The skatepark is on the south edge of town, behind Arcadia Mills Shopping Center, which is really just a strip mall containing SAV-MART, Arcadia Pawn, and Up All Nite Donuts. Two blocks to the west and about four and a half years into the past, at the intersection of Arcadia Bay Avenue and Peckinpah Road, William Price slows down to make a left turn. He sees the logging truck out of the corner of his left eye, but his light is green, so he's only vaguely aware of it. William has a lot on his mind. Joyce, who's waiting just outside the SAV-MART entrance, hears a distant crash, wondering what it is.
Chloe takes the same left without hesitation or much of a decrease in speed, making Steph tense up. The Dashboard King shakes his head.
"You ever hear from Mikey?" Chloe asks.
"Huh? Oh, Mikey North? I do, actually. You don't?"
"Nah. I'm not much into social media."
"Well, we do mostly keep in touch on Facebook. They're in Eugene. Drew goes to Oregon State. Their dad found a job on campus, too. Mike sends me his drawings sometimes, asking for feedback. As if I'm some kind of authority on art."
"Hey, I remember your designs. They were pretty good."
"Thanks, but my designs always felt more like engineering than art to me. I'm interested in making things work, you know? Not so much in making them be."
"Just because a thing works, doesn't mean it's not art. You went to an elite art school, remember?"
"I guess… but even so, you won't ask a photographer for feedback on a sculpture, or something."
"Oh, yes, I will."
"Well, what is she going to know?"
"Steph, nobody knows anything! You don't have to be an 'expert' on something to have an opinion. And you sure as hell don't have to be an expert for your opinion to matter to your friend."
Steph makes and impressed face, and Chloe rolls the window down.
"Where did you get so wise, Chloe Price?"
Chloe spins an imaginary Colt around her index finger.
"Seven-eleven."
As they pull up to the wire fence, the air is thick with distinct crack-rumble of the skateboards on concrete, punctuated with an occasional thunderboom of a board hitting a ramp. Half a dozen kids are lazily attacking the obstacles. All of the curbs, ramps, rails and quarter-pipes seem more worn, chipped, and cracked than Chloe remembers. Was there always that much grass growing through the asphalt?
Justin drifts over, while Trevor shouts her name through the loudspeaker of his cupped hands, and the rest of the posse gesture variously in greeting. Chloe salutes back.
"It's just like the prophecy said," Justin says, as he approaches. "She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes. And when she comes the world shall end."
Justin's wearing a red baseball cap on top of his glasses and flimsy goatee. Still, it's a goatee. His speech is the usual mellow drawl, but his glance at Steph is wary.
"It hasn't been that long, Justin. You remember Steph."
"Yeah, went to Blackwell, right? Sweet bootlegs."
"Uhm…"
"It's been too long, Price. You and Rachel got too big-time for us street rats."
"You're not a street rat, Williams. Your mom drives a fucking Mercedes."
"So did Gandhi."
"What? No, he didn't. And even if he did, what does that have to do with anything?"
"All I know is he wouldn't blame a man for the sins of his fathers. Or mothers…"
"Oh… I see what's going on. You are high on some hella crazy shit. Got any left?"
"Chloe, maybe you should show him the pic first," Steph says, fairly wedging herself between them.
"Oh yeah, word."
While Chloe fishes in her pocket for her phone, Justin squints sideways at Steph again.
"Here," Chloe says. "See if you recognize this."
"Before I look at anything," Justin says distinctly, "I would like it known that if I'm committing a crime by viewing whatever I'm about to be shown, I'm doing so without my knowledge or consent."
"I'm not wearing a wire, you paranoid ass. Look at the picture."
He does, reluctantly.
"Oh, hey. That's Rachel."
"Yeah, great work. But do you know whose bike that is? Who took the photo?"
"Why the hell would I know that?"
"Because this pic was taken right… over here," Chloe says, aligning the photo with the background from a spot about four yards away.
"What? Let me see that."
Justin grabs the phone and spends a solid minute switching between looking at the phone and looking at the view behind it. It appears as though he's forgotten what he was doing about halfway through it. Finally, Chloe takes the phone back.
"Seems legit," Justin confirms. "But I wasn't there when it happened. Don't know the bike. We did see Rachel every now and then, but not on any bikes."
"You saw her alone?"
"Yeah, she'd come and hang a couple of times. Couple other times she'd just walk by without stopping."
"Where the hell would she go?"
"Oh, you'd know better than me, I guess. Somewhere. Maybe nowhere. Blackwell is just a short hike from here. Anyway, let me see that phone a second."
He takes the phone and goes back to the fence, showing the pic to the rest of the skateboarders. Soon, he returns, with Trevor in tow.
"Chlo-ee Price," Trevor says. "What's the latest?"
"Steph's in town. Rachel missing. You know that bike?"
"No, but. You know 'Thirsty Horse'?"
"The bar? It's right here."
"Yeah, and it's like the only place that I know in Arcadia Bay…"
"…That ever has bikers."
The wind does a basic 180 like a poser, and begins to blow out of the West. It unmutes about a million sea gulls hovering near the cliffs. Suddenly, it's hard to hear.
"I met him in some shithole bar that didn't card me," Chloe Price says over the racket. "He was too rich for the place and too wasted. And he kept flashing bills…"
"Just tell me what happened, Chloe," says Max. "Now."
"I was an idiot. I thought he was so blazed it would be an easy score."
"You needed money that bad?"
