“Emily?” her aunt asked.
“Just a minute.”
She brought the cordless phone to Dad’s door and used it to tap, forgetting it would hurt Aunt Aggie’s ears.
“What?” he asked, and not happily.
“Aunt Aggie’s on the phone. She’s looking for Mom.”
“Tell her your mother’s not here,” he called through the door.
“I told her that. She’s worried. Mom was supposed to meet Aunt Aggie for breakfast this morning. With us.”
Dad growled, and she took two steps away from his door. She heard Jared’s door open behind her and knew he was there too, listening to everything.
Dad was suddenly looming in his doorway, reaching out one big paw for the phone. “I’ll talk to her,” he said, grabbing the phone out of Emily’s hand and shutting the door between them.
Emily glanced back at Jared. “What do we do?” she asked.
“We listen,” he said quietly.
Her heart jerked in fear. “What if he catches us?”
Jared’s eyes burned. “I’ll listen. You go to your room or something. I’ll fill you in.”
Emily was frozen with indecision. She wanted to hear, even though she knew Dad wouldn’t like it. She couldn’t let Jared take the brunt of things. But he would anyway, wouldn’t he? He always did. But … Too many buts.
“No, I’m in.”
Jared shrugged, and they both approached Dad’s door, silently pressing ears to it.
“All I know is she’s not here,” Dad growled, but quietly. So quietly Emily stopped breathing to hear. She tried to time her breaths for his pauses.
“You tell me. Where would she go? Did you check her place?”
Pause.
“And?” Dad asked.
There was a longer pause this time, before he said, “I don’t know, maybe she’s got a boyfriend socked away somewhere. Maybe she’s off with him. Or a girlfriend. Who knows?”
Emily’s chest squeezed until she couldn’t have taken a breath even if she wanted to. A boyfriend? But Dad couldn’t be right. She wouldn’t have chosen some guy over them. Or girl. She just wouldn’t.
“No, I don’t think that. Look, an adult has to be gone for, what—twenty-four or forty-eight hours before they can be considered missing? She’s missed one breakfast. I don’t think we should call out a search party just yet.”
Emily gasped when her air ran out, and Jared threw a hand over her mouth and backpedaled her away from the door. It seemed extreme, but she didn’t want to kick up a fuss Dad would hear.
“Quick,” he whispered, letting go of her mouth but grabbing for her hand and making a run for the kitchen.
They’d just hit it when Dad’s door opened. Emily’s heart was pounding so hard she thought it would explode.
“Do something,” Jared whispered.
Emily went for her notebook, which she’d left on the kitchen counter, and Jared headed for the fridge.
Dad came quietly after them and replaced the phone in the cradle on the wall. He didn’t say a word, but stood there breathing, watching the phone like it might do something interesting.
Emily wanted to ask a million questions—wasn’t he worried? Shouldn’t they do something, like maybe call the police?
But she didn’t dare let on that they’d heard.
“What’s going on?” Jared asked, and Emily blessed him silently.
“Nothing,” Dad answered, turning back toward them and making eye contact with each in turn. “Your aunt is all worked up because your mother didn’t tell her she was taking off. It will blow over.”
“Aren’t you worried?” Jared asked. “If no one’s heard from her—”
“You heard from her,” Dad cut in. “Yesterday. Emily showed me the text.”
Jared bit his lip. To keep from saying something else, Emily thought. He cut a glance toward her, but she couldn’t interpret it. Was he afraid to say something that would get Dad worked up or did he have something to say he didn’t want her to hear?
Seven
Sunday morning
Jared
Jared almost didn’t get out of the house. Dad didn’t like Aaliyah at the best of times. He suspected it was a secret racism his father wouldn’t admit to, maybe even to himself. He certainly wasn’t happy today with Jared “ditching” the family when they were in need.
