Lucky Me (14 page)

“Hello?” I said into my phone, my voice husky and low. I glanced at Jack who had his eyebrows raised questioningly.

“What are you doing?” Jack whispered, and I pressed a finger to my lips motioning for him to be quiet.

“Guess who?”

The voice on the other end of the line was definitely not Milo, unless he had suddenly decided to get a creepy, robotic
The Shining
vibe about him.

“Hello?” I repeated, dropping my sultry voice. “Who is this?”

“An old friend,” the voice said.

I looked at Jack, who was giving me a quizzical look. He mouthed
who is it,
and I shrugged. The voice wasn't clear at all. It was up and down, almost melodic in a strange way. Either the connection had decided to go crazy, or the voice on the line was auto tuned. Jack mouthed
speaker
to me, and I put the phone on loud speaker.

“Who is this?” I asked again, Jack coming up beside me.

“Oh I think you know, Gia.”

Jack and I looked at each other in realization. My eyes widened and looked back the phone with uncertainty.

“Oh my God! T-Pain? Is that you?”

Jack took a deep breath and turned around to face the fridge, making an action of banging his head against it in frustration. Clearly we weren't on the same page about who the mystery caller was.

“Uh, no,” came the reply through the phone. “But good try. Let me introduce myself. My name is Dr. D.”

I clapped a hand over my mouth. Oh. My. God. He was calling me. He was actually talking to me in this weird, auto-tuned voice! It was definitely a guy; I could tell that much. Well, maybe. Probably. I looked at Jack nervously, and he nodded in reply, encouraging me to go on.

“W—What do you want?” I asked in a shaky voice.

“Oh, Gia,” came the robotic reply. “I don't want much. But your dad took something from me, a long time ago. I think it's time I got something back.”

“Like how long ago are we talking, here?” I said, eyes on Jack for validation. He gave me a warning look, but I ignored him. I was about to start babbling, and probably go British. It was too late to salvage the situation. “'Cause, if it was a
really
long time ago can't we, like, just pretend it never happened and move on with our lives?”

Jack closed his eyes and took another deep breath. He had that look on his face again, the one that told me he was struggling not to strangle me. And fair enough, I was an idiot.

“No, I don't think that's going to work for me Gia,” Dr. D said. “Pretending won't get us anywhere.”

The auto-tune was really starting to get on my nerves, but whoever this guy was; he was doing a good job of keeping his identity hidden. Even if I did know who he was, I'd never be able to recognize his voice.

“Right-o,” I said, watching Jack shake his head in disbelief. “Uh, so what exactly did you want?”

“Oh I'll get to that eventually, Gia. But for now, my concern is April twentieth. Save the date.”

April twentieth? That meant nothing to me. Was he telling me his birthday? Even worse, was he inviting me to some twisted, psychotic birthday party?

“W—What's on the twentieth?” I asked, scared that this birthday party may have a theme.

“I would suggest leaving the police out of this matter, Gia.” Dr. D continued, ignoring my question. “There's no need for this to get messy.”

A part of me wanted to poop my pants but a very large part of me wanted to laugh. I couldn't stop imagining T-Pain on the other end of the line, with his dark sunglasses and huge hat. I'd seen the guy on talk shows before and he was super nice. There was no way he was stalking me, but the image in my mind was hilarious.

Jack and I looked at each other as we waited for him to continue. There was an eerie silence hanging over us, as if we were all quietly waiting for the worst of it to come. A few seconds passed and I checked to see if we were still on the line. We were, but he just wasn't talking.

“Hello?” I said, just to make sure he was still there.

“Here's to getting what we deserve.”

And the line went dead.

Chapter Ten

I'll be the first to admit, I am quite possibly the last person anyone would ever choose to go on a secret mission with. I mean, if by some miracle I managed to get into the CIA, I'd just be that one person who can't be trusted with guns or top-secret weapons. Hell, I'd barely be trusted with a stapler. But due to the evident lack of James Bond-ish men in my life to take my place, I was forced to pursue Dr. D's phone call alone. Well, not entirely alone, I had Jack and Milo after all.

