Chapter 13
O
n the plane's approach over Atlanta, I'm always amazed by how many trees there are. When you see trees in Denver, you know someone planted them because it's mostly plains and desert. Flying over Atlanta, you can tell the trees were here first and someone planted the city around them, instead of the other way around. The whole flight, I try to think up a scheme to get Lana to help me with the Cole case without her realizing I was even working a case, but come up with nothing. Not that I'd have been able to implement the scheme right awayâLana is a nervous flier so she took a Xanax the second we stepped onto the plane. She's been knocked out ever since. I just keep mentally running through everything I've ever learned about Bethanie's family so I'd at least have an idea of what to look for in what I'm certain is their hometown.
After we land, I turn on my phone and see Bethanie has blown it up with texts asking where I am and why I haven't been in school all week. She's got a nerve, seeing how she's been ditching half her classes for nearly two weeks now. It's close to midnight here because we took a late flight out, but it's not quite ten there, so I give her a call while Lana watches for our bags on the baggage carousel.
“Where've you been?” Bethanie demands as soon as she hears my voice. “I've called and texted you all day.”
“So you can go AWOL and not say a thing, but I have to report in to you?”
“I need to make sure you're still giving me my cover story this weekend. I'm making plans.”
“To do what?”
“It's private. But are you still going to do it?”
I gesture to Lana that I'm moving to a bank of chairs across from the carousel, and once she's out of hearing range, I answer Bethanie. “When I get Cole's address.”
“I'll get it soon.”
“Text me as soon as you get it and you have a deal. I won't be at school the rest of the week.”
“You haven't been in school this week at all.”
“I was there Monday. Maybe
you
weren't there to see me. I think Marco broke up with me. I couldn't deal with seeing him, so I faked sick yesterday.”
“You
think
he broke up with you? What did he say?”
I remembered it word for word because I've been replaying it a hundred times a day hoping I misinterpreted it. Maybe Bethanie can give me an objective opinion.
“He said I should use the break to figure out if I'd rather play detective or be with him.”
“What did he mean about you playing detective?”
Oops. The suspicion enters her voice instantly.
“He still hasn't gotten over that whole burglary thing last month.”
“And what break are you talking about?”
“Yeah, that's the thing I was going to tell you about. Make sure you give your mom my cell if she wants to check up on you this weekend. I'm not in Denver, and won't be back until Sunday.”
“You should have told me you wouldn't be here. I'd have found someone else to be my cover.”
“Who else would do it?” I ask, since we both know I'm her only friend besides Marco, and he won't lie for her.
“Well, you just should have told me, that's all. Where are you, anyway?”
Here goes.
“Atlanta. I'm at the airport now.”
Silence on the other end for a few seconds, then, “Why would you be there, all out of the blue and everything?”
“Just something I have to take care of,” I say, nodding at Lana when she motions to me that she has our luggage. “Bethanie, I have to go now.”
“Hold up a minute. Unless you've suddenly become the president, how do you get to just jump on a plane to take care of something on the other side of the country?”
“You sound so suspicious. I'm just here visiting my grandparents for a few days. I'm with my mother. What's your deal, anyway?” I ask, although I know exactly what her deal is.
“It's just you never told me you had family there. Are they okay? I mean, for you to just take off, missing class and everything.. . .”
“Everything is great. Just something we needed to do, that's all.”
“All right, that's cool. Just don't screw this weekend up for me, okay?”
“Don't forget to let me know where you'll be. I need that address or I won't lie for you.”
“You'll get it,” she says, and doesn't bother to say good-bye.
Â
My favorite thing about visiting my grandparents, besides seeing them, is how nothing ever changes. I know before I walk in the door that the furniture will be in the same place it was the last time I was here. There will be Brach's caramels in the candy bowl on the coffee table, and a copy of
TV Guide
even though they have cable and can check the onscreen guide. I know after we do all of our hugging, we'll go into the kitchen where my grandmother will have a fresh pot of coffee waiting because she somehow knows the exact time we'll show up at her door. We always drive on our summer visits since Lana hates to fly, and Grandma always can time when we're going to pull into her driveway. Taking the plane this time, then renting a car at the airport, didn't throw off her timing a bit. With all the changes I've been through latelyânew school, new boyfriend who became my ex overnight, getting arrestedâI could really use a few days of everything being the same.
