back Door and Travis Thatcher, and you wouldn’t believe -- hey!”

            I had taken her arm and steered her away from our table. “Come on,” I muttered, “and keep your voice low.”

            “What? What are you talking about?” she whispered fiercely. “Where are we going?”

            “I just talked to Travis.”

            “Thatcher? What…how…?”

            “He wants us to split town, but we’re not going.”

            “We’ll get caught! We’ll…”

            “…thwart them. All of them. We’re going to follow them.”

            “What?”

            We ducked inside the Q aisle. I reached for her purple backpack.

            “Have you tried 497 as a tracking number?” I asked.

            Clara gasped, and scrambled for the sunglasses. “No!”

            “I’ll bet you,” I said in a low voice, “that it’ll be right here.”

            She slipped on the glasses. “Why?”

            “I’ve got a feeling. I think 497 has to do with me. I don’t think the headquarters is over in my town -- just near it.”

            After a pause, Clara exclaimed, “You’re right! Nathan, it’s here!”

            “Here in the town?”

            “No! Here in the library!”

            “What?”

            I snatched the sunglasses away from her. It did appear to be right here, though -- the dot that was 497 was the library. It occurred to me that it might be Travis -- but Travis was a different tracking number. Besides, this dot wasn’t moving anywhere.

            “I have to find out why they framed me,” I said, pulling off the glasses. “This is my best bet.”

            “You mean we,” Clara insisted. “We’re both here. We’re both in this mess.”

            I paused, then nodded. She was right. Clara Stone had helped me escape from the police station, placing herself under the same fugitive status as me.

            “You doing anything for the next few months, Clara?” I asked.

            A slow smile spread across her face. “Hey, I’ve got to keep moving to stay away from my uncle -- and the police. That’s about it.”

            “Same here,” I replied. “What do you say we find out about Back Door?”

            “And my parents,” she added.

            “And…”

            I trailed off. There were so many more questions I had, questions I could not put into words. But then again, someone else already had, several years ago. Someone had already asked me questions that I still had to answer, but they were questions that I could not repeat to anyone.

            Even Clara Stone.

            “All right,” I said finally, standing up and placing the sunglasses over my eyes. “Let’s go.”

-Nathan T. Dalton