Pretty Sly (8 page)

Tre turned back to give him a look of death. “Maybe
you’re forgetting this isn’t your car, Murphy.”

“What? If she’s going to drive, she has to be able to go backward, too. Not to mention parallel parking.”

“Psh. Forget it,” Tre said, waving for him to shut up.

“Reverse.” Reasoning that going back would be as easy as going forward, I moved the gear into
R
and hit the gas. Smoothly. Gradually.

As the car moved steadily backward, the empty lot and the warehouses in front of me grew smaller. It was almost too easy. I was going to do this. I was going to drive and find my mom and neither of them could stop me.

“Willa,” Aidan said. “I think you’re forgetting something.”

I looked to my left and right. I readjusted my hands on the wheel. I glanced at the speedometer and the other dials in front of me, though I didn’t know what most of them were for.

“What? What am I forgetting?” I turned around to face him. That’s when I saw the wall coming for us. Well, technically, we were coming for it.

Looking back. I was forgetting to look back.

The bricks were a blur of red.

Aidan and Tre screamed.

I slammed on the brake pedal with both feet. The car halted, bouncing on its tires with a loud screech. Tre flew forward, almost hitting his head on the glove compartment.

“Okay, okay, that’s it!” Tre yelled. “Put it in park. We’ve seen enough of your skills. Get out.”

My hands clenched into fists of frustration. I’d screwed up. “I could learn—”

“There’s no time,” Tre said as we switched back to our original seats. “Nice try, but you obviously can’t drive to California.”

Aidan grabbed my headrest and leaned forward so I could feel his breath on my ear. “Look, I’m fully prepared to be your chauffeur. I’ve got some free time on my hands these days, with no school and all.”

“But you can’t,” I blurted. I looked to Tre pleadingly, but he was too busy driving us back to our previous spot across the street from the long-term parking lot.

“Why not?”

I wanted him to—of course I did—but Aidan coming with me would complicate everything. How could I explain that? I couldn’t. Not in so many words. I tried a softer line of reasoning instead. “I mean, do you really want to do this? It could take a few days for us to get there, find her, and come back.”

“It’s sounds like fun, actually. I’ve got nothing to lose. Except, you know, getting in trouble for breaking my probation, too.”

I looked into his green, green eyes and got lost there for a moment. This was exactly the trouble . . . with Aidan around, I would totally lose focus. I would be reduced to jelly of the most inefficient kind.

“C’mon,” he cajoled. “I’m the one who figured out where the email was coming from.”

“But this isn’t going to be a vacation.”

“I know,” he said.

I paused. I could use some company. It was a long trip. I didn’t necessarily
want
to be alone. He was waiting, smiling hopefully, for my response.

“Fine,” I relented. “You can come with me. Just don’t . . .”

“. . . don’t what?”

Don’t distract me.

“Don’t get us lost.”

“I won’t. Because you’ll be the navigator. You do know how to read maps, right? Or do we need to do a lesson on that, too?”

“Yeah, I know how to read maps.” Didn’t he know how important this was to me? “If you’re really coming with me, then you need to be serious.”

“I am serious.” His face told me he was.

“Okay,” Tre said, handing me his binoculars. “I think I see our car. Aisle 5G, on the end there.”

By now the sun was setting, but I could still just barely discern the makes and models of the vehicles through the round lenses. The car Tre was referring to was a silver Volvo, probably from the midnineties.

“It looks kind of old,” I said.

“That’s why it’s perfect,” Tre said. “No built-in alarm. It’s safe and sturdy. Drives well, too.”

Aidan clapped his hands. “So how should I do this?”

“Just shimmy open the door and get under the steering wheel. Use this.” Tre handed Aidan a screwdriver, a pair of wire strippers, and a roll of electrician’s tape. “Take off the cap and get into the ignition wiring. Strip the wires and connect the brown wire with the red wires. Tape it together and you should be good to go. You have to move quick.”

“I thought you knew how,” I said to Aidan.

“Nope, never done it. But how hard could it be?” He looked at me, winking.

