Unraveling

  My phone buzzes again, and this time I pick it up and toss it carefully from hand to hand. “So with that theory, my John Doe and the other victims, they’re test subjects?”

  Alex shrugs. “Maybe people who pissed off the terrorist group?”

  Somehow I’m not satisfied. This theory doesn’t give me an identity to associate with the guy who died the same day and time that I did on Torrey Pines Road.

  “J?” Alex says.

  “Hmmm?”

  “You think it’s time we tell your dad?”

  I’m about to nod. After all, it’s past time we shared our theories with him. It could be totally off, and it could be something someone already thought of. Or it could be right. Or it could fall somewhere in between. Either way he needs to know. But as I’m about to say that, the door to our room slides open and Nick sticks his head in and says, “Tell her dad what?”

  Inwardly, I groan. I wouldn’t have told him where I was headed after school if I thought he and his other half were going to show up.

  Kevin pops in behind him and pushes the door wider. “You confess your true feelings yet, Trechter?”

  “Kevin, shut up,” I say as I focus on Nick. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been looking for you for, like, an hour,” Nick says. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  I gesture to the books. “I’m working?”

  Nick picks up one of the books closest to him, and I’m tempted to take it away from him, but that’ll just look more suspicious, and I don’t trust him with this.

  “You work too hard, J,” Kevin says. Shocking that he thinks so.

  Nick puts the book down and leans against the door. “I know what the problem is. You need to have fun. Come with me to Hines’s place tonight.”

  “Alex and I are going to finish studying and then…”

  Alex knows me well enough to know I’m looking for an excuse, so he jumps in. “We’re going to watch Tron: Legacy.”

  Since this is the Lamest Excuse Ever, there’s no way I can stand behind it.

  “Um, no we’re not. That movie is only about a tenth as good as its soundtrack.”

  Alex just smirks—I will totally get him back for this.

  Nick says, “So it looks like you can come with me.”

  “It’s Tuesday,” I say, even though I know that to Nick this isn’t an excuse. Especially not this year. His dad used to be strict about where he went—more because of sports than school—but his parents are getting divorced and he and his dad aren’t speaking, which means he’s been doing pretty much whatever he feels like since this summer.

  “His parents are out of town until Friday.”

  “I can’t,” I say without looking at Nick. Even I’m not immune to how gorgeous he is. I know how easy it is to be charmed by those almond eyes.

  “I promise I won’t keep you out late,” he says, holding his hand over his heart. And when I look at him, I can’t help thinking of the first night we talked—really talked—this summer. He’d just found out his dad was having an affair with a girl who graduated from Eastview five years ago, and instead of getting wasted at one of the beach bonfire parties, he was just sitting by himself when I closed up the lifeguard stand and was getting ready to go home. I asked him how he was doing, and everything just poured out. We talked for three hours. About his family and their failings. About how we were afraid of disappointing people the way they disappointed us.

  “I promise,” Nick says again. “Scout’s honor.”

  “You must have been a horrible Boy Scout.”

  “I wasn’t a Boy Scout,” he says, as if he can’t figure out why I would say such a thing.

  “Seriously. I already have an essay to write, three chapters of history to read, a shitload of physics and calc problems, plus Spanish review.” I gesture to the mound of books all over the table, even though they have nothing to do with anything I’ve just rattled off.

  He pouts. “You deserve a rest from taking care of everybody. A night of fun before diving back into the books. You didn’t get to come to the bonfire.”

  Not that I’m disappointed about the bonfire, but I do work too hard.

  “Just an hour,” I say, wondering when my willpower decided to go on vacation—and when it will be back.

  “Of course.” Nick laughs. “I’ll have you home before eleven.”

  “Let me pack up here,” I say. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

  After Kevin and Nick leave, I look at Alex. He jams his books back into his backpack. “Maybe you should trade those crappy vintage T-shirts and ripped jeans for short skirts and tank tops. You can start hanging out with Brooke, too.”

