Safe House

by Jenny Carroll

  Just a restaurant. Just my dad's dream restaurant, that's all, the one he'd worked hardest and longest on. Joe's, my dad's less-expensive restaurant, brought in barely half the income of Mastriani's, and Joe Junior's, the take-out pizza place, even less than that. We were, I knew, going to be hurting financially for a while, insurance or no insurance.

  But my dad didn't seem to care. He gave my mom a squeeze and said, with only somewhat forced jocularity, "Hey, if something had to go, I'm glad it's this and not the house."

  They didn't say anything else after that. They just stood there with their arms around each other and their heads together, watching a big part of their livelihood go up in smoke.

  Douglas came up to me. I didn't tell him what I was thinking, which was that the last time I'd seen our parents standing like that, it had been outside the emergency room, when he'd slashed his wrists last Christmas Eve.

  "I guess," Douglas said, "now probably wouldn't be a good time to tell them, right?"

  I looked at him. "Tell them what?"

  "About my new job."

  I couldn't help smiling a little at that.

  "Uh, no," I said. "Now would definitely not be a good time to tell them about your new job."

  And so the four of us stood and watched Mastriani's burn down.

  C H A P T E R

  18

  By the time I got to school the next day, it was noon, and everyone—everyone in the entire town—had heard what had happened. When I walked through the doors of the caf—it was my lunch period when Mom dropped me off—all these people came rushing up to me to express their condolences. Really, just like somebody had died.

  And, in a way, I guess, somebody had died. I mean, Mastriani's was an institution in our town. It was where people went when they wanted to splurge, like on a birthday, or before prom or something.

  But I guess not anymore.

  I think I've mentioned how extremely not popular I am at my Ernest Pyle High. I mean, I don't have what you would call school spirit. I could really care less if the Cougars win State, or even if they win, period. And I don't think I've ever been invited to a party. You know the ones, where somebody's parents aren't home, so everybody comes over with a keg and trashes the place, like in the movies?

  Yeah, I've never been invited to one of those.

  So I guess you could say I was pretty surprised by the outpouring of sympathy for my situation from a certain segment of the student population at Ernie Pyle High. Because it wasn't just Ruth and Skip and people from the Orchestra who came up to say they were sorry to hear about what had happened.

  No, Todd Mintz came up, and a bunch of the Pompettes, and Tisha Murray and Jeff Day, and even the king of the popular crowd himself, Mark Leskowski.

  It was almost enough to take a girl's mind off the fact that there was someone out there who wanted her dead—and who'd see that she got that way, if she came too close to the truth.

  "I can't believe it," Mark said, plopping his truly magnificent rear end down on the bench beside me and regarding me with those deep brown eyes. "I mean, we were just there, you and I."

  "Yeah," I said, uncomfortably aware of the number of envious glances coming my way. After all, with Amber gone, Mark was fair game. I saw more than one cheerleader nudge the girl next to her and point to the two of us, sitting there with our heads so close together at the otherwise empty table.

  Of course, they had no way of knowing that my heart belonged—and always would—to another.

  "At least nobody was hurt," Mark said. "I mean, could you imagine if it had happened during the dinner rush or something?"

  "It would have been hard," I said to him, "for whoever poured gasoline all over the place, to have done so without anybody noticing during the dinner rush."

  Mark's dark eyebrows lifted. "You mean somebody did it on purpose? But why? And who?"

  "My guess would be whoever killed Amber and then beat up Heather. And they did it as a warning," I said. "To me. To back off."

  Mark looked stunned. "God," he said. "That sucks."

  It was more or less an adequate representation of my feelings on the matter, and so I nodded.

  "Yeah," I said. "Doesn't it?"

  It was right after that that the bell rang. Mark said, "Hey, listen. Maybe we could get together or something this weekend. I mean, if you're up for it. I'll give you a call."

  Okay, I'll admit it. It was kind of cool to have the best-looking guy in school—vice-president of the senior class, quarterback, and all around hottie—say things to me like "I'll give you a call." I mean, don't get me wrong: he was no Rob Wilkins or anything. There was that whole "unacceptable" thing, which was a little, I don't know, militaristic for me.

