Gotcha (17 page)

“Not necessarily. There are other ways.” He thinks for a moment. “He has a little sister. Bribery might work.”

“And if it doesn’t? She’ll tell him we bribed her and then he’ll know one of us has him.”

“Then we’ll have to kill her.”

“Joel!”

He throws his head back and laughs. “You should have seen your face, Katie.”

I chuck a cushion at him.

“We’ll just have to make the bribe worth it. She’d let us in for, say, one hundred dollars, don’t you think?”

I feel my face burn. “I don’t have one hundred dollars.”

“You could borrow it from the Gotcha funds.”

Our eyes meet. There’s a question in his. I have to look away, scared that he’ll see the truth in mine. What gave him that idea? “I couldn’t do that,” I say, feeling my face burn hotter than ever. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“I was just kidding!” He gives my shoulder a shove. “Lighten up, Katie.” He watches me, clearly puzzled, but then says, “I could lend you the money.”

“I’m not really into borrowing money. Too much risk.”

“Fair enough.” He nods thoughtfully.

“Any other ideas on how we could get into his house?”

“Maybe there’s a key hidden outside.”

“Yeah, and even if we find it,” I say, “with my luck we’d set off an alarm when we opened the door.”

“Okay, then maybe there’s a doggie door you could crawl through.”

“Joel!”

“Well, c’mon, Katie,” he says, laughing, “let’s hear your great ideas.”

“I can lurk in the bushes, and when he comes out of the house in the morning...”

“Katie, that’s been done. I’m sure he’s been watching for lurkers. And you wouldn’t be able to outrun him.”

“Okay, then I’ll find out where he’s going to be after school one day. I’ll be there too. And I’ll stumble and fall, and he’ll come help me up.” I know how pathetic I sound.

Joel just shakes his head. “Katie, Katie,” he says. “I told you. At this point in the game, no one with a bead will be found anywhere around town if they’re not linked to someone else still in the game. And there are fewer and fewer people to link with. You’re not going to find Warren on his own until this game is over.”

I sigh. “Then I don’t know. Can we follow him in your mom’s car until he does something stupid?”

“I guess we could, especially if it were at night. But, like I said, I doubt he’ll go anywhere alone.”

“Is he still driving that pickup truck?” I ask. “The dark green one?”

“I think so.”

I look out the window. It has grown dark. “Maybe he’ll think he’s safe under the cover of night. Maybe he’s driving around right now.”

“Maybe.”

“Shall we go see?”

“Sure. At least we’d be doing something.” Joel reaches for my hand and pulls me off the couch. “Let’s go.”

Mom isn’t happy about us heading out so late on a Sunday night, but Joel assures her that we just need a coffee to wash down all the cookies we’ve eaten. She offers to make us coffee, of course, but when Joel tells her he’s craving a nonfat, double-espresso, sugar-free vanilla latte, her eyebrows arch and she agrees that he’ll have to go out for it. As the front door closes behind us, I swat his back.

“You’re bad!” I tell him.

“I am not!”

“You’ve never ordered a nonfat, sugar-free anything in your entire life!”

“You haven’t known me my entire life!”

“Just about!”

He grins and opens the passenger door for me.

As we turn onto Warren’s street a few minutes later, Joel shuts off the headlights and we slowly creep down the quiet road, eventually pulling up to the curb across from Warren’s house. He shuts off the motor. It feels surreal, this stalking, and suddenly I get the giggles.

“What?” Joel asks, smiling at me.

“I don’t know,” I answer and begin to laugh even harder. “This is just so crazy. Driving around without headlights. Spying on his house.” Now I’m out of control. “Nonfat milk. Double espresso.” I have to wipe away the tears that are running down my face. “We have to kill her!”

Joel starts to laugh too.

“Crawling in the doggie door!”

“Shhh,” he says, between his own bouts of laughter. “He’ll hear you from the house.”

But I can’t hold it in. Weeks of anxiety have found their release. Tears are streaming down my cheeks, and I cross my legs to keep from peeing myself.

Joel wraps one arm around my shoulder and clamps his other hand over my mouth. That works. The heat of his body is sobering. I look into his face and find him looking intently back, his breath warm on my cheek. I have to close my eyes and inhale deeply.