"Actually, yes. I owe big time. And I thought I'd have enough for me and Rachel, if she ever showed up…"
The flashback winks out, but the memories linger: the gross tiny puddles on the bar counter, the "short hike" back to Blackwell, the flickering projector in Prescott's dorm room, Prescott himself crawling towards her with a grin on his spaced-out, possessed face. She shudders.
"Hey, you OK?" Steph.
"Huh? Yeah. Yeah. Let's go visit that shithole bar."
Chloe wants to drive again, but Steph is getting upset about the lack of social conscience, so they walk the block. Thirsty Horse is a squat, flat-roofed, cinderblock building, unadorned, except for a single green LAGER LIGHT BEER sign in a porthole-like window. Even the name is not on the building itself, but on the unattached billboard, yellow, with black Gothic letters and the black horse that suspiciously resembles the Ferrari logo. The whole thing looks like a prop, a scam, something that can be stripped, folded and stored in the back pocket of generic brand jeans in a manner of minutes, in the event the public ever gets wise.
None of it rings any bells, either.
Until they're inside, that is.
Then it's the St. Peter's fucking Basilica at Christmas.
The long counter, the dart boards, the high metal stools, the single billiard table worn through to wood in several spots. The air smelling of complete disregard for the indoor cigarette ban.
She knows all of it, except she's pretty sure she's never set foot in the place before.
Good luck explaining that one.
The bar is surprisingly empty, it being a solid 1PM in Arcadia Bay by now, but the hidden alarm they set off by entering eventually produces a bartender. She's a tall, wiry woman in a sleeveless black Calico Jack Flag t-shirt, with tattooed arms and lined face.
"You're too young to be day-drinking," she says.
"Not in this town," Chloe replies.
"We're looking for a friend," Steph says. "Hi."
"Your friend isn't here. Nobody here but me and Moe, and Moe doesn't have any friends."
"Does Moe have a motorcycle?" Chloe asks.
"No."
"Our friend is missing," Steph says, "and we're trying to find a person she might have met, recently. The owner of this bike. Chloe…"
Chloe pulls the phone out, finds the photo and flips it to the bartender.
"Whoa," the bartender says after roughly half a second. "Isn't that Rachel Amber?"
"You know Rachel?" Chloe and Steph say at the same time.
"From the papers, and the posters, and the radio. She's been the news for the last three weeks."
"Coulda fooled me," Chloe says.
"You talk to townies a lot?"
"Yeah, fair enough."
"Well, I do, cuz it's my job."
"What do they say?"
"The consensus is that she ran away. That she isn't someone to whom bad things happen."
"What do you think?" Chloe asks.
The bartender shrugs.
"I think bad shit can happen to anybody."
There's a bit of a heavy silence after that. A bit of a dead end.
"Is it OK if I smoke here?" Chloe asks.
"But do you recognize the motorcycle at all?" Steph asks. "We hear this is the only bar around that ever has bikers."
"Girl, I tend the bar. They don't bring their bikes inside."
"Lets go, Steph."
"Hey, if you want somebody who knows about bikes, go see Sam Taylor."
"Who's that?"
"Guy who's crazy about his bikes. And maybe a bit crazy otherwise. Works at Blackwell."
"Blackwell, really? Wait… Samuel? The janitor?"
"Yep. Big on bikes. Has at least two himself. Goes to rallies and whatnot."
"Samuel?"
"Nobody's just one thing."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. But Samuel?"
He has a goatee, also, Chloe thinks. Jesus. Jesus had a beard, too, supposedly. Another suspect?
"Rachel came in here once, you know," the bartender segues in, clearly enjoying the impression she's leaving on Chloe.
"No shit?" the latter intones. "When?"
"Must have been two months ago now. March, maybe."
"Who with?"
"That Prescott kid."
"Fucking hell."
"Yeah, that whole family is bad news."
"Nah, it's a little closer to home than that," Chloe says, struggling with a flashback. "Let's go, Steph."
She takes a step and freezes.
"Unless you're just gonna tell me where Rachel is next."
"That's all I know, kid. Wish I could be of more help."
"Let's go, Steph."
She bursts through the door, gasping, gasping for air. The flashback is of Max and Chloe in the truck, parked at Blackwell, before the party. Her rage is a hot, pulsating thing. A drum that beats in her temples. Her body is like a coil.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Nathan.
Fucking Nathan.
Two months, she said. So probably doesn't mean anything. Except… everything that it could mean.
"Chloe, slow down," Steph says behind her. "This is progress. We're getting good info."
"Yeah. Yeah. No, I know. It's just the Nathan thing. In my dream… Remember, I told you about Nathan?"
"Yeah… that he was an apprentice to this teacher…"
Chloe stops and turns around so suddenly, that Steph almost headbutts her in the nose.
"He kills us both, Steph. First Rachel, then me."
"In the dream," Steph says. "Not in real life. OK?"
The skateboarders are taking a break on the grass, minus Justin and Trevor, who have probably gone out for munchies. So much for hooking Chloe up with some smokage. The wind picks up. A newspaper page drifts, flips and cartwheels across the parking lot and under the truck, but not before giving Chloe a sudden full frontal, like a flasher, against the wheel. It's the Beacon from two weeks ago. Chloe knows, because there's a picture of Rachel on the front page. "Rachel Amber Officially Confirmed Missing."
She sighs.
"Yes, I fucking know…"
As they get back in the truck and take off, Chloe's phone rings. She looks at the screen, confused, for a moment, before picking up.
"Frank?"
"Price, where are you?"
"Paris, where else?"
"No, that's where you would be, if you were smart. But since you're not, you should at least be lying low. People are looking for you."
