Pretty Wanted (9 page)

“I’ll steal it for you then.”

Was he crazy?

“Absolutely not.” I grabbed his elbow and led him out of there, away from the temptation.

We went down a floor and wandered through the Granger Pavilion, a wing of the Architecture Museum, named, I could only assume, for the very same State Senator Granger we kept seeing on TV. The guy got around.

We crossed through rows of antique busts, statuary, columns, all pieces of masonry that had been taken from real buildings in the city. They also had the cement cross that was used in the movie
The Exorcist.

Next to the cross, a large sculptural frieze caught my eye. It was the type of thing that would have been on top of a temple or government building. Inside the triangular frame were two figures huddled together. What struck me was the bird they were holding, which was the same shape as the one on my necklace. Words etched into the bottom read
THE WELFARE OF THE PEOPLE SHALL BE THE SUPREME LAW
.

A little placard beneath it explained that the frieze had once been part of the city’s original courthouse building that was built in 1910, in the neoclassic style. The bird was supposed to represent love and fairness for the “least” among us. And the words were Missouri’s state motto.

Remembering, I touched my own little bird pendant, making sure it was still with me.

“Can we go? I want to see what else is in here.” Aidan was like a little kid, bouncing on the balls of his feet. I told him no screwing around, but who was I to deny him? This place, with its colors and textures and unexpected treasures at every turn, was completely awesomesauce.

We passed into an indoor “skateless” area, a skateboard park where you could run around.

“Tre would love this,” I said out loud, and the thought of him brought on a pang of homesickness. I missed him, and I worried that he wasn’t in our corner anymore.

“Forget that guy,” Aidan said, like it was that easy. “He dissed us.”

“He didn’t diss us,” I said. “He’s just doing what’s best for him.”

“Well, I’m doing what’s best for you,” Aidan said.

Was he, though? Or was he using me to get back at his parents?

With that thought, I felt my mood darken again. Aidan, however, was too busy pulling me onward to the next room, which was filled with carnival memorabilia from the twentieth century. We walked through a neon-lit area called the Shrine of Shameless Hucksterism.

To our right was an old-school machine with a gypsy lady hovering over a crystal ball pulsing light. She beckoned us over with jerky robotic movements. Aidan pressed the button on the front of the console. Her glittering head rotated back and forth, her manicured hands opening over the ball as she “looked” into our future. A ticket popped out of the machine.

BEHIND EVERY STORY IS A CHAPTER UNTOLD
.
KEEP AN EYE ON THE THINGS YOU CARE ABOUT
.
PASSION IS THE ENEMY OF GOOD JUDGMENT
.

“Generic,” Aidan said, handing the thick card to me.

Reading it again, I couldn’t be so sure. I put the fortune in my pocket, just in case. Anything right now could be a sign, good or bad. Was she talking about me and Aidan? Or something else?

I turned around and Aidan was gone. Completely out of sight. Where did he go? I turned around a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Suddenly, my head was spinning. It was too much, the lights, the people, the action. I was overstimulated, underrested. Everything was hitting at once.

I turned and then pivoted again. Still no Aidan. Had he left me here? Without him, I was really lost.

I passed by pinball machines, blinking arcade games, clattering hockey tables. People’s faces loomed large in front of me. Colors blurred together. My legs felt unsteady. I thought I might faint so I closed my eyes and counted to ten, told myself this wasn’t really happening.

When I opened them again, he was right in front of me, carrying a paper bag. Almost like I conjured him up. “There you are,” he said.

There
I was
?

“I think—I think I need to sit,” I said.

He grasped my shoulder. “Okay. But let’s find our hiding spot first.”

It was close to five
P
.
M
. and the museum was shutting down and the crowds began to disperse. There were innumerable places to choose from, really—the whole place was like a jungle. We ducked into a supply closet on the second floor, behind the snack bar. Our backs were pressed up against shelves of paper goods, ketchup bottles, and sugar packets. It was dark and uncomfortable, but even so, I was glad to be out of the chaos and into the quiet. Here, I could at least regain control over my senses.

On the other side of the door, we could hear chairs being propped on tables, brooms sweeping, the voices of gossiping employees.

