Be Strong & Curvaceous (21 page)

“I say what’s in the deal or not.”

“Here you go.” The waitress was back. “Two coffees. I’ll be right back with your food.”

“Never mind,” David said. “We’ve changed our minds.”

“What?” Mac said.

“I want to show you something.”

“And I’m not moving. I want my cake.”

“That’s so like you. To have your cake and eat it, too. Well, that isn’t going to work anymore.”

“What do you—let go of me!”

“Don’t make a scene, little sister.” David’s voice sounded very close. A door closed in the background, and street noise swelled. “Just like Dad. No mess, no scene. Just pretend we’re walking together and everything is lovely.”

“Take your hand off me! Mmmf!”

And to my horror, the connection went dead. I shook it and looked at the display.

SIGNAL INTERRUPTED.

Chapter 18

C
OME ON!”

I dashed out of Piccadilly Photo, dimly aware that Philip had stopped only long enough to lock the door before he walked very fast after me. I ran across the street against the light, causing a minivan to slam on its brakes and honk, and arrived, panting, in front of the Cow Hollow Café.

Mac and David had vanished.

Next to the curb, a taxi started to pull into traffic. I leaped for the door handle and he slammed on the brakes as I wrenched the door open.

“
Señor
, where is the redheaded girl you brought here?” I asked in rapid-fire Spanish. “Didn’t she tell you to wait for her?”

The Mexican cabdriver backed his cab out of danger before he leaned over to answer me. “I didn’t bring a girl. I got a call to pick someone up here. If you want a ride, get in.”

My stomach did a sickening flip-flop. “Was there a cab here when you got here?”

“Why would they call one if there was? Are you my fare or not?”

“No.” I didn’t know what to do. “No, I guess not.”

Philip caught up to me as the cab swerved out into the stream of traffic and fishtailed away. “Was that her? Did we miss them?”

“It’s not her cab.” I felt like someone had scooped out my insides, leaving me cold and hollow. “I said I’d watch out for her and now she’s completely gone.”

Even at this time of night, the sidewalks were busy with people window-shopping or sitting outside little cafés like this one, or just strolling and enjoying a spring evening. It could have been the deeps of winter for all I knew. My skin had gone cold, my hands stiff, as I looked up and down the street, desperately searching for a flash of red hair.

“Come on,” Philip said. “We can’t just stand here. We’ll comb the street and meet back here in fifteen minutes.”

But we both turned up nothing.

“I don’t know what to do,” I moaned. “What if he hurts her? It’ll be all my fault.”

“It will not,” Philip contradicted me crisply. “It’s this Nelson chap’s fault, not yours. There’s nothing more we can do here. You need to get back to school and tell the police everything you know.”

“Right. You’re right.” I knew that.

Father, tell me where she is. And please, Lord, keep my friend safe. Put Your foot in front of David and make him trip so she can get away. Something. Anything. Just so we find her, Lord.

Philip flagged down a passing cab and put me into it, even pressing a twenty into my hand for the fare. “Call me as soon as they find her,” he said. “I’m going to keep looking. And please be careful.”

I sat, stunned and stupid, in the backseat as the cabbie negotiated the first of the hills on the way back to school. How could they have disappeared so fast? They must have gotten into her cab. She wouldn’t have sent it away. If she hadn’t seen me at the café, she’d have wanted that method of escape.

But what if David had used it against her? What did he want to show her and where was it?

I could only think of one thing, and it frightened me. He’d never really said he wouldn’t go ahead and do what he’d threatened to do. Maybe her little slip about blowing up the school had tipped him off that she knew something. And whether she was his sister or not, he had to find a way to keep her quiet.

As far as I knew, David didn’t know she’d already told the entire world. That was the only thing we had going for us.

I dug my phone out of my pocket and dialed Gillian.

“Carly, thank heavens,” she said. “Tell us what’s going on.”

“I lost her.” My throat closed and I couldn’t say a word for a couple of seconds. I tried again. “I went and got Philip and she called me so we could listen to her talking to David. Then he told her he wanted to show her something and they went outside the café, and the signal went dead, and by the time we got there, they were gone.” Silence hissed on the line as the cab mounted another hill. “Gillian?”

