"There," he said to my mother. "You see, Toni? I told you he was all right. Come on, let's go inside. I'm missing the ballgame."

My mother, without a word, turned and went into the house.

I looked at Douglas and shook my head.

"Ordinarily," I said, "I'd be truly pissed at you for going off like that and not telling them where you were going or when you'd be home. But since they were so worried about you, they forgot to be mad at me, I will forgive you, this time."

"Well," Douglas said. "That's gracious of you." We went up the porch steps together, and he looked down at the pompons in my hand. "Who do you think you are?" he wanted to know. "Marcia Brady?"

"No," I said with a sigh. "Madame Zenda."



C H A P T E R

10

It didn't work, of course.

The pompons, I mean. All I got from them was a big fat nothing … and some of those streamery things up my nose, from when I tried sniffing them.

This isn't as weird as it sounds, since the vision I'd had about Shane seemed to have had an olfactory trigger. But what had worked with Shane's pillow most definitely did not work with Heather's pompons.

Maybe because I had actually liked Shane, and had felt responsible when he'd run away from the cabin we'd shared.

But Heather? Yeah, don't like her so much. And don't really feel responsible for her disappearing, either.

So why couldn't I fall asleep? I mean, if I felt so damned not responsible for what had happened to Heather, why was I lying there, staring at the ceiling?

Gee, I don't know. Maybe it was because of all the phone calls I'd gotten that evening, demanding to know why I hadn't found her already. Seriously, if I'd heard from every single member of the pep squad—with the exception of Heather and Amber, of course—I would not have been surprised. My mom, who was already in what could in no way be described as a good mood, on account of Mrs. Hankey's pending lawsuit against me and Douglas's sudden streak of wanderlust, threatened to disconnect the phone if it rang one more time.

Finally I was like, Go ahead, because I was sick of telling people I didn't know anything. It was bad enough the entire student population of Ernest Pyle High seemed to think I was still in full possession of my psychic powers. Now they apparently thought that I was refusing to use them for certain people, because I resented their popularity.

"Oh, no," Ruth said when I called her to tell her what was going on. "They did not say that to you."

"Yeah," I said. "They did. Tisha came right out with it. She was all, 'Jess, if you're holding back on us because of what Heather said to you in the caf the other day, may I just point out that she has been on the Homecoming court two years running, and that it would behoove you to get to work.'"

Ruth said, "Tisha Murray did not say the word 'behoove.'"

"Well," I said. "You know what I mean."

"So I guess this means Mark didn't kill Amber after all." I heard a scratching sound, which meant that Ruth was filing her nails as she talked, as was her custom. "I mean, if he was with you when Heather disappeared."

"I guess," I said.

"Which means, you know. He's Do-able."

"He's not just Do-able," I said. "He's a hottie. And I think he kind of likes me." I told Ruth about how Mark had squeezed my hand and winked before leaving me to my fate with my parents. I did not mention that he seemed to have no goals other than making it to the pros. This would not have impressed Ruth.

"Wow," Ruth said. "If you start going out with the Cougars' quarterback, do you have any idea what kind of parties and stuff you're going to get invited to? Jess, you could run for Homecoming Queen. And maybe even win. If you grew your hair out."

"One thing at a time," I said. "First I have to prove he didn't kill his last girlfriend, by finding the guy who did. And," I added, "besides. What about Rob?"

"What about Rob?" Ruth demanded. "Jess, Rob's totally dissed you, all right? It's been three whole days since you got back, and he hasn't even called. Forget the Jerk. Go out with the quarterback. He's never been arrested for anything."

"Yet," I said.

"Jess, he didn't do it. This thing with Heather proves it."

There was a click, and then Skip went, "Hello? Hello? Who's using this line?"

"Skip," Ruth said, with barely suppressed fury. "I am on the phone."

"Oh, yeah?" Skip said. "With who?"

"With whom," Ruth thundered. "And I'm talking to Jess, all right? Now hang up. I'll be off in a minute."

"Hi, Jess," Skip said, instead of hanging up like he was supposed to.

"Hi, Skip," I said. "Thanks again for the ride this morning."

"Jess," Ruth roared. "DO NOT ENCOURAGE HIM!"

"I better go, I guess," Skip said. "Bye, Jess."

