Call Out (11 page)

Yeah, right.

Chapter Eleven

Hours later, I woke to the soft music of a
gently strummed guitar. I couldn’t place the song right away – I
hadn’t slept much, and I was groggy as hell – but I noticed right
off that it wasn’t anything mournful. I rubbed my eyes and sat up,
blinking against the sunlight peering in around the curtains, not
at all surprised to find Brian still unconscious beside me.

London stopped playing and looked up at me.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”

I shook my head, struggling to disentangle
myself from the bedcovers. “What time is it?” I asked as I stumbled
out of bed and headed toward the bathroom.

“Nearly noon.”

I swore under my breath and was about to ask
why he hadn’t woken Brian and me, but I remembered all that had
happened the night before – false hope, meltdown, sleeping pills.
Yeah, I’d have let us sleep, too. Still, we needed to find Dylan,
and we couldn’t do that while cavorting with the Sandman.

I went through my morning routine and got
dressed, and by the time I was done I felt a little more human.
Stepping out of the bathroom to find breakfast and coffee waiting
helped a little more. London was sitting on the edge of the bed by
Brian, cup of coffee in hand, trying to lure his friend awake. It
was working pretty well, too.

While demolishing a bagel smothered in
honey-walnut cream cheese – whoever came up with that combination
deserves to be nominated for sainthood or something – I went back
over the information London and I had compiled. The results came
out the same – the combination of stores where Dylan’s card had
been used were right where we thought they were, and we’d searched
the areas with no luck.

“Don’t kill me for asking this,” London said,
“but if Dylan was kidnapped....”

“Why would someone use her card?” I finished,
cutting him off. He nodded, and I shrugged in response. “Maybe she
lost the saddlebag she calls a purse and some kid’s having a field
day with her bank account.”

“Or maybe the kidnapper is just really
stupid,” London suggested.

“How dumb would you have to be to leave a
trail pointing right at you? I can’t imagine that being the
case.”

“I don’t know,” Brian said, licking cream
cheese off his finger, “There are some really stupid people in the
world. Like that girl...what’s her name? The one who got into some
of Dylan’s online accounts...bought a bunch of stuff and had it
sent to her address?”

“Oh, god. Vanessa,” I said. “Sad thing is,
she’s not dumb. She just doesn’t bother to think. And, oh yeah,
she’s a freaking psychopath.”

London looked thoughtful. “Who’s this
Vanessa?”

“An ex-friend of Dylan’s. Dylan swears she
was a decent person once upon a time, but I’ve never seen it. And I
met the loony bitch over a decade ago.”

Brian and London did that whole annoying
communicating-with-nothing-but-eye-contact thing, and I shook my
head.

“No way. Vanessa is psycho enough to kidnap
Dylan, sure, but she couldn’t have planned it, pulled it off, and
disappeared. Her mind just doesn’t work that way. Or at all,
sometimes.”

“What if she had help?” London asked between
sips of coffee.

I considered it. “I’d say it’s possible that
she could have done it if she was working with someone else but
still not likely.”

“Is there any way to find out where she is?”
Brian asked.

“I don’t know. She’s not in our circle
anymore. She still tries to play friends with Dylan sometimes, but
that’s about it.” I finished off my bagel and chased it with a few
sips of coffee. Then a light bulb went on in my head. “Hand me my
cell?”

Brian passed me my phone, and I tapped out a
text message to Vanessa’s ex-boyfriend, asking if he’d heard from
her lately. He answered right away, just like I figured he would.
His phone might as well be super-glued to his hand. Yes, he’d
talked to her the night before.

I thought for a moment, trying to come up
with a justification for wanting to know her whereabouts. Dave knew
I couldn’t stand Vanessa and that I thought he was an idiot for
still talking to her. Then, epiphany: I told him that Dylan had
gotten a weird email from her and was worried about her state of
mind, concerned for her safety. The phone rang in my hand,
startling all of us.

“Hey, Dave,” I answered. “Aren’t you at
work?”

“On my lunch break,” he told me. “What’s
up?”

I fed him a line of utter bullshit, making it
up as I went along. I kept it as close to the truth as possible,
basing the imaginary email from Vanessa on some of the ones she’d
sent to Dylan in the past. Dave believed every word.