“I’m still here. I’m thinking. Where are you now?”

“In a cab on the way back to school. Are the cops there?”

“Not yet. But Ms. Curzon arrived with Shani and all you-know-what broke loose.”

“At this point, you could tell me we’re all going to be suspended and I wouldn’t care.”

She laughed, and the breath I’d been holding whooshed out of me. “Isn’t that the truth? But she’ll be looking for a new assistant tomorrow. I’m in the hallway outside your room. Lissa and Shani are in there with her, showing her and the security honcho the pictures and the stuff on Mac’s laptop.”

“Gillian, where could she go?”

She knew I wasn’t talking about the headmistress. “Think it through. The guy has been here a month. That’s long enough to find a place to stay and maybe get a job while he orders bomb parts over the Net. But he isn’t going to know San Francisco very well, and he has to use cabs or public transportation, right? So the odds are he’s either taken her to his place or they’re coming here, to Spencer.”

“He said if he really wanted to blow up the school, he’d do it Monday, when everyone’s back from the weekend.”

“Not good.” Gillian thought for a moment. “There was this episode of
CSI
where the bad guy took pictures of his victims and mailed them to their families, and that’s how they caught him. He was in front of some car repair place. Can you remember anything from those pictures? Anything that would tell us where he lives?”

I tried to remember the photos I’d stuffed into the envelope.

Envelope.

The envelope!

“Gillian, I wrote his phone number on the envelope. If it’s not a cell or a fake, couldn’t you find out where he lives from that?”

She gasped. “That’s it!”

I heard the sound of a door being wrenched open. “Ms. Curzon! Carly says the guy’s phone number is on the envelope. I bet we could find out where he lives on four-one-one-dot-com. Give me that laptop.”

I swear, if Gillian doesn’t become a forensic scientist, the world is going to miss out.

Keys clicked frantically. “Carly, are you still there?”

“I’m here. We’re nearly at the school.”

“You’re not going to believe this. The number is actually listed. It’s not his, though. It’s some person named Clyde at 1721 Bautista Court.” Clickety-click. “MapQuest says that’s about two blocks east of San Francisco State.”

“No way.”
Lord, do You have something to do with this?
“Maybe he made it up and it belongs to some innocent frat house.”

“We can’t take the chance. Umph—hey!” I blinked at the sounds of struggle, and then Ms. Curzon came on.

“Miss Aragon, where are you?”

“In a cab, on my way up the hill.”

“Good. I want you here in your room, safe and sound, in ten minutes. Is that clear?”

“But, ma’am, we just found out where David may have taken Mac. If they’re not already somewhere on campus, that’s the only other place they could be.”

“Admirable detective work, but nothing to do with you. Members of the San Francisco Police Department have just arrived, and they tell me the FBI are on their way. They want to talk to you rather badly. Ten minutes, understood?”

All kinds of bad things could happen in ten minutes. A fuse could be lit. A finger could tighten on a trigger. “Yes, ma’am.” I disconnected the phone and slipped it into my pocket.

Lord, it’s me again. What do I do now? Go back to school or try to help Mac?

God? Are You there? Help me.

The cabbie stamped on the accelerator to beat a red light, and we swooped up the second-to-last hill. Below and behind us, the city spread its carpet of lights. Thousands of lights, each marking someone who at that moment had no idea what was going on up here on the hill.

Lights spread out behind me.

Like Lissa’s armies of angels, spread out at her back.

At mine, too. Those angels were fighting on my side. But I had to lead the way. All it would take was one courageous step forward. I tamped down the swarm of dipping and swooping butterflies in my stomach and tapped the driver on the shoulder.

“Change of plans. Take me to 1721 Bautista Court.”

THE HOUSE WAS nothing special. It might have been built when my grandparents were young—and it hadn’t had much in the way of upkeep since. I asked the driver to go past it and park around the corner.

“You want me to wait, miss?” He eyed the deserted street.

“Would you mind? Just stay out of sight.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Gee, did it show? Maybe the fact that I was as jumpy as a bean on a hot stove gave it away. “No, but my friend is. She’s with a—an abusive relative and I’m trying to do an intervention.”