  But hey. He'd asked me out. Twice now. All of a sudden, I had a clue as to how my mom must have felt, when she was in school. You know, Little Miss Corn Detassler and all of that. I could see why she'd been so excited for me when Skip had called. Being popular—well, it's pretty fun.

  Or at least it was, up until Karen Sue Hankey came up to me on my way to my locker and went, in her snotty Karen-Sue-Hankey voice, "Missed you at chair auditions this morning."

  I froze, one hand on my combination lock. The auditions for chair placement in Orchestra. I had completely forgotten. After all, I had been dealing with some pretty heavy stuff lately … threats to my life, and the destruction of a large portion of my family's business. It wasn't any wonder I hadn't been able to keep my schedule straight.

  But wait a minute . . . the winds had been scheduled for Thursday.

  Which was today.

  "I suppose, since you missed them," Karen Sue said, "you'll have to be last chair until next semester's tryouts. Too bad. Mr. Vine is posting the placements after school and I'm betting I'll be—Hey!"

  The reason Karen Sue yelled "Hey" is because I pushed her. Not hard or anything. I just had to get somewhere, and fast, and she was in my way.

  And that somewhere was the teachers' lounge, where I knew Mr. Vine spent fifth period, decompressing after freshman Orchestra.

  I tore down the hall, bumping into people rushing off to class, and not even saying excuse me. It wasn't fair. It totally wasn't fair. A person with an excused absence like mine—and my absence was excused—should be allowed to audition like everybody else, not relegated to last chair just because some psycho had burned her parents' restaurant down.

  The thing was, I had totally learned to sight read over the summer. I had had this big plan of blowing Mr. Vine away with my awesome new musical abilities. I didn't want to be first chair or anything, but I definitely deserved third, maybe even second. No way was I going to take last chair. Not lying down, anyway.

  I skidded to a halt in front of the door to the teachers' lounge. I was going to be late for Bio, but I didn't care. I banged on the door.

  As I was doing so, somebody touched my shoulder. I turned around, and was surprised to see Claire Lippman, who hardly ever spoke to me in the hallways. Not because she was snotty or anything, just because, usually, she had her head buried in a script.

  "Jess," she said. Claire did not look good. Which was also unusual, because Claire is one of those, you know, raving beauties. The kind you maybe don't notice right off, but the more you look at her, the more you realize that she is perfect.

  She didn't look so perfect just then, though. She'd chewed all the lipstick off her lower lip, and the pink sweater she'd flung around her shoulders—she was wearing a white sleeveless top—was in grave danger of slipping off and landing on the floor.

  "Jess, I …" Claire looked up and down the hallway. It was clearing out, as people darted into class. "I really need to talk to you."

  I could tell something was wrong. Really wrong.

  "What's wrong, Claire?" I asked, putting my hand on her arm. "Are you—"

  All right. Are you all right. That's what I'd been going to ask her.

  Only I never got the chance, because of two things that happened at almost the same ti
me.

  The first was that the door to the teachers' lounge opened, and Mr. Lewis, the chemistry teacher, stood there, looking down at me like I was crazy, because of course people aren't supposed to bother teachers when they are in the lounge.

  The second thing that happened was that Mark Leskowski emerged from the guidance office, which was across the hall from the teachers' lounge, holding a stack of college applications they'd evidently been keeping there for him.

  "What may I do for you, Miss Mastriani?" Mr. Lewis asked. I had never had Chemistry, but he apparently knew my name from last spring, when I'd been in the paper so much.

  "Hey," Mark said, to Claire and me. "How you two doing?"

  Which was when Claire did an extraordinary thing. She spun around and took off down the hallway, so fast that she didn't even notice her sweater slip off her shoulders and fall to the carpet.

  Mr. Lewis, looking after her, shook his head.

  "Drama club," he muttered.

  Mark and I—staring after Claire, who disappeared around the corner, heading in the direction of the drama wing, where the auditorium and stuff were—glanced at one another. Mark rolled his eyes and shrugged, as if to say, "Dames. What can you do?"

