Finding Forever (15 page)

Knock, knock.

Brooklyn groaned.

Knock, knock, knock.

Brooklyn shouted, “ONE MORE, PLEASE!”

She had told her mom at least a thousand times that it was bad luck for her to answer after just three knocks. She needed four.

Knock, knock, knock . . . KNOCK.

“Come in!”

The door opened with her mother holding two bags of groceries, a healthy head of lettuce billowing from the top of one.

“How may I help you, Mrs. Brant?” Brooklyn said.

“Got you some Whole Foods,” her mom said. “Wanna come and join me for a salad? I've got quinoa. Brain food.”

“I'd love to, but I'm working on a story. I'm real busy. Plus, I just had a sandwich.”

Her mom put the grocery bags down and Brooklyn could hear the sound of glass bottles clanking against each other.
Great, drink more wine to drown your sorrows.

Mrs. Brant leaned in for a peek. “What's the story?”

“Just a casting item about the next season of
Obsessed
. They're adding a hot new guy to play Nina's lab partner. No biggie, but I have to post it before I get scooped.”

“All right then.”

“What's the problem?”

“Nothing, except that I'd like to spend some quality time with you before summer break ends next month and our schedules get even more crazy. Maybe you should take a break from the blog for a few hours, have some dinner. Come watch
Law & Order
with me like the old days.”

Here we go again.

“You know, just lighten your load a little,” her mom continued. “Relax. Get some sun. Make new friends other than that Tamara.”

“Mom . . .”

“And whatever happened to that soccer boy, Andy Bowen?”

“Mom.”

“He asked you to the junior prom, right?”

“All brawn, no brains.”

“Well, I thought he was pretty sweet and handsome.”

“Try
blandsome
.”

“My point is that you've closed yourself off.”

Brooklyn turned her focus back to her computer. “This is the point in our conversation where I go, ‘Okay, thanks for caring,' and then go back to blogging because I'm on a deadline, and you respect my work ethic and are simply happy that I'm not hanging out at a party getting wasted or pregnant or something.”

“Brookie, I'm not asking you to stop blogging, just to—”

“Take a break.” Brooklyn finished her sentence. “Because I'm too young to be working all the time. Because ever since Dad died I've been too serious and don't have enough fun. Because you're worried that I have socially withdrawn and don't have enough friends. Because Dad would want me to have more balance in my life. Trust me, I know the speech.”

Her mother groaned. “Okaaay, Brookie Cookie. Whatever you say.”

She firmed her grip on the grocery bags and walked down the hall.

“Love you, Mom!”

Brooklyn wasn't lying about working on a story. In fact, she did just break the casting news about Lance Wilder joining
Obsessed
next season, which she had confirmed with the head
writer of the show, a great source she had found last year after stalking him on Twitter and becoming friends via DM.

Brooklyn had seen all twenty-four episodes of
Obsessed
, for which she could recite most of the exact plots. Because of her DM relationship with the head writer, she broke a lot of stories about the show. Yet network spokespeople rarely officially confirmed these stories to her, and instead hand-delivered exclusives to the trades or other mainstream websites and publications.

Earlier, Simone had emailed Brooklyn the names of the thirteen people invited to the party, minus the name of the hot guy. Everyone on the guest list except for Pretty Boy was a close friend of Taylor's. Not one of them was suspicious in any way.

While Simone didn't have his name, she did have a cell number she had been texting.

Brooklyn had gotten pretty good at using background databases to locate people, especially with her secret cyber-weapon of her dad's old FaceFinder program. He had used it for his detective investigations, and some four years after his death, it still had not been shut off. Using his password and username, she could input a cell phone number, and after auto-searching hundreds of data sources, the program almost always spit back an address or a name attached to it.
Almost
always.

The number Simone had for the mystery guy was not connected to any individual, which usually meant that it was either a temporary phone or a phone owned by a company. That meant she would have to assign this challenge to her crack research “staff.”

 
                     
hey Holdenboo . . . I'm stuck. Need ur help tracking a #

send it over. I'll see what I can do!