“Just nerves I guess,” I say, peeling his hand off my mouth and exhaling at the same time. I reach into my pocket and find some tissue stuffed in it. I blow my nose and wipe my eyes.

We turn and look at the house. Warren’s truck is parked in the driveway. There are lights on inside the house. “Now what?” I ask.

“We wait and hope he has to go somewhere tonight,” Joel answers.

“Have you got a cell phone?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You could phone him, disguise your voice, tell him you’re a neighbor and you noticed that his headlights have been left on.”

Joel nods, thinking about that. “I could.”

“But?”

“But I don’t think he’s that stupid.”

“It could happen.”

“It could. But he’d send someone else out to check for him.”

“So we could be waiting here forever.”

“We’ll give him an hour. Just long enough for me to drink that nonfat vanilla latte.”

I smile up at him, and he leans forward and kisses me softly. His lips brush across mine. I shiver. “Are you cold?” he whispers.

I don’t know whether it’s his lips on mine or the cool night air that causes the shiver, but I nod anyway. He pulls me into a warm embrace. His cheek rests against mine and I can feel his heart pounding right through to my chest. We rock together, ever so slightly. I’m breathing in the smell of him and feeling so safe in his arms. I pull my cheek back across his skin, and my lips seek out his again in the dark. We kiss some more, and Joel twists his fingers in my hair. I forget about Gotcha, about gambling addictions, about money problems. Gone are worries about grad and my missing father. All that matters are Joel’s lips on mine, and his hands that are now massaging my back through my jacket. I run my hands over his shoulders and down his arms. He breathes deeply, and his lips press a little harder into mine. Without breaking our kiss, his hands have moved around to the front of my jacket and he slides the zipper down. A moment later I feel the heat of his hands on my back, but now there’s only the thin cotton of my T-shirt between his hands and my skin. I’m swirling further and
further away from my worries, allowing my lips to respond to his, which are searching, searching...

Ping
.

We jump apart, startled. Something has hit the roof of the car.

Ping
. It happens again. At the exact same moment we turn and look across the street. Warren is standing on his lawn, grinning. He tosses yet another pebble toward Joel’s car and we hear it bounce off the roof.
Ping
.

We glance at each other. “Shit” is all I can think of to say, and I say it under my breath.

Joel rolls down his window.

“Busted!” Warren hollers across the street, laughing. Neither Joel nor I say anything. We’re too stunned.

“Couldn’t you two find somewhere more private to make out?” he asks, grinning.

Again, neither of us answers. I can’t make eye contact with Warren, and even without looking at him, I know Joel’s face is as red as mine.

Warren tosses yet another pebble at the car. “I just happened to glance out the window, looking for stalkers, and voila! There you two are, just sitting here, casing my house. What a lovely sight.”

Joel turns the key in the ignition and the engine fires up.

“Where are you going?” Warren asks. “Isn’t one of you at least going to try to tag me? How am I going to know which one of you has my name?”

Joel presses the automatic switch and the window begins to close.

“Don’t go!” Warren yells. Joel pauses with the window still half open. “I was enjoying the peep show,” Warren says. “There was the kiss, the prerequisite hug...I was looking forward to seeing who would make the next move. I was pretty sure it was going to be Joel, but then Kittiekat looked like she was getting hot...”

“Shut up, Warren,” Joel says and finishes winding up the window. He turns on the headlights and we pull away from the curb. I hear one last ping on the car as we head down the street, driving in silence. When we arrive at my house, Joel pulls up to the curb and shuts the engine off. I reach for the door handle, but Joel grabs my arm. “You’re not pushing me away this time, Katie.”

“I don’t intend to,” I say, though I realize I was just about to.

“Just ignore the stupid stuff he said.”

I nod.

“He knows it’s one of us, but he still doesn’t know which one. And that’s good.”

I just nod. Being startled has left me feeling drugged, unable to think clearly, like when the alarm shocks me out of a deep sleep.

“Let it go,” Joel says gently, pulling me closer.

I glance at my house, wondering if my mom is spying through the curtains on us. “Joel, can you let me out at the end of the block?”