  “You’re the one who ruined tonight with a lame excuse. I wanted to do something else, and you came up with a movie that only has a plot in the first thirty minutes?”

  “It’s got great visual effects,” Alex says as he goes back to shoving his stuff into his backpack, and I grab the couple of books I do want to take home with me.

  “Wait,” I say, reaching out to grab Alex’s shoulder. “Did you call my Great Gatsby T-shirt crappy? I fucking love this shirt.”

  “Fine. Abandon me so I have to hang out with my mother,” Alex says, but he’s smiling again. Which is all I really needed to see.

  15:16:55:49

  At twelve forty-five I give up on Nick.

  An hour and forty-five minutes is my threshold—and of course he’s so drunk he can’t stand up without leaning on me for support. I try to take his keys but give up on those after he bellows at me that he’s “just fine to drive, woman.”

  I get yelled at enough by my mother—someone I’m obligated to love. I don’t need it from some shithead who slams two beers and then lets his friends pressure him into doing five shots of tequila in the span of an hour.

  Plus, what the hell am I going to do with his keys anyway? Unlike 18 percent of my graduating class, I’m planning to not have a DUI on my record when I graduate. And since my license is already suspended because of the stupid seizure, driving really isn’t an option anyway.

  I should have left a half hour ago when Cecily’s sister picked her up and offered me a ride, but I was still under the delusion that Nick would have an ounce of reliability. Now the problem, of course, is that Alex is asleep—not that his mom would let him out this late anyway—my mother lost her driving privileges ages ago, and Jared is too young. Both my dad’s cells have gone straight to voice mail for the past half hour. And no one else is sober or worth asking for a ride. I even glanced around for Reid Suitor, since he played baseball his freshman and sophomore years and I’ve seen him around this crowd before. Not that I’d really want a ride from him.

  I suck it up, walk out to the front porch, and call Struz.

  “J-baby!” he says with his usual enthusiasm, even though he’s whispering. “Whatever you need, it’s gotta be quick. We’re on something big tonight.”

  “I’ve got a code twenty-one,” I say. My dad thought the whole FBI thing might hurt my social life when I was in junior high, so he and Struz came up with a bunch of numbered codes so I could call him from a friend’s house without people thinking I was some kind of snitch. He thought it’d be hard to explain to a bunch of teenagers that counterintelligence doesn’t really care about underage drinking.

  Right this instant, though, I wouldn’t have stopped them from coming over here and busting up this party.

  “Shit.” I hear rustling over the phone for a second. “Where are you?”

  I give Struz the address, and he promises to send a junior agent or an analyst to come get me, then he’s got to run. I want to grill him about what they’re doing, but I know enough—and I respect them and their jobs enough—to let him go.

  “You call for a ride?”

  I turn to see Kevin in a wife beater, baggy jeans, and a sideways baseball hat. He looks ridiculous.

  “What of it?”

  Instead of spouting off some nonsense like I expect,
he smiles and thrusts his hands into his pockets. “I’ll make Nick crash here if he doesn’t pass out.”

  “Whatever, I don’t care.” Though that’s hardly true.

  “I’ve had a lot of practice at ganking his keys,” Kevin says, and collapses into a porch chair. “I’d offer you a ride home, but…” He holds up a mostly empty bottle of beer.

  “It’s fine.”

  Kevin nods, and we sit in silence as the minutes tick by.

  The cul-de-sac is quiet—most of the other houses have their lights off already, and not a single car turns onto the street, despite all the vibes I’m sending out into the atmosphere, hoping for headlights to appear. A breeze picks up, rustling through my hair, and I pull my hoodie over my head and fold my arms across my chest.

  “It’s cool that you came tonight,” Kevin says suddenly, and I wonder why he even cares. “I know my man Nick fucked up and you didn’t have a good time or anything, but it’s cool that you came.”

  “I’ll probably opt to stay home next time.”

  “I don’t blame you. Some nights I’d rather just stay home and read.”

