Rhythm & Clues: A Young Adult Novel (12 page)

I admit, I’m thinking it too, but she seems so scared. So fragile. Like a porcelain doll. I want to offer an alternative. Give her a reason to be strong. “Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe your dad was just testing new locks as part of his construction job. Your house is the guinea pig. And the Ford Focus? That could have been one of your dad’s employees. Like…what if Gavin left a post-it note explaining about the missing supplies he borrowed to board up the warehouse and this guy just drove around to check out Gavin’s handiwork and then came here afterwards.” That doesn’t explain the restaurant, but I keep that little detail to myself.

Sabrina covers her face in her hands. A sniffle escapes, muted by her palms. I reach out to stroke her hair.

She flicks my hand away. “I’m trying the other entrances.”

She starts around the corner. I scan the front of the house, focusing on the windows. Curtains conceal any glimpse inside. Maybe we can break one. When I circle the perimeter to tell Sabrina, I find her standing in the middle of the deck, staring at the back of the house, her arms crossed over her yellow camisole.

“Sabrina?”

She doesn’t move. It’s like she’s gone catatonic.

I run up the steps and nearly trip when I see what distracts her. A giant block of wood is nailed across the sliding glass doors that lead to the kitchen. It reminds me of the warehouse.

Sabrina turns to me, her pupils undulating, her lip puckering. She sits down on the deck, shaking her head. “Do you think it’s my fault?”

I sit next to her, folding my legs underneath my body. “Of course not.”

“That’s the wrong answer. If it’s not my fault, then why…” She doesn’t finish her question. Instead, she hugs her knees to her chest. “Zombies. They must be invading. They drive silver cars. Why else would my parents board up the house? Leave me such a lame note? Flee like their life depended on it. It has to be zombies.” Her voice is all monotone. Like she’s lost all emotion. Like she’s turned into one herself.

I don’t know what to say. I could think of a million witty jokes, but the situation isn’t funny anymore.

I think about how it would feel to have my life turned upside down, to have everyone I loved acting like my enemy, not to know who to trust. And I realize that I’ve been there. Not in the same capacity. But I’ve always only had myself to turn to in times like these. I’m glad Sabrina has me.

“Sabrina…” I start, tentatively. “Everything will be fine once we find Gavin. Let’s get the next clue.”

She gets to her feet, wiping her eyes with the back of her palm. “Yeah. Okay. I don’t want to be here anyway. In case my zombie theory is right.”

“For now, let’s just assume mine is.”

We leave the car in the parking lot and hustle for the clearing where Gavin and I had our heart to heart. No cars follow us this time. I understand the pattern now. The clue won’t be under the picnic table where we sat with Isla. That part wasn’t monumental. With these clues, Gavin is leading me on a museum tour of our friendship. Well, us, really, since he wanted Sabrina along for the tour.

“I’m wearing flip flops. I can’t walk in mud.” Sabrina points to the hiking trail.

“Then wait here.”

“You’d seriously abandon me?” She sounds panicked, not sarcastic.

“No,” I say. “So move it.”

I push Sabrina’s flip flops to the limit, and we make it to the tree in record time. Intricate patterns of overlapping squiggles texture the bark that encases the tree. I hope to find a carving in it. I circle the tree three times before concluding the clue isn’t engraved.

Sabrina picks up a leaf, looks it over, and deposits it into a pile on the ground.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Checking the leaves. Something might be written on one.”

“That’s ridiculous. Gavin’s not that stupid.”

The wind blows and scatters all the leaves. She bends down and picks up some, inspecting them twice, just in case. She sniffles. I shiver, but it isn’t from the breeze.

I comb the area surrounding the tree, trying to think where the clue could be. Frustrated, I hop around, kicking up dirt, the brown mud staining my sneakers. That’s when I notice the rock in the shape of the gnome.

I bend to pick it up and have the answer. “It’s buried,” I say. He must have moved it from the path to this spot as a marker.

Sabrina drops her leaves again and shakes her head. “If it’s buried, it’s your turn. I did the last one.”

I kneel on the ground and dig my fingernails into the dirt in front of the tree where we sat. The dirt feels cold and slimy like wet hamburger meat. I scoop a handful out and toss it behind me.

“Hey!” Sabrina stomps into view, pointing at a clod of dirt sticking to the leg of her jeans. “Look what you did!”

“It was an accident,” I say. And then, because I can’t help myself, I add, “Seeing as you don’t want to help, you should stand to the side with the other princesses.”

“Fine, I’ll help.” With her foot, she kicks dirt onto my backside.

“You want to walk back to Zombie-ville? Or maybe if you hitchhike, a nice silver car will stop for you.” I toss another handful behind me with a bit more gusto. Her shriek tells me she’s still behind me.

“You did that on purpose!”

“Did not.”

“Really?” Several clods of dirt land on my back, each resonating with a soft pitter-patter. Gavin would have loved to use this sound in a song. “I guess that was an accident too.”

I grab a glop of dirt and spin around. Sabrina has both fists in mud and soon we’re flinging gobs of dirt and grass at each other. She shrieks again, but this time in laughter. I join in.

Splotches of brown mud dot her pants like a spotted Dalmatian. I’m sure my own back looks the same way. “Moxie…”

I brace for it, wincing.

“Truce.” She stretches out her hand.

