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I nod. “And this is Dylan.”
Zeke gives Dylan a wary glance. “Hey, man.”
Dylan responds with a brief nod and says, “So can you help us or not?”
“I can’t,” Zeke says. “But that’s why I brought Yumi along.”
The girl steps forward and holds out an open palm. “Cash first.”
Dylan and I give the money to Zeke, my stomach roiling as the cash leaves my hand. Zeke passes it to Yumi, who quickly counts it before giving him his cut. The rest is shoved into the Hello Kitty purse.
“Now the phone,” she says.
I give her Erica’s phone. Yumi studies it the way a jeweler does a diamond and says, “Give me five minutes.Alone, please.”
The rest of us leave the pavilion, making our way to Hernshead. The children who were there earlier are now gone, leaving the whole craggy area to just Zeke, Dylan, and me.
“Hey, is that Ingrid’s phone?” Zeke says.
“The less you know, the better,” I say.
“Fair enough.”
I look over his shoulder to the pavilion, where Yumi sits on the bench I just vacated. Her fingers fly across the phone’s screen. I hope that means progress is being made.
“I’m guessing you haven’t heard from her?”
“Nah. You?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you think happened to her?” Zeke says.
I look to Dylan. Although the headshake he gives is tiny, his message is loud and clear. We need to keep this to ourselves.
“Again, you’re better off not knowing,” I say. “But if you hear from her, please tell her to contact me. She has my number. She knows where I live. I just want to know she’s okay.”
Behind Zeke, Yumi emerges from the pavilion. She thrusts Erica’s phone back at me and says, “All done.”
I swipe the screen and see all of Erica’s apps, not to mention her camera, photo gallery, and call log.
“I turned off the lock function,” Yumi says. “If it locks up again for some reason, I reset the passcode. It’s 1234.”
She walks away without another word. Zeke shakes my hand and gives Dylan a strange little salute. “It was a pleasure doing business with you,” he says before hurrying to catch up with Yumi.
I watch them leave with Erica’s unlocked phone in my hand. I hope that whatever’s on it will be worth the high price.
Dylan and I return to the Ladies Pavilion, sharing a bench this time, the two of us crouched over Erica’s phone. Both of us know the answer to what happened to her—and, by default, to Ingrid—could be hidden somewhere inside it.
“Part of me doesn’t want to know if something bad happened to her,” Dylan says as he cradles the phone in his palm. “Maybe it’s better to just assume she ran away and that she’s living this amazing new life somewhere.”
I used to think the same thing about Jane. That she had escaped, trading our sad Pennsylvania town for some far-off locale with bluewater, palm trees, and nightly fiestas in a cobblestone square. It was better than the alternative, which was assuming she was murdered within hours of hopping into that black Volkswagen.
Now I’d give anything to know where she is. Grave or tropical villa, I don’t care. All I want now is the truth.
“That will change,” I say. “You might not think so now, but it’s true.”
Dylan pushes the phone into my hands. “Then let’s rip the fucking Band-Aid off now, I guess.”