“Why didn’t you? If you had so many people begging to do your bidding.”
“Because Mom was in play.”
I don’t know if he’s trying to motivate me, scare me, or hit me in the face with the stakes, but he’s three for three. I pull two mini-bottles of whiskey out of the mini-fridge and pour them into the glass I’ve been using for my toothbrush.
Maybe all the drunk, creative guys had it right. Because then I figure out the obvious. Just because I can’t get into Nicolette’s phone doesn’t mean she’s not using it. Why would Olivia get e-mail from Nicolette when they both have phones? Ding, ding, ding: I have to get Nicolette to stop using her cell phone to talk to Olivia. I need her in Olivia’s computer. That’s when I’ll get to take my mantle of invisibility on the road.
If she loses the phone, I’ve got her.
It feels like I’m playing Clue against Nicolette, except that I already know she did it and where and with what weapon and to whom. I leave the motel for long enough to buy the phone that’s going to lead me to her.
Don’s right.
I’m going to win the game.
I explain that there’s a new strategy, and he blows. It’s pointless to try to explain. He doesn’t have the concentration to sit through it, and the likelihood that he’d forgive me for not figuring it out sooner is nil.
I say, “Tell me anyone’s closer to finding her than I am, and I’ll mail you a finger. Let up. I’m on this 24/7.”
“I don’t want your friggin’ finger! I want results. You’re supposed to be the smart one. Do something smart. Because something might happen that I can’t stop.”
Without thinking, I say, “Whatever happens to Mom happens to you.”
There it is: my first death threat.
24
Cat
The first message arrives at 1:40 a.m.
The phone pings.
On the dimly lit screen, a text: I know where you are.
My heart stops. I’m still breathing, but there’s no pulse or sound or heartbeat. The phone drops onto the bed.
No. No no no no no no no.
I was supposed to be untraceable. How could this happen?
I bite into my lower lip until I taste blood.
Every cell in my body is screaming, Get out! Get out! Get out!
Or do they want me to run? Hope I’ll be spooked and charge into the open, too scared to think or fight? A moving car’s door opens, there’s a hand, I’m taken.
The ice pick is in my hand like a sixth finger. I keep it under the pillow.
The phone pings again: I know.
Cold hands, cold feet, my right knee bouncing a staccato rhythm on the bed. I’m trying to think, but I can’t—not over the sound of silent screaming.
Get out!
Get out!
Get out!
This phone felt like a lifeline. Turns out, it was the human version of the locator chip we put in Gertie when she was a puppy.
Luna has my number. What did they have to do to get her to fork it over? And I gave it to Clark, too, to pass on to his UT fake ID friend.
Damn.
What if Law & Order was wrong? What if this phone has been pinging my location every three inches?
This phone dies now.
There are footsteps in the outside hallway. The upstairs neighbors shouting at each other. Music coming through the walls.
I hold the phone that knows where I am, waiting for it to tell me something else. I grab my pack and slip out to the walkway that rims the building. Black sweats, faded hoodie, shoulders folded inward from fear. A shapeless gray ghost.
At the corner of the building, a party is overflowing. I stay low, under the railing, slide in the other direction toward the trash room. Open the heavy metal door. Stomp my phone under my heel and toss it down the chute.
How easy would it be to light the paper in the stainless-steel recycling bin on fire? Just enough smoke to trip the alarm and empty the building?
For one second, I see myself waving the lighter over my head at night at the arena in Columbus, swaying to the music with Connor. Feel the flames of the homecoming bonfire throwing heat onto my face, see myself tossing a branch into the conflagration, watching it ignite.
Orange plumes shoot up from the recycling can, and I’m back in reality. The reality in which I just started a fire. Which is bad, for the obvious reasons.
How can I still be this impulsive, how?
But it’s a sealed cement room with a fire door. A spritz of an extinguisher, and this will be over.
I smash the glass on the fire alarm with the handle of the ice pick to speed things up. The alarm blasts fast and loud.
I close the fire door behind me as licks curl upward toward the smoke detector. The party crowd heads down the open stairways toward the courtyard as sirens wail. I am indistinguishable from all the other girls who live behind identical apartment doors.
I glom on to a beer-scented guy. Shaved head and heavy-lidded eyes.
I can so do this. Walk away from the fire trucks and the fire fused to the side of an anonymous drunk guy.