  "See ya," he said, and started off in the opposite direction, toward the gym.

  Not knowing what else to do, I bent down and picked up Claire's sweater. It was really soft, and when I glanced at the tag, I saw why. One hundred percent cashmere. She was going to miss this. I'd hang onto it, I decided, until I saw her again.

  "Well, Miss Mastriani?" Mr. Lewis said, startling me.

  I asked to see Mr. Vine. Mr. Lewis sighed, then went and got him.

  Mr. Vine, when he came to the door, seemed to find my concern that I would be relegated to last chair in the flute section very amusing.

  "Do you really think," he said, his eyes twinkling, "that I'd do that to you, Jess? We all know why you weren't there. Don't worry about it. Meet me right after last period today and we'll hold your audition. All right?"

  I felt relief wash over me. "All right," I said. "Thanks a lot, Mr. Vine."

  Shaking his head, Mr. Vine went back into the lounge. When the door closed, I heard him laughing.

  But I didn't care. I had my audition. That's all that mattered.

  Or at least, that's all that mattered to me, then. But as the day wore on, something else began to nag me.

  And it wasn't the same thing that had been nagging me all week, either. I mean, the fact that somebody was going around, attacking cheerleaders, making threatening phone calls to the local psychic, and burning down her parents' restaurant.

  No, it was something more than that. It was something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

  It wasn't until the middle of seventh period that I realized what it was.

  I was scared.

  Seriously. I was walking around the hallways of Ernest Pyle High School, feeling frightened out of my mind.

  Oh, not like I was a quivering mess, or anything. I wasn't going around, grabbing people and weeping into their shirtfronts.

  But I was scared. I was scared about what was happening at home, at my house on Lumley Lane. The Feds were still watching it—heck, they were probably watching me, though I hadn't noticed any tails as I flitted through the hallways.

  But that wasn't all. It wasn't just that I was scared. It was that I knew something was wrong. Something more than just Mastriani's exploding and Amber being dead and Heather hospitalized.

  Look, I'm not saying it was a psychic thing. Not at all. Not then.

  But there was definitely something not right going on, and it wasn't just that all these things had been happening, and the Feds, so far as I knew, didn't even have a suspect, let alone an arrest. It was more than that. It was …

  Creepy.

  Like the idea of being out a date with Skip. Only much, much worse.

  Which was why, midway through seventh period, I couldn't take it anymore. I don't know. I guess I snapped. My hand shot up into the air before I knew what was happening.

  And when Mademoiselle MacKenzie, not particularly thrilled to have me interrupt in the middle of our in-depth look at the never-ending battle of wills between Alix and Michel (Alix mes du sel dans la boule de Michel), asked, "Qu’est-ce que vous voulez, Jessica?" and I went, in English, "I need the hall pass," she made no effort whatsoever to hide her annoyance.

  "Can't you wait," she wanted to know, "for the bell?"

  It was a logical question, of course. It was two-thirty. Only a half hour of school left.

  But the answer was no. No, I couldn't wait. I couldn't even say why, but one thing I definitely knew I could not do was wait.

  Disgusted, Mademoiselle MacKenzie handed me the wooden bathroom pass, and I beat it out of there before she could say "Au revoir."

  But I didn't head for the bathroom. Instead, I went downstairs—the language labs are on the third floor—to the guidance office. I wasn't even sure why I was heading in that direction until I saw them. The doors to the guidance office, and across from it, the teachers' lounge.

  That's when I knew. Claire. Claire, touching my shoulder, just before fifth period. She had wanted to tell me something, but she hadn't gotten the chance. Her eyes—those pretty blue eyes—had widened as she'd looked down at me, and filled—I knew it now, though at the time, I think I had been too worried about myself, and my stupid chair position, to notice—with fear.

  Fear. Fear.

  I burst into the guidance office and startled Helen, the secretary, half out of her wits.

  "I need to know what class Claire Lippman's in," I said, throwing my books down onto her desk. "And I need to know now."