  I turn to face Kevin. Other than the idiotic hat, the dirty wife beater, and the jeans that are belted around his thighs, he looks perfectly serious. But I know what this is. An act, a play, because this is Kevin and he’s like that.

  Before he realizes what I’m doing, I snap a picture of him—beer in hand—with my cell. “If you try to hit on me again, I’ll show this to Coach Stinson and he’ll have you running stadium steps until baseball starts this spring,” I say, because Nick once confessed their baseball coach was a stickler about drinking. And because I’m like that.

  But Kevin doesn’t get pissed off or nervous. He just takes another sip of his beer. “Touché, Tenner. Touché.” A word I didn’t even think was in his vocabulary.

  Apparently this month is full of surprises. No one is as dumb as I thought they were.

  15:16:03:24

  When the headlights of a Chevy TrailBlazer round the corner, I turn and offer Kevin a slight nod before heading down the steps.

  “I’ll make sure Nick doesn’t drive,” he says again. I look back in time to see him raise his beer bottle in a salute.

  “Thanks,” I say, even though I’ve pretty much decided I don’t want Nick Matherson to be my responsibility—no matter how pretty he is or how many great late-night talks we had sitting on the beach. I just don’t have the time or the patience.

  The TrailBlazer stops at the edge of the Hineses’ driveway, and even though I knew it wouldn’t be Struz, I’m still disappointed when I see a dark brown head and a scruffy layer of facial hair. He’s an agent I don’t know, and he’s on his cell, not paying any attention to me when I open the door and slide into the passenger seat.

  “—and now I’m stuck playing babysitter. This is ridiculous.” Nothing makes you feel uncomfortable quite like when you first meet someone who’s not just talking, but complaining, about you. “Yeah, well, next time we’re switching positions on this. I’m not playing this angle again.”

  I’m tempted to say something—point out that he can start driving Any Time Now so that we can get going. I am, after all, looking forward to getting home and going to sleep, and if he’s this interested in getting back to work, I’d be happy to oblige. But it’s not worth it. I’m too tired to argue.

  “Whatever, I gotta go,” he says, glancing over at me. “Right, well, keep me on tap if you hear anything.”

  When he hangs up, I notice that his phone is far more high-tech than any BlackBerry I’ve seen. Figures. The Bureau tends to attract overgrown kids who love their gadgets.

  “You Janelle Tenner?” he asks. I nod because I don’t trust my voice. I tend to get irritable when someone talks about me like I’m not there. “You do realize the FBI isn’t actually a drunk shuttle service, right?”

  “You want to drive or keep practicing your sarcasm?”

  “I could walk up there and bust all your friends for underage drinking,” he says, gesturing to the house. “Bet you’d be pretty damn popular then.”

  I turn to face him and realize the whole goatee thing is supposed to make him look older than he is. This kid probably isn’t even an agent yet—probably just some junior analyst, barely out of college and on a power trip with anyone who doesn’t know better.

  Well, I know better.

  “Popularity isn’t a real priority of mine,” I say. “I just want to get home so I can sleep. But hey, if you’ve got nothing better to do, go right ahead.”

  He puts the car in gear and makes a U-turn in the cul-de-sac. At no point during the silent ride back to my house does he introduce himself to me—not that I care—and at no point does he ask for directions, which means I don’t have to talk to him at all.

  We’re coming up on the Carmel Valley exit when his FBI phone rings—this one’s a standard-issue BlackBerry Curve—and he answers on the second ring. “Barclay.”

  Oh, T. Barclay from my dad’s laptop eval. So his attitude isn’t just with me.

  “Yes, sir,” he says into the phone. “I’ll be right there.” Hanging up, he cuts the wheel sharply to the right and takes the exit ramp at an almost ninety-degree angle. I have to grab the “oh shit” handle to keep myself from knocking into the window. As it is, my elbow slams into the dashboard and I have to bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from yelping.

  “Where are we going?”

  We take a left off the exit ramp and turn into a development. “I’ve got shit to do.”

