Road and Beyond: The Expanded Book-Club Edition of The Road to You by Brant Marilyn

Author:Brant, Marilyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romantic suspense, coming of age, mystery, womens fiction, amateur sleuth, road trip, 1970s, route 66, marilyn brant
Publisher: Marilyn Brant

2:14 p.m.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Pasadena, California ~ Saturday, August 16, 2014

The pavement was uneven and full of potholes, and the inevitable patches of road construction made even the short journey from Pasadena to Glendale a difficult one. They’d gotten us down to only one lane in each direction for several stretches, which was uncommon on most major thoroughfares these days. Hard for me to believe that, in 1978, when Donovan and I started heading down old Route 66, all of that historic highway had been built this way. That travelers once took entire trips across the country on a narrow two-lane ribbon of road.

But I hadn’t been thinking much about the route itself back then. My focus was elsewhere—on trying to find my brother and on the crazy attraction I’d felt to that boy sitting next to me.

Oh, Donovan McCafferty...why do memories of you on that trip wander through my thoughts so? Even now? Even all these years later?

The Donovan of that long-ago summer created such a cocktail of emotions within me. Although, perhaps, maybe all adolescents felt that way about their first love. He made me feel like an inexperienced little girl half the time and, the other half, like the woman I was on the verge of becoming.

It had been quite a feat of courage, actually, for me to push so hard for that trip with him along. It’s been decades since then and, yet, I’ve never forgotten a single day of our driving adventures. I think of them every time I get into a car. Literally, every time.

When I finally arrived at Charlie’s apartment complex, the first thing I did was to check the parking lot for his reserved space. Had to see if his sporty red Toyota Celica was there. (Charlie always drove red cars. Naturally, it was the preferred shade of lead foots everywhere, and the one color that got pulled over by the police more often than any other. So, for both reasons, he’d had his fair share of speeding tickets.)

The space, #326, which corresponded to his apartment number, was empty.

Did he drive away somewhere, then? Or was the car destroyed? Stolen? Might he have gotten carjacked on the way home from work Thursday night and left dead or unconscious in a random ditch?

To keep myself from dwelling on this thought for long, I parked in one of the visitor spaces and used the extra key Charlie had once given us to slip into the lobby. I knocked on the door to his third-floor apartment and called his name. Repeatedly. No answer. Dammit.

I held my breath as I unlocked the door and pushed it open, terrified of what I might find...like Charlie’s dead body on the floor. A victim of a burglary gone bad or, possibly, something simpler, like carbon monoxide poisoning or a drug overdose from a substance addiction I didn’t know he had.

But, no. The apartment—much like the parking space—was empty.

There were a handful of dirty dishes in the sink and a half-eaten, foil-wrapped sub sandwich in the fridge.

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