“She’s fine,” he said. “She called to brag
about her new boyfriend and rub it in how happy she’s been since I
dumped her.”

“What a pal.”

“I’m glad she’s doing so well,” Dave said. He
even meant it, poor guy.

“I know this is a weird question, but do you
know where she is? I mean, I heard she moved back to El
Paso....”

“Yeah, she did. Moved back in with her
parents and went back to school. But she’s apparently ditching
classes this week to hang out with the new boyfriend. Brian, I
think? She was bragging about how he’s taking her to Disney World -
and bitching about how I never cared enough to take her.”

I shivered, but it wasn’t from cold. I
mumbled something about how it sounded like she really was okay and
I guessed the email was nothing to be worried about, was probably
just another of Vanessa’s ploys to try to get Dylan interested in
being friends again. He said he had to go so he could actually eat
during his lunch break, and we hung up.

With shaking hands, I reached out to lay the
cell on the desk. I missed. My head spun a little and everything
started to look grey around the edges. I closed my eyes, trying to
make the world steady itself again. I could hear movement, and then
warm, strong hands took mine.

“Em?” London’s voice sounded far away, though
he was kneeling right in front of me.

“I think you guys were right,” I said. “And I
think Vanessa’s lost what was left of her mind.” I pulled my hands
free from London’s. Touching me had to be hell on him right now,
feeling what I was feeling. “Brian, how much did Dylan tell you
about Vanessa?”

Brian’s brow furrowed in concentration as he
dredged up memories. “She told me Vanessa screwed her boyfriend.
Previous boyfriend. And she told me about the crazy emails.”

“She tell you that Vanessa thought her
boyfriend, Dave, was cheating on her with Dylan?”

“Yeah.”

“Wasn’t true.”

“Of course not. She was projecting. Somewhere
in her subconscious, she felt shitty about screwing the boyfriend
and so she imagined that Dylan paid back the favor.”

I leaned back in the chair. “He wasn’t really
Dylan’s boyfriend, but yeah. Same idea.” I watched London push
himself upright and move to sit on the bed. “Vanessa has always
been jealous of Dylan, always wanted what Dylan has, wanted to be
better than Dylan, wanted Dylan to depend on her.”

“Sounds like an awesome person,” London
said.

I gave him a wry smile. “Oh, yeah. A real
peach. The thing is, I think, from what Dave said, it’s gone beyond
that. I think she’s delusional.” I took a deep breath and then
repeated what Dave had said about Vanessa skipping school to spend
a few days at Disney World with her boyfriend – a boyfriend who
Dave thought might be named Brian.

“It’s a common name,” London said. I gave him
a look. “Yeah, okay, it sounds like she’s snapped.”

“Yeah, anyway,” I turned back toward the desk
and woke up the sleeping laptop. “I’m going to see if there have
been any more charges on the card, and then we’re going to go drive
around in circles until we find Dylan.”

“I know it seems hopeless, Brian,” I heard
London say. “But unless they move her every single day, we’ll find
her soon.”

With my back to the boys, I could only
imagine what had prompted London’s sudden need to reassure his
friend. Maybe he’d sensed something, and maybe it had been written
all over Brian’s face.

“It’d be a damned sight sooner if anyone in
this city knew how to drive,” I added, aiming for levity and not
quite making it. Vanessa – if that’s who had Dylan’s card – hadn’t
spent any more money. Maybe someone had pointed out how dumb it had
been. Maybe they’d moved Dylan because of it. That would explain
why last night’s search had been fruitless. I shared this insight
with the guys, and we discussed where to start the day’s
search.

We chose to look again in the parts of town
where we believed the card to have been used but expanded our
search area this time. Again we drove for hours, rarely speaking,
with breaks for lunch and to stretch our legs. I made a point of
staying close to Brian during those breaks, offering tangible moral
support. I don’t know if it helped, but I had to try.

Traffic seemed even worse than it had been
the day before, going from inching along to deadlock. I realized
that it was Friday rush hour traffic. We’d been in Orlando for
three damned days. I wondered if Dylan was near giving up hope of
someone finding her.