“Harder than you think,” I said, echoing his own words back to him. So he was a newbie, after all. I didn’t know whether to be glad or terrified.

Aidan stuffed the supplies into his pockets. “I think I’ve got it. Fingers crossed.”

“Fingers crossed and legs broken, man. We’ll wait here,” Tre said.

We watched him slink toward the parking lot entrance. I wished Tre were doing the car stealing—I would have been much more comfortable knowing we had an expert on the case—but I understood why he wanted Aidan to do it. Besides, Aidan claimed to be good with technical things. He should be able to figure it out.

“Look, I’m sorry I had to do this to you, with Aidan and everything,” Tre said, breaking the silence in the car. “But I really think this plan will be better in the end. You really don’t know what’s waiting for you on
the other side there—you need someone with you. I’d go myself, but you know . . .”

He couldn’t go. Not with his record. And he was right. I did need help, even if I was reluctant to admit it.

“Plus the driving . . . don’t even try to front,” he laughed. “When you get back I’m signing you up for driver’s ed.”

“Whatever,” I grumbled. I looked out the window into the inky darkness. Planes were taking off overhead from the nearby airport, huge and roaring as they rose above us and lifted up into the night.

He leaned back and his leather seat creaked a little. “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but is something up with you guys?”

“I mean, we kissed or whatever,” I admitted. “I don’t know what’s going on, though.”

My face flushed. Maybe I was having a panic attack, or maybe Aidan was making me into a crazy person. And talking about it with Tre was uncomfortable. I felt certain he could see right through me to how I really felt—and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know all of this. I barely understood it myself.

“He’s a cool guy,” Tre said softly. “But I think he has a reputation. You know, for getting around.”

“Like I said, I don’t really think . . .”

“Just be careful, okay? I think he can help you out. Don’t let the emotional stuff get in the way.”

“I will,” I said. “I mean, I won’t.”

I stared into his brown eyes and saw the genuine concern there. Also, something else, something fierce and protective just swimming underneath the surface.

“I want you to be safe, Willa.” He gripped at the steering wheel, alternately tensing and releasing his fingers, and then turned away so I could no longer read his expression.

Just then we saw the headlights flaring out of the lot. They came toward the Audi, suddenly and straight on.

Everything behind that was dark, but when the car stopped short in front of us, I could make out the silhouette of a man chasing after it on foot, yelling, “Stop! Come back here!”

Aidan rolled down the driver’s-side window. He was terrified. It was all over him. “Let’s go!”

“Did he see you?” Tre demanded.

“I don’t think he saw my face,” Aidan rasped.

Tre looked at me with a furrowed brow. “Get in the car, Willa,” he said slowly and evenly.

I looked from Tre to Aidan, hot with confusion and the chaos of the moment. I felt paralyzed by indecision. To go meant getting into a stolen car that was about to be reported. To stay meant risking getting Tre into trouble. Meanwhile, the guy was coming closer, yelling and panting. “But—”

“Just do it!” Tre bellowed. “Get the hell out of here!”

I did as he commanded, grabbing my bags and hopping into the passenger seat of the Volvo.

“We’ll call you from the road,” Aidan said.

“Don’t call me unless it’s untraceable,” Tre said, sounding almost disgusted. He hit the gas pedal and tore out of there, the Audi fishtailing down the little street as he swerved away from the running man.

Aidan and I sped off in the opposite direction, heading back toward the highway. I watched in the side mirror as the silhouette of the man got tinier and tinier.

We were doing this. We were really driving away in our stolen car—now a getaway car. It had all happened so fast. Two laws broken.

No turning back now.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how I ended up in a stolen 1992 Volvo with my pseudocrush, sort-of makeout buddy behind the wheel, on a road trip to find my mysteriously missing mother.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

SEVEN

BY THE TIME
we crossed the state line it was fully night. We’d made good time—speeding through Tolleson and Goodyear and whole nubby stretches of desert. The traffic on the road had opened up. Through the veiled haze I could make out some mountains looming in the distance.

Aidan let out a cheer when he saw the sign. “Woo-hoo. California, baby. That makes how many hours to go?”