I called the whole reunion right. The house is the exact same as far as I can tell, and even though it's close to one in the morning, I can smell fresh-brewed coffee. My grandmother is surprised when I ask for a cup.
“You let her drink coffee now, Lana? You know that'll stunt her growth.”
“That's just an old wives' tale, Mama. Besides, she's almost sixteen. She's pretty much done growing.”
Though I'd be good if my hips stopped growing, I hope Lana is wrong because I wouldn't mind adding another letter to my bra size. Right now, with all the stress from almost going to jail, Marco dropping me, and Bethanie dating a con artist, the size matches my grades at schoolâA on the cusp of becoming a B. Not the strongest prospects for getting into the best colleges or out of a padded bra. It wouldn't rock my world if it doesn't happen (the bra thing, not the college thingâthat's a must) but I change my mind on the coffee, just in case.
“Guess who called here the other day?” my grandfather says to Lana, who I suspect doesn't have to guess because her face tenses up right away. “It was like talking to a ghost.”
“Did he know you were coming?” my grandmother asks. “It's some coincidence if not.”
“Look, Mama, it's been a long day, and we're tired,” Lana says, getting up from the table. “I've got an early day at the police department tomorrow, so I'd better get some sleep. Let's take our bags upstairs, Chanti.”
I want to tell her I'm too wired to go to sleep, but it's clear Lana doesn't want to talk about the ghost who seemed to know she'd be in town this weekend. Since I'm trying to stay on her good side so she can unwittingly help me get information on Bethanie's family and on who Cole really is, I kiss my grandparents good night and grab our bags.
Lana and I always share her old bedroom when we visit. It looks the same as the day she left, and it always freaks me out when I see the posters of Will Smith when he was still the Fresh Prince and a really young Usher. Before I was even born, she was crushing on the same guys I like now. I guess that's what happens when your mom is just sixteen years older than you and has great taste in men who still look good even though they're old.
Her twin beds still wear the same comforters she picked out just before she got pregnant with me. They look girlier than anything I would have chosen and nothing like the Lana I know, even from my earliest memory of her. Every time I see this room, I imagine what it must have been like to lie on the frilly pink bed, stare at Usher and Will, and absorb the news delivered by the pregnancy stick. Is that the moment she stopped being girly? Did she have to grow up on the spot, or did that come after she'd been a mom a few months and realized she couldn't be a girl and raise a girl at the same time?
I never think about that until I come here and hang out in her old bedroom, and then I think of a million things to ask Lana that I never do. Did she have to skip her prom because they didn't make maternity prom dresses? How silly did the girls sound at school talking about makeup and hairstyles when she'd been up all night cramming for a midterm and dealing with a screaming kid? She always says I was a good baby, but I doubt it. Without even trying, I probably started causing trouble in the womb.
I'm sure I made dating difficult. I'm guessing the ghost who called earlier is Lana's boyfriend from college, the one she was crazy about who told her things could get serious between them. Well, until he found out five-year-old me was living with my grandparents in the frilly pink room only until Lana finished college, not indefinitely.
Lana must have lied to Grandma about being tired because she's not going to sleep. She has spread all her case files out on the bed and is just staring at everything. It looks like she's zoned out, but that's the way Lana tries to put the clues together. I move over to her twin bed, hoping she's so focused on the files that she doesn't notice I'm looking at them, too. No such luck. She starts gathering up all the papers and closes the folder I was looking at. But not before I caught a glimpse of something that gives me a serious WTF moment.
“What's the deal with the informant? Why do they think he's in Denver?” I ask.
“It's pretty cool how they figured that out. The guy is a compulsive gambler and the marshals figured he couldn't stop, even on the run. So they started checking security camera tape in casinos, racetracks, off-track betting locations, and they found him.”
“Oh snap,” I say. My WTF moment just grew exponentially more serious.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just think this sounds like something I saw in a movie last week.”
