Haunted (15 page)

Try to see in a window?”

“I say we go for it,” Yana agreed. “If the guards were keeping tabs on the street, I think we’d have seen something.

”

Anthony hesitated, then he opened his door, got out, and closed it with a soft click. He started toward the station. A
second later Rae and Yana were right behind him.

“I’ll take those,” Rae whispered, nodding toward the windows set in the huge sliding doors. She didn’t care that
much about looking in. She wanted to get her fingers working. But when she touched the metal door handles, all
she got was static. The fingerprints were so old and coated with grime that she couldn’t even pick out a word. There
has to be a smaller door, she thought.

She started around the building, keeping her shoulder close to the wall so she’d be harder to see. No use making
herself an easy target if someone was waiting here to try and kill her.

Yes. There was another door on the other side of the station, a door that looked like it went to an office or
something. Please, please, please, Rae thought as she reached for the doorknob. Give me something here. But all
she got was more static.

“Anything?” Anthony asked softly from behind her.

Rae’s heart slammed into her ribs. She hadn’t even realized he was there. “Nothing,” she answered.

“From what I’ve gotten so far, no one’s been in here for a long time.”

“Hey, guys. There’s a door that’s been busted open in the back,” Yana said breathlessly as she hurried up to them.

“Show us,” Anthony ordered.

Rae positioned every foot carefully as they crept to the back of the station. She got to the door first and did a
fingerprint sweep.
cold
why didn’t I
no one knows
The thoughts came through sort of fuzzy with a layer of
static underneath. Rae didn’t think it was very likely that the people who left them were still inside. Although if
whoever took Jesse knew Rae’s powers, they would know not to leave any fresh prints.

She pushed open the door. What choice did she have? Anthony managed to beat her through it. Then he just
stood there, blocking it.

“What? What do you see?” Rae whispered. She gave him a hard poke in the back when he didn’t answer
immediately.

“Nothing,” Anthony answered. “It’s empty.” He stepped the rest of the way inside, then led them on a top-to-bottom search. It was useless. The whole place was empty, empty and coated with an even layer of dust. No one
had been inside for a very long time.

They weren’t going to get Jesse back that night.

Down to the final five, Anthony told himself.

He forced his eyes away from the clock. He’d managed to make it almost all the way through English without
getting called on, but if Goyer caught him clock watching, she’d definitely nail him. He tilted his head toward Kelly
Middleton, as if he didn’t want to miss even one word of what she was reading.

Anthony thought he was putting on a good show.

But as soon as Kelly managed to get out the last word on the page, Goyer called on him. At least it won’t be like
reading in front of Rae, Anthony thought. It’s not like anyone in here is even listening, except Goyer, and she’s
completely used to Bluebirds. He turned the page and put his finger under the first word of the sentence at the top.

Nothing came into his head. He narrowed his eyes, trying to block out everything but the page in front of him. “Wh-”

He sucked in a breath, tried again. “When.”

“Yes,” Goyer said softly.

“When,” Anthony repeated. He moved his finger under the next word. He got blank head again. Crap.

Come on, he thought. You know this one. It’s one of the easy, little ones. A rushing sound filled his ears as he
stared at the tiny word. “The,” he burst out. He shoved his finger over to the next word. An image of Noah’s ark filled
his brain-“animal.” An image of Carl, Danny, Anna, his mom, and his stepdad appeared-“family.” An image of a pair
of linked clay hands appeared-“and.”

Suddenly Anthony felt like he’d been sucking on helium or something, like any second his body would start
floating toward the ceiling. The word and had just popped out of his mouth. That had never happened before. He
always got stuck on that one. Always.

I owe Rae another one, he thought. Maybe with that book of hers… maybe with her helping me… maybe I won’t be
a freakin’ moron for the rest of my freakin’ life.

Rae hurried toward the back exit of the school.

She knew Anthony was probably already out in the parking lot, waiting for her, getting more pissed off by the
second. It was like even breathing the air around Sanderson Prep gave him mad cow disease.

Just as she started to elbow open the closest half of the big double doors, Rae felt someone give her a quick tap
on the shoulder. She glanced back-and saw the person she least wanted to see. Okay, maybe there were one or two
people lower on her list, but Dori Hernandez was right down there.

“What?” Rae snapped, then immediately felt a pang of guilt. Snapping at Dori was like telling Bambi he was a bad,
bad little deer. She was pretty much the nicest, sweetest girl in school.

“I just wanted to ask you…” Dori’s words trailed off, and she gave Rae a helpless look. Like she wished Rae would
take over and just read her mind.

Ha. If she only knew.

“What, Dori?” Rae asked, managing to keep all but a tinge of snappishness out of her tone this time.

“I’m kind of in a hurry.” And I kind of wish you were dead, she added silently. Not that she wanted Marcus back.

After the way he’d treated her? No chance. But it still wasn’t a laugh riot trying to be polite to the nice, nice, nice-and
way too beautiful-girl that had taken Rae’s place.

“I don’t know how to say this,” Dori confessed, giving Rae the pleading face again. “But I have to ask you. I need
to know… really, I want the truth-”

“You’re going to have to give me a little more to go on here,” Rae told her. She glanced at her watch.

Anthony was probably already at the mooing stage.

“Okay, you’re right. Here’s the thing. Last night Marcus and I were, you know, fooling around,” Dori began,
hesitating between practically every word.

I do not want to be hearing this, Rae thought. Isn’t it enough that Jesse’s gone? Isn’t it enough that I could be
walking into a death trap in a couple of hours? “When we were right in the middle of it, he…”

Dori gave her a sad look, big brown eyes getting a sheen of tears. Rae felt like shaking her. “Marcus called me your
name,” Dori continued in a rush.

