I’d hoped, selfishly maybe, that the zombie club wouldn’t talk about Bree today. I couldn’t sit in class or walk through the hallway without hearing her name. Then my thoughts would go spinning out of control. Had she been lured in by that pimp? Was he keeping her by force? Was she suffering at this moment?
Everyone at school was upset, but I could tell that JC was especially shaken up. His usual laughter was gone, replaced by a sullen sadness. He’d grown up a block away from Bree, and they’d known each other since kindergarten. He drove past her house every day, and often crossed paths with her parents. Despite the way JC had treated me, I couldn’t help but feel bad for him.
“I’m not so sure she was kidnapped,” Caro said. “My mom and I joined the search this weekend. There had to be two hundred of us out there. No one found anything. Not one little thing. If somebody grabbed her off the street, you’d think she might’ve dropped something.”
Rory snorted. “Yeah, and it’s hard to picture her being grabbed off the street anywhere near Jeff’s house. Coral Gables isn’t exactly crime central.”
“A lot of people who get kidnapped go with the assailant willingly,” Alistair pointed out. “They accept a ride from a stranger, get into a cab—or what they think is a cab.”
“We could do a séance,” Adriana said. “In case she’s . . .” Once again, she wouldn’t finish the sentence.
Nobody said anything.
Caro chewed her bottom lip. “I wish I’d known about this when I saw Miss Lisa.”
“Is she that psychic you were talking about?” Rory asked. “Sounds like the name of a kindergarten teacher.”
Caro ignored him. “I figure if Miss Lisa knows something, she’ll contact the police. She’s helped with investigations before.”
“By looking into her crystal ball?” Rory said, crossing his eyes like an idiot.
Adriana turned on him. “I don’t get you. You believe in zombies, but you don’t believe in psychics? That makes no sense.”
Rory put up his hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger, baby. The zombie phenomenon is scientific fact. Just google ‘zombie virus’ and you’ll see.”
As they argued, something inside me stilled. I remembered the words Miss Lisa had said to me as I walked out. Somebody needs your help. I’d assumed that person was Maria. But now I realized it must have been Bree. It made perfect sense, and it explained the intensity of Miss Lisa’s message. If she was legit. The jury was still out on that one.
Adriana was looking at me. “Did you research telecommunications during a zombie apocalypse?”
“Sorry, I didn’t get to it. Should we head?”
We tossed our lunch bags and went up two floors to our lockers. My locker, formerly right next to JC’s in the cool part of the grad hallway, was now next to Rory’s. A cheerleader named Meagan had gladly switched with me in the first week of school. It was a win-win for her; she’d landed a locker in the cool section, and had spared herself from the funky odor emanating from Rory’s locker.
We turned a corner and stopped in our tracks. Three cops, one principal, and a German shepherd. A row of lockers was wide open, and the dog was sticking his nose in each one before moving to the next.
The lockers belonged to JC and his friends.
A crowd of students had assembled, watching the spectacle. Liam grinned like it was all a joke.
A drug raid. Although the school admin threatened raids all the time, I’d never seen it happen until now. The timing probably wasn’t a coincidence. The cops must know by now that people had been doing Blings at the party where Bree was last seen. Blings, from what I’d gathered, were a psychedelic drug, kind of like acid, that gave a wicked high, not to mention the occasional wild hallucination.
JC went pale when the dog barked in front of his locker. We watched as the cops took everything out of it—every book, pencil, item of clothing. Then a cop unceremoniously dumped the contents of JC’s backpack on the floor. JC’s expression turned to disgust as the dog’s wet nose burrowed in his stuff.
“Told you they’re all drug fiends now,” Adriana murmured.
“They won’t get caught,” Alistair said dismally. “They might be stupid enough to use, but they’re not stupid enough to keep anything incriminating in their lockers.”
The dog gave a final sniff of JC’s belongings, then bypassed the next locker. Three lockers down, he paused again to nose through Liam’s stuff, his tail wagging madly.
