In the morning they drive two blocks to the Two Whales. The place is Chock-o-Crisp-full of regulars, including Anderson Berry, a nurse in scrubs, whose face is about to crack in two from all the yawning, a gaggle of special Blackwell kids Chloe doesn't know, and a couple of truck drivers. All that's missing is a certain local drug-dealer. Everybody stops chewing when Chloe and Steph walk in.
"Hey, Chloe," Officer Berry calls. "Got a minute?"
They all wait, including Steph, who halts in the middle of the aisle, awkwardly. Chloe's fresh out of minutes for local police, but she makes an effort, for Steph's sake.
"Honestly, Officer Berry? I probably heard it all from mom already. And I'm pretty sure I'll be hearing all about it again from the step-… David. So can we just skip to the part where I promise you it'll never happen again or something?"
The policeman grunts, glares at the gawkers.
"Do you all mind?"
They turn away, reluctantly. The din resumes. Officer Berry lowers his voice.
"Listen, I'm just saying we don't need another girl to go missing in this town," he says.
"Nathan said that Rachel Amber represents Blackwell… with Frank Bowers," Max replies.
"Bowers ain't no student anymore. Sadly, he does represent one side of Arcadia Bay. I want you to stay out of his orbit, OK? Him and that rabid mutt…"
"Oh, I heard something about Frank Bowers and his puppy," Max says. "The boy does love his dog…"
Fuck the boy and his dog, Chloe forces her own thought through the flashback. Rachel! You were looking for Rachel!
"How is the search going? Got any leads?" she asks, back in the real world.
"Well… we're doing everything we can. But in a case like this, the main thing you can do is send out the information and wait for someone, somewhere, to recognize the person and call it in."
"And since you're waiting anyway, might as well wait in a diner."
"OK. Now, I know she was your friend…"
"No," Chloe says, walking away. "She is my friend."
Officer Berry winces, shakes his head, and returns to his plate. Chloe drops into the last empty booth. After a pause, wide-eyed Steph joins her.
"This fucking town," Chloe says quietly, to no one in particular.
Joyce comes over. Thankfully, she doesn't start about the cop, though Chloe's sure she's eavesdropped on most of that conversation. Joyce just seems glad to see Chloe alive and in town, and not alone.
"Mom. Steph Gingrich. Steph. Mom."
"The name is Joyce. It's nice to meet you, Stephanie."
"It's Steph, mom. She's visiting from LA."
"You look familiar. Didn't you go to Blackwell with Chloe?"
"And Rachel," Steph says.
"Oh, Rachel," Joyce says, and nothing else.
Steph orders Belgian Waffles to get rid of the awkward pause. Chloe opts for "eggs and bakey." She would love to wake and the other bakey, but there is no secret roach left, and her dealer will sooner shoot her on the spot, than spot her a dimebag. And anyway, Officer Berry told her to stay out of his "orbit."
"Don't let Chloe get you in trouble," Joyce says. "And let me know if you need anything else."
She leaves them with that.
"Oh, shit. It's the weird lady!" Chloe hisses.
"What? Where?"
"Over there in the corner. Don't look!"
"OK… So, what's weird about her?"
"Oh… Well… it's kind of hard to… It's just something I remembered from… Ugh. Nevermind."
"Hey, Chloe? Don't you think we should give the book bag and the laptop to the police maybe?"
"Why? So we can spend the rest of the weekend answering a million stupid questions, just for them to end up burying the stuff in the basement with the rest of the evidence?"
"They might be able to find something we can't. Like fingerprints…"
"Dude, this isn't CSI: LA. You heard our finest over there. The only things Arcadia Bay cops are trained to find are those pancakes every morning and their monthly contributions from the Prescott Foundation. When it comes to looking for people, they're doing the best they can. Waiting."
Steph shrugs. Joyce brings their food.
"What?" Chloe asks, once Joyce is out of earshot. "Do I sound like an idiot?"
"I know you're not an idiot, Chloe Price. I just wonder if your previous experiences get in the way of your decision-making sometimes."
"You take that back, Gingrich."
"I'm serious. We need all the help we can get. Rachel needs…"
"OK. This isn't what Rachel needs, Steph. Not for us to get stuck explaining where and how we found it and what else we know. We are the only ones who are actually trying. We can't be off the streets. I can't be..."
They stare at each other silently for a minute, until Steph sighs and relents.
"OK. You're right. For now."
They eat.
"This is still pretty great," Steph says, with her mouth full.
Chloe pushes her bacon around the plate.
A few minutes later, Steph pulls out her wallet, but Chloe waves it away.
"Nah. You paid for the room. This is my treat."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I insist."
"Well, thanks, Chloe."
When they get up to go, if Steph notices that Joyce never brought the bill, she doesn't mention it.
"Let me drop these off," Chloe says, taking the plates back to the kitchen.
"David went back to work yesterday, too," Joyce says to her, habit or stubbornness, Chloe can never figure out.
"Stop the presses," she says.
"Hey, Chloe," Joyce goes on, ignoring the sarcasm, "since you're here, can you take this paper bag to the lady in the back?"
