Ice Shock(8)

“Yes, I know all about that. I had Tyler’s parents complaining to me about it. To me! As if it had anything to do with me. If anything, Ollie’s father should take the blame—he’s the one who bought your tickets to Mexico. I was in no state to make a decision to let you do something like that!”

Of course, Mom was in a psychiatric hospital at the time, and Ollie did persuade her dad that we’d only be gone a week. I see her point, though. Tyler’s folks had been a tad unhappy too. I guess Ollie’s parents didn’t feel like they had a right to complain, since they authorized the trip. I bet they felt angry just the same.

“The NRO weren’t interested in the plane crash, or anything about Dad’s death, because they did it. Don’t you see, Mom? They’re the ones. They wanted something that he was looking for, or maybe something that he had. And when they couldn’t get it from him, they killed him to keep him quiet. They put his body in a plane on the night of June sixteenth, to make it look like an accident. So when I turn up in Mexico, they assume I know something too. That’s what the interrogation was about.”

“But you didn’t know anything?”

Well, I persuaded them I didn’t, but I can’t tell Mom that.

“I couldn’t tell them what they wanted to know, whatever that was.”

Mom slumps into a kitchen chair, pondering. Eventually she says, “I need to get away from this house for a bit. I just don’t know how you’re supposed to cope with bereavement when things like this happen. All the uncertainty.”

“Imagine what it’s like for the families when soldiers go missing in action in a war …”

Mom looks irritated. “I’m sure it’s awful, Josh. It’s good to see you have some compassion for total strangers. I only wish you could show the same to me; I am your mother, after all.”

I can never say the right thing.

Mom takes one of my pieces of toast. She looks thoughtful, tired, sad: a lethal combination. A change is coming, I know it.





4


I never get letters. I don’t get that many e-mails either. Apart from hanging out with Emmy down at the skate park, I seem to have dropped off the social scene. There was a time when I had a few friends, but when my dad disappeared, that seemed to pretty much do it for me. I lost all interest in hanging around doing whatever it was we used to do … Xbox, guitars, and stuff.

Well, this morning, I got a postcard. I didn’t look closely at first, assumed it was to Mom and me. It’s a photo of Labna, the site of a Mayan ruin, one I remember visiting when I was about eight years old. It looks exactly the way I remember it. A typical rip-off postcard—an old photo.

The card is addressed to me, only me. The writing is typed, old-fashioned typewriter style. There’s no “Dear Josh” or anything. Just two words in capital letters:

HOLDS.BLOOD.

That’s it.

It was mailed about ten days ago, in the Mexican state of Veracruz.

Totally random. I have no idea what it means, if anything. Maybe it’s meant to be a threat?

I put the postcard on my desk and turn on my computer. Maybe I’ll find someone I know logged into my instant messenger program.

Maybe even Ollie. I keep thinking about Ollie, about that moment at the concert when she held my hand. How much did I let on that I’ve got a thing for her? After Rodrigo appeared on the scene, we didn’t manage to pick up whatever it was we had going on in the chapel. Like me, Ollie became totally focused on what Rodrigo said about meeting my father in Saffron Walden.

Ollie’s not online, but Tyler is. And that gives me an idea.

Want to go on an “adventure”? I type.

He replies: LOL. Oh yeah. I’m dying to be interrogated again.

Just to Saffron Walden. It’s near Cambridge. We could be back by tonight.

What’s in Saffron Walden?

I type: Meet me at McDonald’s in town half an hour from now and I’ll tell you. Bring cash for the bus!

I check my watch. If I hurry I can make it in time for an Egg McMuffin.

Tyler arrives too late for breakfast, orders a cheeseburger and orange juice, sits down. This time of the day, the restaurant is fairly empty. We sit upstairs, looking out over Cornmarket across at the people in Starbucks, who stare right back. Early winter can be soggy and gray in Oxford, but today is one of the better crisp blue days. Not too cold either. Street entertainers are setting up for lunchtime busking. Briefly, we watch a juggler hurl a bunch of tennis rackets around his head.

“I’m not saying I’m comin’ with you,” begins Tyler.

“Whatever. Just listen.”

I tell him about Rodrigo, Dad, and Saffron Walden. His eyes grow big; he’s definitely interested.