I hold up my dirty palms like I’m under arrest. “Let’s just pretend we shook on it. No need to get you more dirty.”

She nods, and I resume my digging. After a few more scoops, my fingers touch on a smooth object. “I found something.”

“No way!” She squats down next to me. “I never thought that would work.”

“You need to trust me.”

She shrugs. “I’ll doubt you less?”

I unearth a plastic bag with an envelope secured inside. Sabrina rubs her hands together, wiping away most of the dirt. “My hands are cleaner.”

I hand over the bag.

She opens it and pulls out an envelope with a slip of paper inside. “It says ‘
Evidence? 90C.
’ Do you know what 90C is?”

I shake my head. “I take it you don’t either? Evidence. That’s a start though.” Evidence for what? For why Gavin ran away? Or are we searching for some kind of…item that could be construed as evidence?

“Some start.” She drops her hands to her sides and stares into the sky. “God, this is so annoying. I feel like I’m on a wild goose chase. My parents stranded me, these clues seem meaningless, and Gavin might in trouble.” There’s a tremor to her voice.

“Let’s find a washroom, then we’ll regroup and look over what we have so far.”

After cleaning up, we sit down at a table and lay out the clues. “We have this song I recorded unknowingly with an added track of potential construction work sounds. The date your dad possibly proposed to your mom during his senior year of high school: May 19, 1994. A question mark following the word
evidence
. And a random number, 90c. What’s the connection?”

“Things that make sense to Gavin but confuse me. Though, I seem to be out of the loop in my family.” Sabrina chews on her lower lip.

“Well, I am too,” I say to make her feel better. “My mom’s locked me out before. She didn’t come home for three days.” I pick at the chipped wood of the picnic table. “I was only twelve.”

Her eyes widen. “Where’d you go?”

“I busted in a window. She didn’t even notice when she got home. I had to repair it myself.”

“At least all your windows weren’t bordered up.” She sucks on her lower lip.

“I’m not going to abandon you. I told you that.”

“I wouldn’t let you anyway. If you did, I’d break a window at your house.” Sabrina scrolls through the mp3 player again. “Thanks, by the way.”

I nod, but don’t meet her eye.

“So let’s go to your house and put this in the computer. Then we can Google this stuff,” Sabrina suggests.

“That would require me to have a computer.”

She squints at me. “You don’t?”

“It broke a few months ago and we haven’t been able to afford the repairs. I usually just use the one at the library.”

“Let’s go there then.”

It takes five turns of the ignition for my car to start. It putters to life, but then loses steam, deflating like a balloon losing air. The engine growls and sizzles before it purrs happily.

“Is your car going to make it to the library?” Sabrina’s fingers perch on the seatbelt’s release as if she’s going to jump out of the car and walk.

“It’s always touch and go with her.” I don’t add that it’s never taken me quite this long to get her going. I pat the dashboard, caressing her as if she’s a pet dog. Eventually she starts and I drive less than twenty miles an hour, afraid anything faster will put her out of her misery.

When I park the car, I hear a pop. Steam billows out of the hood. “That can’t be good.”

Sabrina touches the hood then snaps her hand back, wincing.

I put my arm around her. “Look on the bright side…at least the person in the Ford Focus won’t be able to follow our car anymore.”

She groans. “How are we going to get the rest of the clues?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“What if the Ford Focus drives around and spots your car? It’s not exactly incognito here.”

She’s right, and we could be here a while. I borrow the front desk phone from the librarian, dial 411, ask to be connected to a tow-truck company. I don’t have enough money to bail out my car and fix it, so I kiss it goodbye one last time and sigh in relief that we really may have accidentally outsmarted the silver Ford Focus.

Inside the library, I borrow a cable from the librarian to hook up the mp3 player. Because school is still in session, the place is quieter than usual.

After I connect the mp3 player, I double click the mp3 player icon that appears on the desktop, checking for hidden files or instructions. But only a single audio track exists on this storage device. What does that mean? Is the carpenter sounds the piece of info we need?

“Maybe Gavin just wants you to remember him?” Sabrina whispers.

“I can’t forget him.” Something catches in my throat so I clear it.

When the browser loads, I type
May 19, 1994
into the search engine box. A few articles pop up from magazines published on that date. Nothing that seems significant.

“We’re searching too broad,” Sabrina says.

In the search box, I write
Chuck Tully and May 19, 1994
, just in case Sabrina’s wrong about the proposal
.
“Hey, can I ask you something?”

“What?”

The screen changes, all text disappearing except for a single line that reads:
Your search did not yield any results.

“Gavin was always doing these little rebellious things to go against your parents. But you didn’t start until your little boarding school scheme. What changed?”

Sabrina smirks. “Nothing changed. My good girl routine was just an act.”

“An act?” I try Josephine’s maiden name and her new name next. Then Gavin’s name. Nothing. “Guess the date doesn’t relate to your parents.”

“See, maybe we shouldn’t suspect them.”

I want to protest and mention the boarded up house, but I know she’s looking for anything to excuse her parents. I can’t relate; I would have held up a red flag the moment they told me I wasn’t attending boarding school. What was the reason they used again? A fire? “Maybe we should look for more information about that fire.”

She snaps her hand back from the desk. “Do you think Gavin had something to do with the fire?”

I groan and type
Lockhart Academy newspaper
into the search window. “There’s got to be an article about it if it happened this past weekend. So, what do you mean by an act?”