Again, I felt bad for him in a way, though he had no sympathy from me over what he’d done to her. Even I got turned down by girls, and when it happened, I dusted off my ego and moved on. I’d never considered doing what he did. He should’ve known it was wrong before the Alchemists threw him into some mind-control camp. It was all between him and Carly now, and although he did appear legitimately sorry, she would be well within her rights if she let him suffer for the rest of his life.
Spelling that out for him probably wasn’t going to help me with my task here, so I more kindly said, “It’s up to her now. But I know she’ll be grateful if you can offer us anything that might help Sydney. Any detail you remember from when you left re-education.”
Long silence fell, and that seemed to weigh on Keith nearly as much as our coaxing. Finally, he took a deep breath. “It was hot out,” he said. “Hotter than I expected. Even in the middle of the day. I got out in late November and thought it’d be cold. But it wasn’t. It was almost like I was still in Palm Springs.”
I gasped, and Marcus gave me a sharp look before I could jump to some terrible conclusion. “She’s not there. Palm Springs isn’t on the list.” He turned back to Keith. “But when you say it was like that, do you mean it was a dry heat? Desert-like? Not tropical or humid?”
Keith’s brow furrowed. “Dry. For sure.”
“How hot is hot?” pushed Marcus. “What was the temperature?”
“I didn’t really have a thermometer to look at!” exclaimed Keith, growing frustrated.
Marcus was equally impatient. “Then take a guess. A hundred degrees?”
“No . . . not that. But hot for November—at least for me. I grew up in Boston. More like . . . I don’t know. Eighties, I guess.”
My attention was on Marcus now. I secretly hoped he’d suddenly say, “Aha!” and have all the answers. He didn’t, but he did at least look as though this was useful information.
“Anything else you remember?” he asked.
“That’s it,” said Keith morosely. “Will you please go? I’ve been trying to forget that place. I don’t want to go back for helping someone try to find it.”
I met Marcus’s eyes, and he nodded. “Hopefully this’ll be enough,” he said.
We thanked Keith and started toward the door. Considering his insistence on us leaving, I was kind of surprised when he was the one who suddenly said, “Wait. One more thing.”
“Yeah?” I asked, hoping he meant he had one more useful fact about re-education to share.
“If you see Carly again . . . tell her I really am sorry.”
“Do you still want her to turn you in to the police?” I asked.
Keith got that faraway look again. “It might be better. Certainly better than going back there. Maybe even better than this.” He gestured around him. “Technically, I’m free, but they’re always watching, always waiting for me to screw up. This isn’t how I pictured my life.”
When Marcus and I got into his car, I couldn’t help but remark, “Two months. He was only there for two months. And look at him.”
“That’s what that place does to you,” said Marcus grimly.
“Yeah, but Sydney’s been there more than twice that long.”
Those words settled heavily between us for a few moments, and I had a feeling Marcus was trying to protect my feelings. “Did she seem that defeated?” he asked.
“No.”
“She’s stronger than Keith is.”
My heart sank a little. “And that’s also probably why she’s still there.” When he didn’t respond, I tried to find a more optimistic topic. “Was any of that of use to you? The dry-heat stuff?”
“I think so. Here. Let’s trade.” He opened the driver’s side door. “You drive, so we can get some hours in. I’ve got calls to make.”
I swapped places with him but still couldn’t help but ask, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Maybe we should stay put until we’re able to figure out where she is. We could be going in the wrong direction.”
“Not if what Keith said is true. She might not be in Palm Springs, but she’s definitely south of us.” He pulled out his phone as I drove us toward I-84. “I’ve studied this list of possible re-education locations so much, I’ve practically got it memorized. There aren’t many places in the United States that would be in the eighties in November.”
“There are tons,” I argued, feeling like we were having the Potato State discussion again. “Hawaii, California, Florida, Texas. We were just in Las Vegas, and it was an oven!”
He shook his head. “Most of those aren’t going to have dry heat. They have warm temperatures and rain in the winter. And a lot of the high-altitude dry places with desert climates—like Las Vegas—aren’t that hot in November. From what I can tell from this list, Keith’s info, and you being certain she’s in this time zone . . . well, I think there are only two possible hits. One’s in Death Valley. The other’s outside Tucson.”
I nearly drove off the road in surprise. “California and Arizona? The two states we were just in within the last twenty-four hours?”
“They’re big states,” he said wryly. “But, yes, those are the ones.”
My mind reeled. Either one of those places was less than a day’s drive from Palm Springs. It wasn’t possible that she’d been that close the entire time, that I’d suffered like I had missing her, and there’d only been hours between us! Marcus started to dial his phone but then seemed to notice my stricken expression.