"The crazy homeless lady?"
"She's not crazy."
"Why doesn't she come inside and eat, then?"
"I guess she's embarrassed. And doesn't like people…"
"Likes to eat for free, though, huh?"
"She's not the only one."
Chloe coughs, blushes, mumbles, "At least I come inside."
Then she grabs the paper bag and stomps out the back door.
The homeless lady is sitting on a flattened cardboard box in the corner between a wire fence and sheets of old metal roofing no one bothered to dispose of properly. There's a box of Skweekinax next to her, and a paper cup, which is probably not coffee.
"Have you met Joyce's daughter?" Max asks.
"Cute girl," the homeless woman says. "Pissed off. I used to see her and her pretty friend, er… Rachel, around a lot."
"Do you know anything about Rachel Amber, that missing girl?"
"I know she's missing. And I know she hung out here a bit. Sometimes I'd see her walking, all by herself, deep in thought. Too damn young and pretty to look so worried…"
"Was she alone a lot or with friends?"
"Like I just said, she seemed tight with Joyce's daughter. I thought I saw her with an older gent one time, maybe her dad. That's a terrible thing for a parent to deal with. I pray the poor thing is alright. But you can't save everybody."
"Seen a ghost, child?" the homeless lady speaks in a hoarse voice, making Chloe realize that the flashback's been over for a while, and that she's been zoning for just about that long.
"Huh? No. Sorry. This is for you, from, uh… mom."
She hands the bag over, feeling somehow jittery, insubstantial, like she's reaching across realities.
"Joyce is my angel," the lady says, making it worse, "even though I really don't deserve this."
"What?"
Fuck, if I get another flashback right now…
"Listen," Chloe blurts out, feeling really stupid, "by any chance you know anything about Rachel? I mean, I'm sure you know she's missing, but… have you seen anything… weird? Or her with anyone new? An 'older gent,' maybe?"
The lady cackles.
"Ha, that's a good one! You don't spend as long as I have in this town without seeing a weird thing or two, girl. This is Arcadia Bay. Wait, but an older gent, you say?"
"Yeah?" Chloe echoes the intonation, disoriented.
"Well, I did see her with an older gent once. Has to be over a month ago now, though."
"What? Really? When? Where? What did he look like? Was it her dad?"
The lady squints and raises her hand.
"Calm down. You're giving me a headache. No, it wasn't her dad. Some guy taking pictures."
"What'd he look like?"
"It's been over a month, I tell you. And they were kinda far. See, it was a bit of a cold spell that day, so I went over to Tony's to warm up. So I'm standing by the parapet behind the store, just looking at the sun setting over the sea, and I spot them off a ways to the left, towards the docks. But I mean, Rachel you can tell right away pretty much at any distance. The gent, though? My eyes aren't what they used to be. Older, yeah? Glasses, I think. Goatee, maybe? Camera."
"Was he dressed like a hipster?"
"Girl, I don't even know what that means. Don't remember his clothes, neither."
"Shit, well, that's a lot, anyway. Thanks."
"Why? This was way before she was gone. You think this man had anything to do with her?"
"I don't know. I wanna find him and ask him."
"Well, I hope it helps you find her. But..."
"Yeah, thanks again. Oh, did you happen to see a bike with them that time?"
"A bike? What bike?"
"An Indian, like this."
Chloe shows the photo she took from the laptop with her phone. The homeless lady looks at the phone like it's a skunk's ass, shies away, and shakes her head.
"No, no. There wasn't any bike there."
She opens the bag and get busy rummaging inside.
"OK. Enjoy that," Chloe says, before walking away.
As Chloe comes around the diner's corner, Steph is leaning on the newspaper machine, reading an issue of The Beacon. The sun is high, and it's getting pretty hot.
"Bet they don't have those in LA anymore," Chloe says. "It's all flying cars and holograms."
"And blue-haired replicants."
"Probably nothing there," Chloe writes in her unsent letter to Max back in 2010. "I think I just want her bangs."
"Anything about Rachel?"
Steph shakes her head.
"No, mostly about how there's no fish in the bay."
"Oh, yeah?" Chloe asks, without the least bit of interest in her voice.
She squints towards the western horizon, brings the phone up to her ear and waits.
"Yo, Justin."
"Chloe Price, the man, the myth…"
"Definitely not the man."
"It's an expression, Price. What's up?"
"You at the park yet? Need to talk."
"It's Saturday, the sun's out… Hell yeah we're at the park. These rails won't destroy themselves."
"Alright. I'll see you in a bit."
"Hey, Price, wait. What's this about?"
"Rachel."
"Oh. Yeah, OK. See you soon then."
On the way back to the truck, Chloe tells Steph the gist of her conversation with the homeless woman.
"That is great stuff," Steph says. "Does that description match anyone?"
"Sounds hella like Jefferson. She really didn't seem to like the bike, though. Was weird."
"Maybe a bad memory."
"Yeah, maybe she's had trouble with bikers in the past. Or maybe she's just a crazy homeless lady," Chloe says, twisting the key.
As they leave the parking lot, an RV rattles in from the street. Frank doesn't make eye contact.