Liam just laughed. When the dog finally moved on from his locker, he gave an exaggerated “Phewf!” and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“What a shame,” Alistair muttered.
Thursday afternoon, Olive and I were in the mailroom at WKTU. Unlike the fashionable lobby or lounge, the room was musty and crammed with old flyers and stacks of mail. The presence of mousetraps in every corner (thankfully empty, at the moment) didn’t help.
Olive looked like a living doll in a white doily sundress and ballet flats. “I can’t believe people still send letters. They’re such a pain to reply to.” Olive used a letter opener to pry one open. She scanned it. “Some old man doesn’t want Caballero using the word pissed. Talk about having too much time on your hands.”
I frowned. “What’s an old guy doing listening to WKTU, anyway?”
“Damned if I know. Some people need a cause.” She shrugged, her glossy side pigtails bouncing. “Should we recycle it?”
I was tempted, but I shook my head. “Put it in my pile. I’ll answer it.”
My phone vibrated.
I glanced down, my heart skipping a beat. It was X.
If you still want to help me find Bree, meet me tonight at 9. Wear casual street clothes. I’ll text you later with the location. No pressure to do this.
My pulse sped up. I answered: I’m in.
Olive had a knowing look in her eyes. “Somebody has a date,” she sang.
“I wish.” I couldn’t deny the thrill of receiving a text from X, but this was far from a date. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been on a real date. With my ex, we never really dated. We just, sort of, got together.” I pondered that. “Maybe if there’d been some sort of trial period, I’d have realized sooner that we were better off as friends.”
“Hindsight’s great like that, isn’t it?” Olive said wryly. “You’re so right—most people don’t even date anymore. It’s hook up, hang out, then break up. What a shame. I like to make a guy work for it. Andrew takes me on a date once a week. I’m talking dinner and a movie, the whole shebang. And I make him pay.”
“Hey, with my cash flow, if a guy wants to pay, no argument here.”
“What can I say?” She grinned. “I’m an old-fashioned girl.”
At eight thirty that night, I stood in my bedroom, pulling on jeans, old sneakers, and a gray hoodie. I took a deep breath, staring into the mirror.
We’re gonna find her.
We have to find her.
Downstairs, I zipped up my hoodie. “Going to a movie with Adriana and Caro,” I said to my parents on my way out. “Later.”
Traffic on the expressway was lighter than I expected, and I made it downtown in twenty minutes. I loved downtown Miami at night. The city lights were like glow sticks against the dark sky. It was a place of endless excitement and possibility, where the party didn’t start until half the city was already in bed.
The GPS guided me through a few turns, and before I knew it, I was heading up Flagler Street. It was a student ghetto where dive bars with flashing neon signs advertised two-for-one drinks, ladies’ nights, and starving student specials.
Although I was a few minutes early, I figured I’d get out and look around. Across the street, a group of young people was hanging out. They were street kids, the kind with piercings in their cheeks, gauges in their ears, and crude tattoos across their knuckles. Several were sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk playing bongo drums. A street artist in a knit cap was drawing something while others gathered around him.
>
Pulling up my hood against the breeze, I tapped my feet to the rhythm of the drums. I’d only been standing there a couple of minutes when someone called from across the street. “Hey, Gabby! Over here!”
I scanned the area, then I did a double take. It was X. He was the street artist.
Seriously?
He was standing now, holding the sketch under his arm. In a long, beat-up cargo jacket, baggy jeans, and ratty old boots, he looked every bit the young street artist.
Holy shit. This must be his cover.
I hesitated only a beat before crossing the street to join him. I couldn’t believe how at home he looked among the street kids, how he blended in perfectly. X held open his arms and hugged me, pulling me against his chest and whispering, “Just go with it.” As if I’d object. It felt so delicious to have those arms around me. When he released me, his blue eyes were twinkling. “Look what I drew.”