But Jared had already arranged things, and he’d go crazy if he had to sit around the house waiting for his mother to appear or text or call. He had a bad, bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, a pressure behind his eyes and a tightness in his chest. Aaliyah would take his mind off all that. And she’d help. He had some ideas. She’d for sure tell him if they were stupid.
Instead of honking, which had set his father off the one time she’d done it, Aaliyah texted to let Jared know she was outside in the car. She was a full five months older than Jared and had gotten her learner’s permit before he had, hence the reason she was driving and he wasn’t. He tried not to care. He knew it was sexist, and Aaliyah teased him about the fact, but it still felt wrong that she was doing all the driving.
Dad warned him to be back by dinnertime and glared at his retreating back. Jared could feel it all the way to the door, but he didn’t look back to confirm.
He waved at Aaliyah as soon as he was out, his heart lightening already. He wouldn’t have thought he had any smiles to give, but apparently he was wrong. As soon as he got into the car, she leaned in for a kiss, and he didn’t disappoint her. Aaliyah’s lips were … awesome. The kind of lips women got those injections to puff up, only hers were natural. Firm and soft and hotter than hell, just like her.
When they broke off, the tension behind his eyes was gone.
“I needed that,” he said, drinking her in. He was playing way out of his league, and knew it. Smartest girl in school—one of them, anyway—beautiful, confident. Her dark skin was nearly flawless. Her hair was pulled back into a small ponytail at the nape of her neck, showing off her amazing cheekbones. Her dark-framed glasses emphasized eyes that gleamed with intelligence and amusement, like life was a puzzle she’d already solved. Like she saw more than everyone else.
If so, he had no idea what she was doing with him. He had a mirror. He knew he was no slouch. Track kept him in good shape, and girls loved to run their hands through his thick dark hair and tease him about his golden-green eyes. He got his share of attention. But where Aaliyah had everything figured out, knew what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go in life—and had the drive to get there—Jared had no idea. Not a one.
“There’s more where that came from,” Aaliyah said, drawing his mind back to that kiss.
“Awesome,” he said, but then his gaze wandered back toward his house and the warm feeling vanished. “Do me a favor? Drive. Before Dad thinks up some reason I have to stay.”
Aaliyah didn’t need to be asked twice. She was off like a shot. “My parents are home,” she warned, “but we can go to my place.”
Jared nodded, not untensing until his place disappeared from the rearview mirror.
“What’s up?” Aaliyah asked, taking her attention off the road momentarily to look at him. “You’ve told me hardly anything, and you’re acting like you just escaped from Alcatraz.”
“I feel like it.”
Jared filled her in on everything from seeing his mother on Friday through Aunt Aggie’s call that morning. Well, almost everything.
“You’re leaving something out,” she said.
“What?” Jared asked.
“You tell me. I just know that if you’d told me everything, you’d be relieved at getting it off of your chest, but you’re as tense as a kitten in a dog park.”
Then there was the flipside of having a smart, perceptive girlfriend.
He debated with himself, but if he didn’t tell her, she’d think it was bigger than it was. Maybe she’d tell him he was crazy or … There was no maybe about it. Aaliyah would come up with some logical explanation.
“It’s stupid,” he said.
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“Really, it’s nothing.”
“Who are you trying to convince—me or yourself?”
So he told her. All of it. Not that there was much to tell. He didn’t know what had caused the noise that woke him up. None of the explanations he came up with himself were shiny and happy.
When he finished, she stayed silent, pressing her lips together. “Hmm,” she said.
“Hmm, what?”
Aaliyah reached over to squeeze his knee, but she didn’t look away from the road this time. “That’s weird,” she said when she uncompressed her lips.
It was as if she’d squeezed his heart instead.
“In what way?” he asked. He really hoped she’d put it all into some perfectly normal perspective.
“Did you ask your Dad about it?” she asked instead of answering.
“No,” he admitted. Did not asking make him seem like a coward?
“It could clear things up,” she said, pulling onto her street. “There must be a reason you don’t want to ask. What do you think happened?”