  The neighborhood we pull into looks similar to my own. Cookie-cutter houses built of cream stucco and orange ceramic roofing. Small plots of land, barely big enough for the houses sitting on them, a couple of strategically placed shrubs and tightly trimmed lawns. But there the similarities end. Because the street we turn onto is packed. TV news vans, cop cars, a couple of ambulances, even a fire truck. Barclay slows the car to a crawl and opens his window. A perimeter has been set, and he has to wave his credentials a couple of times to get through. He even throws a glare my way, daring me to say something.

  I don’t. Because this looks like it might be something huge. And I don’t want to risk him realizing I shouldn’t be here.

  We pull into the driveway of a modest house that appears to be the center of attention, and then pull up onto the front lawn to make room for more cars. I take a deep breath as I notice my father’s car parked right in front of us. I’m here—at the scene of a crime my father is investigating. Possibly a crime related to my John Doe. Pressing my hands together to keep them from showing any tremors, I don’t realize at first that Barclay is talking to me.

  “—and I don’t have time to be your late-night chauffeur. So you can walk home yourself. Or you can sit in the car and wait until this is over.” He’s not looking at me as he talks. Instead he grabs an FBI Windbreaker and a shoulder bag from the backseat.

  “It’s fine.” I nod. Truthfully I’m surprised he’s taking this big a risk, bringing me here, a civilian and a minor. I’m sure Struz—or my dad—would have expected him to drop me at home first.

  “I’ll wait,” I say. I’m close enough that I could probably walk home faster. God knows, we’ll probably be here an hour at least, and I’m less than two miles from home. But there’s no way I’m passing this up.

  “Good,” he says with a smirk. “If you’re gonna pass out, you can lie down in the back, but try not to hurl on the leather.”

  What an asshole. “I’ll try my best.”

  With that he gets out. I watch him as he walks up the lawn and disappears through the front door. Another car pulls up, and I scrunch down in my seat just far enough so that I’m not visible at first glance, but not so far that I can’t see Agent Deirdre Rice’s platinum-blond hair against her black blazer as she gets out of the car.

  She heads around the front lawn and to the fence line. I debate going after her. She’s been on my dad’s squad for a long time, though she’s got a family,
so she doesn’t hang out at my house like Struz does. But she wouldn’t want me here either. So I stay put as she goes through the gate into the backyard.

  I pop open the glove compartment. In a perfect world, Barclay’d have an extra badge or some kind of credentials I could pin to my hoodie and blend in—but there’s nothing. He doesn’t even have an extra sidearm like my father always has.

  With a quick glance around, I slide out of the TrailBlazer. Zipping up the front of my hoodie, I leave the hood down and tie my hair in a low ponytail. Since we’re already in front of the perimeter, I just have to act like I know what I’m doing and like I belong here. There are enough people moving in and out, most likely from some kind of joint task force, that I might be able to blend in—or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

  I’m following Deirdre’s footsteps toward the backyard when an SDPD uniform comes out of the gate and throws up all over the bushes just a few feet in front of me. Another uniform follows him. “Didn’t I tell you not to go inside?” he says. But he looks a little pale himself, and I’d bet money he already puked his guts up.

  I want to stop and listen, but that would be a dead giveaway that I don’t belong here. So I keep moving, pushing past the two of them. But I still manage to hear the guy who’s not throwing up say, “Seriously, man, that’s the freakiest shit I’ve ever seen. I’m gonna have nightmares for the rest of my life.”

  15:15:51:47

  I was right about the task force.

  The backyard is teeming with San Diego PD, FBI, and maybe even the CDC. Anyone going in and out of the house is wearing a hazmat suit—hopefully whatever’s in there hasn’t killed Barclay—and half the people milling around the backyard are in hazmat suits too. Including my dad, who’s bent over a makeshift table under a makeshift tent—where they’ve obviously set up some kind of base—discussing something with Deirdre and six men I don’t recognize. He looks like he’s arguing with them.