“It really does,” Lana says, buying my explanation why I probably look just a little freaked out. “He started at Alabama racetracks, Mississippi riverboat casinos, and kept moving west until he dropped off the radar in New Mexico at an Indian casino. They figured he might show up next at one of the mountain casinos back home, but he just disappeared.”
“They think the people he was supposed to testify against found him before they did?”
“Not yet, but they're probably close enough to scare the witness underground. If the defendant finds him first, that would blow the prosecution's whole case, which was built on the guy's testimony. Not to mention probably get him killed. So I'm here to learn as much as I can about the case so I can go home and help marshals in the Denver office find him.”
“But I thought he was at the mountain casinos.”
“You can't stay hidden up in those small towns where everyone knows each other. If he's gambling up there, he's probably living in Denver where he can disappear a little easier. The feds might have all the high-tech surveillance in the world, but they just don't know a city the way a city cop knows it.”
This gets Lana started on her beef with the feds. If you watch any cop show often enough, there will be a story line where local law enforcement gets into a whole jurisdiction fight with the federal agencies, usually the FBI. That's one cliché Hollywood gets right. From my experience (by way of Lana's experience), there isn't much love between the locals and the feds. If you know any cops who ever had to work a case the feds were also looking at, you've heard the story. I've heard it more than once from Lana, and I must not have been as wired as I thought because I fall asleep on her explaining how the feds don't know the streets or the informants like a vice cop does. I guess being drop-dead tired even trumps fear, because I'm pretty sure I recognized a guy in one of those pictures before Lana put away her files. My last thought before I start drooling on the pillow is that my friend might be crushing on a fugitive.
Chapter 14
I
n the light of morning, I'm thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me last night, or I just didn't have enough time to really see the photo before Lana closed her folder. It sounds crazy, but add what I thought I saw to Cole's joking about his gambling habit over dinner and Bethanie's reporting that he keeps taking her to dog tracks, and maybe it isn't so crazy. If it was Cole in that photo, then it's probably no coincidence that he's found his way to Bethanie. Well, I already knew he was stalking her; this just confirms I'm right. Now the question is why.
After Lana leaves for the police department the next morning, I stay in my room checking county and city property records Web sites hoping to find information on the Larsens. That's a lot of Web sites because there are a ton of cities and counties in the metro area. Everybody within a thirty-mile radius of Atlanta says they're from here, even if their address says differently. Since I'm only working on a hunch that the Larsens are from around Atlanta, I have to check them all. So far, I get nothing on their names, but that only means I haven't looked widely enough or they never owned property, which seems pretty unlikely for people with Powerball money.
I decide to call Bethanie to see if she has Cole's address for me yet and, oh yeah, find out if he's on the run from the law. But first I need to butter her up into thinking I support this crazy plan of spending the weekend with him. If I can manage that, I might be able to get some information out of her about her family.
“Can you ever call or visit someone at a decent hour?” Bethanie says, sounding like she just woke up.
“Sorry, I keep forgetting I'm two hours ahead. But it's six there; you should be getting up for school, anyway.”
“I'm thinking of skipping.”
“Remember you have to keep the charade going for your parents, right? Smythe will call home if you don't show, and she might be ready to kick you out of Langdon if you keep it up. It's just one more day and then you'll be hanging with Cole.”
“I suppose that's true. Why are you suddenly all Miss Supportive?” she says, sounding more awake and a little suspicious.
“Because I've been thinking about what you said. I probably am just jealous of you since Marco dumped me.”
“So you're sure it's over between you?”
“Pretty much,” I say, even though I haven't talked to Marco since that hallway conversation. But he made it pretty clearâI just didn't want to believe it at the time.
“That's too bad. Maybe you guys can still work it out.”
“Maybe, but for now I have to live vicariously through you and Cole. Did you get his address yet?”
“Yeah, I'm at his place now. I'll text it to you when I hang up.”
“What's it like?”
I imagine Cole lives on a polo field, probably because when I first met him, I thought he might be a Ralph Lauren model who got his clothes on employee discount because that's all he ever wears. And maybe Hilfiger when he's slumming.
