Change of Climate

Chapter Two

London spent a long time splashing water on her face and trying to feel like a human being again. She pulled the baseball hat off because it wasn’t helping the tear-induced headache she’d developed. Her hair was limp and filthy and all bumpy from being swept up under the hat, and London couldn’t bring herself to care. She wondered if she was ever again going to care about something as stupid as what her hair looked like.

She wandered out of the bathroom, to the back of the house, which had been redone into a masterful open living area with a wall of windows looking out onto the backyard, peaceful, tranquil, perfect New England at the moment. It felt homey and familiar and also London could barely believe she had ever lived a life where such a scene had felt like it belonged to her.

Quinlan said, “I could make you coffee, or I feel like my mother would offer you tea? There is absolutely no beer in the house, per my parents’ stern house rules when they left. By which I mean, there is absolutely beer in the house.” Quinlan held it up from the kitchen area. “And there’s orange juice.”

“Water?” asked London, and curled up on a wide, squishy armchair draped over with a purple afghan.

“Water I can do,” said Quinlan, “but I’m a little disappointed you’re not challenging me more.”

London tried to smile because she knew he was trying to make her smile. She sat on the squishy armchair with the purple afghan and looked around the room at the bookshelves so crowded as to be exploding, at the random knick-knacks collected through life. She didn’t recognize a lot of them but she didn’t know if that was because they were new or because it had been so long since she had been in the Meades’ house that she’d forgotten. It was true that, now that she was here, she was realizing her recollections had been fuzzy, indistinct, even though they had seemed so sharp to her before she’d gotten there.

Quinlan said, “We can try to Skype my parents, if you want. They might be wandering around

London but they might also be home. You never know.” Quinlan handed London some water.

She took a sip and pulled her knees up to her chest and considered. Now that she’d gotten to Cheltenham to find the Meades not there, the fact that she had ever been looking for the Meades seemed ridiculous to her. What had she thought the Meades could do?

London sipped her water and thought of what she and Quinlan would talk about if they had met up with each other in a normal way, just…old friends running into each other on a trip. “You didn’t want to go with your parents to England for the year?”

“Well, I started at the school this year. This was a great way for me to get independence from them without living in a dorm room. Win-win.”

Oh, yes. London had forgotten Quinlan was a year older, a year ahead of her. Quinlan should have been in a dorm room right now. London should have arrived to an empty house. And then what would she have done?

London swiped her hand over her gross runny nose and refused to cry again. She had to hold it together.

“London,” said Quinlan, gently, leaning toward her a bit from the couch he’d perched on. “What can I do to help? Would Skyping my parents help?”

And London said, around a hiccup, “Someone killed my dad.”

Quinlan stared at her. Then Quinlan said, “Wait, London, what?”

“They killed my dad, they—” London squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to think of the lab, of the blood, of the—

“London,” said Quinlan. “Oh, my God.” And then he was kneeling by the chair and hugging her to him and she cried and cried until she got it all out, and Quinlan stroked her hair and said, “I’m so sorry, London. I’m so sorry. What can I do? What can I do?”

Finally, London felt cried out. She’d been waiting so long for that, she thought. She’d had no time for tears when it was all happening, and her dad had deserved so many tears. All the tears in the world, thought London.

“He was a great dad,” London mumbled against Quinlan’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” said Quinlan. “I remember. London, I’m so sorry.”

London drew back, swiping at her face. “It’s okay.”

“It’s really not,” said Quinlan.

“Right, but it’s not your fault.”

“I’ll give you that,” he allowed. “I’m supposed to have a handkerchief, aren’t I? My dad is going to kill me for not having a—Oh, my God, that was the worst choice of words ever. Ignore me. I am so not helping. I am doing the opposite of helping.”

“No.” London shook her head and gulped some water down. “You’re helping a lot, actually.” Because he was. He was helping just by being someone there for her to talk to, someone to say the words out loud to. She’d really needed that.

“Do they know who did it?” Quinlan asked, settling back on the couch, looking at her now with a face creased with concern.

London cleared her throat and played with the tassels on the purple afghan. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Well, what do they say? Do they have any leads?”

“I…left,” said London.

Quinlan blinked. “You…left?”

“I think they’re after me, too,” London admitted, in a small voice.

“Wait a second. You think whoever killed your dad is after you, too? Why would you think that?”

London hesitated, and then she reached into her bra and she pulled out the USB drive and she held it up. “Because I have this.”