He nodded. “My cousin did one of those. Got his daughter into rehab. You shouldn’t do that alone. Want me to help?”

Thanks, Lord, for bringing me this guy instead of the last driver
. “That’s okay. Just be ready to drive away really fast if I can get her away from him.”

“I can do that.” He settled behind the wheel. “Mario Andretti ain’t got nothing on me.”

I ignored the fact that I had nothing on me to pay him with except Philip’s twenty, and the meter had left that behind a while ago. First things first: Mac, then the cabbie.

My phone twittered, telling me I had a text message.

TEXT MESSAGE
______________________________________________________

Natalie Curzon Where are you? Return immediately or face consequences.

__________________________________________________________________

There would be consequences if I left now, and they would be way more urgent. I set the phone to vibrate and put it back in my pocket. The street was silent—one of those old residential neighborhoods with hedges and trees and a tiny Chinese market on the corner. The rumble of an engine cruising up behind me very slowly sounded loud enough to wake the dead.

Too loud. Too slow.
Be aware of your surroundings
.

My heart kicked into gear and I whirled as the vintage Camaro growled to a stop at the curb. The engine shut off and Brett got out.

I gawked at him like a total nimrod. First we couldn’t find help to save our lives, and now help was practically falling out of the sky. What was up with that?

“What are you doing here?” I squeaked in a voice so high it was practically a whisper.

“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” He took my arm and led me over to the passenger side. “Relax, I’m not going to kidnap you. I just don’t want to talk out here on the street.”

At least it was dark inside the car, so he couldn’t see my face. My mouth was still hanging open and I couldn’t seem to say anything more coherent than “What—what—?”

“I followed you,” he said simply, making himself comfortable behind the wheel. “I was parking my ride when I saw you go past in the cab. Then two seconds later I saw him do a U-ball and take off with you. My weird-o-meter started buzzing, so I followed, and here I am.” He looked up and down the street. “Is everything okay?”

My brain tried to process these facts.
Brett saw you in the cab. He thought you needed help. He drove all the way across town on the off chance that you weren’t just going to get a box of tampons.

What did this mean?

“Are you having a slow night?” I blurted. “I mean, don’t you have anything better to do than follow people around town and offer them rides?”

His face crumpled in confusion, then smoothed out as pride got the upper hand. “I thought you might need help.” He put the keys back in the ignition and even in the silver light of the street lamp, I could see his face had suffused with color. “But, hey, you know, if you’re just going to see a friend and I’m butting in, I can go. Sorry.”

“No, wait.” What was the matter with me? Fear had obviously unhinged my brain. “I’m the one who’s sorry. And, yes, I do need help. Mac’s been kidnapped by her illegitimate half brother, who we think has planted bombs all over the campus and plans to blow it up on Monday morning, if he doesn’t do it tonight.”

Brett dropped the keys, and spent the next thirty seconds fishing them out from under his own feet.

While he did that, I explained.

“And so that’s when I told the cabbie to turn around, because the phone number on the envelope was registered to 1721 Bautista. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that David actually lives in that house there with the shrubs out front, and an even lower one that he brought her back here.”

“To do what?”

I shook my head. “He said he wanted to show her something, but in his e-mail messages he said crazy stuff like her days were numbered and they were going out in a blaze of glory. That doesn’t sound good to me.”

“Not exactly an offer for soda and a pizza,” he agreed. Number 1721 was three houses down, and he gazed at it, his eyes flicking from porch to sidewalk to windows. “What’s the plan?”

“You’re assuming I have one.”

“You’re here, aren’t you? That means you were going to do something, all by yourself.”

“I hadn’t gotten that far.” I followed his gaze to the house. “It doesn’t look like anyone is home, does it?”

“Doesn’t mean anything. He could just be keeping the lights off. Why don’t I go see if he’ll answer the door?”

I stared at him. “Are you nuts? He knows who you are.”

“What?”

“He’s been stalking her for weeks. He saw us all go to that party at Callum’s, and he even knows what time you and Mac came back.” Even though I was totally over him, I felt the blood creep into my face.