“Nothing special,” Bethanie says.
“Really?”
“Don't get excited, Chanti. It isn't that he's broke. It's just temp housingâyou know, one of those executive apartments until he decides whether he's staying in Denver. Hopefully I'll be influencing that decision.”
Oh, there are so many tangents I could go off on after that statement, but I stay focused.
“So what's the big plan?” I ask.
She goes silent for a second.
“Still there?”
“Yeah. I'm just bummed because there
is
no big plan. I thought since he suggested I spend the weekend with him, we'd be doing something more than the usual. Now it sounds like more of the same, except I'll get to hang at his place and eat pizza.”
“Well, that leaves a lot of time for romance, if you know what I mean.”
“I can still hold out hope for that, but he hasn't even kissed me yet.”
“Seriously?” It's killing me that I can't figure this guy out. What kind of guy wants to get his girl alone for three days and just order pizza?
“The most exciting thing we ever do is play poker. Now I wish I'd never taught him how.”
“You taught him?” This makes me all kinds of relieved. Lana's fugitive would already know how to play poker.
“We needed something to kill all the time we
don't
spend making out. Maybe I should teach him strip poker, but I'd have to throw a lot of games since he isn't very good. I think that's the only way I'll get him to notice I have other assets.”
“Other assets?” A-ha! So I was right about that part. Cole really is trying to get Bethanie's money. Maybe she's figured it out, too.
“He thinks I'm wasting my brain.”
“How's that?”
“He says I put up all these fake personas. Homegirl who doesn't have interest in good grades. Rich, vacuous diva. I made the mistake of telling him I've got a one hundred fifty-nine IQ and he just won'tâ”
“Wow, I thought I was smart. You beat me out by a few points. He's rightâyou definitely hide that.”
“You saying I'm not too bright?”
“Obviously you're smart. So why do you get grades that are just good enough to stay in Langdon, and talk about Fashion Week and shopping like they're critical to achieving world peace?”
“Maybe I was tired of being the human calculator. I wanted to be like other girlsâtalk about clothes, go to parties, have a boyfriend.”
“And you never did those things before because you were a ... human calculator?” I don't know what exactly she means by that, but I'm pretty sure there's a clue in there somewhere.
“Math. That's my thing. I'm brilliant at it, according to my teachers. Before Langdon, back at my old school, I was taking college level courses starting in eighth grade. But the minute people find out, there goes all the fun.”
“So why did you tell him about it?”
“I didn't. He figured it out when I kept beating him in poker. Math helps you figure out the odds. I guess a lot of the professional poker players are math geniuses or something.”
“There are worse things you could be than a math genius. You could probably get a full scholarship to MIT or Cal Tech.”
“I don't care about that right now. What I care about this weekend is making sure I won't be the only virgin in twelfth grade next year, and I can't even get a kiss.”
“I'm pretty sure you won't be the only one,” I say, 'cause there will at least be me in the club, especially after Marco just dumped me. And I'm pretty sure half the girls who claim to have done it, haven't.
“I gotta get ready for school. My parents think I'm going to your house after class tomorrow, so they'll probably call tomorrow night.”
“What if they want to talk to my mother?”
“They won't. They think you walk on water and will show me the error of my ways. But if they do, just fake it. It isn't like they know her voice.”
After she hangs up, I realize I didn't get much information about her family, except for that human calculator thing. When my phone rings, I hope it might be Marco but I'm sure it's Bethanie with some instruction she forgot to tell me on how I'm supposed to help her lie, so I'm surprised when I hear MJ's voice.
“I haven't seen you around for a couple of days and wondered what's up,” MJ says, not wasting time on subtleties, like a greeting.
“MJ, is that you?”
“24/7/365. Look, we haven't talked since that morning in front of the bodegaâ”
“And you were wondering if I've been so quiet because I've been looking into what you know about the robbery, who Eddie is and how he plays into it, right?”
“Something like that,” MJ says, sounding a little peeved that I've read her so well.
“As interested as I am in learning what you know, I'm working on something else right now that needs my full attention.”
“Like an investigation?”
