It took me a long time to ask, “How do you know this?”
“I found one the other day.” She was sitting up, ignoring the wine, composing herself; suddenly she realized that she had a partner in this conversation. “It was in a code of some kind, and he forwarded it to Robby.” She was trying to explain this by gesturing with her hands. “One message he sent to Cleary Miller, and another to Eddie Burgess, and when I checked the dates they were sent after they disappeared, Bret. It was after—do you understand?” She was panting again. “I found them in the filing cabinet of Ashton’s AOL account but I had no idea what it meant or why he would do this, and when I confronted him he just yelled at me about invading his privacy . . . and now, the last time I looked, the files and the e-mails weren’t there anymore . . .” And just when it seemed her lucidity had returned, Nadine broke down. She began sobbing. I was vaguely aware that she was clutching my wrist. I remembered last night and Ashton’s tear-streaked face and how Nadine kept excusing herself to check up on him. How many others had been the target of her paranoia? How many others were lured by this crazed theory of Nadine’s? She kept wanting to guide me to a point that she was not capable of making.
I tried to calm her by playing along. “So Ashton was writing to the boys in Neverland, right?”
“That’s right.” She choked back another sob. “The Lost Boys.” Her eyes were pleading, and the taut expression on her face was morphing into relief because someone now believed her.
“Nadine, have you told Mitchell?” I asked this in a soothing tone but I was so hyped up at this point that my voice sounded high and cracked. “Have you contacted the police and told them about this theory?”
“It’s not a theory.” She shook her head like a little girl. “It is not a theory, Bret. Those boys were not abducted. There’ve been no ransom demands. There’ve been no bodies.” She was rummaging through her purse and pulled out a tissue. “They have a plan. The boys have a plan. I think they have this plan. But why? Why do they have a plan? I mean, there’s no other explanation. The police have nothing. Do you know that, Bret? They have nothing. They—”
I was talking over her. “Where are the boys, Nadine?”
“No one knows.” She breathed in and shivered. “That’s the point. No one knows.”
“Well, maybe if we talked to them, to Ashton and—”
“They lie. They will lie to you—”
“But if—”
“Don’t you think the boys have been acting strange?” she asked, cutting me off. She wanted me to validate something for her that, admittedly, I had not been paying attention to.
“In . . . what ways?”
“I don’t know . . .” Now that she had admitted the worst, I thought she might relax and become less furtive, but her twisted hands kept bunching up the Kleenex. “Secretive . . . and . . . and . . . not available?” She phrased this as a question so I would have to answer and then become trapped in her own dream.
“Nadine, they’re eleven-year-old boys. They’re not comedians. Fifth-grade boys are hardly the most outgoing group. I was the same way at that age.” I just wanted to keep on talking. I just wanted to say anything that might drown her out.
“No, no, no—” She had closed her eyes and was shaking her head violently. “This is different. They have a plan. They—”
“Nadine, come on, stand up.”
“Don’t you understand? Don’t you get it?” Her voice was rising. “If we don’t do something we’re going to lose them. Do you understand that?”
“Nadine, come on, we’re going to find Mitch—”
She grabbed my arm again, her hands tearing at the sleeve of my jacket. She was breathing heavily.
“We’re going to lose them if we don’t do some—”
The dream was rushing in the opposite direction, rewriting itself. I was trying to lift Nadine off the granite bench but she kept forcing her weight back onto it. And suddenly she shouted, “Let go of me!” and wrenched herself away. I stood there, also breathing heavily, not knowing where to go. I kept straining to piece this information together.
And then: an interruption.
“Is everything okay down there?” a voice above us called.
I looked up. The armed guard I had asked for a cigarette was standing against a railing and staring down into the courtyard before sweeping the beam from a small flashlight over my face. Covering my eyes with a hand, I said, “Yes, yes, we’re fine,” as courteously as possible. From my point of view the griffin’s massive head floated directly below him.