T*Witches: The Power of Two (18 page)

Alarmed, Tonya screamed, "But I didn't say that aloud, did I? How could you have heard me?" Tonya was trembling in Cam's grasp. "I'm losing my mind!"

"Why don't we get out of the hall," Alex suggested. "Where's your room?"

"My rooms," Tonya emphasized the plural, "are upstairs." She led them along a sweeping staircase and down a corridor the width of Alex's trailer.

Then opening a paneled door, she showed them into her quarters, three rooms in all, a sitting room, bedroom, and a bright, lavishly sky-lit bathroom so filled with plants that it looked more like a tiled greenhouse.

Tonya flung herself onto a chintz-covered divan in the sitting room and lay back dramatically, like an exhausted empress. "Help me, please. I never meant for this to happen," she bawled. "It was just this stupid idea I had. I wanted to spring this ultimate surprise on you guys—well, not you," she said to Alex. "I didn't even know you, right?

"Right, sure," Alex replied. "And the surprise was?" she prompted.

"Marleigh, of course. Marleigh Cooper. I knew if I got her to show up for the game, everyone would be so pumped. So I called—"

"And invited her," Cam prodded.

"Sort of. I mean, she's the Youth Spokesperson of this foundation. You know, One Last Wish—"

"That's for seriously ill kids, isn't it?" Alex asked.

"I suppose," Tonya said.

"You told her you were sick," Cam guessed. "That's what Marleigh meant when she said it was so tragic, wasn't it? You told her you were dying."

"Bone cancer," Tonya confessed, tears welling up again from her red-rimmed eyes. "And... sort of, like, uh, my leg was about to be amputated."

Alex shuddered at the word
cancer
, thinking with a rush of fear that her mother might die. Then she remembered that Sara
had
died. For a moment, grief took her breath away.

"That's why you were limping around on crutches," Cam was saying.

"Well, I did sprain my ankle a little during practice, remember?" Tonya got defensive.

"Oh, yeah," Alex growled at her. "Sprained ankle, cancer, I can see the similarities."

"You lied to Marleigh," Cam said. "You told her you were dying, didn't you?"

"Just to get her to come to Marble Bay," Alex added, not bothering to hide her disgust. "Just to show off for a bunch of spoiled—"

"Your teammates," Cam interrupted sharply. "I can understand that. You were trying to impress us, so you—"

Tonya caved. It was like, Alex thought, watching an iceberg melt all at once or a sand castle implode. "I wanted everyone at school to see that I can be cool. But I also did it for me. Marleigh and me."

Through a torrent of tears, Tonya poured out her whole story.

She honestly believed that if Marleigh got to know her, they could be friends. So she'd concocted this "innocent" plan, to have Marleigh "pretend" kidnapped. "Just for a day or so," she'd put it--as if that made it okay!

Then, Tonya would rescue the singer, and Marleigh would be so grateful, they'd be bff's.

Of course, Tonya had needed help. It came in the shady form of Kevin Bullock, the Music & More moron. He'd been the one allowing Tonya use of the back-room computer. For a fee, that is. And for an even bigger fee, he'd agreed to help Tonya carry out her insane kidnapping caper.

Cam suddenly had a chilling thought. She glanced quickly at Alex, wondering if the same thing had occurred to her. Or whether, annoying as it might be, Alex had figured it out first and "sent" the idea Cam's way.

"The demented fan," she mouthed silently to Alex.

"'Devoted,'" Alex lips moved at the same time.

"It was you," they both said aloud, staring hard at Tonya.

"So what? There's no law against fan mail, is there?" Tonya insisted.

"No, of course not," Cam assured her.

"But there is against kidnapping," Alex warned.

"Okay, okay. I sent the letters," Tonya said. "And, for your information, they were not crazy or demented like people are saying, just emotional, like me. I'm a very emotional person. I e-mailed them from Music & More because I didn't want to send them from home, because my parents might find them."

Tonya barked a bitter laugh. "Like they'd be interested in anything I do. But they check their e-mail while they're traveling, and they know my password."

"Forget that," Alex demanded, impatient now. "So you're saying Kevin did exactly what you paid him to do—except he forgot the 'pretend' part and kidnapped her for real. How'd he do it? And more important, where is she?"

Tonya's tale continued. Cam thought it was sad; Alex thought it was pathetic.

Just as they'd planned it, Kevin had called Tonya on her cell phone at the soccer game. Tonya had then told Marleigh that a car was waiting to take her to the airport—that the singer had been a great sport to come to the game, but it was okay if she left now. Marleigh had been relieved to do just that.