“Sure.” He looks at me, puzzled, but turns the key in the ignition. We pass about eight houses and then I tell him it’s okay to park again. He turns off the car and pulls me back
into his arms without a word. I gently push him away. He frowns. I lock the car doors and lean over toward him. His eyes smile at me, and then his lips are back on mine. I forget all about Warren.

Joel gets his mom to drop him off at my house Monday morning, and we walk to school together, arms linked. I’ve left the crutches at home, and I put a lot of weight on Joel’s arm as I limp along beside him.

I attend my first class, turn in the project Mariah and I did together, and begin the long walk down the corridor to my next one. The halls are crowded, and I’m getting jostled. It makes me nervous that I could get bumped, forcing me to put all my weight on my sprained ankle. Maybe I’ve given up the crutches too soon. Eventually I make it to my second class, English Literature. I’m just settling myself into a desk when the phone, which connects each classroom to the office, jangles. Ms. Pearson picks it up, speaks into it and turns to look at me. She nods and then hangs up the phone. “Katie, Mr. Fetterly wants to see you in the office. Immediately.”

My heart bangs in my chest. What could he want?

I leave my books on my desk and limp toward the door. “You better take your books with you,” she says, not making eye contact with me.

I pause, puzzled, and go back to my desk to get them. The halls are empty now, and it’s not far to the office. I walk as slowly as I can. I know something is wrong, but I haven’t
any idea what it is, and I’m in no hurry to find out. It could be a message from home, an emergency, but I doubt it. It must have something to do with the Gotcha game. But Fetterly doesn’t know we’re still playing, does he? Did someone squeal? Maybe he wants to know why I haven’t returned all the money. I feel a bead of sweat trickle down one armpit, and I force my feet to move even more slowly.

Eventually I reach the office, and the secretary is clearly expecting me. She looks sympathetic but motions for me to go directly into Fetterly’s office. He’s sitting behind his desk, typing on a keyboard. He looks up when I enter and motions for me to take the chair opposite his desk.

“Katie,” he says.

“That’s right.” I have no idea what I am supposed to say. He wheels his chair away from the computer and turns to regard me. He’s frowning. “Katie, I had a visit from Paige this morning.”

“Oh.” It takes a moment to register, but when it does, my stomach instantly clenches.

“She came to me to report that you are still playing Gotcha, even though I have banned the game and spelled out the repercussions to your entire class.”

I can only stare at him. Why would Paige do this? She’s going to have to answer to the entire class.

“You know what those repercussions are, don’t you?”

I nod.

Fetterly taps his fingers on the desk. He sighs. “Paige, however, would only name you and refused to divulge the
names of any other grads who are still playing,” he says.

I continue to stare at him, uncomprehending.

He stares back at me. When he sees he’s not going to get a response, he continues. “Katie, I’ve taken a look at your school records. You are one of Slippery Rock’s finest students. You are on grad council. You’ve never been in trouble. Your teachers and classmates respect you. I know your name has come up as a possible recipient for many of our local scholarships. Potentially, a promising future awaits you. A suspension at this point in your life will seriously compromise all that.”

His words hardly register. All I can think is
How could she do this to me?

“Why did you continue to play the game?”

I look down at my hands. I know she was mad. I know she hates me for setting her up, but to go to Fetterly...

I hear Mr. Fetterly sigh and lean back in his chair. “Katie, as you know, I always follow through on what I say I’m going to do. I have to. It’s the only way to run a school. Therefore, I’m going to have to suspend you.”

I stare at my feet. I can feel my ankle throbbing.

“Unless,” he continues, “you’re willing to cooperate with me.”

I look up, and our eyes meet.

“I would be willing to relax your punishment if you would name all the others who are still playing the bead game.”

“Relax my punishment?” It’s like I can hear the words, but they don’t register in my brain.

“Yes. I would give you a two-day-only suspension and allow you to attend graduation ceremonies.”

I regard him, still uncomprehending. “Allow me to attend graduation?” I ask.

“Yes, you don’t want to miss that, do you?”

Now I realize that he, too, is uncomprehending. I finally find my voice. “If I ratted out the people who are still playing Gotcha,” I tell him, “there would be no way I could attend graduation.”