That was the million-dollar question. What did he think? He didn’t even know. Just that it all seemed very suspicious, especially with his mother vanishing the way she had. That text … He wanted it to be comforting, but it wasn’t. Stupid Dugan had once gotten hold of his phone and sent Aaliyah all kinds of crazy texts supposedly from him that luckily she was too smart to believe. Anyone could have texted from Mom’s phone. But if she’d lost it, why hadn’t she come looking? Even if she thought she’d left it somewhere else, it didn’t explain her not finding a way to contact them. When she’d first taken off, left Dad, she’d called every day. This wasn’t like her, but he couldn’t put his worry into words. That would make it too real.
Aaliyah waited for an answer. They’d hit her house and were now sitting in the driveway, but she made no move to open her door and neither did he.
“I don’t know,” Jared said. “But I think we have to find out.”
“You said the sound probably came from the garage. Have you checked it?”
“Dad’s hardly been out of the house.”
“So the next time he is …”
“Yeah,” Jared said, feeling sick about it. What did he expect to find and what would he do if he found it? “In the meantime, I thought you might help me with something.”
“What?” she asked.
“Breaking into Mom’s e-mails.”
Aaliyah blinked at him. “What?”
“So, here’s the thing, she’s not using her phone, right? Maybe she doesn’t know how to turn off the GPS. Maybe she’s afraid we can track her down when it pings off cell towers, and she’s not ready to be found. But what if she’s in trouble? There’s got to be some clue that will help us track her. Maybe in her e-mail. If nothing else, she’ll have given someone her new address, and we can start there.”
“You want to break into her place?”
Heat went through him. He hadn’t thought of it that way. He was just going on instinct. “I didn’t say that. But we could drive there if she doesn’t turn up. Check it out. See if her car’s there, maybe catch her coming and going. If she doesn’t want to see me and Emily—” his breath stopped. He couldn’t say “that’s fine” because it wasn’t. He went with, “That’s her call. But at least I’ll know she’s all right, that she didn’t get into an accident on the way home because she was upset or anything like that.”
“Have you checked accident reports?” Aaliyah asked. “Hospitals?”
“Not yet.”
Aaliyah’s mother pushed a curtain aside in the front window and looked out at them still sitting in the car. Jared’s face went hot, even though they weren’t doing anything.
Aaliyah waved, blew her a kiss, and opened her car door. Jared started to climb out of the car as well.
As they walked toward the house, Aaliyah said, “Mom and Dad are not going to let us retreat to my room, so we’re going to have to do all of this in the dining room or somewhere like that. You’ve got your laptop?”
Jared patted his backpack.
“Good. When we get in, let me talk to Mom, and you set up the laptop so the screen faces the window. That ought to do it. She’s not nosy, only worried about us doing the nasty. She’s not even going to consider a little light hacking.”
Even with everything going on, Jared smiled. Doing the nasty sounded way better than what he had in mind. Way, way better. So far they’d only gotten to a little under the clothes action.
Aaliyah saw the smile and gave him a playful swat to the arm. “Down, boy,” she said.
“Hey, I can dream.”
Her mother answered the door as they reached it, “Hello, Jared. Nice to see you.”
Aaliyah’s parents liked him okay, he thought. But they always watched him like he was out to defile their daughter. Probably Dad would be watching the guys Emily brought home the same way, if and when she ever brought anyone. She hadn’t shown any interest so far … that he knew of.
“Hi, Mrs. Persad. Nice to see you too.”
So polite. Gah, how long would he have to date Aaliyah before they could just smile at each other and he could call her Mrs. P or something like that?
She stood aside to let them pass, her bright orange, red and black patterned dress clashing with his mood. In contrast to Aaliyah’s simple style, her mother had her hair twined in ropes woven into a braid at the back of her head. She was only an inch taller than Aaliyah in flats, but she was almost Jared’s height at the moment, which meant she was wearing heels, which meant she was probably going out. Jared could hope, especially with Aaliyah’s comment still swirling around in his head.
