The Plot by Jean Korelitz (good books to read for teens txt) 📕

investigators to West Rutland, let alone to Athens, Georgia. He strongly suspected, moreover, that Arthur Pickens had little to fear from an official investigation, and his client not much more, but it had been satisfying beyond belief to utter the words “Yankee prison” in that office, and the fury he’d felt back there only seemed to be coalescing with every step he took.

He was actually stunned by what had just happened between himself and Pickens, and sort of grateful that he hadn’t had the chance to consider and temper his response before he’d reacted. It wasn’t as if he’d been especially optimistic when he’d entered the lawyer’s office, but he hadn’t expected to be blocked before he could even get his first question out. He thought he’d feel the guy out, maybe suggest that he was interested in hiring an attorney, and when asked for details about his complaint he would describe TalentedTom’s activities and work his way around to revealing the name Rose Parker. Then, if Pickens declined to give him a means of contacting his client, he would leave, perhaps with some form of the message he’d managed to deliver, albeit not at quite so high a pitch. For months, he now realized, ever since that day in the car to the Seattle airport where he’d read the first of those terrifying dispatches, he’d been in a defensive posture, bracing for the next communication while hoping, against all logic, that it would never come. That had taken a lot out of him and now, for the first time, he was feeling the sheer rage he’d managed to accrue over that same period, the deep resentment against this person who felt it her business and her right to harry and persecute him, just because he’d found a story and crafted it into a fine and compelling narrative, precisely as writers had always done! There had been something about that guy, though, with his red face and his dyed hair and his shelf of law books and his preemptive stonewall. Something that grabbed Jake by the throat and made him speak in a language he might have learned from TalentedTom herself. No, these people were not going to fuck with him any longer. Or if they did, he was going to fuck with them right back.

By now he had turned onto West Hancock Street and was drawing closer to the address he’d first discovered at the Rutland Free Library. Only a little over a week had passed since he’d naturally dismissed that Rose Parker of Athens, Georgia, as irrelevant to the unfolding saga of Evan Parker and his avenging angel. Now the address, an apartment complex called Athena Gardens on Dearing Street, was his best remaining hope of finding a connection to wherever she was now, not that he was naïve enough to expect a forwarding address or any connection at all to a current resident. In a university town like Athens, the passage of six years meant a complete turnover of the undergraduates in the town’s many apartment complexes, but he supposed it might still be possible to find someone who recalled this particular person: a description, a memory, anything that might bring him closer to finding her.

Athena Gardens was a bare-bones version of the luxe options he’d already seen around town, housing complexes fronted by country club pavilions and showing glimpses of pools and tennis courts through their iron gates. This one, on the other hand, looked like a redbrick rehabilitation facility, or a small office complex occupied by gently failing businesses. There was a sign out front advertising Athena Gardens’s amenities (pest control and garbage removal included in the monthly rent, cleaning for a nominal fee) and layouts for the one-, two-, and three-bedroom options. Jake had little doubt which type of apartment Rose Parker might have chosen in the fall of 2012 after going out of her way to avoid having an on-campus roommate. She’d have lived alone here at Athena Gardens. She’d have kept to herself as her old life detatched and fell away.

There was a management office just inside the main entrance, and he found a woman behind a desk, working at her computer. She had a stiff pageboy haircut that only served to accentuate her very full face, and a default expression that said: I don’t like you, but I’m being paid to pretend I do. She gave Jake a thoroughly disingenuous smile when he entered. Still, it was a far warmer greeting than the one he’d had from Arthur Pickens, Esquire.

“Hi. Hope I’m not interrupting.”

She looked to be about Jake’s own age. Possibly older. “Not at all,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“Just looking at a few options for my daughter. She’s going to be a sophomore in the fall. Can’t wait to get out of the dorms.”

The woman laughed. “I hear that a lot.” She stood up. “I’m Bailey,” she said, reaching out her hand.

“Hi. Jacob.” They shook. “I said I’d take a look at a few places while she was in class. I’ll need to bring her back if I see anything that gets dad approval. I asked my cousin for some advice. His daughter lived here a few years back.”

“Here at Athena Gardens?”

“Yes. He said it was safe. Safety is what I care about, really.”

“Of course! You’re her dad!” said Bailey, coming around the desk. “We get plenty of dads. They don’t care how many stationary bikes are in the workout room. They want to know their girls are secure.”

“Absolutely right.” Jake nodded. “Don’t want to know what color the carpet is. I want to know, do the doors lock, is there a guard, that kind of thing.”

“Not that we don’t have a very nice workout room. And a very pretty pool.”

Jake, who had seen the pool as he came down the street, begged to differ.

“Also I don’t want anything too close to Washington Street. So many bars.”

“Oh, I know.” The woman rolled her eyes. “A hundred