You Can Run

by Norah McClintock

  First U.S. edition published in 2012 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  Text copyright © 2006 by Norah McClintock. All rights reserved.

  Published by arrangement with Scholastic Canada Ltd.

  All U.S. rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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  Website address: www.lernerbooks.com

  The images in this book are used with the permission of:

  Front Cover: © Peter Muller/cultura/CORBIS. Back Cover:

  Pixelfabrik/Shutterstock.com.

  Main body text set in Janson Text Lt Std 11.5/15.

  Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  McClintock, Norah.

  You can run / by Norah McClintock.

  p. cm. — (Robyn Hunter mysteries ; #2)

  ISBN: 978–0–7613–8312–3 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

  [1. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M478414184Yo 2012

  [Fic]—dc23 2011018833

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 12/31/11

  eISBN: 978-0-7613-9072-5 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3038-9 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3037-2 (mobi)

  TO B.M.R.,

  WHO REALLY CAN RUN

  Bah-buh-duh-duh-dah-dah. . .

  Morgan Turner, my best friend, looked at me. Then she looked at my backpack.

  . . . bah-buh-duh-duh-dah-dah. . . .

  I ripped the pack off my shoulder and dug through it until I found my cell phone.

  “Hey, that sounds like—” began Billy Royal, my other best friend.

  “It sounds like someone with very bad taste got their hands on Robyn’s phone,” Morgan said as I looked down at my touch screen.

  That someone was on the other end of the line.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said.

  “Hey, Robbie. Just checking to see if the new phone is working okay.”

  “Working fine, Dad.”

  “Great,” he said. He sounded pleased. “Well then, I won’t keep you.”

  “Okay. Bye, Dad.”

  Billy looked at me approvingly. “‘My Girl,’ right? The Temptations, 1964. I love that Motown sound.” Billy was an oldies junkie. It was one of the reasons he got along well with my father.

  Morgan looked at me too, but the expression on her face was more along the lines of, “Tell me you’re not that pathetic.”

  “I lost my old phone last week,” I said.

  “Moving up in the world, huh?” Morgan said. Until recently, I had been famous for losing my house keys. Regularly.

  “My mom got really mad about it,” I said. My mother is famous for knowing the exact location of each and every one of her possessions—at all times.“Dad bailed me out. He picked out the ring tone too. He said it was perfect for me.”

  “It would be,” Morgan said, “if you were his girlfriend instead of his daughter, and if this were nineteen-seventy-something.”

  “1964,” Billy said.

  “Whatever,” Morgan said. “My advice? Change it.”

  “But it’s a gift,” Billy said.

  “So?” Morgan said. “Didn’t anyone ever give you a gift you didn’t want?”

  “Well, sure, but—”

  “Maybe a sweater with reindeer on it from your grandma at Christmas? Or a shirt that you’d never wear in a million years from some old auntie who hasn’t seen you since you were three years old?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “So, when you get a gift like that, you exchange it for something you want, right?”

  Billy looked down at his sneakers. Morgan shook her head in amazement.

  “You’re a nice guy,” she said. Billy beamed. “But you can be such a wuss.” Billy’s smile evaporated like morning mist under a scorching sun.

  I was stuffing the new phone back into my pack when Morgan suddenly tugged on my arm.

  “Hey, Robyn, is that who I think it is?”

  I looked around. “Who?” Morgan, Billy, and I had just come from the downtown library, where we had been researching a project for school. We were going to get something to eat before heading home.

  “Nick.”

  “Where?”

  “Over there, with those kids. It sure looks like him.”

  She pointed to a bunch of kids in front of a youth center on the other side of the street. A couple of them sat cross-legged on the sidewalk, panhandling with a hat upside down in front of them. The rest of the kids clogged the sidewalk, making it impossible for pedestrians to get by, let alone drop coins into the hat. I didn’t see Nick.

  “I don’t think he’d be hanging around down here,” I said.