  Helen stared up at me, her expression friendly but quizzical. "Jess," she said. "You know I can't just give you confidential student—"

  "I need to know now!" I yelled.

  The door to Mr. Goodhart's office opened. To my surprise, not just Mr. Goodhart, but also Special Agent Johnson, stepped out into the waiting area.

  "Jessica?" Mr. Goodhart looked perplexed. "What are you doing here? What's wrong?"

  Helen had hit the button on her computer keyboard that made Minesweeper, which she'd been playing, disappear. Now she was bringing up the student schedules. Mr. Goodhart noticed and went, "Helen, what are you doing?"

  "She needs to know where Claire Lippman is," Helen said. "I'm just looking it up for her."

  Mr. Goodhart looked more perplexed than ever. "You know you can't tell her that, Helen," he said. "That's confidential."

  "Why do you need to know where this girl is, Jessica?" Special Agent Johnson asked. "Has something happened to her?"

  "I don't know," I said. Which was the truth. I didn't know. Except …

  Except that I did.

  "I just need to know," I said. "Okay? She said she had something to tell me, but then she didn't get a chance to, because—"

  "Claire Lippman," Helen said, "has PE seventh period."

  "Helen!" Mr. Goodhart was genuinely shocked. "What's the matter with you?"

  "Thanks," I said, gathering up my books and giving the secretary a grateful smile. "Thanks a lot."

  I was almost out the door when Helen called, "Except that she isn't there, Jess...."

  I froze.

  And then slowly spun around.

  "What do you mean, she isn't there?" I asked carefully.

  Helen was studying her computer screen with a concerned expression. "I mean she isn't there," she said. "According to this afternoon's attendance rosters, Claire hasn't been in class since . . . fourth period."

  "But that's impossible," I said. Suddenly I felt funny all over. Really. Like someone had shot me full of Novocain. My lips were numb. So were my arms, holding onto my books. "I saw her just before fifth."

  "No," Helen said, reaching for some printouts. "It's right here. Claire Lippman has skipped fifth through seventh."

  "Claire Lippman has never skipped a class in her life," Mr. Goodhart—who woul
d know, being her guidance counselor—declared.

  "Well," Helen said, "she has today."

  I must have looked like I was going to pass out or something, because suddenly, Special Agent Johnson was at my side, holding onto my elbow, going, "Jess? Jessica? Are you all right?"

  "No, I'm not all right," I said. "And neither is Claire Lippman."

  C H A P T E R

  19

  It was my fault, of course.

  What had happened to Claire, I mean.

  I should have listened. I should have taken her by the arm and dragged her someplace quiet and listened to what she had to tell me.

  Because whatever it had been, I was convinced, was directly linked to the fact that she was missing now.

  "It's a beautiful day out," Mr. Goodhart said. "Maybe she just took off. I mean, you know how she likes to sunbathe, and with this Indian summer we've been having, attendance, especially in the afternoon, has been sliding...."

  I was sitting on one of the orange vinyl couches, my books in my lap, my arms limp at my side. I looked up at Mr. Goodhart and said, my voice sounding as tired as I felt, "Claire didn't skip class. They got her."

  Special Agent Johnson had called Jill, and now the two of them were sitting across from me, staring, like I was some new breed of criminal they had only read about in text books at FBI training school or something.

  "Who got her, Jessica?" Special Agent Smith asked, gently.

  "They did." I couldn't believe she didn't know. How could she not know? "The same ones who got Amber. And Heather. And the restaurant."

  "And who are they, Jessica?" Special Agent Smith leaned forward. She was looking like her old self again, her bob curling just right, her suit neatly pressed. Today she had on the diamond studs. "Do you know, Jess? Do you know who they are?"

  I looked at them. I was so tired. Really. And not just from hardly having gotten any sleep the past couple days. I was tired inside, bone-tired. Tired of being afraid. Tired of not knowing. Just tired.

  "No, of course I don't know who they are," I said. "Do you? Do you have any idea at all?"

  Special Agent Smith and Special Agent Johnson exchanged glances. I saw him shake his head, just a little. But then Jill said, "Allan. We have to tell her."