Eventually, all of that died down, the lights outside the door flicked off and footsteps echoed away. We waited for what felt like another hour, not daring to speak to each other, just to be sure. Sweat dampened my hairline and my palms. I felt Aidan next to me all the while, his muscles as tense as mine. All it would take was one security guard, one unlucky stroke of timing.

Finally, we opened the door and looked around. The space was darkened. Where there had been people were now shadows. An eerie blue light flooded the space out in the hallway ahead. Tiny red lights flickered on and off in the distance—smoke detectors, I assumed. I hoped they were not alarms. Disarming a system in a house was one thing; doing it in a big building like this one was another. I didn’t know the first thing about museum security and had none of the acrobatic skills needed to dodge a laser grid if there was one. I thought of Tre again, and his love of
Ocean’s Eleven.
I wished he were here.

When we were sure the coast was clear, we walked downstairs to the Enchanted Caves area, a cement labyrinth of hulking rocky forms with hidden tunnels and hanging stalactites.

“We should sleep down here,” Aidan said. “Nice and cozy.”

We crossed into a small passageway under an arching roof into an even more enclosed space, the rock striated with markings.

I paused, feeling my heart race.

Why am I tripping right now?

Then my mind caught up to my body and I realized what was bugging me: This was all a little too much like the night we’d spent hiding out in a cave in the Painted Hills, after we’d barely escaped being shot by Chet and Bailey. We were looking for Leslie and they were, too, but when we wouldn’t tell them anything, they threatened to kill us. If we hadn’t escaped . . .

A shiver ran through me, as I remembered that dark and terrifying night, the hours Aidan and I spent cramped up and waiting, not sure if we’d make it to see another day.

“I don’t think I can,” I said.

Aidan was feeling it, too. “Good call. We don’t need to relive that stuff,” he said. “Let’s go back upstairs.”

I followed him up away from the caves, wishing I could climb away from the dread and anxiety I felt, but it seemed to cling to us like a stubborn fog. Underneath, it was a harder, starker reality: There was still a murderer out there—and the longer we were out here, the more we were risking our lives.

Aidan paused on the stairwell. “Listen, I was going to wait to give this to you, but you should have it now.” He handed me the paper bag. I stopped to unfold the top and peek inside. It was the red dress.

“Are you kidding?” I asked. “You
bought it
bought it?”

“I did.”

I blinked a few times, to make sure it was real. It meant so much to me, that he’d gone out of his way to get it. And most of all that he was still trying to show me he cared.

He moved closer. “I want you to know how serious I am. About us. About making this work. We have to let go of the past. And you have to believe me, Willa.”

I didn’t know what to say. Here we were in the darkened, abandoned museum. Cops were looking for us. As were dangerous criminals. We were perpetual trespassers, always on someone else’s turf. The thing was, we only had each other. We couldn’t let anything get in the way of that. I was done fighting.

I reached over and took Aidan’s hand, stroking the back of it with my thumb. “I believe you.”

“You’re probably the only one in the world right now who does,” he said. “You—you’re the only one I care about, anyway.”

He leaned into me and we kissed, his lips pulling on mine. His hands encircled my waist, his hair was soft in between my fingers and I felt anticipation quicken inside me. If I closed my eyes and let myself drift away, I could make the rest of the world, all of our fears and problems, disappear. Maybe not forever, but for right now, and this minute was the only one I could control. This minute, however fleeting, was the one we desperately needed.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

SEVEN

THE SOUND SEEMED
to be coming from somewhere by my feet. A high-pitched tone, and then a buzzing. My dreams gathered around the sensation, trying to make sense of it, rippling and then scattering like a school of minnows.

There it was again.

Panic coursed through me in an electrical current, my body shuddering awake. Where was I?

I opened my eyes.

Right. The museum.

We’d fallen asleep on the aquarium floor, the ghostly pale light of the fish tanks a strange comfort in the open, spooky dark. In front of me, a pair of bumbling sea turtles moved silently through their own dream world.

“Willa.” Aidan, who’d been curled up beside me, was now sitting up. “We have a text.”

Oh God.
I swallowed. “From Corbin?”

