Prank Wars (33 page)

Before I knew it, I was stomping against the floral seat, but I couldn’t get up into the ceiling. Tory put some books under my feet until I was tall enough to poke my head through the trapdoor. I stared into the blackness. If this was a scary movie, this would be the moment something would fly at me from the shadows. Even Tory held back. I propped my elbows on either side of the crawlspace. “Get me a flashlight.”

“What are you doing?”

I flinched. Lizzie! She wouldn’t let me go without a fight. Kali made squealing noises beneath me, her towel falling off her head. “I have to get to Thanh’s,” I explained. “Something big is going on, bigger than all of us.”

“You’re gonna hurt yourself!” I nodded and kicked my legs to force myself up. “There could be spiders!” she warned. I hesitated. This was bigger than spiders. I kept going. “What if the ceiling caves in?”

“Lizzie! I’ll keep to the rafters. I’ve been in an attic before.”

“At least protect yourself from the insulation!” I heard her scurry from her room and back. She threw a long sleeved hoody up at me and some gloves. “Put those on.”

Was she mental? I was burning up, but at her insistence, I wrestled on the extra clothing. It was worth it if it kept spiders away from me. The black hoody was tight over the bulging pocket that held my war journal. I grimaced at that. When had I packed that along? It was too late to dump it now. Tory clambered up the chair onto the books, shining the flashlight through the crawlspace. I winced through the beam of light, expecting to see a metallic layer of spider webs. Everything inside this deep hole was covered in insulation, though surprisingly clean of bugs.

Grateful for the gloves, I pushed into the darkness, keeping to the rafters as promised, sliding hand over hand and keeping low like a Russian dancer. I passed something loud and whirring like a fan beneath me. I think it was the bathroom. I gave it some space. The kitchen probably was on the other side. How far was Thanh’s apartment? Tory’s flashlight faded, and I barely caught sight of the depression ahead. It was covered in torn insulation. I brushed it free and found another trapdoor. I wasn’t sure how to open it, so I pushed. Nothing happened. I extended my leg in front of me and kicked it with the heel of my converses. It flew open. Darkness gaped below me. I turned to Tory. Her head was a silhouette behind the shaft of light. “I got it!” I said. “Close the trapdoor on that side and get rid of any evidence I was up here.”

“Don’t come back this way!” Lizzie warned. “Just use the door like a real person, okay!”

I nodded. After a moment of staring down into the dark abyss of Thanh’s apartment, I dropped to the messy ground, landing on my hands and feet. My eyes adjusting to the shadowy hall and overturned tables in the living room. I tore the gloves off, feeling the piles of rough paper under my fingers and stood up. This was real illegal trespassing. “Hello?” I hoped Thanh would answer back, but no one was here.

Standing on my tiptoes, I closed the trapdoor and kicked through the papers. The sound of them crunching beneath my converses broke the unnatural silence on the way to her kitchen. I tugged the fridge door open on a whim. Nothing there, except some moldy food. I kept it open, but it wasn’t enough light to keep my legs from colliding squarely with the table, which woke up the computer. It added a blue eerie glow to the kitchen. I squinted through the blue light, seeing Thanh’s email was open. A full page of unopened messages sat in her inbox. A few in Vietnamese. I clicked on one of the more recent messages.

“
Thanh, this is your boss. Lydia gave me your email. why haven’t you called me back?”
—Maybe because I had Thanh’s cell phone. I felt terrible. I returned to her inbox, marking the message unread. If anything, it made me realize I had missed some vital clues. I should’ve checked Thanh’s cell phone before this. It made a square lump in my side pocket. I tugged it out and went to the messages, setting it on speaker phone. The first one was from her boss again. She hadn’t come to work in days.

I placed her cell phone on the table and searched for the backpack. It still lay on the floor next to the table. My hand hovered over it. If I took it, the guy with the threats would know I was onto him and come after me. Was I prepared for that? No. I landed on my knees, listening to Thanh’s boss go off on the next message about how this was so unlike her.

