“Hey,” I said, pointing up from my awkward spot on the ground. “You’re Graham Goren.”
Goren smiled, a little too self-satisfied. Then he offered me his hand. “That’s me.”
He pulled me up and I dusted off my butt. “I’m Josie,” I told him. When this didn’t seem to register, I said with more emphasis, “Josie Griffin!”
“Ahhh,” he said. “So you’re Josie Griffin—my tipster. Now this makes more sense.” He held out his hand again, this time to shake mine. “Nice to meet you in person, Josie.”
“Oh wow,” I said like a starstruck fool. “I’m really excited to meet you.” Then I looked over my shoulder again and I grabbed his elbow. “But I have to get out of here!” I looked around and spotted Gladys where I’d parked her earlier that day. “Come on. My car is right here.”
chapter 17
get in,” I told Goren when we got to Gladys. I shut and locked the doors, looking all around to make sure I wasn’t being followed.
“Um,” Goren said. “Mind if I roll down a window? It’s a bit warm.”
“But someone might hear us,” I said. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of my face because it was about ten thousand degrees in the car.
He laughed a little. “I think we’re safe.”
“Suit yourself,” I said and started cranking. “So much for having a discreet meeting inside a parked car.”
“Were you just in Helping American Girls?” he asked.
“Yes and I heard your whole conversation. You’re good.”
He cocked his head to the side as if he was a little confused. “Thanks, I guess.”
“I want to be a journalist, too.”
“Ah.” He pulled out his notepad. “So you know the first rule of being a good reporter.”
“Don’t bury the lede?”
“Nope. First, get all your facts straight.”
I nodded, probably too enthusiastically. “Okay, here’s what I’ve figured out so far…” but I stopped because obviously I couldn’t tell him everything I knew. I tried to stick to the human-world facts. “Those two were lying. Those girls aren’t out on the streets. I know a guy whose uncle runs the hood and he said the missing girls haven’t been around.”
Goren jotted a note but he didn’t look convinced. “That doesn’t mean they’re not in a different neighborhood.”
I hadn’t thought of that, but still. “Yeah, only I know those girls and they aren’t the type.”
“You know them?” he asked. “Personally?”
“Yes, we’re online together.”
He frowned. “People can be different online. Computers depersonalize things so people feel free to make stuff up.” He looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“Not us. We talked about all kinds of personal stuff. And also each of the girls who left were getting their lives together. Jobs. GEDs. Stuff like that. They had no motivation to take off without telling anyone. Not even their friends? Come on! Girls aren’t like that. They tell each other everything.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But a boyfriend could have showed up unexpectedly. Or a family member tracked them down. Did you contact anyone from the girls’ lives and ask if they’d gone home?”
I sat back and bit my lip. “Well, no,” I said. “The girls were hiding. They didn’t want anyone to know where they were. They were running from terrible situations.”
“Exactly,” he said with a shrug. “They’re runaways, so maybe they just kept on running.”
“Without their stuff? What teenage girl would leave her favorite shoes and her cell phone behind?” I touched my back pocket where Sadie’s ID card was nestled against my phone.
“You’ve got a point.” He adjusted his glasses and wrote more notes. “Still, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t change their minds about being in a shelter. Teens get pissed off; do rash things they might regret.” He looked up at me. “You know something about that, don’t you, Josie?”
I shrugged, not sure what he was getting at.
“Tell me about anger management,” he said.
My mouth dropped open. How did he know that? He saved me the trouble of asking. “Your trial was public record, you know.”
“Oh,” I squeaked. “That.”
“Tell me about your blog.”
“It’s just something I do,” I said, feeling cagey now. “Why? Have you seen it? Were you researching me?”
He raised one eyebrow. “Rule number two, Josie: Check out your sources.”
“My blog is just a way to blow off steam.” Despite the open windows, my palms began to sweat. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I didn’t say there was.” He scratched the side of his head and thought for a moment. Then he said, “Tell me about your friends.”