Was he on our trail again? Last I knew he didn’t have the number for the temporary phone, but that didn’t mean much. He was FBI. He could find it out. He’d done it before.

Reality broke through—all of the problems we’d tried to kiss away the night before were still very much with us in the cold light of day.

“No.” He handed me the phone. “Tre.”

Tre? I blinked the blurriness from my eyes and looked at the screen.

I’M ON A BUS TO ST. LOUIS. MEET ME AT THE STATION AT 9:30.

“He must have left right after we got off the phone yesterday,” I said in disbelief. Phoenix to St. Louis was at least a day’s worth of driving. “He’d told me that he was giving up.”

Aidan shrugged, and he looked slightly annoyed. At what I couldn’t tell. That Tre was coming? They were friends, though I’d noticed tensions between them cropping up back in Tahoe. “Guess he changed his mind. Guess he decided he still wanted in on the action.”

That wasn’t like Tre. I didn’t know what to think. I had to admit, though, the fact that he was traveling all this way to find us made me smile. He still cared. He wasn’t abandoning me after all.

Aidan was fully standing now and flipping his bag on his shoulders. “His timing is good. We have to get up anyway. It’s nearly seven. People will be here soon.”

I summoned whatever coordination and balance I could muster and went to find a bathroom to wash up. In the too-bright light over the mirror, my complexion looked sallow, my hair excessively dark.

So not cute.

I splashed water and hand soap on my face and under my arms, then used some paper towels to dry off. I may have mastered half-assed hygiene, but after the last few days I was more than ready for a proper shower. We would have to figure out a way to get one in, and if that meant a little B&E, then so be it.

The good news was that Tre would be here soon, and if he was back on our team, we could finish up what we needed to do more quickly. Maybe even in a day or two. Not that I necessarily wanted to think about what lay beyond that.

The bus station was crowded for a Wednesday morning, though not quite as hectic as it had been the other day when we first arrived. We were early, so we parked ourselves on a row of molded plastic chairs and waited, watching a woman leaning over a stroller, tickling her baby in the folds of his chubby neck. Another couple was standing at the ticket counter, arguing with the clerk.

Our twenty-three minutes sitting there felt twice as long. I updated my IOU list. I examined my fingernails. I counted all of the big-as-Texas hairdos and all of the comb-overs I could see. I hadn’t realized my foot was jackhammering against the floor until Aidan slapped a palm down on my knee.

“Do you have to do that?”

“Sorry. I’m just nervous, I guess.” But I couldn’t exactly put my finger on why. There was no good reason. Tre was our buddy, and we’d seen him a few days ago.

Maybe it was the idea having of another part of Paradise Valley back with us again. Maybe it was the fact that Tre had seemed to change his mind so quickly—what made him come here? Or maybe it was Aidan’s seeming irritability all morning, which buzzed and nipped at me like a wayward fly. Try as I might, I couldn’t be at ease.

“You might want to take your museum tag off,” Aidan said, pointing to the little red button that was still clipped on my parka collar.

“Oh, right,” I said, slipping it off and putting it in my pocket as a souvenir. “Thanks.”

Finally, Tre’s bus arrived, the passengers disembarking and coming through the glass doors into the terminal in a shaggy line, all the men and women loaded up with stuff: shoulder bags, purses, shopping bags filled with purchases, paper bags filled with snacks, rolling suitcases trailing behind them. They looked weary and beaten down by their burdens and by the journey. We’d probably looked the same way when we’d gotten here. After two days of roaming the streets of St. Louis, I was sure we looked even worse now. I self-consciously ran my hands over my hair again.

And here was Tre—we couldn’t miss him in the moving queue, given that his head loomed over everyone else’s. He was wearing a baseball cap over his close-clipped hair and a light-blue ski jacket that contrasted with his brown skin. At the sight of him, my breath stirred and the nervousness bubbled over into excitement.

I knew that we lived in a high-tech era, but sometimes it felt like a miracle that you could reconnect with someone in a different space and time, that all your cells and atoms or whatever could rearrange themselves and meet up in a whole other city, and that the person you’d left behind could look just the way you remembered.