  “Right,” Morgan said, her tone making it clear that she meant exactly the opposite. “Because if he were, he’d get busted.”

  Morgan had met Nick only once, but she loved to talk about him. She said guys like Nick were “inherently fascinating.” I think mostly what fascinated her was the scar that ran from the bridge of his nose to the lobe of his right ear. It made him look dangerous.

  “I didn’t mean because he’d get busted,” I said, although he would get into serious trouble. “I mean because he follows the rules.”

  “Right,” Morgan said, still meaning exactly the opposite. “Following the rules is the best way I know to get arrested, not to mention end up in custody.”

  “It’s open custody,” I said. There were no locked cells, guard towers, or barbed wire where Nick was living.

  “Open, closed, it’s still custody,” Morgan said.

  It was true. Nick hadn’t always followed the rules. He’d been in a little trouble with the law. Okay, maybe more than a little. But that was before. And he’d had his reasons. He was doing better now. He was still living in a group home, serving out some time for—well, Nick doesn’t like to talk about it, and I don’t blame him. In another couple of weeks, his time would be up and he’d be out for good. No way was he going to mess that up by hanging out with a bunch of street kids downtown.

  “Look, now you can see him,” Morgan said. She pointed at the group of kids sitting on the sidewalk. This time I saw him, with his thick dark hair and his typical Nick wardrobe: black jeans, black T-shirt, black hoodie, black boots. But I wished I hadn’t. He had his arm around a girl. They were looking at something, but I couldn’t see what.

  “Which one is he?” Billy said. He had heard a lot about Nick, mostly from Morgan, but hadn’t met him yet. While Morgan pointed him out, a sick lump formed in my stomach. What was he doing there? Why did he have his arm around that girl? Why was that girl leaning her head against his shoulder?

  I turned my back to him before he could see me. I wanted to get out of there, fast. But Morgan had another idea.

  “Nick,” she called. She raised an arm and waved. “Hey, Nick, over here.”

  I shushed her, but trying to shush Morgan is like trying to shush thunder. She’s a real force of nature. I ducked behind Billy, who is so tall and skinny that it was like trying to hide behind a length of rope. I peeked around him and saw Nick’s head bob up in response to Morgan’s calls. He peered across the street at her as if he were trying to place her. Then he shifted his eyes a little to the right and saw me. He said something to the girl he was holding, then he let go of her and stood up.
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  “I want to go home,” I said to Morgan.

  “But it’s Nick—”

  “Now, Morgan.” What was the matter with her? Didn’t she see the girl he was with?

  I turned and headed up the street, not looking back. I had almost reached the subway station when someone grabbed my arm. I whirled around, angry.

  “Morgan, seriously—”

  But it wasn’t Morgan. It was Nick. He peered at me with his purple eyes. They were like two perfectly round pieces of amethyst. I had never seen eyes that color before I met him.

  “Hey, Robyn.” His voice was warm, and he smiled at me. He didn’t look remotely dangerous now. “What’s up?”

  What’s up? I had just seen him sitting on the sidewalk with his arm around another girl, and he was asking me what’s up?

  “I’m in a hurry. I have to get home,” I said. I glanced at Morgan and Billy, who were a few paces behind Nick. Morgan gave me a sympathetic look—she’d finally figured out what was bothering me. Billy just shrugged, as if he couldn’t understand what the big deal was, which, I guess, proves what Morgan is always saying: guys are blind, deaf, and dumb when it comes to the nuances of relationships.

  Nick looked at me for a few moments as if he were trying to work a complicated puzzle. Then he glanced back across the street at the group of kids he’d been with.

  “Hey, you’re not upset about Beej, are you?” he said.

  Beej? What kind of name was that?

  “Because there’s no reason for you to be,” he said. “She’s just a friend.”

  Right. That explained why he’d been holding her in public.

  “The guy she was going with took off. She’s upset,” he said. “I was just trying to cheer her up a little. She was showing me some of her pictures.”