“The girls from the shelter, you mean?”
He shook his head. “The other ones.”
“The cheerleaders?” I asked.
He shook his head again. “No, the other other ones.”
My heart pounded in my chest and my underarms prickled in the heat as I realized that I had never gotten around to taking down my post about the paras. “Look,” I said, trying to laugh it off. “If you’re talking about my blog post from a few weeks ago, that was just silly. I was playing around. I mean, how many times can you post about a bad break up before it’s just boring, boring, boring? I was trying to liven things up. It was stupid. Like you said, one of those rash things teens do online and regret…”
Goren looked at me now and I squirmed. “Josie,” he asked, “are you a vampire?”
“A vampire?” I held out my hands. Made my eyes wide and innocent. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no such thing. I made all of that stuff up. You know how we teens love our paranormal stuff. You should just ignore that part.”
“Right. What else should I ignore?” he asked. “The story about the missing girls?”
I turned quickly in my seat to face him. “No! That’s true. For real. I’m serious. Those girls need help. Something weird is going on in that place. Ms. Babineaux and Maron are…” I stopped and chose my words carefully. “Up to something.”
“Are they vampires?” he asked. I thought I heard amusement in his voice.
“No,” I said and rubbed my temples. What was I going to do, claim there were soul suckers in that place after I’d denied everything else?
Goren closed his notebook. “Look, Josie, you seem like a nice kid who got a little mixed-up. Believe me, I had my share of mishaps when I was in high school. But being a journalist means you have to take the truth seriously. You can’t make stuff up.” He reached for the door handle and started to climb out of my car, but he turned back to me and said, “Unless you work for Fox News, then you can say whatever you want.” He laughed at his own joke and closed the door behind him.
“Wait!” I yelled through the open window. “Are you going to write about the missing girls?”
“Nothing much to write,” he said.
“I have a better source for you.”
He bent down. “Who?”
“One of the girls,” I told him. “She left and I know where she is. She knew everybody who disappeared. Personally.”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a card. “Give her this and tell her to contact me.” He looked at me for a moment then he added, “And those other kids. The ones who think they’re vampires and werewolves. Tell them to give me a call, too. I’d love to do a story on that!”
“But that’s not even true!” I lied.
He snorted. “I’ll tell you the real rule number one of journalism: Sell papers. And who wouldn’t want to read about paranormal teens in an anger management group?” He laughed then walked off down the middle of the deserted street.
I slumped forward and groaned. I knew who wouldn’t want to read about it. The Council, that was who. I banged my head against the steering wheel. So far that day, I’d forgotten to take down the post about the paras, falsely accused someone of pulling a knife
, botched a reconnaissance mission to help my friend, and alienated the reporter who should be helping me. What else could go wrong? As I was banging away trying to figure out why I was such a screwup, my phone rang. Of course, I was hoping it would be Helios, the one thing that would make that crappy afternoon a little better. But it wasn’t. It was my mom and she was pissed.
“Josephine,” she said in that tone which immediately revealed I was in deep doo-doo. “I just got a call from your social worker.”
I gasped. “Ms. Babineaux called you!”
“She said that you walked out of your shift today without finishing your work. Is that true?”
“No! I mean, I did walk out but it wasn’t…”
“Josephine!” Mom snapped. “If getting arrested and going to court isn’t enough to set you on the right path…”
“Mom, wait. You don’t get it.”
“Oh, I get it all right, Josie. Ms. Babineaux is threatening to send you to juvenile detention!”
“What?” I yelled. “That’s not fair!”
“You better get yourself home right this instant. And you are not to leave again until we’ve worked this out and your father and I are satisfied that you will clean up your act. Not taking your community service seriously is serious business, young lady. I am seriously upset with you.”
I refrained from saying, Seriously? “But, it wasn’t even really my shift and…”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said. “You are to come home right now.”
