“Now get on your motorcycle, Mr. Wilkins,” he said to Rob, “and go home.”
“Hey.” Now that some of the blood was receding from my head, I could think straight. “How did you know his last name? I never told you that.”
Special Agent Johnson looked bored. “License plate.”
“Oh,” I said.
I glanced back at Rob, standing in the rain, with his T-shirt all sticking to him. You could see his abs through the drenched material. It occurred to me that this, too, was like a scene from a music video. You know, the totally hot guy standing in the rain after his girlfriend dumps him?
Except that I so totally was not dumping him. I was just trying to find a kid. That was all.
Only nobody was letting me.
Then something else occurred to me: If Rob’s T-shirt was that wet, then what about mine?
I looked down, and promptly folded my arms across my chest.
It was better this way, I thought. I mean, not about our wet T-shirts, but the fact that they were making him go away. Because I knew it would be a lot easier to ditch the Wonder Twins than it would Rob. FBI agents I didn’t mind head-butting. But when it came down to it, I think hurting Rob would have been hard.
“I’ll call you,” I said to Rob over my shoulder, as Special Agent Johnson started to pull me back toward the center of the camp.
“Do me a favor, Mastriani,” Rob said.
“Sure,” I said. It was hard to walk backward through the rain, but Special Agent Johnson was pulling so hard on me, I didn’t have much choice. “What?”
“Don’t.”
And then Rob turned and started walking away. It didn’t take long for the rain and mist to swallow him up. A minute later, I heard the engine of his Indian rev up.
And then he was gone.
I looked up at Special Agent Johnson, who, unlike Rob, did not look sexy drenched in rainwater.
“I hope you’re happy now,” I said to him. “That guy might have been my boyfriend someday, if you hadn’t come along and ruined it.”
Special Agent Johnson was busy dialing some numbers on his cell phone. He said, “Do your parents know about you and Mr. Wilkins, Jess?”
“Of course they do,” I said very indignantly. “Though I have my own life, you know. My parents do not dictate whom I see or do not see socially.”
This was such an outrageous string of lies, I’m surprised my tongue didn’t shrivel up and fall off.
Special Agent Johnson didn’t look like he believed any of them, either.
“Do your parents know,” he went on, as if our conversation hadn’t been interrupted, “that Mr. Wilkins has an arrest record? And is currently on probation?”
“Yes,” I said, as sassily as I could. Then, because I couldn’t resist, I went, “Although they aren’t too clear on just what he’s on probation for… .”
Special Agent Johnson just looked down at me, frowning a little. He went, “That information is, of course, confidential. If Mr. Wilkins has not chosen to share it with … your parents, I don’t see that I can.”
Jeez! Shot down again! How was I
ever
going to find out what Rob had done to land him in the cinderblock jungle? Rob wouldn’t tell me, and, not surprisingly, I couldn’t get a straight answer out of the Feds, either. It couldn’t have been that bad, or he’d have served time and not just gotten probation. But what
was
it?
It didn’t look like I’d ever find out now. No, I’d managed to ruin that little relationship, hadn’t I?
But what was I supposed to do? I mean, really?
Whoever was on the other end of Special Agent Johnson’s cell phone must have picked up, since he said into it, “Cassie secured. Repeat, Cassie secured.”
Then he hung up.
“Who,” I demanded, “is Cassie?”
“I beg your pardon,” Special Agent Johnson said, putting his phone away. “I ought to have said Cassandra.”
“And who’s Cassandra?”
“No one you need to worry about.”
I glared at him. Now that I’d been out in the rain so long, I didn’t even care how wet I was. I mean, it wasn’t like I couldn’t get any wetter.
Or more miserable.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I remember now. Seventh grade. We did mythology. Cassandra was like a psychic, or something.”
“She had a talent,” Special Agent Johnson admitted, “for prophecy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Only she was under this curse, and—” I shook my head in disbelief. “
That’s
my code name?
Cassandra
?”
“You’d have preferred something else?”
“Yeah,” I said. “How about no code name?”
I was having, I decided, a pretty bad day. First a psycho wife-beater tries to kill me, then my boyfriend walks out on me. Now I find out I have a code name with the FBI. What next?
Special Agent Smith appeared from the shadows, sheltered under a big black umbrella.