After the phone call we called Detective Reynolds immediately, unable to even touch a slice of pizza when it arrived, due to the butterflies in my stomach. Of course, I had snuck into the kitchen when everyone was asleep and had my share in secret, but that's not the point. I had been so frantic on the phone, I had forgotten to sound sexy. I was too busy checking the cupboards in case Dr. D was about to jump out at any second and throw a spatula at me.

Luckily, Detective Reynolds had adhered to his promise of taking my case seriously. He had calmly explained that he was sending a police car to check outside my house, on the off chance Dr. D was somewhere close by. Now I'm not going to lie to you, I was a little disappointed that Milo and his perfect dimples were nowhere to be seen when the police finally showed up. Wasn't this meant to be a good training exercise for him, or something? I was practically making his career here, and he didn't even have the courtesy to stop by and make sure I was alive! Now that's just plain rude.

But even after the police officer assured me that no one suspicious was outside the house, or inside it, I didn't stop panicking. I had even considered asking Jack to sleep on my couch again, but then thought against it. I didn't entirely trust what I'd do in my vulnerable state, and besides, Jack didn't look like he could scare anyone away. He was more likely to attract them. If Dr. D was somewhere in the house stalking me from behind a shower curtain and
wasn't
gay, one look at Jack would definitely send him swinging in another direction.

Mom and Dad obviously had to cut their dinner date a little short, which really set Dad off. He had pretty much banned me from going anywhere past our mailbox, including school, which admittedly wasn't the worst possible thing that could have happened, even if it only lasted a few days. Hey, if he was giving me a few days off from my busy schedule, then I wasn't going to complain. Dad had been absolutely no help when I had asked him what he had supposedly “taken” from the auto-tuned stranger. He just kept shaking his head as if he was trying to rack his brains for anytime he stole a doughnut or something off a friend.

But as it turns out, Detective Reynolds
had
found some answers on the Dumpling Hospital. As expected, the place was free of anything that could link the restaurant to my family, and apparently the food there really did suck, which I didn't need reassuring about. They had also managed to find out a little more about the nametag. The mystery waiter, Ao Jie Kai, came to L.A. when he was in seventh grade and was now in his third year of college at UCLA. He was also a member of a fraternity, which was great and all, because at least now I knew my stalker was fairly socially accepted in society. Good for him. He had no previous criminal history besides a couple of minor parking ticket fines, and he'd been working at the Dumpling Hospital for about ten months. It was just he and his mother at home, no father. Detective Reynolds said he doubted that Ao Jie Kai was directly related to my stalking, but he was the only lead that they had. It wasn't much, but it gave Jack and me a starting point.

After carefully devising a plan that was followed by lots of arguments and flat out refusals on Jack's part, I finally convinced him to sneak out of the house with me and head off to UCLA to check out this Ao Jie Kai in person. With Dad in the shower and Mom at the spa, we had a small but perfectly timed window to make our escape. I was pretty certain Dad wasn't expecting Mom to stay with us for as long as she was, which wasn't helping his already high blood pressure, but she said there was no way she was leaving until things settled a little. Luckily for me, poor Anya had come down with some type of flu and was bedridden so she couldn't play spy for Dad, and the rest of the housemaids didn't care what I was doing as long as they were getting paid. Mike was too bothered with his own life to notice. Kenny was a slight problem because he was all buff and scary, but it turns out he was a sucker for Oprah reruns. The perfect distraction.

Of course father dearest wasn't going to be too pleased when he got out of the shower, but by that time we'd already be long gone. Just in case, I'd left a note on the kitchen bench telling him that we'd gone to school to pick up some books for studying, promising to be back soon. We all knew that I was a massive liar, but at least I had been nice enough to leave a note with my fake story on it. Not many kids would do that, you know. I was basically Daughter of the Year.