So Marleigh had left the stands not to take a phone call, but to go to her car—a limo that Tonya had paid for. Kevin posed as the driver. The singer had only paused long enough to give little Jenny her autograph. Then, she'd walked right into the trap.
"Where is she?" Alex continued. "Where'd he take her?"

"Is she... do you know if she's okay?" Cam was almost afraid to ask the question. "Would he hurt her?"

Tonya exploded, "I don't know! I don't know anything. All I know is what was supposed to happen. There's this old gardener's cottage way out back. It's got no phone and the electricity's turned off. I was going to, like, hide Marleigh there, and then I'd find her, you know? I'd rescue her, save her life. And she'd never forget me. She'd be my friend forever."

"But Kevin didn't go along with the game plan?" Cam pressed.

"He got greedy," Tonya sniveled. "He took her someplace else. I don't know where and he won't tell me. He just keeps asking for more money. But I don't have any left and I can't ask my parents for more—"

Tonya was tearing up again. "Easy does it," Alex offered, awkwardly patting her shoulder. "We'll find her, right, Cam?"

Cam looked spacey. She was squinting at something behind them, something that was obviously giving her a headache. "Ow," she murmured, clutching her brow.

"I wanted to go to the police right away," Marleigh's would-be rescuer babbled on. "But I couldn't. And when they came after me, I wanted to tell them what happened. Except Kevin said not to or he'd spill his guts, tell how the whole thing was my idea. And everyone would know. My parents, the kids at school, all the reporters, it'd be all over YouTube for people to watch over and over again. Worst of all, Marleigh would know. That's something I could never face."

"You okay?" Alex asked Cam, who was still gazing into the distance, her unfocused eyes beginning to water.

"Camryn?" Tonya had noticed Cam's odd silence.

"Yes. What? I'm okay." Finally, Cam shook her head, which was still aching. "I know where he's hiding her," she said, blinking hard at Alex. "An old gas station with rusted pumps in front of it and wooden boards over the windows. It's overgrown with vines, lots of trees, and prickly bushes—"

"You rock," Alex cried out, punching the air with her first. "Where is it?"

"That's the glitch," Cam said. "I don't know."

"Great," Alex muttered, pacing the room. "there's got to be a way to figure this out."

Tonya stared at Cam with a look of horror. "Um, uh, what just happened?" she asked, slurping back her tears.

"She had a vision," Alex answered, too deep in thought to come up with a more creative reply.

"Excuse me?" Tonya's cow-brown eyes were as wide as they could get, given the pillows of puffy flesh surrounding them.

"She's kidding," Cam said quickly. She was still feeling a little woozy.

"Just kidding," Alex agreed. "Okay, here's what we do. Tonya, it's time to give a little shout-out to your partner-in-crime and make him an offer. You do have his phone number?"

"Beeper," Tonya said. "And I resent—"

"Excellent," Alex cut her off. "How 'bout you tell him you've got his money, but you'll only give it to him—"

"If he lets you see Marleigh," Cam finished the thought. "Because you're worried about her and want to make sure she's safe, right, Als?"

"No Marleigh, no money. That's the deal, Camille," Alex confirmed with a grin.

Buried in her tote bag, Cam's cell phone rang.

Alex heard it first. Still impressed with her new and improved hearing, she put her hand to her brow as though she were concentrating deeply, and said, "It's Kevin."

"Really?" Cam heard the ring, and fell for it. With shaking hands, she fished out her iPhone and checked the callback number. "Not," she announced, her eyes blazing at Alex. "It's Beth. Like that creep would even have my number." Cam hit the TALK button.

"Hey, hi. Where are you" her best bud wanted to know.

Cam would have told her, but Alex shook her head no. "What's up?" Cam responded instead.

"Is this Camryn?" Beth asked grumpily.

"Beth, it's me. The real me. And I can't talk right now. We're kind of in the middle of something huge."

"We?" Beth repeated coldly. "Oh, you mean you and the girl you thought, a week ago, looked nothing like you? Sorry to interrupt."

It was the wrong time and place to mend fences, Cam realized, but the hurt in her best friend's voice was too painful to ignore.

"Beth," she said gently, walking away from Alex and Tonya into the mammoth bedroom. "I'm at Tonya Gladstone's house. She messed up big-time. She's in terrible shape." Cam considered issuing a warning, begging her best bud not to repeat what she was about to hear, but she stopped herself.

She didn't need a spell to seal Beth's lips or an incantation to assure her loyalty. Elisabeth Fish was the one person in the world who'd come close to filling the empty feeling that had haunted Cam all her life, she realized now; the feeling that she was incomplete; that despite all the love, attention, and material goodies her parents had given her, something was missing.