Jared followed Aaliyah into the kitchen, where she asked if she could get him anything.
“Soda would be great,” he said.
She nodded. “Mom, how about you?”
Mrs. P smiled and put a hand to Aaliyah’s cheek. Jared’s heart twisted and he glanced away.
“So sweet,” she said. “I’m meeting friends for brunch. Your father is working in his office if you need anything,” she gave Jared a significant look. Clearly this was meant to remind them they weren’t alone and there should be no funny business.
“Thanks, Mrs. P.” He tried it out. She snorted, and he figured he’d miscalculated. Clearly now was not the time.
“You kids have fun,” she said. “There’s frozen pizza in the icebox if you get hungry.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Aaliyah said this time. “We’ll be fine.”
Mrs. P didn’t look so sure of that, but she grabbed a fringed shawl off the kitchen counter that picked up the red in her dress and was out the door with only one or two backward glances.
“Well, that was easier than I thought,” Aaliyah said. “If Dad’s working on something, we might not see him at all. Unless Mom left instructions to check on us every hour or something … which she probably did.”
Jared’s eyes rolled, as if he never even considered doing anything that needed to be checked up on.
“Gotcha, hands to myself.”
“Well, maybe not entirely.”
He grabbed one of her hands and pulled her to him. She went willingly, and he backed up against the counter, hands on her hips while hers were locked around his neck. She met him halfway when he went in for the kiss, and he just kept himself from groaning. She felt so good pressed up against him. He was pretty sure she could tell how good she felt.
A voice cleared behind them, and they jumped apart, Aaliyah smoothing her hair down as though he’d messed it up. Jared was glad the kitchen island half hid him from Aaliyah’s father. He was in no condition to meet him full on.
“Dad!” Aaliyah said brightly. “Jared’s here.”
“I can see that,” her father answered, eying Jared like he knew what he was hiding.
“I heard the door and wanted to say ‘hello.’”
“Uh, hell
o,” Jared said. Smooth.
He made himself step forward and reach across the island to shake Mr. Persad’s hand, as he knew was expected.
Aaliyah’s father took the offered hand, slowly enough to let Jared know he could as easily not shake, that the acceptance was a privilege, not a right.
“What do you two have planned today?” he asked pointedly.
“Research,” Jared said, shrugging off his backpack and holding it up as proof. He hoped Aaliyah’s father would assume it was for school and not push for details.
“We figure we’ll set up in the dining room,” Aaliyah said, furthering their innocence. Well trafficked area, no chance for funny business … unless Mr. P remembered that he’d just caught them up against the kitchen counter, so there were no guarantees.
“I’ll be checking in,” he warned with a hard look at Jared.
He only nodded. What else could he do?
Aaliyah waited until her father turned his back to roll her eyes. “Sure you don’t want to take this somewhere else?” she asked Jared softly.
“You mean somewhere public, like the library?” he asked. “No thanks.”
“Okay then, I’ll get you that Coke and we’ll get to it.”
Jared proceeded to the dining room to set up like Aaliyah had suggested, with his back to the wall so his computer screen would be facing that way as well. He booted up his laptop and had his browser open by the time Aaliyah came back. He knew his mother’s e-mail address, of course, but not her password, though he did know the PIN on her phone, because she’d given it to him once so he could answer for her when she was elbow deep in dishes. And it wasn’t hard to remember, since it was the month and date of his birth.
Aaliyah skootched her chair over next to his as he tried his birthday as her Gmail password. No luck. He tried Emily’s birthday. Still nothing. Then he tried his name with his birthday following, Emily’s name and birthday, his parents’ anniversary. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
“You’re going to get locked out,” Aaliyah said helpfully.
“Any ideas?”
“You could reset the password.”
Disappeared Page 5