Practically pushing Jack out the door, as I tried to gain control over my excitement and nerves, we finally set off. It was just past noon when we were sitting in his Jeep in one of the many University of California campus parking lots. I had seven missed calls from Dad, two from Veronica and three from Aria. If my life didn't revolve around my phone, I would have run over it myself. Brendan had sent me just one text, asking why I wasn't at school for his little “talk.” Not only did our absences make Jack and I look extremely sketchy to my boyfriend, I was pretty certain Meghan was going to be responsible for spreading ridiculous rumors about what we were doing instead of coming to school.

“This doesn't seem like a great idea,” Jack told me uncertainly, watching students walk past, clutching books to their chests.

“You always say that.”

“Yeah, because your ideas always suck.”

“Well then why did you even agree to come?”

Jack leaned his head back against the headrest with a sigh. “Our freakin' deal. The sooner we find out who Dr. D is, the sooner our lives go back to normal, remember?”

“Oh,” I said, crossing my hands over my chest. “And here I thought it was because you enjoyed my company.”

“I don't know about that, but I
am
going to enjoy the paycheck your dad hands me when all this is done.”

Gee. He really knew how to give a girl the warm and fuzzies with his overwhelming sensitivity and affection. I'll admit, I was a little offended. I mean, sure, Jack and I weren't exactly besties for life. But I wasn't
that
bad was I? It wasn't a comforting thought that Jack's mind was only on the money when I spent about eighty percent of my time trying to figure out ways to get him to love me.

“Well,” I said, holding my head up high. “I'm not leaving here until I find some answers.”

And with that I practically kicked the car door open, climbing out and slamming the door shut behind me. Jack took a few seconds before doing the same, probably doing some mental reasoning with himself not to have a breakdown. A group of girls walked by, their conversation almost coming to a stop as they eyed Jack slipping the car keys into his jeans pocket. Inevitably, their gaze drifted to me, standing with a smug smile on my face and shiny Tom Ford heels on my feet. They raised judgemental eyebrows as they continued on their way, no doubt wondering how and where they were going to find a guy like that.

Jack wasn't paying attention to my little victory. Instead he ran a hand through his hair, which was sexier than I thought it would be, and turned to face the campus ahead.

“Shall we?” Jack said, squinting in the sunlight.

“Give me a sec.” I unzipped the leather jacket I was wearing and shimmied out of it. “Can you unlock the car?”

Jack nodded, eyes still on the campus. He glanced at me as he pulled the keys out of his pocket, doing a double take as he sized me up.

“What?” I said, looking down at my outfit.

Okay, I knew what.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he said, eyes scanning me in alarm.

I had kind of been hoping the outfit was hot enough to give Jack one of those electric shocks I always got around him. He definitely looked like he had been electrocuted, but not in the way I had hoped. I had opted for some casually tiny denim shorts and the hideous Lakers jersey that Jack had given me when we were disguised as gangsters. Only I had cut it that morning to make it a crop top, revealing my belly button. Basically, I was barely dressed, but had been using the jacket to keep some suspense.

“What's wrong with what I'm wearing?” I asked him innocently, sliding my phone into my tiny shorts pocket.

Jack looked at me as if I had told him I was running away to herd sheep for the rest of my life. “I'm not going to take you around campus like that!” he exclaimed. “You're not even wearing clothes!”

“Jack,” I began impatiently, folding the jacket across my arm. “We're going to go talk to frat houses. No one's going to talk to us if I'm dressed like a nun.”

“So nun and stripper were the only two options that came to your mind?” Jack exclaimed, taking the jacket and draping it across my shoulders, attempting to cover as much as he possibly could. “What about dressing like a normal person?”

