Night Sky

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “What do you think, Miles? Can she pull off the look?” Dana eyed Milo intently.

  He nodded. “Um. I…Well, the short answer is yes.”

  I tried my best to keep from blushing. And I failed miserably. And I started to get a little mad. What was he doing staring at me, when Dana was standing right there looking the way she was looking?

  “All right, Scoot,” Dana replied. “It’s your turn.”

  “What, did you get me a pink halter too? That’s really nice of you.”

  Dana made a huffy sound, as if she didn’t have time for him. “You’re wearing this,” she said, and shoved a pile of clothes onto Calvin’s lap. But then she cleared her throat. “You…need help?”

  “Sadly, no,” he said. “I’ll be right back for my photo shoot.” He wheeled himself into the bathroom with a flourish.

  I looked at Dana, who was now busy pulling a smaller bag out of the duffel. She took a seat on one of the couches. “Come here,” she ordered me, patting the cushion beside her. “Let’s get you made up.”

  I sat and Dana spread foundation across my nose, cheeks, and chin. “Hold still,” she commanded, and began working on the bottom lids of my eyes with a liner pen. “And try not to blink.”

  I blinked.

  Dana looked at me with barely contained disapproval.

  “I’m doing my best,” I told her.

  I glanced across the room to find Milo smiling at me. I smiled back, but then jerked my gaze away—and found myself staring into Dana’s icy eyes.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She narrowed her eyes at me and said, “You’re lucky you’re working with a pro.”

  She finished my eyeliner, then used a thick wand to swipe mascara on both my top and bottom lashes. She also pulled out a palette of different colors of eye shadow and used the pads of her fingers to spread and blend shades across the arch of my lids.

  I tried to ignore the fact that I could feel Milo watching me from across the room, even though I wasn’t looking.

  Finally, Dana brushed a little pink blush across my cheekbones and added a dab of tinted gloss to my lips.

  “You’re good to go,” Dana replied.

  “Can I see?” I asked.

  “Sure,” she said. She pulled out a miniature mirror and handed it to me.

  I looked at the reflection. And the reflection didn’t look so bad.

  “Dang,” Cal said as he coasted back into the room, “every time I turn around, Skylar gets hotter and hotter. It’s, like, Twilight Zone shit.”

  Milo, meanwhile, walked up to Calvin with a grin on his face. “You don’t look so bad yourself,” he replied.

  I looked at Cal’s outfit. His T-shirt was snug and a cool shade of green, and his jeans fit perfectly. On his feet were his favorite green and black sneakers, and they matched the outfit well.

  “Yeah, you look really awesome,” I had to agree with Milo.

  “Okay, okay,” Dana interrupted us. “We’ve established how good we all look. So let’s do it. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was raining again as we piled into Cal’s car, boys in front, girls in the back. And I wondered what we looked like. If one of Cal’s neighbors, glancing out their window, happened to see us, what would they think? There go four attractive young people, heading out to have fun.

  Hah. Fun. What a concept. Especially considering how much fun I’d had last time I had been to a party. Lord knew I couldn’t possibly have a night as bad as that one had been.

  Still, fun wasn’t top priority tonight. The main mission here was to get to Garrett’s father’s beach house and sniff every nook and cranny for clues. Literally.

  Cal hadn’t forgotten where to go. He drove to Garrett’s place like he was on a mission, his expression grim.

  Milo chewed thoughtfully on a piece of gum. I could see little drops of rain on his forearm that hadn’t dried yet.

  “So you know what you’re doing here, right?” Dana asked me.

  “I’m looking for the sewage smell,” I said, yanking my gaze away from Milo, hoping Dana hadn’t noticed I’d been staring at him.

  “Correction. You’re looking for anything, including the sewage smell. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a hunch or a feeling. You’ve gotta tell me right away. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Milo turned around in his seat. “You’ll do great.”

  I tried to smile. Failed. If this went really right, I’d be puking in Garrett’s yard, in front of my entire high school, sometime in the next half hour. Oh, and if it went really really right, the boyfriend of my G-T trainer and friend would get a brain full of a fantasy make-out session when he attempted to help me.