“Look at you two,” she said when she saw us. “You’re soaked.” She moved until the umbrella was covering all three of us. Well, more or less.
“I managed to secure some rooms,” she said, “at a Holiday Inn a few miles away. I don’t think Mr. Larsson will think to look for Jess there.”
“Do I get my own room?” I asked hopefully.
“Of course not.” Special Agent Smith smiled at me. “We’re roomies.”
Great. “I’m a remote hog,” I informed her.
“I’ll live,” she said.
This was horrible. This was terrible. I couldn’t go stay in a cushy Holiday Inn while Shane was out in the wilderness somewhere … or worse, dead. I had to find him.
Only how was I going to do that? How was I going to find him, and not let Allan and Jill know what I was up to?
“I have to,” I said, my throat dry, “get my stuff.”
“Of course.” Special Agent Johnson looked at his watch. It was one of those ones that light up. “We’ll escort you back to your cabin to gather your belongings.”
Jeez!
Still, I think Special Agents Johnson and Smith began to regret their assignment to Project Cassandra more than ever when we stepped into Birch Tree Cottage and observed the level of chaos there. The kids were off the wall. When we walked in, we narrowly escaped being hit by a flying chunk of bow rosin. Arthur was playing his tuba, in spite of the no-practicing-outside-of-the-music-building rule; Lionel was screaming for silence at the top of his lungs; Doo Sun and Tony were sword-fighting with a pair of violin bows …
And in the middle of it all, a lady police officer was standing with her hands over her ears, pleading ineffectively with her charges: “Please! Please listen to me, we’re going to find your friend—”
I strode into the kitchen, opened the fuse box, and threw the switches.
Plunged into semi-darkness, the boys froze. All noise ceased.
Then I stepped out from the kitchen—
—and instantly became part of a Jessica sandwich as all of the boys surrounded me, clinging to various parts of my body and crying my name.
“All right,” I yelled, after a while. “Simmer down. Simmer down!”
I disentangled myself from their embrace, then sank down onto a bed—Shane’s empty bed, I saw, when lightning again lit the now darkened room. The bed was haphazardly made, with musical note sheets. Shane would have preferred, I was fairly certain, bedding emblazoned with football paraphernalia. Nevertheless, the sheets gave off a Shane-like odor that, for once, I found comforting.
“All right,” I said, interrupting the cries of “Jess, where have you been?” and “Didja hear about Shane?”
“Yes, I heard about Shane,” I said. “Now I want to hear your version of what happened.”
The boys looked at one another blankly, then shrugged, more or less in unity.
“He was with us on the way to the lake,” Sam volunteered.
Lionel’s accent worsened, I realized, when he was stressed. It took me a minute to figure out his next words: “But I think he did not go in the water.”
“Really, Lionel?” I peered down at the little boy. “Why do you think that?”
“If Shane had gone into the water,” Lionel said thoughtfully, “he would have tried to push my head under. But he did not.”
“So he didn’t actually make it into the lake?” I asked.
The boys shrugged again. Only Lionel nodded with anything like assurance.
“I think,” Lionel said, “that Shane ran away. He was very angry with you, Jess, for not giving me the strike.”
As usual, he pronounced my name Jace. And, as usual, Lionel was right. At least I thought so. I think Shane had been angry with me … angry enough that maybe—just maybe—he wanted to teach me a lesson.
Shane, I thought to myself. Where are you? And what are you up to?
Suddenly, the lights came back on. Special Agent Smith came out of the kitchen, then nodded toward my room. “Are those your belongings in there?”
I nodded.
“I’ll pack them for you,” she said, and disappeared into my room, while her partner leaned against the front doorjamb and looked at his watch again.
“Who’s that guy?” Tony wanted to know.
“Is that your
boyfriend?
” Doo Sun asked.
“Is that
Rob?
” Arthur started to ask, but I slapped a hand over his mouth … probably as much to my own surprise as his.
“Shhh,” I said. “That’s not Rob. That’s just a, um, friend of mine.”
“Oh,” Arthur said, when I’d removed my hand. “Have you been eating McDonald’s?”
I picked up Shane’s pillow and lowered my face into it. Oh, Lord, I prayed. Give me the strength not to kill any more little boys today. One is really enough, I think.
Special Agent Smith came out of my room, holding a duffel bag.
