"I want you to start looking, okay? It'd be good for you."

Oh, okay, and you know what would be good for you? Sobriety.

As I get ready to head out the door, she asks me where I'm going.

"Just out. Hanging out with a guy from school."

"What's his name?"

"Jerry," I say.

Yeah, that's a lie. Kinda maybe. I mean, maybe Jerry is short for Jared.

"What are you going to do?"

"When did you get home last night?" I ask.

"I don't know. Late. Brennan's was packed."

"Did you stay later?"

She looks at me with a confused and hurt and slightly irritated look. "Chris-"

"Questions are great, aren't they?"

"Don't be like that."

"Then you don't," I say.

"I'm just asking what you're going to be up to."

"I don't know. Maybe just hanging out."

"Be careful," she says.

My mother has never been the type to say things like that, not with me.

But Solitary has changed everything.

The sun seems to be helping melt some of this snow and ice. The temperature from the middle of the night/morning when I had whatever sort of thing I had with Jocelyn seems to have been a dream. I walk on the street just like I'm supposed to and wonder when everything's going to get nice and mushy.

I've been walking for a while and see that it's ten minutes after ten, and I'm just wondering if I've gone down too far and should turn back when I hear a vehicle-the first I've heard today.

A blue truck pulls up next to me. Sure enough, I see Jared at the wheel. I open the door and get inside.

"How's it going?" he asks.

As if we're going into town to shoot some pool and pick up some chicks.

"Haven't been threatened yet today, so things are looking up," I say, trying to sound like I'm taking all of this with humor and coolness.

Jared doesn't smile.

He probably knows that deep inside, underneath this really cool and composed exterior, is a teenager who is pretty much freaking out beyond anything his mind and heart can comprehend.

"You have breakfast?"

"I could eat more," I say.

"Good. There's a little diner that serves awesome food."

"But?"

"But what?"

"But there's gotta be a catch. Around here there's always a catch."

"The catch is that it's cheap and I've been eating there all my life and their omelets are to die for."

"That's not my favorite expression."

He glances at me and chuckles. "You're a witty one this mornin', aren't you?"

"I used to be a lot more witty." I think of my mother and of our last conversation and realize she's not the only one who's changed.

"Just relax, okay? We got some talkin' to do."

He turns up the radio, and a country singer belts out a loud and wild song about a loud and wild night.

When I grow up I want to be this singer and have his life. I want to sing about the ladies and the long nights.

Maybe I'll move to Texas. Or Alabama. Or Tennessee. Or Georgia. Anywhere but here.

Anywhere but this tiny ugly town.

I guess I'm hungrier than I realized. The meal isn't just food. In some weird way, it's relief.

"You like grits?" Jared asks.

"With butter on them, sure."

"Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I had never tasted grits. You ever think about things like that?"

"Grits?"

He shakes his head. "Life. Destiny. The big-picture stuff."

"What's that have to do with grits?"

"If I'd been raised in California or New York, I wouldn't know the wonderful and mesmerizing thing called grits."

What is he saying?

"Do you ever think what life would have been like if you'd been raised around here?"

I swallow and laugh. "Maybe I wouldn't know any different. Maybe I'd be like the rest of them."

"I don't think so."

I wait for him to say more, but he just sips his coffee and watches me.

"Tell me about school."

"You've been there," I say. "You've seen the place."

"I used to go there. What I mean is-anything strange going on?"

I tell him about Rachel's disappearance, though I don't tell him about her letter. I mention that Poe is blaming me for her two friends disappearing. "They don't know that she's dead."

"Want to hear a story, Chris?"

I shrug.

Honestly, I'm not sure, because stories around here are not the warm and fuzzy kind that make your heart go boom boom.

"I never bothered to go to college, but I read a lot. You don't need school to learn. I was reading this book about World War II. Did you know that a lot of Germans-the good Germans, the ones who weren't with the Nazis, the ones just trying to live their lives-still knew what was happening in their backyard?"

"With killing the Jews?"

"With the Holocaust. People who couldn't do a thing about it. People who had to just keep living."

"You can always do something," I say. "I don't believe you just sit by and watch something like that happen."

"That's what heroes say."

"Is that bad?"

"Heroes end up dead."

I'm about to snap back at his comment when a heavyset woman interrupts our conversation to pour Jared more coffee. He lets her walk out of listening distance.

"Look-I can't say it's bad," he says. "But foolish, well ... it's something that my father probably said. And now he's missing."

"What was he trying to do?"

"I don't know. Have you found anything on him in that house? Any information?"

"Lots of eighties records," I say.

Why don't you mention the other things?

"Any clues will help. I know that somebody was helping him, giving him information."

Why don't you also mention that lady in the shades who picked you up in the expensive SUV and told you she was a friend of your uncle?

But again, another voice, or maybe not a voice, but a feeling or premonition prevents me from saying anything.

This guy across from me seems trustworthy enough.

But I need more time to make sure.

That woman, the movie-star lady who gave me a ride and directions to the clearing in the woods on New Year's Eve, said she wasn't sure where Uncle Robert went. Nobody seems to know.

"I'll keep looking around," I say. "But what should I look for?"

"Names. Addresses. Details. He just disappeared."

"Do you think-?"

I don't want to finish the statement because uttering it seems wrong.

I want to ask if Jared thinks his father might be dead.

He nods, glances around. There is only one other patron in this restaurant, an older guy eating his breakfast and reading the paper. Nothing too suspicious.

"I think that if he's alive he's in trouble. Maybe he's like me, hiding. I don't know. I just know that if he's still alive and can come back to this town, he'll do it. And he'll contact you."

"Why me? Why not my mom?"

I receive another hard look from the guy across from me. "Would you contact your mother?"

Does he know about my mom's condition, about her state of mind?

"I don't know," I say.

"If my father is going to reach out to anybody, it's going to be you."

18. The Discovery.

This place feels cold.

Maybe it's me and my imagination. But my skin is not making this up. I can feel the prickles all over my body as I step through the doors into the large foyer. A voice keeps telling me to avoid the creepy pastor at all costs, to sprint and get out of there if I see him coming. But of course I don't always heed my voices, and there he is, the guy with the frosted and spiked hair, zeroing in on me with his beady eyes behind the black-frame glasses.