Pittacus Lore - Return to Paradise

“Yeah, why?”

Sarah exhales a long, steady breath, shaking her head.

“We went out for dinner last night, and she was there. This morning I went on a run, and she drove by me four times. Now she’s here.”

“Shit,” I murmur. “Well, there goes what I had to tell you.”

“What do you mean?” She sits up straighter, concerned.

“Just that my dad mentioned the FBI knew you were connected to John in some way. I didn’t figure they’d have you followed .”

“Crap,” she says.

We sit without saying anything for a few moments, trying to figure out what to do next. The silence is finally broken when the waitress comes by to take our order.

“Hey, Mark,” she says sweetly. I’ve eaten enough pizza here in my lifetime to receive hall of fame status. She knows me well. “What can I get you?”

“Hey. Uh, we’ll take a medium half meaty, half veggie.” Mine and Sarah’s old standby order. “I’ll have a soda.”

The waitress smiles at me and then turns to Sarah. She sneers in a way that makes it obvious she wants Sarah to notice.

“You want anything?” she asks, an edge to her voice.

This is Sarah’s life now—the mad bomber’s girlfriend. I want to cause a scene but swallow down the urge because apparently we’re already getting enough attention as it is. Sarah turns her head and locks eyes with the waitress, giving her a look that I recognize. I’ve been on the receiving end of it too many times—the kind of glare that makes you think your face is going to melt off.

“Diet soda, ma’am,” she says, emphasizing the last word.

The waitress rolls her eyes and walks away. Sarah just sighs.

“Jeez, some people,” I say.

“It’s not some people. It’s all people. I mean, half the town thinks I’m some kind of terrorist floozy. Even if they don’t say it, you should see the looks I get. And that’s not counting the people who are following me.”

“Okay, so what do we do now? Run away and try to find John and the others? I’ll go with you if you do. Hell, I’ll drive.”

I have no desire to go on a blind search for the Loric, but if Sarah wants to go, I’m not letting her go alone. And I have to admit, the idea of a road trip with Sarah is appealing—even if it is to track down her alien boyfriend.

“How would we even find them?” she asks.

“Actually,” I say, lowering my voice, “I’ve kind of been doing some research on the whole . . . Well, you know. Everything. There are other people out there who know about this stuff. People like Sam, who the rest of us thought were just kind of crazy. I’ve been talking to some of them, and we think we might have figured out a little more about what’s going on.”

“What do you mean?” Sarah says, perking up. “What kind of stuff?”

“Well, now that I’ve seen John and Six in action, I kind of get what you’d need to look for. There was a girl in Miami who saw her boyfriend get picked up using telekinesis. It wasn’t John, but it might have been one of the others like him. Maybe someone who’s in contact with John. And one of the other bloggers has been keeping track of this guy in India who some of the locals have been worshipping as a god.”

“Yeah, but how do you know these bloggers or the people they’re writing about aren’t just a bunch of crazy people?”

“Well, a day or two after John and the others left Paradise, a police officer in Tennessee had pulled over some teenagers driving a suspicious car, but before he could arrest them, some kind of supernatural winds basically blew him out of the way.” Sarah raises her eyebrows, a glint of hope in her eyes. “Sound familiar?”

“Six.”

“That’s what I think.”

She grins, but it only lasts for a few seconds before the reality of the situation sets in.

“They could be anywhere by now,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“So there’s nowhere for us to even start our search.”

We pause as the waitress comes back and sets down my drink in front of me, then half slams Sarah’s onto the table, sending little drops of diet soda lapping over the rim of the glass. She leaves without saying a word.

“We could go anyway,” I suggest, trying not to sound enraptured by the idea of all that alone time with Sarah. “Skip this small town and let everything blow over.”

She gives me a little smile and shakes her head.

“My family . . . ,” she says, but I can tell I’ve overstepped my bounds in her mind and am sounding too much like an ex-boyfriend who’s trying to drop the “ex” part. “Plus, if John came back looking for me, he’d be heartbroken if I wasn’t here.”

“He’d be an idiot if he came back to Paradise,” I mutter. The words come out before I can stop them, so I try to explain. “I mean, with all the suits running around here.”

As if she overheard this as her cue, the red-haired woman gets up and walks over. She slides into the booth beside Sarah. Before I can react, there’s another dark-suited person sliding in beside me—a man who looks like he’s in his late twenties, with olive skin and close-cropped black hair.

We’re trapped in the booth.

“What the—,” I start.

“You’re Mark James,” the red-haired woman says. “The sheriff’s son. And you’re Sarah Hart.”

“What do you—,” Sarah says.

“My name is Agent Walker, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and this is my associate, Agent Noto. I hope you don’t mind if we join you.”

“We do,” I say, narrowing my eyes.

Agent Walker smiles. Noto hasn’t said a word or done anything but stare back and forth between Sarah and me. I wonder how close he was to us. Did he hear me talking about the blog earlier? Does he know what we’ve been talking about?

“We’re just trying to get an idea of what happened with John Smith here in town. As you probably know, he’s a person of high interest. There are several incredibly generous rewards that are being offered for any information on his whereabouts.” She turns her attention to me. “I was sorry to hear about what happened to your home, by the way. But I’m sure the reward money could go far in rebuilding.”

Is this woman really trying to bribe me into telling her about John?

“After all, I’m told the blaze started at a party you were throwing,” she continues. “I’m sure you’ve been wondering how you can make things up to your parents after something like that.”

My mouth drops open a little, and I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.

“You’ve been watching me,” Sarah says, changing the subject. “I’ve seen you.”

“Of course you’ve seen me,” the woman says. “We wanted you to know that we’re here, keeping the town safe.”

“You’re following me,” Sarah says, gritting her teeth a little.

“I’m simply doing my job by ensuring that we follow up on every lead.”

“And you think Sarah is a lead?” I ask.

“We think you know more about John Smith than you might even realize.” Walker never takes her eyes off Sarah. “You were dating him. You must have some information that would be relevant to our investigation. Something that might help us to decipher exactly what happened at your school.”

“I hardly knew him,” Sarah says, staring down at the table. “We weren’t dating.”

“We saw a video that looked like he was flying out of your burning house,” the woman says to me. She turns back to Sarah. “He was carrying you.”

Sarah smiles.

“It’s crazy what you can do with cameras and a few hours on the computer, isn’t it?” she asks.

“Sam was always good at stuff like that when we had presentations at school,” I add. “He probably did it.”