  Uh-huh.

  He stepped in close to me, put one hand under my chin and pushed it up a little, gently, so I had to look at him.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said.

  Maybe it was the warmth of his hand. Or maybe it was the sincere look in his eyes. Probably, though, it was the little lopsided smile he gave me—Nick hoping that I wasn’t mad at him or that I wouldn’t stay that way.

  “What are you doing down here anyway?” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to be back at Somerset?” Somerset was the name of the group home where he lived.

  “I had to meet with someone at the youth center.” The way he said it, it came out casual, as if it were no big deal. But then he turned away slightly so that he wasn’t looking at me anymore, and I noticed a little twitch at the corner of his mouth. He gets that when something is bothering him.

  “Is everything okay, Nick?”

  “Sure.” There it was, that twitch again. “I just had to see a counselor, that’s all. Mr. Jarvis is here with me. He’s talking to someone inside. I’m just waiting for him.” Ed Jarvis was Nick’s youth worker. Nick smiled, but it came off looking forced. “Come on,” he said, taking my hand. “Come and say hi.”

  I turned to look at Morgan and Billy. Nick turned too.

  “Bring your friends along,” he said.

  Morgan shook her head. “Billy’s going to collapse if he doesn’t eat something in the next two minutes,” she said. I glanced at Billy. He didn’t look like hunger was going to get the better of him anytime soon. He’d brought some snacks with him to the library and had spent at least half of his time there eating them. Morgan knew that perfectly well. As usual, she had commented on the vast quantities of food he was able to consume without gaining any weight. “We’ll be at the Buddha,” she said. “You can catch up with us there.”

  The Buddha was a vegan restaurant we went to a lot, mainly because Billy refused to eat anything that came from animals. Actually, in a funny way, it was thanks to Billy and his vegan-ness that I had met Nick.

  I gave Morgan a grateful look and let Nick pull me across the street toward the knot of kids on the sidewalk.

  The first thing I noticed was the piercings. Almost every kid had something pierced—an eyebrow (or two), a nose, an earlobe (or two) as well as miscellaneous other parts of the ear, a lip (or two), a tongue, a belly button. A lot of them had wild hair—dyed, spiked, dreaded. When Nick said, “Hey, everybody, this is Robyn,” I felt like an alien who had just stepped out of a spaceship. The kids—especially the girls—stared at my J. Crew jeans. They took note of my own modest piercings—one in each earlobe—and the small gold hoops hanging from each one, another gift from my father. Some of them gave me a curt nod of acknowledgment. Some gave me a hard look and then dismissed me. Not one of them said hello. I had never felt less welcome in my life, but Nick didn’t seem to notice. He tugged my hand again and pulled me down onto the sidewalk. I felt squeamish, but I eased myself down beside him. He turned to the girl he’d had his arm around.

  “Hey, Beej,” he said. “This is Robyn.”

  Beej, I found out later, was short for B. J., but Nick said he didn’t know what the initials stood for.Apparently, she didn’t like to say. Beej was a small, thin girl with five piercings in one ear, six in the other, and one in her left eyebrow. Her short hair was jet black, but I saw auburn at the roots. I smiled at her. She didn’t smile back.

  “Remember I told you about meeting Robyn at the animal shelter?” Nick said.

  Beej said, yeah, she remembered. She stared at me as if she’d already made up her mind that she didn’t like me and wanted to make sure I knew it. As she gave me the evil eye, one of the guys standing nearby called to Nick.

  “Be right back,” Nick said. He got up and went over to the guy.

  Beej was holding a stack of photographs. When I tried to sneak a peek, she shuffled them together and slipped them into an envelope. Somewhere on the street someone whistled. Beej turned her head to check out where the sound had come from. I turned too, and saw a dog walker with six big dogs, all straining at their leashes, waiting for a light to change at the corner.