  Ultimate, extreme worse-case scenario had me morphing into a full-blown G-T monster and not giving a shit about any of that as I simultaneously stole Dana’s boyfriend and destroyed the world.

  Yeah, I was gonna do great.

  “Is there anything else that you’d like me or Milo to be doing while we’re inside?” Cal asked. “I mean, we’re pretty much just going to be hanging around.”

  “That’s exactly what I want you to do. Hang around,” Dana said. “We’re here supporting Sky. And—no one needs to know this, of course—we’re also here to distract people from what Sky’ll be doing.”

  “Yeah, ’cause you did a really good job of making her inconspicuous,” Calvin retorted smartly, glancing in his rearview mirror at me and my pink halter top.

  Dana didn’t get a chance to respond because, as she opened her mouth, Calvin pulled up to the beach house.

  The place was absolutely packed. Cars were strewn haphazardly across the driveway, and most of the junior and senior classes stood outside laughing and pushing each other across the lawn. Some of them were smoking cigarettes. Others tilted their heads back as they chugged cans of beer.

  “Wow. This looks awesome.” Dana’s voice was monotone.

  “Yeah, this is what you get from Coconut Key,” I replied. No one else could hear it, but my heart had begun to pound. I took slow breaths. I honestly didn’t know if it was because I was anxiously anticipating finding clues that would lead us to Sasha—or if the whole scene reminded me a little too much of that night in Connecticut, all those months ago.

  “We good?” Dana asked, and it was a less a question of how we were doing and more a let’s get out of the freaking car already.

  “Yeah,” I said, and opened the passenger door and got out. The boom of a bass-heavy song thumped through the front yard. I looked around at the crowd of people.

  And I sniffed the air.

  Salt water, stale alcohol, cigarette smoke, fish, a mixture of perfumes, body odor, garlic, roses, Milo’s vanilla…and no sewage smell.

  “Anything?” Milo had basically snuck up behind me, and his voice was so close to my ear that I jumped and shivered simultaneously.

  “No!” I exclaimed. Calming myself quickly, I added, “I can smell lots of stuff, but with the exception of the fear-fish smell and the garlic, which means I’m not sure what, I think it’s everything you guys can smell too. The usuals.”

  Dana cupped her hand around her ear as if to say speak up. Then she pointed to Calvin, who was wheeling himself toward me and looking a little out of the loop.

  I hollered over the music. “I was just saying that I didn’t smell anything yet.”

  Dana nodded and motioned for all of us to gather in a huddle. She placed an arm around me and another arm around Milo. Calvin leaned forward, his ears perked.

  “We need hand signals,” Dana said. “Otherwise, Skylar’s going to be screaming weird stuff about smells and sewage and God knows what else. Let’s do a fist pump if there’s nothing and a head scratch if she detects something.”

  I looked at Dana incredulously. “A fist pump? Really?”


  Dana shrugged. “What’s wrong with a fist pump? Just carry a cup, pretend you’ve been drinking, and no one will look at you twice.”

  “Ooh, ooh!” Calvin said. “I have an idea! How about if the sewage smell’s not that bad, you throw up on Garrett once, but if it’s terrible, you ralph on him twice.”

  I gave him a first pump, right into his shoulder.

  “Ow,” he said. “I just think that would be funny.”

  “I’m not throwing up,” I told him. Please God, let that be a prescient statement…

  “The signal needs to be big enough so we’ll all see it,” Dana interjected. “It’s a fist pump. Get over it.” She looked from me to Milo to Calvin. “If one person gets the message, make sure to keep it going. Eyes peeled at all times. And if it’s possible, let’s all try to stay in the same room.”

  She dismissed our little huddle, and the four of us headed to the front door. As we walked through the swarm of kids, people turned to check us out. It could have been because we were dressed like club rats. It could have been the fact that Dana and Milo were new faces. It could have simply been the sight of Calvin coasting up to a party at Garrett’s house.