“I think I’ve got everything,” she said. “Are these Gogurts yours, or should I leave them for the children?”
Arthur, his eyes very bright, swiveled his head toward me.
“Hey,” he said. “What is she doing? Is that your stuff?”
“Are you leaving?” Lionel’s chin began to tremble. “Are
you
going, Jace?”
Exasperated—this was
not
how I’d wanted to break the news to the boys that I was leaving—I said to Special Agent Smith, “The Gogurts and the cookies and the chips and stuff aren’t mine. Don’t pack them.”
Special Agent Smith looked confused. “There are no cookies, Jess. Just these Gogurt things.”
“No cookies?” I stared at her. “There should be. There should be cookies and chips and Fiddle Faddle.”
“Fiddle
what
?” Special Agent Smith looked more confused than ever.
“Fiddle Faddle,” the boys shouted at her.
“No.” Special Agent Smith blinked. “None of that. Just these Gogurts.”
Still clutching Shane’s pillow, I stood up and looked down at the boys.
“Did you guys eat all that candy and stuff I confiscated from you the other day?”
They looked at one another. I could have sworn they had no idea what I was talking about.
“No,” they said, shaking their heads.
“I tried,” Arthur confessed. “But I couldn’t reach it. You put it up too high.”
Too high for Arthur.
But not, I realized, for the largest resident of Birch Tree Cottage … besides me, of course.
I became aware of several things all at once. One, that Ruth and Scott—followed by Dave—were stepping up onto the front porch … come to say goodbye, I guessed.
Two, the rain outside had suddenly stopped. There was only the most distant rumbling from the sky now, as the storm moved out toward Lake Michigan.
And three, the smell from Shane’s pillow, which I still clutched, had become overwhelming.
And that was because all at once, I knew where he was.
And it wasn’t at the bottom of Lake Wawasee.
C H A P T E R
15
L
ook, what do you want me to say? I don’t understand this psychic stuff any more than you do. Back when I’d been a special guest at Crane Military Base, they’d run a bunch of tests on me, and basically what they’d found out was that when I slip into REM-stage sleep, something happens to me. It’s like the webmaster of my brain suddenly downloads some information that wasn’t there before. That’s how, when I wake up, I know stuff.
Only this time, it had happened while I was awake. Really. Right while I was standing there clutching Shane’s stinky pillow.
And I hadn’t felt a thing. In the comic books my brother Douglas is always reading, whenever one of the characters gets a psychic vision—and they do, frequently—he scrunches up his face and goes, “
Uhnnnn
…”
Seriously.
Uhnnn
. Like it hurts.
But I am telling you, downloading a psychic vision—or however they come—doesn’t hurt. It’s like one second the information is not there, and a second later, it is.
Like an e-mail.
Which was why, when I looked up from that pillow, it was really hard to contain myself. I mean, I didn’t want to shout out what I knew for Special Agents Johnson and Smith to hear. I wasn’t exactly anxious to let them in on this new development, considering all the time and effort I’d spent, assuring them I’d lost all psychic power entirely.
Still, when I finally did get a chance to impart what seemed, to me, like some pretty miraculous stuff, no one was very impressed.
“A
cave
?” Ruth’s voice rose to a panic-stricken pitch. “You want me to go into a
cave
to look for that miserable kid? No, thanks.”
I shushed her. I mean, it wasn’t like the Feds weren’t in the next room, or anything.
“Not you,” I said. “I’ll do the actual, um, cave entering.” I didn’t want to offend her by telling her the truth, which was that Ruth was the last person I’d ever pick to go spelunking with.
“But a
cave
?” Ruth still looked skeptical. “Why would he run off and hide in a cave?”
“Two words,” I said. “Paul Huck.”
“Who,” Ruth whispered, “or should I say,
what
is a Paul Huck?”
“He’s a guy who ran away to a cave,” I explained quietly, “when he felt he was being persecuted.”
We had to talk in whispers, because we were sequestered in my tiny cubicle of a bedroom, while outside, Special Agents Johnson and Smith sat guarding the perimeter. I was supposed to be saying good-bye to the boys and my friends. The Feds had very generously allotted me ten minutes to do this. I suppose their line of thinking was, Well, she can’t get up to much trouble in that tiny room, now can she?