“And I really, really, really need to know if anything is going on between the two of you. I won’t be mad at you if
there is. But I need to know. Or I’m going to go crazy.” Dori gave a horrified little gasp, and a blush colored her
cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.

I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s okay to use the word crazy in front of me,”

Rae mumbled, on complete autopilot. Marcus had called Dori by her name. What was that about? Rae flashed on
their encounter in the library, the one where she’d thought Marcus wanted to cop an easy feel in the stacks. Had he
been thinking of more than that? Could he possibly be hoping to get back together with her? “You haven’t
answered the question,” Dori said, her eyes getting even wetter. “Which I guess is kind of an answer.”

“I’ve hardly even talked to Marcus since I got back from the-since school started,” Rae told Dori.

“Next time he does that-if there even is a next time-just, I don’t know, hit him over the head with a rolled-up
newspaper.”

Dori gave a choked laugh, then reached out and squeezed Rae’s arm. “Thanks. Thanks so much. I’ve been
wanting to talk to you for a long time, to tell you that I didn’t go after Marcus or anything. I mean, he told me that you
two were about to break up before you went… before school ended last year.”

That was a big, fat lie. But Rae didn’t bother to set Dori straight. Why? It wasn’t her fault that Marcus was scum.

“Look, I really have to go,” Rae said.

“And I don’t think you stole Marcus from me or anything. He has a mind of his own.”

Rae turned and rushed out the door. She spotted Anthony’s car almost immediately and bolted toward it. “Get me
away from here,” she said as she climbed in, the Mush keeping her from getting thoughts off the door handle.

“Bad day, dear?” Anthony asked sarcastically.

“What happened? Was someone wearing the exact same outfit?”

“I knew you’d be in a pissy mood,” Rae shot back. “Come on. Let’s go.” Anthony was backing up before the words
left her mouth. He maneuvered the car out of the parking lot and then headed in the direction of Little Five Points.

“I asked around at school, and one of the guys said there’s an empty warehouse a couple of blocks behind that
strip mall with the really bad pizza place.

You know the one-GGs?”

“Is that a half hour away from the skateboard place?” Rae asked.

Anthony shook his head. “Not quite. But I figured maybe they didn’t take Jesse straight there. Maybe they drove
around a while to confuse him.” He rolled his window halfway down. “Was something wrong before?” He rolled the
window a little lower. “You actually did look kind of upset.”

“My old boyfriend’s new girlfriend just wanted to know if I was still fooling around with him. And that just puts a
cherry on top of any day, don’t ya think?”

Rae answered.

“So, are you?” Anthony asked, eyes locked on the road in front of them. How could he even ask her that? “

Anthony Fascinelli, come on down!” she exclaimed. “You’re the lucky grand-prize winner on Get a Clue!”

He glanced over at her, one eyebrow raised. “I guess that’s a no.”

“The guy dumped me when I was in a mental hospital,” Rae reminded him. “And he didn’t even bother to tell me.

He just let me find out on my first day back at school.”

“People get back together sometimes,” Anthony answered. “You don’t have to act like I’m a total idiot.”

For one instant Rae flashed on what it would be like to be with Marcus again. She’d get to feel Marcus’s hands on
her again, feel his mouth. You’re the grand-prize winner on Get a Clue, not Anthony, she told herself, not allowing
her imagination to take the picture of her and Marcus back together any farther. It was pointless. Ridiculous.

Hopeless.

It was also a lot more fun than thinking about what was really going on in her life, about what could happen if she
and Anthony did find the right warehouse. But that was where she needed to keep her focus. She needed to stay
sharp. Alert. Her life could depend on it. So could Jesse’s.

Rae pulled a Kleenex out of her purse and wiped the Mush off her fingers. This was a situation where she was
going to need all the help she could get.

“I wonder how Yana’s doing with the history partner from the pits of hell today. Yana said the girl was going to
chain her to a library chair until-”

“Does that car look familiar to you?” Anthony interrupted. “The blue Dodge that’s two cars back?”

Rae turned around and peered at the car. “I don’t know. I’m not a car person. One blue car is pretty much like
another blue car.”

“You’ve got to start paying more attention,”

Anthony snapped. “I think I saw that car when I was driving you home yesterday.” He abruptly pulled over to the
curb. “Yeah, that’s it,” he said when the car passed them. “I remember the orange bumper sticker.”

“So do you think it’s-following me?” Rae asked, watching the car until it was out of sight.

“I don’t know,” Anthony answered. “But we can’t ignore stuff like this. We both have to really look at what’s going
on around us. So let’s not talk, all right?

Let’s just keep our eyes open.”

Rae nodded. It had been stupid of her to get so caught up in the Marcus-and-Dori sitch. As Anthony drove, Rae
made a point of studying the cars and people around them. She hardly allowed herself to blink.

Her eyes were burning from the effort of keeping watch when Anthony parked about half a block down from a
beat-looking warehouse about twice as big as the fire station. “That’s it,” he announced.

Rae scooted down in her seat, settling in for a bunch of hours of staring at a building. About forty-five minutes into
the stakeout Anthony broke the silence.

“That thing we did, with the clay, it worked,” he admitted.

“Oh God!” Rae exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me? That’s so great.”

“I read the word and. It’s not that exciting,”

Anthony muttered.

Rae slapped him on the side of the head. “It is exciting,” she told him. Then she gave him another slap. “Admit it.”

“Okay, okay. It’s sort of cool,” Anthony said, a wide smile-a little shy, a little proud, and a little embarrassed all at
once-breaking across his face.

“So, we’re going to keep working on it, right?”

Rae asked.

“Right,” Anthony answered. “And thanks. Thanks for not letting me get out of it.”

“You know what? There’s something we could do right now,” Rae told him. “This other book I found said that it
helps if you use other senses when you’re having trouble with words. So lean forward a little.