  Whatever the reason, dozens of eyes followed us from the end of the driveway to the front door. Which was opened, before we could otherwise knock or ring the bell, by a cheerleader named Jackie, who no doubt had nominated herself as official hostess.

  “Whoo!” Jackie said, almost falling on her ass. She caught herself just in time, hanging on to the doorframe for dear life as she laughed. “Oh, wow! It’s the new girl and wheelchair boy and…two people I’ve never seen before, including a really hot guy!”

  “Thanks,” I said. “We’d love to come in.”

  Jackie blew a few strands of hair off her face, but they landed sloppily again right next to her mouth. She then tried to use a hand to fix her hair, and instead spilled the contents of her red plastic cup all over the marble tile.

  “Oh, doo-doo!” she squealed, and ran off, presumably to get another drink.

  “The kind of girl you’d take home to meet Mother,” Dana commented, using care to step over the spill as she entered the mansion.

  I looked at Calvin. “You need help?” There was a half step between the house and the landing, just large enough to pose a problem for a wheelchair.

  Calvin looked pissed off that I’d asked. “I’m fine,” he said gruffly, and revved the power on his chair before attempting to rocket over the hump.

  He got halfway, and then slid back again.

  Dana turned from inside the house and watched Calvin struggle. Milo, meanwhile, walked up behind Cal, intending to lift his chair inside.

  “Don’t touch it,” Calvin growled.

  My heart was in my throat. It was painful to watch Calvin when he got prideful and stubborn.

  He tried a few more times, but the wheels just wouldn’t make it over the step.

  Inside, I could see people in crowds of threes and fours, talking and laughing. Some couples were making out. A group of jocks stood around a pool table, knocking back shots and roaring victoriously like frat-boy wannabes.

  No one seemed to notice us yet. Thank God.

  Dana approached the doorway again. “What’s the issue? The fricking step is the issue?” She sounded angry and impatient. And somehow angry and impatient was far better than sympathetic and kind. It was like Dana was speaking Cal’s language.

  Cal’s shoulders relaxed a little as he nodded at her.

  “Screw that,” she said. “Do me a favor, Scoot, and rev the power again.”

  Calvin did, and the wheelchair went airborne before doing a half spin and landing inside the house—quite conveniently missing Jackie’s spilled drink by at least a foot.

  I looked at Dana. Who looked at me. “Shut the hell up,” she said, and marched into the house.

  The three of us followed Dana as if she were our tour guide. More people began to notice our presence, and the staring started again in earnest.

  Dana pointed to the first room on the right. A massive-sized TV was hanging on a wall next to an ornate fireplace. Kids were sprawled across every couch, chair, and love seat in the room. In the far corner was an open liquor cabinet the size of my walk-in closet.

  The driving beat of the music was persistent and deafening. Dana looked irritated. She locked eyes with me, her expression one big question mark.

  I scowled before I fist-pumped.

  Milo led us to the next room. It was actually set up very similarly to the last, minus the television and the love seats. Everything else was virtually identical, including the liquor cabinet.

  I made a circuit of the room, weaving my way through the boisterous crowd. And then I fist-pumped.

  A group of girls had gathered in the doorway, and we had to push past them to get back into the hallway. One of them whispered something about how Jackie was right—the new guy was cute.

  I looked at Milo, who seemed completely oblivious to the fact that every girl at the party was absolutely googly-eyed over him.

  Of course, Milo wasn’t the only one getting the attention.

  I had never seen so much tongue-wagging in my life as I followed Dana into the room with the pool table. The football players snapped to attention.

  “Damn!” A dark-haired senior I’d seen a few times before whistled. He nudged a few of his buddies, who all turned and ogled Dana.

  She gave all of them the finger.

  The funny thing was, the rude gesture didn’t deter them. A few of them clutched at their chests, as if manually slowing their heartbeats. One of them, a handsome boy named Vince who was in my Chinese culture class—who was actually kind of funny and nice when he wasn’t caught up in the mob mentality of his teammates—dropped to his knees before Dana. “I will die a happy man if you give me your phone number,” he said, looking up at her with the kind of blue eyes usually reserved for Hollywood movie stars.

