Kids These Days

Chapter 46: Ronan

My mind spins as fast as my bicycle tires as I peddle down Main Street, the harsh desert wind stripping the sweat from my face. I skid to a halt in front of the public library and jump off my bike, ditching it on the sidewalk. Hopefully all the aspiring bike thieves of Dusty Valley are in bed and not wandering the streets at one in the morning. I've got enough on my plate already.

It's a good thing I learned how to pick a lock back in New York, because I don't feel like breaking a library window and adding "destruction of public property" to my record. The front door opens easily with the help of a bit of coat hanger wire, and as soon as I'm inside, I switch on my flashlight and start searching.

The librarian, an older lady named Beth, has made it a habit to update me, as well as anyone else in earshot, about all the details of her very fascinating personal life. The last time I was here, she talked for nearly half an hour about a box of old donated books she'd found while cleaning out the downstairs storage room. She asked a local museum if they'd been interested in adding her discovery to their collection, but because nobody knew how old the books were, the curator refused to accept them, and so the books had been stuck in limbo ever since.

It was a shame, Beth remarked, that the curator was too thick-headed to realize the significance of the books, as she suspected some were old enough to have belonged to the first residents of Dusty Valley, and were most likely important historical documents. At least that's what her cousin, an antiques dealer from Odessa, had told her, and he'd once saved a real Chippendale chair from an estate sale. Or so the story goes. 

What's also a shame is that the library has no real security, making it incredibly easy to sneak into the basement and steal said historical documents. I rummage through a stack of boxes labeled "DONATIONS/OLD JUNK", trying my best not to inhale clouds of dust, until I find what dragged me out here in the middle of the night -- a faded family bible bound in leather that might've been considered fancy a hundred years ago.

I grab the book and put the library behind me. 

As I bike one-handed down Main Street, breathing in the night chill, a story starts to take shape in my mind. If I'm right -- and I'm usually right -- this bible will be the final piece. I started thinking about Rachel Clairvaux's backstory after the phone call with my father. In a way, she reminds me a lot of my family; relentless, highly motivated, and determined to win no matter the cost. But where did she come from? Where's her paper trail?

Dolores had a point when she said I wasn't asking the right questions. Hopefully, the answer to the real question, the one that's been itching at the back of my mind all summer, is somewhere inside the book I'm holding.

I leap off my bike at the coffee shop and hustle over to the payphone. With the bible still pinned under my sweaty arm -- which I'll admit is not the best way to treat a historical text, sorry, Beth -- I use my free hand to dial a number that I memorized last summer.

Sweat drips down the bridge of my nose as I wait for an answer. A few seconds later, a sleepy voice says, "Hello?"

Halle-fucking-lujah. (I'm so getting smited before the night is over.) "Hey, I'm sorry if I woke you up," I say in a rush. "I don't know what the time difference is between California and Canada. It's me, by the way. Ronan. Hopefully the name rings a bell. We served time in the Alaskan wilderness together?"

"It's five in the morning," Jasper Sostenuto says. "I'm assuming this is urgent?"

"Extremely," I assure him. Then: "Why are you awake, anyway?"

He yawns audibly on the other end of the line. "I'm cramming for a comp-sci final."

"In August?"

"It's a summer class. And a horrible mistake, probably, but I'm trying to graduate early. College is hard. I don't recommend it. What's so urgent that you're calling me in the middle of the night from California?"