It was a black chalk drawing of a girl in a hoodie standing on a sidewalk. It was me. The picture was incredible, and yet he must’ve sketched it in two minutes flat.
“Holy, it’s good.”
“Good enough for twenty bucks?” X said, and some of the others laughed. “Kidding.” He tucked the sketchbook into his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder. “Let’s get a drink, okay? There’s a McDick’s around the corner.”
He slipped an arm around my waist, said bye to the others, and we walked north on Flagler. When we were a short distance away, he said, “I thought you’d have seen me right away.”
“I saw you, but it didn’t register. So this is your cover. You’re a street artist.”
“Yeah. Best way to keep tabs is to be on the ground.”
“Your talent isn’t fake, that’s for sure.” I glanced at him. “Are you trained?”
“Self-trained. Does that count?”
“Well, if you ever need a second career . . . talent like that could make you a shitload of money.”
He turned to me. “Who says art should have a price tag?”
“I do.” I smiled. “My aunt’s Sarita Lima, a painter. You might’ve heard of her. If she didn’t sell her paintings, she’d still be working in retail, and that would be a crime. She used to talk customers out of buying anything made in China, which was most of the inventory at her store.”
At McDonald’s, we were met by the scent of fried food and the beeping of the registers. “Coffee?” he asked.
“Hot chocolate,” I said. “Or else I’ll be up all night.”
“Coffee for me. I plan to be.”
We didn’t have to wait long. X paid with three scrunched dollar bills, then we sat in an isolated corner.
“You must work crazy hours.” I sipped the hot chocolate.
He shrugged. “Night’s when it all goes down.”
I couldn’t help but study him, the way he held his cup, the way his blue eyes surveyed the place. X was a chameleon if I’d ever seen one. He looked as much at ease in the role of street artist as he had when I’d first seen him, dressed slick for a nightclub. But he looked younger now, nothing like the jaded cop he was.
“I spotted Bree last night,” X said.
I practically jumped out of my seat. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. And she was with him.”
My stomach dropped. Him. Milo. The pimp.
“I followed her until she got into a car. That’s why I wanted you here tonight. She could be out again. If we spot her, a familiar face could help.”
“Definitely.” If Bree saw me, I had to believe she’d want to reach out, no matter what kind of situation she was in. But if Milo was with her, finding a way to talk to her could be next to impossible.
At X’s cue, we carried our drinks outside. He simply said, “I’ll take you to places where I think she could be.”
He knew the neighborhood well, that much was obvious. The places, the people. He said hello to even the shadiest-looking characters we passed, and gave several of them money from his pocket. I wondered if my instinct that he’d had a rough life was true. Maybe it had trained him for this sort of work.
“You’re a pro out here,” I said.
“Just being myself, mostly.”
“Are you from Miami?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Coral Gables all the way.”
“Pretty sweet. So how’d you get the radio gig?”
I tried not to show my surprise. For once, he was asking about me. “I’ve always been interested in radio. Always been a talker. My parents would say I’m a loudmouth.” I glanced over at him, and we both smiled. My heart flipped over, because how could it not when he looked at me like that?
“So last year, I visited WKTU and offered to help out, do whatever needed doing. Eventually I started recording little segments. I got DJ Caballero to listen to them, and he gave me a chance to go on the air.”
“Were you nervous the first time, knowing thousands of people were listening? Or does that stuff not faze you?”
“I was a freaking mess.” I shuddered at the memory. My stomach had been sick for days before—not that I’d admit to that particular detail. “My biggest fear was freezing up. If you have even a second or two of dead air, your audience is changing the station. I knew that Caballero was going out on a limb to let me go on, and if I screwed up, it was his audience I’d be losing.”
X bit his lip, like he felt for me. “Talk about pressure. It went okay, though?”
