Page 48 of Your Every Wish
I climb up to the top of the splintered bleachers and stare out over the landscape for as far as the eye can see. “I don’t see any rock stacks, do you?”
“Nothing that stands out, no.”
I step down and plant my ass on the bottom bench to examine Willy’s passage again. “What are we missing? Because we have to be missing something.”
“Whatever it is, I’m not seeing it any longer.
” Misty pushes my leg so I’ll scoot down and make room for her.
“The last time this happened to me I was working for the Pasadena Police Department. A missing five-year-old who disappeared from the park while his twenty-two-year-old babysitter sat on a bench, texting her boyfriend. I saw it on the news and had an instant vision of a pizza parlor. The detective, a nice woman who claimed that her sister also had ‘the sight,’ arranged for my transportation to Southern California. But when I got there everything went dead inside me. Total static. I couldn’t describe the pizza parlor—the nearest one was two miles away and no one there had seen the boy.
I was useless and the clock was ticking.
They say the first twenty-four hours are crucial for tracking a missing child and there I was frozen.
Good for nothing. It’s happening all over again. ”
I pat her knee. “You did your best. And this, Misty, is only money. Not a missing child. Did they ever find the boy?”
She brightens. “Alive but badly injured. It turned out he was hit by a sixteen-year-old driver. Fearful that he’d get his license taken away, the teen dropped the child at a hospital near West Hollywood under a fake name.
It took four days for authorities to connect the boy to the missing child in Pasadena.
” She shakes her head. “He was hit in front of a bus stop with a DiGiorno Pizza advertisement plastered across it.”
“I guess that’s why they couldn’t find the pizza parlor,” I say, realizing what we’re up against. For all we know Misty’s rocks could be a rock ’n’ roll band.
“The tennis courts appear to be a dead end.”
“The only other courts are the bocce ball courts,” I say, ready to throw in the towel, tired of this futile endeavor. It would be more productive to go home and dream up ways to torture Willy. Can you do that? Torture a man in hell?
Misty has different ideas. She’s up and starting for the bocce ball courts. All right, I’m game, I guess. It’s the first dry day in days. I suppose it’s better to be outside than in. Besides, what do we lose by sussing out the situation? One more place to check off our list.
I trot behind her as she’s in high gear again. Seriously, she’s quite the power walker on those short, stubby legs. Where is Harry and his golf cart?
“Are you seeing anything?” I call to her back.
“Not yet.”
“Hold up a second.” My shoe has come untied. I press my sole against the wide trunk of an oak tree and bend over to tie it. It’s funny that there are more oaks than there are cedars or even pines, given the name of the place.
Misty waits ahead at the mouth of Trapper Bing’s driveway. She better not scare the birds or he’s liable to call the police. And if Rondi sees her, she’ll come out and talk our heads off.
“Ready?” I say and take the lead.
In the distance is Bent McCourtney’s house. From here it looks like a glass airplane hangar, oddly at home on the top of its grassy knoll, staring down on us peons. His open field is so green it looks like someone colored it with a crayon.
The bocce ball courts are the same as they always are—deserted. At one time, before they fell into disrepair, they were popular with the residents, according to Harry. I myself have never played. It’s too hot in Vegas for outdoor games.
It’s become a regular part of my running course but today I try to see it differently, through Willy’s eyes.
I walk onto the first court, get down on my knees, and try to rake away months of dead leaves and debris with my hands. My heart leaps when I reach the bottom. “Is this crushed stone?”
Misty gets down beside me and runs her hand over the surface. “That or decomposed granite. But it’s not what I saw. They were rocks. Real rocks.”
She also mistook a DiGiorno ad for a pizza parlor.
“How long have these courts been here?”
“They were here when I moved in fifteen years ago.”
“They predate Willy buying the park, then.” My pulse quickens.
I flop over into a sitting position and retrieve the notebook from my bag. By now, I should have the riddle memorized. I read it again, hoping to glean something new. Something helpful.
“ ‘In the shade of towering pines, a cedar stands tall, its presence defines. Beneath the dry stacks, where courts reside, my gift to my neglected daughters is tucked inside. From the green to the grave, I’m making up for lost time, assisting your swing and guiding your stride. Tucked away with care, in a bag that’s always there.
Providing funds for the game, my presence, you can’t disclaim. ’ ”
I look up and for the first time I notice that the bocce ball courts are in a copse of pine trees. Towering pines. By now, every fiber in my body is pulsing. My heart is pounding. “This is it, Misty.”
“These aren’t the rocks,” she insists. “They’re nothing like what I saw.”
“They have to be. Look”—I wave my hands at the trees—“we’re ‘in the shade of towering pines.’ This”—I pound the hard surface of the bocce ball court—“is ‘the dry stacks where courts reside.’ It has to be. We just have to figure out which one, which court.”
Her expression remains resolute. “This is wrong. You have to trust me on this. I can feel it.”
If I had a shovel, I’d start digging now just to prove her wrong.
I whip out my cell phone to call Emma. So what if she’s mad at me?
We should be here for this together. Celebrating this together.
She can be pissed at me later. And Liam.
He should be here, too. We wouldn’t have gotten this far without him.
“Wait!” Misty says and I look over at her to see if she’s having another one of her visions. “Do you see what I see?”
I follow her gaze and suck in a breath. Beneath the dry stacks, where courts reside, my gift to my neglected daughters is tucked inside .
Oh my God, how did we miss it?
“That’s it, isn’t it, Misty?” I can barely breathe; my heart is racing so fast. “The dry stacks. It was right here in front of us all along. There’s the cedar tree, marking the spot.”
“Yep. It’s what I saw in my vision. It’s exactly what I saw. I just didn’t realize at the time that it was the stone wall. The golf bag is in Bent McCourtney’s wall.”