“Okay, but first I have to…”
“Oh no. If you’re not home in fifteen minutes, you will lose your car keys and your phone for a month. Are we clear?”
I knew when I was up against a wall and I definitely didn’t want to be phoneless bus bait. “Fine,” I mumbled. “I’m on my way.” I hit the end button extra hard and threw my phone against the opposite door out of frustration. It ricocheted under the seat and immediately started ringing again. “Crap!” I slouched over and groped for it, among god-knows-what lurking on my car floor. By the time I got my fingers on it, I’d missed the call. “For crap’s sake. What else could go wrong?” I muttered as I sat up and scrolled through my recent calls. But I was distracted by the tickle of a warm breeze on my neck. The hairs on my arms prickled and goose flesh flashed across my skin. I turned slowly, already wincing. I felt eyes on me. And hot sour breath. I turned to see a haunted face staring at me through the open driver’s side window and I screamed.
chapter 18
damn these roll-up windows!” I yelled as I cranked and cranked and cranked the window up, but the pale, boney fingers gripped the top of the glass and I knew I’d never get the window closed. “Get away from me!” I screamed. I drew back my arm and balled my hand into a fist. “I’ll punch you in the face!” I yelled, but I stopped after I got a good look at my attacker. I dropped my arm. “Eleanor?”
She stared at me, hollow-eyed and haunted, like a dog that’s been abused, but she didn’t say anything.
“What do you want?” My heart still raced. Maron could have sent this chica after me, but I was pretty sure I could take her. Unless of course she’d been imbued with superhuman strength and was going to reach in and squash my head like a ripe berry.
“I’m Ellie?” she said slowly.
“And I’m Josie. Are we really doing introductions now?” Then I realized she was asking me a question and I softened. “Yes, you are Ellie, aren’t you? Short for Eleanor?” I ask. “Who ran away from Elkhart? Jeez, sounds like a bad children’s book.”
Her eyes danced left and right as if she were scanning her memory. I tried to recall something else I’d read about her on the Missing and Exploited Children website.
“Your last name is Dellway, I think. You have a butterfly tattoo on your wrist.”
She nodded, urging me to continue.
“You might have been a cheerleader,” I said.
She blinked and opened her mouth, drew in a deep breath. “Help me,” she pleaded quietly.
I looked at my clock. I had exactly thirteen minutes to get home. “I can’t!” I said and started my car. But I felt kind of bad. I didn’t have enough time to dump her off at Tarren’s but if I left her on the street, Drey or someone worse would descend on her like flies on a dead raccoon. My phone buzzed from a new text. I reached for it, but Ellie reached in and gripped my shoulder. “Make it stop,” she pleaded.
“Make what stop?”
Tears gathered on her lashes then rolled down her gaunt cheeks. “The evil one,” she said.
I sighed. “Did it come to you in your dreams, sit on your chest, and drain your life force by any chance?” I asked.
She sucked in air and then wailed. I reached over and opened the passenger side door. “Get in,” I said.
I pushed Gladys’s pedal to the metal. Fat lot of good that did. Plumes of gray smoke farted from the tailpipe as we puttered through the city streets. Clearly the mechanic was no miracle worker. My phone was beeping and buzzing like crazy, probably my mom wanting to know why I wasn’t home yet so I didn’t answer. I banged my hands against the steering wheel and cursed every red light, slow driver, and pedestrian that got in my way.
At first, I tried to get some info out of Ellie. “How did you end up at HAG?” I asked. She stared at me in a stupid silence. “Do you live there?” She blinked. “Did you know Rhonda and Sadie? How about Kayla?” It was like someone pushed her mute button. “Aw, forget it,” I said as we hit the outskirts of Broad Ripple.