  I glanced at Nick to see if he had noticed. Nick is crazy about dogs. But he was deep in conversation with a kid with a shaved head. Then I turned to Beej, who pointedly looked away from me. I sighed and looked around some more, as if I were new in town and the cityscape was fresh and fascinating instead of the same old office towers, stores, cars, and buses. I spotted someone I thought I recognized from school, a surly loner named Kenny, scarfing down a hotdog across the street. When he finished it, he crumpled the napkin it had been wrapped in and threw it into the street. What a pig. If Morgan had seen what he’d done, she would have marched across the street, picked up the napkin, shoved it into his hand, and informed him, in case he didn’t know, that littering was against the law.

  I began to wish that Morgan and Billy had come with me after all. I glanced at Beej again. She was tucking her pictures into a battered old backpack. She gave me a sharp look, as if by merely turning in her direction I was invading her personal space. I was relieved when Nick finally came back and dropped down onto the sidewalk beside us.

  “I told Robyn that you were showing me your pictures,” he said to Beej. “I bet she’d like to see them.”

  And I bet Beej would rather have stuck a red-hot needle in her own eye than show them to me, I thought. Sure enough, instead of taking her pictures out again, she zipped her backpack and asked Nick for the time.When he told her, she said, “I gotta go. I’ll see you around, Nick, okay?” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, looking at me as she did it. I pretended that I didn’t care. She got up, folded the blanket she’d been sitting on, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and walked away. A couple of other kids drifted away at the same time. I wanted to leave too. I didn’t feel comfortable there, not even with Nick beside me, holding my hand.

  Then someone said, “Robyn?”

  I looked up toward a surprised-sounding voice and saw Ed Jarvis, a stocky man with a brush cut. His deep voice, gruff attitude, and stiff way of walking reminded me of a drill sergeant. He looked at my hand in Nick’s. Then he glanced around, as
if he were wondering where I had come from.

  “Good to see you again, Robyn,” he said. He took another look at my hand in Nick’s. Nick must have noticed, too, because he squeezed my hand tighter and stared at Mr. Jarvis as if he were daring him to say something about it. “I’ve been meaning to call your father,” Mr. Jarvis said. “He gave me some baseball tickets last week. I took some of the kids. They had a terrific time.” Like a lot of people, Mr. Jarvis knew my dad. I told him I’d deliver the message. Then he said, “Time to go, Nick,” and backed off a few paces.

  Nick gave him a sour look, which told me that something was wrong. Nick usually got along well with Mr. Jarvis. He got up and helped me to my feet.

  “How come you had to see a counselor?” I said. “Is everything okay?”

  His eyes shifted away from me again. For a moment, his face went rigid, as if he were angry about something.

  “It was just an appointment,” he said. “It’s not important.” He pulled me close to him. “Three more weeks,” he said. He didn’t have to explain what he meant. I had been marking days off my calendar too. In three more weeks, Nick’s time at Somerset would be up and he could go to live with his aunt.

  “Actually,” I said, “it’s two weeks and six days. But who’s counting, right?”

  “I am,” Nick said. “It’s two weeks and six days until I get out of Somerset. But it’s exactly three weeks until your birthday.”

  I stared at him. “How did you. . . .?”

  He grinned. “You’d be surprised what you can find out if you know who to ask,” he said. “You know what I’m going to do on your birthday?” His eyes sparkled. “I’m going to take you out. First we’re going to have dinner together somewhere nice. Then we’re going to go to a movie. Unless you want to do something else— maybe go to a concert, if anyone good’s in town.”

  “A movie would be fine,” I said.

  “Then,” Nick said, “I’m going to make sure you get home safely instead of having to leave you at a bus stop somewhere.” Nick was allowed out of Somerset only with permission, never at night, and always with a strict curfew and restrictions on where he could go. A worried look flashed across his face. “Any chance you’re going to be staying with your dad on your birthday?” Nick got along okay with my father. My mother, who is divorced from my father and with whom I live most of the time, made him nervous.