Meg Cabot - Missing You

But he couldn’t have been as surprised as I was. Because I could hear what he was listening to inside the pickup’s cab.

And it was Tchaikovsky.

“I thought I’d pay a call on the young lady living in One-S,” I said. Why was he listening to classical music? Did he evenlike classical music? I guess so. All this time, and I never even knew that about him. What else didn’t I know about him? “How about you?”

“I’m waiting for young Master Whitehead to get home,” Rob replied pleasantly. “After which point, I’m going to beat him senseless.”

“Hannah told you his full name?” I was surprised. I hadn’t thought she’d be so forthcoming with her half brother, who she must have suspected did not have Randy’s best intentions at heart.

“No,” he said. “I Googled who owns the Fountain Bleu apartment complex, and found a pic of Randy Junior. I was going to kick his ass tomorrow, after Hannah’s mom got here to pick her up. But Chick volunteered to keep an eye on her while I was gone, so I was able to change my plans.”

“You’re not going to let Hannah stay?” I asked.

Rob made an incredulous noise. “Are you kidding me? I’m clearly the last guy who should be raising a teenage girl. She snowed me as easily—well, as you used to snow your parents.”

I chose to ignore that.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked him. “You’re just going to wait until he pulls up, then have a blanket party?” I was referring to the age-old Hoosier tradition of throwing a blanket over a victim’s head, then beating him with a baseball bat, or bars of soap slipped into the end of a sock.

“No,” Rob said mildly. “I’m skipping the blanket. I was thinking I’d like to see his face as I grind it into the pavement.”

“Right,” I said. “Well, good luck with that. I just saw him at a city council meeting, where I told him I was onto him, so he’s probably either already been here to pick up his other girlfriend and left, or is going to stay far away from this place for the time being.”

Rob looked crushed. “Are you kidding me?”

“I’m not,” I said. “Sorry. But you can still make yourself useful.”

He lifted a quizzical brow. “Really. How?”

“Honk if the cops show up,” I said with a wink.

Then I turned to head towards the apartment complex.

As I’d expected, behind me, a car door opened, then slammed shut. A second later, Rob’s voice sounded just behind me.

“Mastriani,” he said, sounding suspicious. “What are you doing?”

“Oh,” I said with a shrug. “Randy mentioned something that made me want to come over here and check the place out. That’s all.”

“What do you mean, check the place out?” Rob demanded. It was quiet in the Fountain Bleu apartment complex. Except for the burbling of the fountain and the trill of crickets, that is. Even the swimming pool was empty. The only other sounds were our footsteps, as we headed towards Apartment 1S.

“Just something Randy said,” I told him. “It could be nothing. Or it could be something. But I’m pretty sure you’re not really going to want to be a party to what I’m about to do, since it will probably involve some breaking and entering. And with your police record…”

“I don’t have a police record,” Rob said. “I have a juvenile record. And it’s sealed.”

I don’t know why he added this last part. What did he think I was going to do, log on to some kind of government computer and try to look up his file to see what it was he’d done so long ago that had gotten him into so much hot water? Because of course I’d already tried that, and gotten nothing.

“Fine,” I said. “Then you can be the lookout.”

“Lookout nothing,” Rob said. “I’m in this, Mastriani. You’re not shutting me out. Not this time.”

I stole a glance up at his face. His jaw was set, his brow lowered with irritation. Me, shuthim out? Wasn’t it the other way around?

But I didn’t ask the question out loud. Instead I said, “Fine. But if you’re going to tag along, you have to do things my way. And my way doesn’t involve anyone getting beat senseless.”

Rob actually looked surprised. “Now you reallyare kidding,” he said.

“Actually, I’m not. I don’t do violence anymore.” I was careful not to look at him as we headed towards the door marked 1S. “I’ve learned there are more effective ways of solving problems than ramming your fist into your adversary’s face.”

“I’m impressed.” A glance at his face showed me that he wasn’t being sarcastic. He was smiling a little. “Mr. Goodhart would be proud.”

I thought about my high school guidance counselor, and his efforts to curb my quick temper—and fists. None of his suggestions had been as effective as seeing for myself, firsthand, the kind of devastation a too-hasty decision to act first and ask questions later could cause.

“Yes,” I said, thinking fondly of Mr. Goodhart. “He would, actually.”

Then I reached up and thumped on the door to the apartment Randy apparently shared with the dark-haired girl I’d seen him kissing earlier. When, to my surprise, no one answered, I tried the knob. Hey, you never know.

But it was locked.

“This where you found Hannah?” Rob wanted to know.

“No,” I said. “Hannah was in Two-T.”

“Oh. So, what now?” Rob wanted to know, even as I was digging in my back pocket for my wallet.

“Now it’s time for a little B and E,” I said. “Try to look casual. Hey, you got a credit card on you?”

“That you can destroy trying to open that door? No.”

“Never mind,” I said, finding a card I could use in my wallet. “I’m good.” And I slipped the card between the doorjamb and the knob. It was a trick that would never have worked on our apartment in New York, where we had a dead bolt.

But who needs a dead bolt in a sleepy town like this one?

Unless, of course, you’re Randy Whitehead, and you’re up to the kind of things I suspected Randy was up to.

“Hey,” Rob said softly, when he saw the card I was using to push the lock back. “Aren’t you going to need that in the fall?”

I looked down at the photo of my own face, staring back up at me from the front of my Juilliard ID card. You’d have thought, seeing as how the day I’d had that picture taken, I was starting a whole new life, at a school I’d always wanted to go to, where I’d be doing what I loved best to do in the world all day long, that I’d have looked excited and happy in my photo.

Instead I looked cranky and sort of annoyed. I had gotten lost on the subway on the way to my appointment, and I had been hot and exhausted, and a homeless guy had just spat on me for no reason.

Oh, yeah. I love New York, all right.

“I can always get a new one,” I said with a shrug, not mentioning the forty-dollar lost ID replacement fee. Or the fact that the thought of going back to school in the fall made me feel like I might barf.

And then, just as my photo got nearly all the way peeled off the card, the door opened a fraction of an inch.

I put my finger to my lips and looked meaningfully at Rob. Then I pushed the door the rest of the way open and called into the apartment, “Randy? You around?”

But I could see by the fact that none of the lights was on that no one was there.

I reached around the doorjamb and flicked on the overheads. They shined down on an apartment that was almost exactly like the one upstairs in which I’d found Hannah, even down to the same hideous leather living room set.

I signaled for Rob to follow me into the apartment, then shut the door behind us.

“So,” he said, looking around the nondescript—and, frankly, depressing—living room. “What now? We going to wait and jump him when he gets home?”