When I turned onto my street, I inhaled deeply. I had no idea how I was going to explain this one to my parents. I started a runaway collection? I was only friends with freaks now? I guess that was what happened when you quit cheerleading and possibly uncovered a nefarious paranormal plot in your hometown. I killed the engine and turned to Ellie. “What am I going to do with you?” I looked all around our yard, then I saw my old playhouse. “Come on,” I said. “You’ll have to hide for a while.”
Once I stuffed Ellie in the playhouse, I went inside. My parents descended the minute the front door closed. “What in god’s name is wrong with you!” my father yelled. Once again I’d managed to make his forehead vein pulse.
My phone rang. I held up a finger and pulled my cell out of my pocket, but my mom swooped down like a red-tailed hawk on a limping vole. She grabbed it from me. “No!” she snapped. “Don’t even think about it.” She hit the OFF button and slammed it down on the credenza by the door.
“But I didn’t do anything wrong!” I screamed at them.
“Have you lost all sense of reality?” my dad asked, and even though it was a rhetorical question, it was a good one because the boundaries of reality had slipped for me. The world had opened up and it was a darker place than it used to be. Old Josie had no idea what evil lurked in the world. I thought people were basically good and on my side. But the line between good and evil had become fuzzy.
“Look,” I said, trying to stay calm and use some of the techniques Charles suggested. “I wasn’t even scheduled to do a shift today. I went in on my own to help out. How can you not complete a shift you weren’t scheduled to do? It makes no sense.”
Mom put her hands on her hips. “Josie, do you understand that Ms. Babineaux has a lot of power over what happens to you?”
I snorted and muttered, “That’s an understatement.” Oops, guess I forgot the refrain from sarcasm rule.
“You might think this a big joke, but if you don’t follow through with your community service work at Helping American Girls, she could send you to juvenile detention,” my father said.
And if did follow through, I thought to myself, I could end up with my brain sucked out. “I know I’ve disappointed you a lot lately, but…”
“That’s not what this is about, Josie,” Mom said. “We want to help you get back on the right track. We know you’re a good kid…”
“I am a good kid!” I told them. “And you have to trust me a little. I’m trying to help some of the new fr
iends I’ve made.”
Mom and Dad exchanged a worried glance. “Listen, honey,” Mom said in her all-too-understanding-mom voice. “At first your father and I were happy that you’d found some new kids to hang out with, but now we aren’t so sure they’re the kinds of kids you should be spending time with.”
Dad leveled his gaze at me. “Maybe it’s time to consider patching up your old friendships. School is starting soon and you don’t want to be a loner…”
“Oh my god!” I said. “Are you actually suggesting that I should forgive Madison and Chloe? That I should be all buddy-buddy with Kevin? After what they did to me?”
“No, no,” Mom said, her hands waving like surrender flags. “That’s not at all what we’re saying. But you’ve discounted lots of people. The other cheerleaders, perhaps.”
“They all knew what was going on with Kevin and no one, not a single person, had the decency to tell me.” I felt tears coming on, which pissed me off. I pushed them down. “My new friends might have lots of problems, but at least they’ve got my back.”
Mom and Dad looked at each other then Mom said, “You’ve been acting differently lately. Not like the Josie we’ve always known. You’re erratic and volatile. You’ve gotten in trouble with the law. It just makes us wonder…I mean, as your parents we can’t help but worry that…”
“Josie,” Dad said and cleared his throat. “Are you doing drugs with your new friends?”
This made me laugh. I was sure they’d been Googling “how to tell if your kid is doing drugs.” As if that should be their biggest worry. “No,” I said. “I don’t do drugs. I never have and my new friends are definitely not druggies.” And just then, as if the universe was on a mission to undermine me, the front door creaked open. Ellie stood on the threshold with leaves in her hair and grass stains on her knees, looking as strung out as a meth addict. Mom and Dad looked from her to me and shook their heads.
My parents and I gathered around the computer. Ellie sat across the table from us, staring down at her hands. I showed them her picture on the Center for Missing and Exploited Children website.
Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire Page 14