  I glanced at Milo, but he was completely relaxed. He was even smiling a little as he watched Dana—who gazed down at Vince expressionlessly.

  “I lack both a phone and a give-a-damn,” she said before looking over at me, her perpetual question in her eyes.

  I sniffed a few times, but all I could smell were hot peppers and warm beer. I wondered if the pepper smell was linked to the inordinate amount of teenage lust bouncing around in there.

  Calvin looked at me too, and I did a quick fist pump.

  “Let’s keep moving.” Milo leaned close to my ear to suggest it, and that was fine with me.

  Next up was the kitchen, which would have been absolutely stunning—if it wasn’t completely trashed with beer cans, bags of potato chips, and red plastic cups. Every appliance was shiny silver metal, each countertop an elegant marble pattern. Rowdy partygoers crowded around the island in the center of the room, where a row of red cups were lined up between two determined-looking senior girls.

  “Beer pong. Gotta love it,” Cal said.

  “Or not,” Dana shouted grimly.

  Milo leaned in close to me. “Anything?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, sniffing the air.

  There was more of that pepper smell…although now it was a little fishy as well, which was gross.

  But, besides those two things, nada. Why didn’t I smell anything? I’d been bracing myself for it all day. I’d imagined us identifying Garrett’s father as the insidious leader of a Destiny drug ring. Dana would use her mind-control powers on him and get him to tell us where Sasha was being held, at which point we’d leave him tied up in the trunk of his car as we raced off to rescue her.

  But it was pretty clear that Mr. Hathaway wasn’t here tonight. Nor was there a sewage smell.

  “This is bullshit,” I exclaimed, frustrated.

  Calvin shook his head. “Nuh-uh, ’cause bullshit woul
d smell like something.”

  “Hilarious,” I said as I fist-pumped again, adding an unenthusiastic “Whoo-whoo!”

  Dana briskly led us out of the kitchen and back into the foyer, where a set of stairs led to the second floor. But as we rounded the corner, Garrett came careening toward us from the family room. He was still in a wheelchair.

  “Well, looky, looky!” he exclaimed, his voice thick from the effects of alcohol as he shouted over the music. “It’s Super Sky and her boyfriend—and her hot, hot friend.” He frowned as he looked at Milo. “Who are you, Homes? I don’t know you.”

  I lifted my chin as I gazed back at Garrett, my eyes challenging. “These are the friends I told you about. They’re visiting from out of town.”

  Milo leaned forward, and I couldn’t hear him but I could read his lips as he told Garrett, “The name’s Milo. And I’m definitely not your homeboy.”

  I caught a massive whiff of fish from Garrett, and I knew that Milo scared him—which was kind of ridiculous, since Milo was one of the gentlest people I’d ever met. Except…maybe he wasn’t. He was tall. And pretty solid. And the look he was giving Garrett held an unspoken promise of an ass-kicking, if provoked.

  And then, as I watched, I saw Garrett look at Calvin, and like the bully that he was, he attacked. He pivoted his wheelchair slightly, so that he was facing Calvin. “And what up wit you, nigga?”

  I swallowed a gasp and both Dana and Milo bristled. But Cal was calm, just staring Garrett down. “I’m glad you finally bought the Learn Ebonics books-on-tape,” he said.

  When Dana laughed, Garrett got even more petulant. “You think you’re so funny, don’t you, Williams, but you want to hear something really hilarious? In a week, week and a half, I’ll be out of this fugly chair for good. But you’ll be sitting down to piss for the rest of your life.”

  There was a moment of silence—or deafening music as it were—and then Dana kind of laughed again and muttered, “Well, hell.”

  She turned to look at me, and then she looked over at the stairs, and I got the message and swiftly headed up them. This situation was on the verge of escalating, big time. Because no way was Dana going to stand there and let Calvin get treated like that. Except, that kind of escalation was going to result in the four of us being asked to leave. And if we were going to get evicted from this party, I’d better finish searching the house first.