Broken Compass

“Why are you rolling in the dust?” I ask quickly. “What did I miss?”

“Syd thinks Kash had a journal.”

“I don’t think. I saw it.”

“Yeah, yeah, he had a journal. But we can’t find it, and Sydney won’t accept the possibility that Kash had planned to leave and had it with him that night.”

Frowning, I turn to study her face. Her eyes are red as if she’s been crying. Her chin is lifted in a stubborn tilt. “You still don’t think he left on his own?”

“Of course I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t do that.”

I don’t want to believe it, either, but the police told us they asked around and no clues, so they have to assume he just walked away.

“And the thinking part?” I finish my coffee, place the paper cup on the nightstand and sit on Kash’s bed. Run a hand over his pillow. Swallow something jagged and bitter in my throat. “Clue me in.”

“We’re just pooling knowledge about Kash. Everything we know, which is admittedly very little.” Syd sits down beside me. “Too little for a guy we lived with for a year, at least Nate and me. Our guy.”

Our guy. He is that.

I slide a hand over her knee. She’s wearing denim cut-offs that leave her silken legs bare, and a top that’s tied in a knot in the front, baring her bellybutton. It’s summer.

I love Summer. Syd in Summer. Syd half-naked.

Syd buck-naked on the bed, legs spread—

“I said,” she says, waving a hand in front of my face, her cheeks flushed, “pooling knowledge. Earth to West.”

But Nate is also staring. “Man, if you want her to take off her top, why don’t you just say so? I promise I won’t complain. Though I doubt we’ll get any thinking done after that.”

“You guys, stop.” She smacks my hand lightly, laughing. It’s great to see her laugh. “Focus.” When I open my mouth, she lifts a hand to stop me. “On Kash. Not boobs. Kash.”

Damn. Nate groans. “I’d much rather think about your tits than the possibility of anything happening to him.”

We sit in somber silence for a moment, considering this.

“So, why not…?” I gesture for her to take off her top.

“No.” She snorts, and sighs. “Stop distracting me.”

Dammit. Yeah, like Nate, I’d rather play with her than think about the dark stuff, but she’s right. We should talk about this.

“I think we need to find George at the restaurant where Kash used to work,” she says. “He worked there for what, two years? Anything the guy can tell us…”

“But like what?” I stroke her knee, and she shivers. “The police said they talked to him. That he knows nothing.”

“Maybe they missed some clue,” Nate mutters.

“And what are we, private detectives? What sort of clue could they have missed?”

“I dunno, man. Anything. I’m trying to track down the numbers of the last students he tutored, too.” Nate runs his hand through his hair. “I mean, all I know about Kash is his surname, and that his tattoos were done by a Madden guy.”

“Madden?” Syd frowns. “That doesn’t ring any bells. All I know about Kash is that he’s our age, despite what his papers say, and comes from somewhere in the north.”

“Zane Madden,” I say. “In Wisconsin.”

They both turn to look at me. “How the hell would you know that?”

And this brings me to the uncomfortable position where I realize that I have more info on Kash than either of them.