“Nothing you'd be interested in,” I say, not ready to share my theories on Cole. At this point, it's all a hunch, a crazy-sounding one that Bethanie just upended when she told me Cole doesn't know how to play poker. But I'm certain about him being after Bethanie's bank account.
“I'm interested as long as it doesn't involve me. Maybe I can help.”
MJ has a point. It always helps when I can talk through clues with someone else, especially if that someone else is a reformed criminal. She'll have insight from the other side, and if I keep the information generic, she doesn't need to know that she probably
is
involved if she knows something about the bodega robbery. But right now, that's the least important aspect of the Cole mystery.
“A friend at school is involved with this guy I think is bad news.”
“I know all about that kind of guy. Seems like the only kind I attract,” MJ says, and she ain't ever lied. Associating with her last boyfriend is what got her two years in juvie.
“The girl is crazy rich and this guy is really pressing her hard, all charming and everything, and she thinks he's in love with her.”
“But he's really after the cheddar.”
“I can't make her see it, though. She keeps giving him opportunities to take their romance to the next level, and he won't even kiss her.”
“That's weird. Maybe he isn't into girls.”
“No, it's definitely not that.”
Cole is a mystery, but that I know for sure. No guy could charm a girlâeven just look at a girlâthe way he can and not be straight. If I wasn't mad about Marco and Cole didn't give me a bad feeling, I'd probably be trying to get him alone for a weekend myself. Not that I'd know what to do with him, but you know what I mean.
“Seems like he'd take her money and whatever else she's throwing at him. That's just how guys are.”
“That's what I thought. I just talked to her before you called and I think he's after a different part of her bodyâher brain.”
“What?”
“This girl is a math genius. She says all the time they're together, he's taking her to the racetrack, having her teach him to count cards and play poker using statistics and probability, encouraging her math skills. That's all they ever do. No movies or putt-putt golf or concerts. None of the usual date stuff.”
“If this chick is rich and math smart, he sounds like a gambler who has hit the lottery,” MJ says, not knowing how right she is about that lottery part.
“But she had to teach him to play poker. What hard-core gambler doesn't know poker?”
“Maybe he's taking a page from the girl handbook of dating.”
There's a handbook? Somebody should have told me because I could seriously use it right about now. “How do you mean?”
“You know, act like you're stupid about something to make a guy feel brilliant. Personally, I think that's some bullâ”
“So you're saying he knows how to play,” I say, interrupting MJ, back to thinking I did see what I thought I saw last night. “But he's pretending not to know so she can teach him to play better.”
“She can teach him to play better
and
he can use her to fund his habit.”
“Thanks, MJ, you helped a lot, but I gotta go now,” I say, glad she helped me brainstorm. But now I'm ready to think through some things on my own.
“About the bodega thingâ”
“I swear, MJ, don't worry. That's the last thing on my mind right now. Talk to you later.”
What I told MJ was partly true. I'm not concerned with her involvement in the holdupâfor nowâbut I'm more certain than ever that Cole somehow staged the whole thing. Now I'm thinking he isn't just a guy with a girl who is so crazy about him she can't see that he's not at all crazy about her, at least not the way she wants him to be.
All those blue ribbons on Bethanie's corkboard in her roomâI bet they were for her math skills. They have math bowls that are like spelling bees. They don't get as much press as spelling bees, but if you're good enough to win as many times as Bethanie has, you've probably made the news once or twice. Maybe Cole learned about Bethanie when they were both here in Atlantaâabout her math skills and her father's winning lottery ticketâand he tracked her down in Colorado to turn her into his ATM and math coach. What if Cole really is the guy Lana is looking for?
But if Bethanie already has the money and is clearly willing to share her wealth with him, why would he need to gamble at all? I like MJ's theory about the scam he's running on Bethanie, pretending to know nothing about the game so she can teach him, because what girl can pass up the chance to turn a guy into a project? Cole is new to Denver and from what I can guess, he arrived about the same time as the Larsens. Add all that to the fact he has no job but lives large without taking Bethanie's money (so far, anyway), and won't give his last name, and you can see how I'd jump to conclusions.