Found (Mickey Bolitar 3)

Ema started to bite a nail.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I really care about this guy, okay? I know you want to dismiss it because it was online. But I have feelings for him. I miss him. We shared in a way that . . .”

I felt a small pang. I waited for her to continue. Then I said, “In a way that what?”

She shook her head. “Never mind. Let’s go.”

On the website, the campus looked beautiful; in person, it looked even better. The perfectly aged brick buildings lined the perimeter of an expansive circle of pure golf-tournament-green grass. The grass has been cut in perfect strips. The circle was big enough to house two soccer fields and a baseball diamond. The fields were all empty now, the entire campus still. I checked the clock on my phone and then I looked at the class schedule.

“Jared is in his Comparative Lit class,” I said. “He gets out in twenty minutes.”

“So what do we do in the meantime?”

I noticed two security guards standing in a booth. One of the guards stared at us. I realized how out of place Ema must look to him.

“We should probably get out of sight,” I said. “It’s an all-boys school, and, well, you probably stand out.”

I meant her gender, of course, but it was more than that. This campus seemed pretty straitlaced and old-school. Ema looked anything but.

“Excuse me.”

I had spoken a few seconds too late. The words had come from yet another campus security guard. He was a small man with a mustache so thick, it looked like someone had glued a guinea pig under his nose.

“Hi,” I said.

“Are you a student here?” he asked me.

I was going to lie and say yes, but that wouldn’t work. The guard would ask me for my student ID or look up my name or something like that. I was debating how to handle it when Ema enthusiastically stuck out her hand.

“Hi!” she said in this fake golly-gee voice that was nearly the polar opposite of her normal affect. “My name is Emma.”

The guard hesitantly took her hand. “Uh, nice to meet you.”

“And your name?” Ema asked, still holding the handshake.

“Bruce Bohuny.”

“Well, nice to meet you too, Officer Bohuny! Oh, and this is my brother Mickey.”

She gestured toward me. I nodded because I’m fast on the uptake.

“Say hi to Officer Bohuny, Mickey.”

“Uh, hi.”

Officer Bohuny and I shook hands.

Ema gave us both her biggest-wattage smile. Who was this girl? “Officer Bohuny, my brother is visiting the campus as a prospective student, and I thought I’d walk around with him. Is that a problem?”

“Well, see, you need visitor passes,” he said.

“We do?” She frowned at me. “Mickey, did you know that?”

Me: “No. I didn’t know.”

“So you two don’t have visitor passes?” Bohuny asked.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Ema replied—and she looked more than sorry, almost crushed by this indiscretion. “What should we do, Officer Bohuny?”

“The admissions office is that building on the left.” He pointed with both his finger and, it seemed, that bushy mustache. “The entrance is on the other side of the circle. You can get a pass there. I can walk you over there, if you’d like.”

“Please don’t bother,” Ema said, shaking his hand again. “We’ve taken up enough of your time. Thank you so much, Officer Bohuny.”

“Sure thing.”

We started toward the admissions office. Officer Bohuny kept watch. Under my breath, I muttered to her, “Who are you?”

She gave a small laugh.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Keep walking.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“I do,” Ema said. “You’re going to have to talk to Jared on your own.”

“How?”

“We will go to the admissions. You tell them your name and that you’re a prospective student interested in seeing the campus. You’ll get a visitor’s pass.”

“What about you?”

She shook her head. “I can’t play the sister card in there. They might ask for ID. It will look too weird. You go on your own. Find Jared. I’ll wait for you two at that deli we walked past.”

Ema didn’t hesitate or look behind her. She headed off campus while I continued to make my way to the admissions office. I had hoped to just get a pass and move on, but that was not about to happen. I had to fill out forms. I had to show my current ID. I had to schedule a campus tour at three o’clock and an interview at four.

“Would it be possible for me to walk around?” I asked when the paperwork was done. “I just want to experience the campus on my own a little.”

The lady behind the desk frowned at me and then said, “Come with me a moment.”

Uh-oh. I followed her down a wood-paneled corridor. Oil portraits of stern men, former headmasters, looked down on me disapprovingly. They seemed to say, “You don’t belong here,” and today, at least, it was hard to argue.

The receptionist stopped by a door and took a long look at me. “You’re tall,” she said.

I wasn’t sure how to reply to that, so I didn’t.

She opened the door and pulled out a blue blazer. “The school has a strict dress code. Didn’t you read that in the literature?”

“I must have missed it,” I said.

“Luckily you’re wearing a collared shirt. Here’s a tie.”

I thanked her. The jacket was a little snug, but it would do. I threw the tie around my neck and began to tie it as we headed back to her desk. She gave me a visitor’s pass and told me to wear it on my lapel. I did.

I checked the time. Jared’s Comparative Lit class would be letting out in two minutes. I grabbed a more detailed campus map from the admissions office and tried not to hurry outside. Jared’s class was in room 111, Feagles Hall. That was four buildings down on the right.

I hurried over, doing an awkward walk-run, and arrived with a few seconds to spare. The bell in the steeple chimed. I could hear the scuff of chairs on wood. The students started to exit. I leaned against the wall near room 111 and waited. Mr. Casual. Mr. Just Minding My Own Business.

Twelve boys exited the classroom. I had seen a picture of Jared Lowell. None of the faces matched. Jared had also been described as my height, but none of the students were over six feet tall. I still waited, still leaning against the wall as though I was holding it up, hoping that maybe he was just a straggler.