That the missing something might turn out to be Alex Fielding didn't change the fact of her friendship with Beth.

Speaking of loyalty, Cam thought, where was her own? "Bethie," she whispered into the phone. "She just, like, 'fessed up. Tonya. She's involved in Marleigh's kidnapping. She and Kevin Bullock—from the music store."

"O.M.G.!" Beth blurted. "How do you know? I mean, did you call the police? Should I?"

"Not yet. I'm afraid if we do that, something bad might happen to Marleigh. I mean, if it hasn't already..."Cam trailed off.

"So, what are you going to do?" Beth asked.

"I'm not sure," Cam admitted. "I have an idea of where Marleigh might be. Sort of. Some old abandoned gas station in the middle of the woods, I think. It's all overgrown with vines and these, sharp, shiny-leafed bushes—"

"Holly," Beth said. "There's loads of it growing wild out on Endicott."

"Endicott Drive?" Cam repeated. The vision she'd gotten in the CD store, of the word END, flashed in front of her. It had been only half the street sign, she realized now.

"Endicott near Webster Road," Beth was saying. "I think I know the place you're talking about, too, from when Sukari and I did that science project on indigenous plants. You know, like, what grows locally."

Instantly, Alex was at Cam's side.

"We went out on Endicott to collect holly. I remember that filling station. It's about thirty miles out. It was really cruddy."

"Thirty miles from here to Endicott Drive?" Alex said.

"Endicott?" So much for privacy. Tonya, depressed and disheveled, was standing in the doorway now. "That's out near where Kevin lives," she said.

Cam hurried over to Tonya's phone and held the receiver out to her. "Go on, beep him," she said for the third time.

"I can't," Tonya wailed again.

"Oh, man. Not more tears," Alex grumbled. "I'm going to need hip boots if she doesn't stop soon."

Cam handed the phone to Tonya. "Please. We're only trying to help."

"I'm going to go to jail!" Tonya howled.

"No way," Alex promised her. "Cam's dad's a lawyer. He'll get you off. Right, Cam?"

"Call him!" Cam said, not knowing who she was more peeved at now, Tonya or Alex.

In the fifteen minutes it took for Kevin to return the page, Cam called her parents. It was only a little white lie, she rationalized, to tell them she and Alex were at Tonya's—and get their permission to stay the night.

Call-waiting clicked in just as Cam was saying good-bye. She nearly forgot she was using Tonya's phone and answered it. But magic or mojo, she remembered in time to hand the phone to the strange girl.

"Um, hey, hi, Kev," Tonya said. "Okay, okay. I beeped you 'cause now that my folks are home, I can definitely get the money you wanted."

"Only," Alex prompted her.

"Only, I'd like, you know—"

Impatiently, Alex scrawled TO SEE MARLEIGH!!! on the pad next to Tonya's phone and held it two inches from the girl's face.

"Um, to see Marleigh, you know? I mean, to see if she's okay and all." Tonya waited for Kevin's answer, then went, "No dice? Oh, uh, okay…."

Alex gabbed the phone, held her nose to imitate Tonya's weepy, congested

voice, and said, "Okay, but if you refuse, then I can't give you the money. Unless I can check Marleigh out, it's over!"

Then she slammed down the phone.

"Oh, no," Cam groaned.

"Why'd you do that? Now he's gonna tell on me!" Tonya cried, heading straight for hysterical again.

Alex waved her off, predicting, "He's going to call back in a..."The phone rang again. "Half second."

She held her nose again and picked up the receiving. "Kevin? How did I know it was you? ESP," she said, rolling her eyes. "I can talk to her on the phone? Are you with her right now? No? You're not? Well, that's not good enough," she insisted. "I want to see her—"

Suddenly, Cam grabbed the phone from Alex. Speaking in a nasal whine remarkably like Tonya's, she said, "Okay, I'll settle for talking to her. When and where?"

Alex heard the treacherous boy's response. It had a tinny sound to it, like pebbles twanging on cheap metal. It would take him a while to get hold of a mobile phone, he complained. Sure, he'd ditched Marleigh's. Did she think he was dumb or something?

"If his IQ were any lower, he'd have to be watered twice a week," Alex whispered.

Kevin informed them that he'd have to go down to where "the package," as he called it, was stashed. So, it'd be an hour, maybe two, Kevin estimated, till he could tell Tonya where to meet him with the money.

Before Alex could seize back the phone, Cam said, "Okay, then. I'll be waiting," and hung up.

"Is it time to up your dosage?" Alex was furious. "You just lost it for us."

"No, I'm a genius," Cam answered, grinning broadly. "I just bought us an hour's worth of snoop-around time out on Endicott Drive."