What She Didn't Know (What She 1)

“Do you know where Ash is now?” Ash hadn’t been gone long. She couldn’t have been.

“She’s looking for Shelly. If anyone can find Lynn, it’s Shelly. She’s probably the only one who knows Lynn well enough to find her and bring her back.” Jamie blew an errant lock of hair from her eyes. When it didn’t move, she rubbed her finger across her forehead, leaving a trail of grease from one side of her eyebrows to the other. I laughed and she asked, “What?”

I pointed to my forehead. “You got a little grease right there.”

She chuckled. “What else is new?”

“Is she okay?” I asked, weight settling against my heart like a stone.

Jamie rolled the wrench she was using in her hand, not looking me in the eye. “Lynn? I think so.”

“But you don’t know.” Of course she didn’t.

“Not for sure, no.” She sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly. “Ash is looking for her. Or Shelly, whoever turns up first.”

“Do you know what happened?” I asked. I held my breath.

“No. She didn’t tell me. I haven’t talked to her since she asked me to work on your car.” She continued to roll the wrench in her hand.

“I just wish I knew if she’s okay,” I rushed to say.

Jamie nodded. “I know. You love her. We’ve never doubted that.” She jerked her chin toward the car. “Let me finish this, and I’ll come inside. We can talk.”

“Okay,” I said quietly.

I went back inside, closing the door behind me. Just then, my front door opened. I don’t know why my heart leaped, because in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t Lynn coming back. It wasn’t even Ash. It was my mother.

She held up her keys. “I used the key you gave me.”

“It’s okay.” I refilled my coffee mug and got one down for her. My mother never turned down coffee. I handed it to her and she lifted it to her nose to sniff. “Jamie’s here,” I said with a weak sort of smile.

Mom squealed. “Oh, my God! I haven’t seen Jamie in years. Where is she?” She looked around like Jamie would be hiding in a corner, just waiting to jump out at her.

“She’s in the garage. Lynn asked her to work on my car.”

Mom’s smile fell. “Lynn sent her.”

“Yes.” I set my cup on the counter.

“I wonder what that means…” She drummed her fingers on the counter. Then she shrugged. “I’m going to go talk to Jamie. I haven’t seen her in so long.” At the last moment, she turned back. “Mason?”

I looked up. “Yes, Mom?”

“Those girls bonded over tragedies, Mason. Never forget that.”

I knew. I could still remember the first time I met Jamie. I’d gone to visit Lynn at Mom’s work. I’d knocked on the door to the office Mom let Lynn use, but no one had answered.

“She’s in the workroom,” Dad had told me with a smile as he walked by. “I think she said something about making some robot toys for some of the kids. She’s helping them put them together.”

But I hadn’t found Lynn in the workroom. I’d found Jamie.

6

I walked into the workroom, nervous as hell, because this was the first time I’d ever sought Lynn out. My heart was in my throat, and my balls were in my pocket. I was ready to give them to her if she wanted them, I was that nervous.

As I opened the door to the workroom, noise rushed at me. The workroom was a spot in the office where Mom and Dad had people come in to teach the people they treated about working with their hands. Mom’s theory was that we should be nurturing our tradesmen, that we should be holding tradesmen in as high esteem as we did doctors and lawyers in our society.

“There’s a certain type of satisfaction that can only be found by working with your hands,” Dad always said after he cut the grass and trimmed the bushes at our house on Saturday mornings.