“What did I say about taking pictures?” the cop said, angling away and blocking the boy with a shoulder when he tried to reach for his camera. “This isn’t the goddamn Grand Canyon. We’ve got an emergency on our hands. Show some respect.”
Gemma couldn’t help but feel sorry for the boy. He looked furious. He couldn’t have been much older than she was, and the camera looked expensive. “I’m not a tourist,” he said. “And I can take pictures if I want to. This is America.”
“This is a crime scene, at least until we say otherwise,” the cop said.
The boy clenched his fists. Gemma found herself momentarily frozen, watching him. For a second his eyes ticked to hers, but they swept away just as quickly. She wasn’t offended. She was used to being invisible to other people, preferred it, even.
“All right.” The cop had finished with the camera. He popped open the back of the camera, removed the battery, and then returned the now-useless camera to Jake. “Now for your phone, please.”
“You can’t be serious.” The boy had gone completely white. Gemma was getting angry on his behalf. Why wouldn’t he have the right to take pictures if he wanted to?
The cop was obviously losing patience. He raised a finger and jabbed it right in the boy’s face. “Now look here, son—”
“My name is Jake,” the boy said smoothly. “Jake Witz.”
“All right, Jake Witz. You want to make trouble, you just keep on yapping. But I’ll bring you down to the station—”
“For what? Having an iPhone?”
“That mouth is gonna get you into trouble. . . .”
Gemma was too stunned to move. Jake Witz was the name of the guy who ran the Haven Files website. It had to be a coincidence—he bore no resemblance to the guy in the profile picture on the site. This guy looked like he could be a Clark Kent body double, just without the glasses.
And yet . . . When she looked closer, she thought she saw certain similarities. The line of the boy’s jaw, which in the older man had been blurred. The same slightly-too-large nose, which on the boy looked strong and perfect and on the older man had just looked comical. Relatives, then? She couldn’t be sure.
Finally the boy had no choice but to pass over his phone. The cop made Jake unlock the screen, and then sorted through the pictures, deleting the ones he deemed inappropriate. Jake stood there, his face hard with anger, which somehow made him even more attractive.
Finally the cop returned the phone and gave Jake a big thump on the back, as if they were best friends at a baseball game. “Good man,” he said. “Now don’t make me ask you again, all right? Clear on out of here. Nothing to see.”
Almost immediately, the cop swaggered away, pushing roughly past Gemma without sparing her a second glance, this time to yell at two teenage girls who were trying to record a video with their phones. Jake aimed a kick at a crushed Coca-Cola can, which skittered across the sand and gravel and landed in a patch of grass. Either he hadn’t noticed Gemma or he was pretending not to have.
So she cleared her throat. “Jake? Jake Witz?”
He looked up finally and her heart stuttered. His eyes were large and dark and mournful, and reminded her of the way Rufus looked when no one was paying him any attention.
“Yeah?” he said. He sounded tired. He looked tired, too, and she wondered how long he’d been out here, watching.
“My name’s Gemma Ives,” she said. She realized she hadn’t exactly planned what she was going to say. She still didn’t know what connection this Jake Witz had to the guy who ran the Haven Files, or whether there was a connection. If he recognized her last name, he gave no indication of it. “I know you. Well, I know of you. You’re from the Haven Files, right?”
He frowned. “The website was my dad’s thing,” he said. “I have nothing to do with it.” He started to turn away.
“You must have something to do with it,” Gemma said. The words leapt out of her mouth before she could stop them. Slowly he turned back to face her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gemma licked her lips. “You’re here, aren’t you?” she said. “We’re about as close as we can get to Haven. You’re taking pictures. You must be interested, at least a little.”
He didn’t agree. But he didn’t deny it, either. He just stood there, watching her. Gemma couldn’t tell whether he found her amusing or irritating. His face was too perfect. It was unreadable. Just being around him made her feel like she was fumbling her way through a restaurant that was far too fancy for her. She found if she avoided looking directly in his eyes, and instead focused her attention on his nose or eyebrows or cheekbones, she could at least think.
“Look,” she said. “I came all the way from North Carolina. My dad was involved with Haven somehow, or at least people think he was involved. He’s not scared of anything, but he’s scared of that. I want to know why. I have to know what they do at Haven. I have to know why it matters to him.” And to me, she added silently.
For a long time, Jake said nothing. Then, just for a second, a smile went fast across his face. “Not by a long shot,” he said, so quietly that Gemma wasn’t sure he meant for her to hear. He started to turn around again, and Gemma’s heart sank.
“What did you say?” She was sure, now, that fate had led her here, to Jake Witz. Sure that no matter what he claimed, he knew the truth about Haven.
“You said we were as close as we could get to Haven. But we’re not. Not even close.” He inclined his head and Gemma recognized the gesture for what it was: an invitation. He wanted her to follow him. This time, his smile was real, and long, and nearly blinded her. “Come on, Gemma Ives. I’ve been in the sun all day. I could do with a waffle.”