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"Well," I said. "You know what I mean."
"So I guess this means Mark didn't kill Amber after all." I heard a
scratching sound, which meant that Ruth was filing her nails as she talked, as
was her custom. "I mean, if he was with you when Heather disappeared."
"I guess," I said.
"Which means, you know. He's Do-able."
"He's not just Do-able," I said. "He's a hottie. And I think he kind of likes
me." I told Ruth about how Mark had squeezed my hand and winked before leaving
me to my fate with my parents. I did not mention that he seemed to have no
goals other than making it to the pros. This would not have impressed Ruth.
"Wow," Ruth said. "If you start going out with the Cougars' quarterback, do
you have any idea what kind of parties and stuff you're going to get invited
to? Jess, you could run for Homecoming Queen. And maybe even win. If you grew
your hair out."
"One thing at a time," I said. "First I have to prove he didn't kill his last
girlfriend, by finding the guy who did. And," I added, "besides. What about
Rob?"
"Whatabout Rob?" Ruth demanded. "Jess, Rob's totally dissed you, all right?
It's been three whole days since you got back, and he hasn't even called.
Forget the Jerk. Go out with the quarterback. He's never been arrested for
anything."
"Yet," I said.
"Jess, he didn't do it. This thing with Heather proves it."
There was a click, and then Skip went, "Hello? Hello? Who's using this line?"
"Skip," Ruth said, with barely suppressed fury. "I am on the phone."
"Oh, yeah?" Skip said. "With who?"
"With whom," Ruth thundered. "And I'm talking to Jess, all right? Now hang
up. I'll be off in a minute."
"Hi, Jess," Skip said, instead of hanging up like he was supposed to.
"Hi, Skip," I said. "Thanks again for the ride this morning."
"Jess," Ruth roared. "DO NOT ENCOURAGE HIM!"
"I better go, I guess," Skip said. "Bye, Jess."
"Bye, Skip," I said. There was a click, and Skip was gone.
"You," Ruth said, "had better do something about this."
"Aw, Ruth," I said. "Don't worry about it. Skip and I are cool."
"No, you are not cool. He has a crush on you. I told you not to play so many
video games with him, back at the lakehouse."
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I wanted to ask her what else I'd been supposed to do, since she had never
been around, but restrained myself.
"So what are you going to do now?" Ruth wanted to know.
"I don't know. Go to bed, I guess. I mean, by morning I'll know. Where
Heather is, I mean."
"You hope," Ruth said. "You know, you've never looked for somebody you didn't
like before. Maybe it only works with people you don't hold in complete
contempt."
"God," I said before hanging up, "I hope that's not true."
But apparently it was, because when I did wake up, after seeming to have
nodded off somewhere around midnight, I did not even remember I was supposed
to be finding Heather. All I could think was,Now what was that?
This was because I'd wakened, not to the sound of my alarm, or the twittering
of birds outside my bedroom window, but to a sharp, rattling noise.
Seriously. I opened my eyes, and instead of morning light pouring into my
room, there was nothing but shadow. When I turned my head to look at my alarm
clock, I saw why. It was only two in the morning.
Why, I wondered, had I woken up at two? I never wake up in the middle of the
night for no reason. I am a sound sleeper. Mike always joked that a twister
could rip through town, and I wouldn't so much as roll over.
Then I heard it again, what sounded like hailstones against my window.
Only they weren't hailstones, I realized this time. They were actual stones.
Someone was throwingrocks at my window.
I threw back the blankets, wondering who on earth it could be. Heather's
friends were the only people I knew who might be anxious enough to see me to
pull a stunt like this. But none of them had any way of knowing that my
bedroom was the only one in the house that faced the street, or that it was
the one with the dormer windows.
Staggering to one of those windows, I peered through the screen. Somebody, I
saw, was standing in my front yard. There was hardly any moon, but from what
little light it shed, I could see that the figure was tall and distinctly
male the distance across the shoulders was too wide for it to be a girl.
What guy did I know, I wondered, who would throw a bunch of rocks at my
windows in the middle of the night? What guy did I know who even knew where my
bedroom windows were?
Then it hit me.
"Skip," I hissed down at the figure in my yard. "What the hell do you think
you're doing? Go home!"
The figure tipped his face up toward me and hissed back, "Who's Skip?"
I jumped back from the window with a start. That wasn't Skip. That wasn't
Skip at all.
My heart slamming in my chest, I stood in the center of my bedroom, uncertain
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what to do. This had never happened to me before, of course. I was not the
kind of girl who had guys tossing pebbles at her window every night. Claire
Lippman, maybe, was used to that sort of thing, but I was not. I didn't know
what to do.
"Mastriani," I heard him call in a loud stage whisper.
There was no chance, of course, of him waking my parents, whose room was all
the way at the opposite end of the house. But he might wake Douglas, whose
windows looked out toward the Abramowitzes', and who was a light sleeper
besides. I didn't want Douglas waking up and finding out that his little
sister had a nocturnal caller. Who knew if that kind of thing might cause an
episode.
I darted forward and, leaning over the sill, with my face pressed up against
the screen, called softly, "Stay there. I'll be right down."
Then I spun around and reached for the first articles of clothing I could
find my jeans and a T-shirt. Slipping into some sneakers, I hopped down the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]