“No, it was terrible. I was so afraid of freezing up that I wrote out an entire script. The second I went on the air, I started reading it, going way too fast. It was god-awful. I burned through half my script in fifteen minutes. And I saw the look on Caballero’s face—he was trying to smile, but . . . I knew I was done. I actually said out loud: this isn’t working.”
“Whoa.” X seemed fascinated. “So what’d you do next?”
“I tore up the script. The listeners could hear me doing it. I said I was boring myself to tears and that it was time to get real. Time to talk about what was really bugging me.”
His brow lifted. “Oh yeah? What was really bugging you?”
“Guys. Well, it was specifically my boyfriend, but I didn’t want to embarrass him. So I just started ranting about guys and the annoying things they do.”
“What was it your boyfriend did?”
“It’s more what he didn’t do. His best friend walked all over him, but my boyfriend never called him on it.”
“You don’t like it when people don’t stand up for themselves,” X said thoughtfully.
“Exactly. It’s so unattractive. It’s not . . . manly.”
“Manly.” That made him smirk. “I like that. You want a manly man, huh?”
“Go ahead, laugh. I’m not saying I want some caveman guy, but you have to be confident in who you are, you know? Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, right. So I asked the listeners their biggest pet peeves about guys, and the calls flooded in.”
X laughed. “That’s some story. So dissing the male sex helped you connect with your audience.”
“Pretty much.”
“I take it you got rid of the boyfriend. Did you ever find what you were looking for?”
God, did my cheeks have to fill up with blood right then? “Um, no. Not yet.”
He didn’t seem to have noticed my sudden fluster. “My little brother’s into radio. He wants to be a DJ someday.” He gave a shrug, like he wouldn’t hold his breath. “Your people must be proud of you.”
My people? I guess he meant my family. “My parents want me to do something more practical. They’re both teachers. But I’m going to Miami-Dade next year for TV, radio, and broadcasting, whether they like it or not.”
“Sounds like you know what you want. That’s a good thing.” He sipped his coffee. “So your aunt is Sarita Lima, huh?”
He knew who she was! “Coolest person ever—and yeah, I’m biased. You should meet her.” But the moment I said it, I caught myself. Somehow, our walk had started to feel like a
date, and now I was acting like it.
And then it hit me that there was no way X didn’t have a girlfriend. He was a cop and he was gorgeous and he probably had Miss Miami waiting for him back at his apartment right now. The thought made my chest ache.
Who knew a crush could actually be painful? Maybe that’s why it was called a crush.
I looked at him, caught the chiseled profile of his face against the street light, and realized something with startling clarity.
X was going to break my heart.
At that moment, his hand closed around mine—but only because he was leading me across a busy intersection. “This is where I saw her. Right here, where we’re standing.”
And suddenly I was back in reality. Miss Lisa’s words came to mind. Someone needs your help. They’re in a place of darkness. . . .
I sighed. “I wish I were psychic. I wish I could just go to her. Bring her home.”
“Me too.” His hand tightened on mine.
“I figure you’ve got a curfew,” he said an hour later. “With teachers as parents and all.”
It was around eleven, and we were back at my car. I would never admit it, but my legs felt heavy from walking so much.
“My curfew’s midnight. We could go a little longer.” As exhausted as I was, I didn’t want to call it a night. What if Bree was right around the corner?
“It’s okay. I have other things to take care of tonight.”
“Another . . . operation?”
He nodded.
We stared at each other for a few moments, his eyes lingering on my face. I wondered if he felt some of what I was feeling. This pull between us.
“Thanks for letting me come along,” I said. “Whenever you’re able to go looking for her, count me in.”
“Tomorrow night, I’ll be out again.”
“Then me too.”
I reached out to hug him—I couldn’t help it. Not only did he not resist, he pulled me against him. I knew right then that our connection was real, that he must feel close to me too. My nostrils caught the scent of smoke and musk. I wasn’t going to be the first to let go. I’d been craving his arms around me, and I wouldn’t end it one second before I had to.