Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(18)

Some reason?

He’s cute. That’s the reason. Not your type, but cute.

Her type—the wealthy, well-bred boys who travel in her family’s social circle—have given her a wide berth since the scandal broke. So have most of the girls at school, aside from Desdemona and Emily, her two closest friends. Too bad they’re both out of town until September.

Across the table, Surfer Boy sips his coffee, presses a button on the keyboard, and sips again, obviously waiting for the laptop to boot up. “This thing is so slow,” he comments—to himself, or to Caroline?

She decides to answer, just so he doesn’t think she’s ignoring him if he was talking to her. And if he wasn’t…

Well, whatever. “Yeah…they all are.”

She really should go.

She will…right after she finds out how old he is. “So do you go to school?”

He nods, pressing buttons on the keyboard.

“Where?”

“Right now, I’m taking a summer course at Columbia.”

Yeah. She had him pegged for older.

“What about you?” he asks, still focused on the screen.

“Done for the summer.”

“Yeah?” He looks up. “Where do you go?”

She hesitates. “Billington.”

Maybe he’ll think that’s a private college somewhere, and not a high school. If he knows it’s a high school, she’ll mention that she’ll be a senior this year.

And he’ll care because…?

This is so stupid, trying to impress some random guy she’ll never see again.

But he does seem interested, resting his chin on his hand and looking at her across the table. “Billington? Where is that?”

Maybe she should make up some New England town that sounds like it would be home to a charming college campus.

Yeah, or maybe you should just tell the truth.

“It’s over on York. It’s a high school,” she adds, almost apologetically. “But I’m a senior. I mean, I will be. In September.”

“Cool. So you live around here?”

“A few blocks away. How about you?”

He tells her he’s from the West Coast, where he goes to college. He’s got a summer internship here in the city at some corporation she’s never heard of. She finds herself telling him about her friends, and music she likes, and cool places to hang out. He’s easy to talk to—until he says, “Hey, I don’t even know your name.”

She hesitates. What are the odds that he’s heard of Garvey Quinn, even if he wasn’t in New York when her father was front-page tabloid news?

The odds are definitely good. Daddy was a congressman; she’s pretty sure the scandal made national headlines.

Now it’s time to go. Saying simply, “I’m Caroline,” she pushes back her chair.

“Jake.”

“Nice meeting you.” Caroline stands, putting her bag over her shoulder and finding herself boxed in by tables, chairs, and the lolling, jean-clad limbs belonging to a trio of teenage boys and a lovey-dovey couple behind her. The cackling friends have been replaced by a young, bespectacled woman engrossed in a book and someone—a man, judging by the hairy knuckles—whose face is hidden behind today’s New York Times.

The most direct escape route is partially blocked by Dakota’s mother, now talking on her cell phone. She’s oblivious to her daughter pouring out sugar packets all over the table, and to Caroline’s polite “Excuse me.”

She says it again, is ignored again. Feeling helpless, she looks back at Jake, and finds him grinning.

“Trapped?” he asks.

“Sort of.”

“Is this place always this jammed?”

“I don’t know…I hardly ever come here.”

“Really?”

Realizing he looks kind of bummed, Caroline wonders if he might actually be interested in her. “But sometimes I do,” she adds. “Come here, I mean.”

Brilliant. You hardly ever come here, but sometimes you come here.

“Yeah? Maybe I’ll run into you again sometime, then.”

She grins. “Maybe you will.”

“Or I can just call you and meet you here tomorrow afternoon. Or somewhere else.”

“That, uh…that would be cool.”

“Let me get your info. Just call me on my cell and then I’ll have your number. Where’s your phone?”

Trying not to act thrilled, she unzips her bag and shoves her hand inside, feeling around for it.

Something moves inside—something warm, and furry, and—

Caroline screeches and throws the bag, then watches in horror as a fat brown rat emerges and scuttles away.



“Brett! Oh my God…oh my God…”

“What? What is it?”

“It’s…” She bends over and retrieves the object from the ground beside her car. “Spider-Man.”

“What are you talking about?”

“A Spider-Man action figure.”

Brett is silent for a moment.

But he knows what it means. Of course he does.

On the day Jeremy disappeared, they’d gone shopping at Wal-Mart and Elsa had bought him a pair of Spider-Man action figures. He’d been playing with them in the yard when he vanished. One of the toys was left behind in the grass. The other, presumably, had been clutched in Jeremy’s hand when he was taken away.