Well jeez. Put a bunch of leggy supermodels in angel wings and lacy underwear, and the boy had no problems. But the moment I wanted to wear a crop top and shorts it was like, alert the feds! He was so focused on trying to cover me up; he was missing the brilliance of my plan. If I showed up to a frat house with Jack, who was of course an attractive male, the boys would presume that he was my boyfriend. We'd never get any information out of them that way! But if I was minimally dressed, then they wouldn't care if he was my boyfriend. They'd be too busy ogling at me to notice my relationship status. Pretty damn clever, if I may say so myself.

“Would you stop complaining all the time?” I said, hands on my practically bare hips. “You're worse than I am.”

Before he could reply, I began walking toward the buildings ahead with the jacket still draped across my shoulders. Jack hadn't gotten around to unlocking the car doors so I wouldn't be able to put it back. Plus, I had no doubts in my mind that he would send me home kicking and screaming if I didn't come to some compromise with him. So the jacket stayed.

Jack kept looking down awkwardly, talking about how people were staring at me weirdly and how I just sent three people into cardiac arrest. But I was too busy concentrating on how beautiful the campus was to pay attention to him. UCLA was full of old-fashioned buildings with rustic brick walls and square roofs. There were lots of grass lawns and the entrances to the corridors were arched. I wasn't sure it was the right place to go to college for me, but it would definitely have made one heck of a wedding venue. There were students everywhere, lying on the lawn and lazily soaking in the L.A. sun. Others were running, clutching stacks of books as they rushed to get to class on time. Jack was right; I was definitely turning heads with my inappropriate outfit, which should have embarrassed me, but it didn't. It was nice to be getting all the attention for once. Jack was a pain to go out with. I was the daughter of an Academy Award winning actor, and nobody even cared when Jack's blonde head was bobbing around the place.

We stopped a nerdy looking guy walking alone across the lawn and asked him to direct us toward the fraternity houses. His eyes practically fell out of their sockets when he saw what I was wearing, but he finally got it together long enough to give us some directions. After ten minutes of aimless loitering and getting majorly lost, we had finally entered the world of sorority and fraternity houses. I looked around, taking in as much as I possibly could. Veronica, Aria, and I had toured universities a few months ago to get a better idea of possible colleges. I had never gone to UCLA, but my friends had. Surely there was some excellent reason for missing out on the most obvious choice, but I can't remember it now. Oh yeah, that's right. Louis Vuitton was having a sale on handbags.

Standing on the street lined with white houses was like being in a slightly shabby part of Greece. It didn't even look like part of a university, with cars parked along the sidewalk as if it were any random street in L.A. and not on a college campus. I had always been a little creeped out by the infamous stories of sorority loyalty gone too far and the emotionally scarring things they made you do to become a member. Mostly, I was going off things I had seen in horror movies and teen TV shows. I mean, it made one hell of a storyline. But there was a part of me deep down that thought it would be kind of cool to be able to call myself a sorority sister.

A group of four guys were jogging down the road, making lots of noise as they went by. They were dressed exactly alike, in blue jeans and black t-shirts that had Greek symbols on them. To me, it just looked like scribbles, but clearly it made sense to the other students around us because they were all cheering the four boys on.

“Local celebrities?” I said to Jack.

“Looks like it.”

I had a sudden image of Jack in a fraternity. If you were going off looks, he'd have been the president of his frat. But based on personality, Jack wouldn't have lasted one day in a house full of boys with egos as big as his. His own pride would take up the entire campus.

The four boys passed us, as we stood rooted to the road, watching them work the small crowd of onlookers as if they were at a rock concert. Less than ten seconds after they passed, one of the boys jogged backwards so that he came up behind me to my left, beaming at me. He had sandy blonde hair and perfect teeth, and I was beginning to think that I should just drop out of school and pretend to be a student at UCLA for a while. He jerked a thumb toward Jack.

“Is he your boyfriend?” he asked, eyeing me up and down.

Jack and I looked at each other. “No,” we said simultaneously.