We kept up the search until well after dark.
Around ten o’clock, London slumped, letting his head fall back
against the seat.

“I can’t,” he said, pulling his hand out of
mine. “I’m sorry. I just can’t anymore right now.”

I reached out to pat his leg but thought
better of it. He flexed his fingers for a moment, and then took my
hand again, giving me a tired smile. I tried to think positive
thoughts, for his sake.

We grabbed fast food for dinner, and London
amazed me by programming the GPS on Brian’s phone with one hand
while scarfing down a burger with the other. I can’t do much on a
phone without both hands, a user’s guide, and a whole lot of
luck.

“We can go in the back way,” London said.
“It’s closer.”

“And we can avoid some of the idiot drivers,”
Brian added. “I’m in.”

London tapped a few keys and handed the phone
back to Brian, using his now free hand to take mine. I hadn’t tried
to manage a sandwich and drink while holding hands since high
school. Turns out, it’s like falling off a bike: you never forget
how to do it.

Brian headed toward the outskirts of Orlando
and London’s ‘back way’ to the hotel. We had gone less than five
miles, crawling along in bumper-to-bumper traffic, when London sat
bolt upright in the seat.

“Stop the car,” he said. Brian started
looking around, angling toward a nearby parking lot, but that
wasn’t good enough for London. “Stop the fucking car.”

“In the middle of the street?” Brian
snapped.

London pounded on the back of Brian’s seat
with his fists. I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw my own
alarm mirrored in Brian’s face. Brian cut across traffic, hopped a
curb, and parked the car in a deserted lot. Before the car had even
stopped, London had his seatbelt off and his door open. Brian and I
piled out after him, and he reached for both of us.

“Don’t watch me,” London said. “Keep an eye
out for company.” He closed his eyes and leaned back against the
car, holding on to Brian and me. Brian and I turned away, watching
around us and hoping we weren’t drawing any unwanted attention.

“Dammit, Dylan, where’d you go?” London
muttered. Then, a minute or two later, “Good girl.” He drew his
hands out of ours. “She’s that way,” he said, pointing farther down
the street we’d been on.

We scrambled back into the car, and Brian
eased out into traffic. He passed our turnoff toward the hotel and
drove another mile or so before London told him to turn. Brian wove
through traffic to take the next left and then followed London’s
intermittent directions, meandering through an area filled with
pretentious houses and even more pretentious condominiums.

“Slow down,” London said, and we crept past
house after house until he said, “Here! Here! Stop!”

Brian kept driving. He turned around and
drove back to a nearby condo complex that, lucky for us, didn’t
have a gate or guard to restrict access. He parked in the lot, took
off his belt, and turned to look at us.

“You’re sure?” he asked. London nodded. “What
do we do now? We can’t just walk up, knock, and ask whoever answers
to give Dylan back.”

“Maybe we should wait, watch for the lights
to go out,” I suggested.

London shook his head and reached for the
door handle. “We need to move now. Dylan’s scared – really scared.”
Brian was out of the car before London finished talking. I was
right behind him.

“Pop the trunk,” I said. Brian didn’t
hesitate or ask why. I rooted around until I found what I was
looking for. I’d have given a lot for a good, heavy, four-way tire
iron right then instead of the wimpy compact one that came with the
car, but...beggars and horses and all that. It was the only weapon
available, and I felt better with it in my hands.

We started down the street, London leading
the charge, Brian bringing up the rear, and me in the middle, tire
iron held down against my leg so it wouldn’t be noticeable to any
nosy neighbors. None of us had the first, slightest clue how to go
about rescuing anyone. Everything we knew about it we’d gotten from
movies or books or video games. I prayed it would be enough.

London slowed as we neared the house where
he’d felt Dylan’s presence. He waited for Brian and me to catch up
and pulled us into another huddle. “I want to try something Ashe
showed me,” he said, closing his eyes.

Again, Brian and I kept watch while London
worked his mojo. For a moment, we just stood. Then a smile crossed
London’s face. The next second, I heard Dylan yelling at the top of
her lungs; she sounded angry and triumphant. The three of us
sprinted for the house. I hoped no one inside had a gun.