Meg Cabot - Safe House

Deputy Mullins lowered his gun. "Oh," he said, looking sheepish. "Sorry about that."

"It's cool," Rob said, putting his hands down. "Look, have you got a blanket and a first-aid kit in your car? She's not doing so hot."

Deputy Mullins nodded and raced around to the back of the squad car. I pulled my helmet off and hurried up to Rob.

"Did she say anything?" I asked him. "Like about who did it, or anything?"

"Not a word," Rob said. "All she'll talk about is how they—whoever they are—will be back soon, and how we're all going to be sorry when that happens."

"Yeah?" I said, running a hand through my sweaty hair. (It was hot inside that helmet.) "Well, I'm already sorry."

I was even more sorry when I led Deputy Mullins up the rickety stairs, and found out that, insofar as any sort of first aid knowledge was concerned, he was about as useless as Rob and me. All we could do was try to make her as warm and as comfortable as possible, then wait for the professionals.

It didn't take them long. It seemed as if no sooner had I crawled back into that bathtub than the wails from a half dozen sirens filled the night air. Seconds later, red lights were swirling across the inside walls of the house, like a lava lamp at a party, and voices could be heard outside. Deputy Mullins excused himself and went outside to show the EMT guys the way.

"Hear that, Heather?" I asked her, holding the hand on her unbroken arm. "That's the cops. Things are going to be okay now."

Heather only moaned. She obviously didn't believe me. It was almost as if she thought things were never going to be okay again.

Maybe she was right. At least, that's what I started to think as Rob and I, banished by the EMTs, who needed all the room to work on Heather that they could get in that cramped space, came down the stairs and onto the front porch. No, things weren't going to be okay. Not for a good long while, anyway.

Because Special Agents Johnson and Smith were coming toward us, their badges out and ready.

"Jessica," Special Agent Johnson said. "Mr. Wilkins. Will you two come with us, please?"

C H A P T E R

13

"Itold you," I said, for what had to have been the thirtieth time. "We were looking for a place to make out."

Special Agent Smith smiled at me. She was a very pretty lady, even when roused from her bed in the middle of the night. She had on pearl stud earrings, a crisply starched blue blouse, and black trousers. With her blonde bob and turned-up little nose, she looked perky enough to be a stewardess, or even a real-estate agent.

Except, of course, for the Clock 9 mm strapped to her side. That sort of detracted from the overall image of perkiness.

"Jess," she said, "Rob already told us that isn't true."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, of course he would say that, being a gentleman and all. But believe me, that's how it happened. We went in there to make out, and we found Heather. And that's it."

"I see." Special Agent Smith looked down at the steaming cup of coffee she was holding between her hands. They'd offered me a cup, too, but I had declined. I didn't need my growth stunted anymore than it already had been thanks to my DNA.

"And do you and Rob," she went on, "always drive fifteen miles out of town just to make out?"

"Oh, yeah," I said. "It's more exciting that way."

"I see," Special Agent Smith said, again. "And the fact that Rob has the keys to his uncle's garage, where he works, and the two of you could have gone there, a place that is significantly closer and quite a bit cleaner than that house on the pit road . . . you still expect me to believe you?"

"Yes," I said, with some indignation. "We can't go to his uncle's garage to make out. Somebody might find out, and then Rob'd get fired."

Special Agent Smith propped her elbow up onto the table where we sat in the police station, then dropped her forehead into her hand.

"Jessica," she said, sounding tired. "You declined an invitation to your own best friend's lakehouse because you heard it didn't have cable television. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you would so much as enter a house like the one on the pit road if you didn't absolutely have to?"

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Hey," I said. "How'd you know about the cable thing?"

"We are the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jess. We know everything."

This was distressing. I wondered if they knew about Mrs. Hankey's lawsuit. I figured they probably did.

"Well," I said. "Okay. I admit it's a little gross in there. But—"

"A little gross?" Special Agent Smith sat up straight. "I'm sorry, Jessica, but I think I'm well enough acquainted with you to know that if any boy—but especially, I suspect, Rob Wilkins—took you into a house like that to be intimate, we'd have a homicide on our hands. Namely, his."

I tried to take umbrage at this assessment of my personality, but the fact was, Jill was right. I could not understand how any girl would let a boy take her to such a place. Better to get down and dirty in his car than in that disgusting frat house.

Frat house? Rat house was more like it.

I am certainly not saying that if a girl is going to lose her virginity, it has to be on satin sheets or something. I am not that big of a prude. But there should at least be sheets. Clean ones. And no refuse from trysts past lying around on the floor. And a person should at least take his empty beer bottles to the recycling plant before even thinking of entertaining....

Oh, what was the point? She had me, and she knew it.

"So can we please," Special Agent Smith said, "drop this ridiculous story that you and Mr. Wilkins went to that house in order to get hot and heavy? We know better, Jessica. Why won't you just admit it? You knew Heather was in that house, and that's why you and Rob went there."

"I swear—"

"Admit it, Jessica," Jill said. "You had a vision you'd find her there, didn't you?"

"I did not," I said. "You can ask Rob. We went to—"

"We did ask Rob," Special Agent Smith said. "He said that the two of you went to the quarry to look for Heather and just happened to stumble across the house."

"And that's exactly how it did happen," I said, proud that Rob had thought up such a good story. It was far better, I realized, than my make out story. Though I certainly wished my make-out story was true.

"Jessica, I sincerely hope, for your sake, that that isn't true. The whole idea of you two just stumbling over a kidnapping victim accidentally strikes us as … well, as a little suspicious, to say the least."

I narrowed my eyes at her. I still had Rob's watch with me—it wasn't like we were under arrest or anything, and they'd taken all of our valuables to hold for safekeeping. Oh, no. We were just being held for questioning .

Which was what Special Agents Johnson and Smith had been doing for the past two hours. Questioning us.

And now it was close to dawn, and you know what? I was really, really tired of being questioned .

But not so tired that I missed the implication in her words.

"What do you mean, it sounds 'suspicious'?" I demanded. "What are you suggesting?"

Special Agent Smith only regarded me thoughtfully with her pretty blue eyes.

I let out a laugh, even though I didn't really see anything all that funny about it.

"Oh, I get it," I said. "You think Rob and I did it? You think Rob and I kidnapped Heather and beat her up and left her for dead in that bathtub? Is that what you think?"

"No," Special Agent Smith said. "Mr. Wilkins was working in his uncle's garage at the time Heather first disappeared. We have a half dozen witnesses who will attest to that. And you, of course, were with Mr. Leskowski. Again, we have quite a number of people who saw you two together."