I had to work fast. Keeping one ear trained on the front door, I unzipped the front pocket and found Byron’s school ID.
Byron Schipaanboord.
No wallet. If so, he might’ve tried harder to get this back. The backpack was officially his, but I wasn’t sure if the switch was an accident anymore. The next message was in Vietnamese. The tone was motherly, worried. Someone’s daughter was missing. It only made me work harder. I opened the middle pocket and found some physics notes and a test graded by Thanh. I read the comments on the bottom:
Byron, we really need to talk—Your TA.
He got a perfect score, the jerk, so why would he have to talk to the TA—unless Thanh thought he cheated? Or was it something else? A break-up? Right now I leaned towards something more serious. Without another thought, I folded the physics test into a neat little square and stuffed it in my back pocket.

“
Thanh.”
I recognized the voice in the next message and it sent a jolt through me. It belonged to the same guy I had talked to earlier. “
You know who this is. I’m tired of waiting.”
Same clipped voice. Same threats. Same hang up style. No, it didn’t sound like Byron. After suffering a few more messages like this, Thanh’s inbox was empty. Not sure how much time I had, I searched the side pockets in the backpack. My fingers brushed Byron’s missing iPhone. I recognized the screensaver immediately. It covered the front of his sleek touchscreen iPhone with a shot of him skiing. It would look better if the jump had been off a bunny slope. I tucked it into my pocket, not wanting anything important to fall into enemy hands, but what was the guy really looking for? I heard a key sliding into the front door.

“Tory?” It came out a squeak and I stopped myself from saying more. What if it was Thanh? If it wasn’t, I couldn’t take my chances. I pushed the fridge door shut. It shuttered out the light, leaving me with the eerie glow from the computer. I tried not to imagine Thanh’s surprise once she flipped on the lights and found her snoopy neighbor sitting in the middle of her kitchen floor—or worse, my surprise when I saw it wasn’t Thanh.

The front door creaked open and I army crawled my way to the cupboard door below the sink. The whole set up in the kitchen was just like ours; I knew it by touch. I opened the cupboard below the sink, hearing the footsteps in the hall. They came for me. I squeezed inside, folding my body next to some stinky garbage. The door wouldn’t close behind me. I was in the way. I had no time to wrestle with it. The kitchen lights flipped on, sending shafts of brightness through the cracks of the cupboard door. I closed my eyes, putting my head down.

“Yeah, I’m in.” I didn’t recognize the voice. It seemed muffled and out of breath, but I could tell it was male. I opened my eyes to face whoever it was, seeing only two feet clad in Nikes and some muscular calves. “Yeah, find out what she knows.” His voice jarred the silence. The intruder was either talking to himself or he had a cell phone. I opted for the latter. “I almost had it Tuesday night. A bunch of kids got in the way. One of them walked right into it. Scared her good.” He gave an impatient growl. “Yeah, it works. It messed with the cell phones, didn’t it? It’ll do the job. We just have to get to it.”

He leaned over the backpack and I peered forward, trying to see his face. My makeshift lookout was terrible. I could only see hands. He lowered an android phone to dig through the backpack. After a moment, he raised it up, narrating, “Still looking. What does it look like?” He wrestled with the backpack, getting more agitated and less understandable. “I think that…yeah, yeah. You know what?” Now he sounded angry. “She’s been here.” I held my breath. Had the computer screen tipped him off? My knee hanging out from the cupboard? “No!” he shouted. “I’ll get it.
I said I’ll get it!
You’ll have it by tomorrow night, okay? We won’t need her anymore after that.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I forced my breath out, keeping myself perfectly still. The intruder stood up to pace the kitchen. “Give me the meeting place. Hold on. Not yet! I need something to write on.” He attempted a laugh. “I can’t believe the little neat freak didn’t clean up after us.” He jerked a notebook off the ground. My war journal! I must have dropped it when I ran into the computer. He opened it to a blank page and scrawled something over it. “Midnight. Yeah, I’ll have it by then.” He listened for a moment. “Or she’s dead,” he growled. He heatedly ripped off the paper, throwing my war journal back onto the ugly green carpet.