"Bye, Skip," I said. There was a click, and Skip was gone.

"You," Ruth said, "had better do something about this."

"Aw, Ruth," I said. "Don't worry about it. Skip and I are cool."

"No, you are not cool. He has a crush on you. I told you not to play so many video games with him, back at the lakehouse."

I wanted to ask her what else I'd been supposed to do, since she had never been around, but restrained myself.

"So what are you going to do now?" Ruth wanted to know.

"I don't know. Go to bed, I guess. I mean, by morning I'll know. Where Heather is, I mean."

"You hope," Ruth said. "You know, you've never looked for somebody you didn't like before. Maybe it only works with people you don't hold in complete contempt."

"God," I said before hanging up, "I hope that's not true."

But apparently it was, because when I did wake up, after seeming to have nodded off somewhere around midnight, I did not even remember I was supposed to be finding Heather. All I could think was, Now what was that?

This was because I'd wakened, not to the sound of my alarm, or the twittering of birds outside my bedroom window, but to a sharp, rattling noise.

Seriously. I opened my eyes, and instead of morning light pouring into my room, there was nothing but shadow. When I turned my head to look at my alarm clock, I saw why. It was only two in the morning.

Why, I wondered, had I woken up at two? I never wake up in the middle of the night for no reason. I am a sound sleeper. Mike always joked that a twister could rip through town, and I wouldn't so much as roll over.

Then I heard it again, what sounded like hailstones against my window.

Only they weren't hailstones, I realized this time. They were actual stones. Someone was throwing rocks at my window.

I threw back the blankets, wondering who on earth it could be. Heather's friends were the only people I knew who might be anxious enough to see me to pull a stunt like this. But none of them had any way of knowing that my bedroom was the only one in the house that faced the street, or that it was the one with the dormer windows.

Staggering to one of those windows, I peered through the screen. Somebody, I saw, was standing in my front yard. There was hardly any moon, but from what little light it shed, I could see that the figure was tall and distinctly male—the distance across the shoulders was too wide for it to be a girl.

What guy did I know, I wondered, who would throw a bunch of rocks at my windows in the middle of the night? What guy did I know who even knew where my bedroom windows were?

Then it hit me.

"Skip," I hissed down at the figure in my yard. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Go home!"

The figure tipped his face up toward me and hissed back, "Who's Skip?"

I jumped back from the window with a start. That wasn't Skip. That wasn't Skip at all.

My heart slamming in my chest, I stood in the center of my bedroom, uncertain what to do. This had never happened to me before, of course. I was not the kind of girl who had guys tossing pebbles at her window every night. Claire Lippman, maybe, was used to that sort of thing, but I was not. I didn't know what to do.

"Mastriani," I heard him call in a loud stage whisper.

There was no chance, of course, of him waking my parents, whose room was all the way at the opposite end of the house. But he might wake Douglas, whose windows looked out toward the Abramowitzes', and who was a light sleeper besides. I didn't want Douglas waking up and finding out that his little sister had a nocturnal caller. Who knew if that kind of thing might cause an episode.

I darted forward and, leaning over the sill, with my face pressed up against the screen, called softly, "Stay there. I'll be right down."

Then I spun around and reached for the first articles of clothing I could find—my jeans and a T-shirt. Slipping into some sneakers, I hopped down the hall to the bathroom, where I rinsed my mouth with some water and toothpaste—hey, a lady does not greet her midnight callers with morning breath. That much I do know about these things.

Then I crept down the stairs, carefully avoiding the notoriously creaky step just before the second landing, until I reached the front door and quietly unlocked it.

Then I stepped into the cool night air and Rob's warm embrace.

Look, I know, okay? Three days. Three days I'd been home, and he hadn't called. I should have been mad. I should have been livid. At the very least, I should have greeted him with cold civility, maybe a sneer and a "Hey, how you doing," instead of how I did greet him, which was by throwing my arms around him.

But I just couldn't help myself. He just looked so adorable standing there in the moonlight, all big and tall and manly and everything. You could tell he'd just taken a shower, because the dark hair on the back of his head was still wet, and he smelled of soap and shampoo and Goop, that stuff mechanics use on their hands to get the grease and motor oil out from beneath their nails. How could I not jump into his arms? You'd have done the exact same thing.