“Two, I think?” I studied the map.

We were both getting giddy now. Several hours on the road in a stolen vehicle will do that to you. It was all a little unreal.

The fact that this Volvo, which vibrated and made weird rattling sounds any time we went over fifty miles per hour, had gotten us as far as it had, seemed somewhat miraculous. The other issue with the car in motion
was that the window on my side was busted, the glass sliding down every so often. How had no one stolen this hunk of metal before us?

Still, none of that mattered. What was important was that we were on our way. Free. The breeze blowing into the car felt like a wind of good fortune, carrying us along. The classic rock pouring out of the radio was loud and heady. And we were going to find my mom. If only we could get there sooner. Like by teleport.

Ever since she’d gone missing I ached inside with longing. I just wished I could see her through some kind of crystal ball, like Dorothy looking in on her family in Kansas, just to know that she was okay, wherever she was. Though my mom was from Missouri. Originally, anyway. I reached up to touch the bird at my throat.

As though he were reading my mind, Aidan turned to me and asked, “What’s the deal with your mom, anyway? What’s she like?”

“She’s awesome,” I said. I pictured her in her tank top and shorts, pulling weeds out of the garden, building things. Hatching the next great plan for us. She was young and beautiful, and way cooler than any other moms I knew. She had a lifetime of travel stories, a wicked sense of humor, and a skeleton key tattooed on her ankle. If it weren’t Aidan driving right now it could have easily been her, taking us on one of our summer trips or moving us to our next home. She was the queen of the road trip.

“I mean, are you guys close?”

“Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t really remember a time when we hadn’t been together. We had our weekend movie nights on the couch, our pj’s-till-five days, our summer camping outings, our long talks at the kitchen table. No matter where we were living we’d taken those things with us. At the same time, she’d always encouraged me to be independent, to learn how to do things on my own.

I wondered, suddenly, if that was because she’d known that something like this might happen. That she might one day have to leave. But that was paranoid, right?

I flashed back to her note. She’d known enough to leave the money. But then she was always prepared. She was the kind of person who wrote everything down, had a to-do list for every hour of the day.

“It’s gotta be something serious, don’t you think? I’m not even tight with my mom—she’s either at the tanning salon or shopping twenty-four/seven. My dad’s secretary, Wilma, has been more of a parent to me, practically, but I’m pretty sure a mother wouldn’t leave her kid like that unless she had a good reason.”

He was right, of course. But I just wanted to change the subject, because I could feel some tension gathering in my throat and the last thing I wanted was for Aidan to see me cry.

This was too raw, too close. And whatever was happening between Aidan and me was too new.

“Can we change this?” I reached toward the radio,
but Aidan held out his hand to block me.

“Driver’s choice.”

“Who made up that rule?” I asked.

“Dude, that’s a
universal
rule. Everyone knows that the driver has to be relaxed on a road trip. If you were driving you’d get to pick.”

“But I can’t drive.”

“And thus, it will be my choice so long as we’re on this trip. I have excellent taste,” he said, turning the dial so that the classic rock blared even more loudly through the speakers. “You, of all people, should know that.”

My cheeks warmed at the compliment.

“Can you grab me a turkey jerky from my bag, please, copilot?”

“Righto.” I dug out the snack for him, noticing that his bag was filled with at least one change of clothes, and handed it over. “So you knew all along you’d be driving, didn’t you?”

His eyes dipped over in my direction and my insides fluttered. “I had a strong inclination, yes. Or I hoped, anyway.”

I tried to ignore the trembling in my chest. This was real. There was something going on and both of us could feel it. I pointed to a sign for the exit coming up. “Maybe we can stop for dinner?”

“Yeah, good idea. I could use a coffee, too.”

We found a Subway a few miles from the highway and pulled into the parking lot. I stashed the map and the printout of the painting in the glove compartment
and left my schoolbooks, but I took my overnight bag, afraid to leave it and all my cash in the car with the busted window. It was much cooler here, in the middle of the night, and I quickly grabbed my mom’s wind-breaker and slipped it on.