My eyes narrowed where it fell. The guy drifted into the back room, still searching. Maybe for me. I tried to pretend it was just like old times and I was on another mission against the guys—except getting caught then didn’t mean death. I crawled out of my hiding spot. My blood pumped loudly against my ears, deafening me. I scooped up my war journal and rushed for the front door. I heard a crash behind me and stumbled, whipping my head around. No one was there. Curses echoed through Thanh’s hallway steps away—an unfamiliar sound at BYU—but they weren’t aimed at me. The intruder had run into something; he had no idea I was here. I could close the door inconspicuously behind me…and maybe get a rope and lock him in. The guys did it to us all the time, just tie the rope from the knob to the railing on the balcony, and we’d nab him.

I scrambled onto the balcony and ducked past Thanh’s window, trying to shove open my door, but it was locked. I knocked furiously, no longer attempting to be quiet; I kept my eyes trained on the apartment next door. My fingers battled with my emotions to keep working. My whole body threatened to freeze up. Tory’s head popped out from our kitchen window. She smiled. “Sorry, no one can get in.”

“Are you crazy? Open this door!”

She disappeared from the window and I turned back to the apartment. It was too late to lock him in, but if I could see whoever came out, I’d know who I was dealing with. I just had to stay hidden. I searched furiously for a hiding spot. Sandra’s potted flowers weren’t big enough. There was nowhere to hide. I felt the back of my neck turn cold. Thanh’s door was opening. I stood in full view. My stomach felt like it deserted my body. “Open up!” I whisper shouted through the door. I scratched at it, trying to keep quiet.

“It’s open.” I heard from the inside.

The doorknob turned mercifully under my hands and I shoved my way into the living room. Tory jumped out at me and I fell against our door, shouting out in fright. “The window,” I ordered mid-scream. “We have to see who it is.” I scrambled to the window and saw the back of a head, a hoody pulled up over a face before it disappeared into the darkness. Thanh’s black backpack was flung over his shoulder, and he carried a ring of keys. He was tall…well, that narrowed it down, a tall guy with a mean disposition.

I thought of calling the police…and telling them what? I broke into Thanh’s place and overheard a guy talking on the phone, but I wasn’t sure what he was talking about? They already thought I was insane. “Did you see who went in?” I asked Tory. She looked blank. Why hadn’t I given her orders to watch the door? “He’s got keys to her apartment! They’re our keys!” I realized. “Our missing keys!” I thought Byron had stolen them.

“So? What if this guy is dating Thanh?” Lizzie leaned against the wall, kneading at her wet hair. “And he was just picking some stuff up for her?”

It was like no one believed me anymore. “He has
our
whole ring of keys,” I explained. “Whoever he is, he can get into
our
apartment now.”

“I think he already did,” Tory said, “if he’s the same one who took the keys.”

True.

“What’s going on?” Kali came out from the back with a toothbrush stuck in her mouth. She looked tired. It was way past midnight, which meant we were already in Tuesday. We had school in a few hours.

I took a deep breath. “We’re in big trouble. If they don’t get what they want, I think someone’s gonna get murdered tomorrow at midnight. Actually, I think it might be me—now that I think about it.” That pretty much stunned them all. Tory collapsed slowly onto the couch. I think she was the only one who believed me. “Do you have any food?” she asked.

I jerked in indignation and marched into the back, coming out of my room with Thanh’s keys. I slammed them on our end table. “They want these...at least what they can open. That’s why they kidnapped Thanh.”

“What? That girl?” Kali’s eyes got big and she moved her toothbrush aimlessly in her mouth. She still thought of Thanh as the spirit that haunted the apartment next door.

Lizzie clasped her fingers, trying to appear calm. “Are you sure about this?”

I shrugged, knowing it would be next to impossible to convince them. “They thought Thanh had these keys—I think that’s why they took her, but when I stole Byron’s backpack, I accidentally stole Thanh’s backpack instead. Don’t ask me why they even switched backpacks in the first place. He might be involved in all this. I don’t know.”

“But how did
you
get the keys?” Lizzie asked. As always she was being sensible.

“I put them in my pocket. Her cell phone too.”

Lizzie looked shocked, and I just ignored it. I had other things to worry about like being hunted down, tortured and eventually murdered. “We need to figure out who Thanh really is,” I said. “What does she have that someone big and bad wants? Second, where do these keys fit? Third, what does Byron have to do with this?”