Rhythm & Clues: A Young Adult Novel (25 page)

“She wants to join our band.” His jaw was tight, and his shoulders were pushed back, full of tension.

“No,” I said, but I wasn’t sure I even had a choice. Isla had found a way to wedge herself into Gavin’s life. She’d find a way into the band too.

He pulled hard on my door handle to open it for me. I moved toward him, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him goodnight, but he turned his head away from me.

I swallowed hard as tears charged against my eye. “All right then. I’ll see you Monday, I guess.” My words came out equal parts hurt and angry.

He snapped his head toward me. “Moxie, listen. I’m not saying what just happened was a mistake. But…” He seemed to be struggling, trying to think of the right words. “You might be better off not getting involved right now.”

Involved with him?

After he went inside without another word, I sat inside my car for several minutes, trying to make sense of everything that had just happened. Until I came to the conclusion that none of it made sense.

Present Day

“L
ook, a note!” Isla points to the Tully front door where an envelope flaps in the wind, adhered by a strip of tape. “Maybe you’re parents left you a way in.”

Sabrina turns to me, eyes wide. “Hang on…I destroyed the note my parents left.”

I creep closer to the door, my pulse amping as I spot Josephine’s name inscribed on the envelope. Sabrina rips it off, and we all huddle together to look at the note inside.

Josephine,

I’m sick with worry. I spotted Sabrina out of school today, riding around with some hoodlum girl. I recognized her car from a few weeks ago when I saw Gavin trying to do a good deed of helping her load a decrepit couch from the street. I think she was trying to mug him. He didn’t seem to know her so I waved it off, but now I’m second-guessing that decision.

The girls glance at me, but I roll my eyes and keep reading.

I’m beside myself with guilt, worrying I could have done more to prevent your children from this girl’s influences. I worry for their safety and reputation. So when I saw her with Sabrina, I followed them to a filthy warehouse! My worst fears were confirmed when I found a box of junk in the girl’s car, and inside it was a bag of cocaine.

I clamp a hand over my mouth. “The bag of white powder!” Sabrina and I said at the same time.

I’m so sorry, Josephine, but I lost track of them before I could rescue Sabrina. I drove to your house to tell you what was going on, but you had just left. I was honking at your car for miles and you’re phone’s been disconnected!

Please call me as soon as you get this. If I don’t hear from you by tonight, I’m going to call the police. I don’t want to involve them without your consent, but I can’t let this sit on my conscience much longer.

Sincerely,

Noreen Waverly

“Mrs. Waverly drove the Ford Focus!” Sabrina breathes a sigh of relief.

But my stomach swirls at the mention of the police. “You should call her and smooth things over.”

Isla hands over her phone and Sabrina dials quickly. “Hi, Mrs. Waverly.” Her voice rattles. “Yes, I’m alright.”

She listens for a moment as the wind picks up her wavy brown hair and whips it around her face. Leafy green trees sway in the distance, the only sound on the eerie, quiet street.

“Mrs. Waverly, please calm down. Everything is okay.”

Sabrina waves her hand in a circle as Mrs. Waverly talks her ear off.

“I didn’t go to a warehouse!” She bites her lip. “Are you sure it was me?”

Another muffled rush issues from the phone.

“No, she’s not here right now. She’s…right. She’s at…the hospital.” Sabrina winces when she says it. “Nothing serious! She just, um, cut her finger cooking and needed stitches.” Loud talking interrupts her. “No! I’m with…I’m at school. So you don’t have to come get me. Yeah, okay that sounds good. Gavin’s here too. Okay, I’ll see you later.” Sabrina bites her lip. “Yeah, gotta go. Thanks for checking in on us.”

She clicks the phone off. “Oh my God!” She covers her face in her hands. “She tried to trap me! She asked where my mom was and then oh-so-casually mentioned how she’d called in sick for her teaching job. Ugh. But at least I bought us more time. She’s picking Gavin and me up at school at three o’clock. When we don’t show up, I’m sure she’ll call the police for real.”

I blow my bangs out of my face. “So, how are we going to get inside you house?”

“Anyone have an ax?” Something about Isla’s smile tells me she thinks this more hilarious than dangerous.

I sigh heavily. “Let’s check every door and window in case the boards are loose.”

I stomp down the steps and skirt around the back before the others. My feet stop dead at the sight of the sliding glass door. The doorframe juts out, warped and bent at an odd angle. Glass glints off the ground, cut in shards. A hole gapes in the slashed screen door.

A cold, crackling sensation races down my spine. “Guys.” I swallow hard against my dry throat, my words becoming more panicked with each one. “You better come here.”

I run across the deck, pulse pounding as I step over the wood panel that used to board of the door. Hack marks trace the surface, splinters bursting from every edge.

We won’t have to break into the house. Someone had done it for us.

When the girls join me, Sabrina gasps, clamping a hand over her mouth.

Isla curses under her breath, backing away toward the edge of the deck. “Is it—safe?”

Sabrina scrambles back a few steps, grabbing her shoulders and rocking back and forth on her toes.

“I highly doubt anyone’d stick around.” Someone has to have balls here. I risk ducking underneath the glass spikes still stuck to the frame and enter the Tully kitchen. Contents spill from open drawers like stuffed animals with ripped seams. Broken cups and plates litter the tile floor. A mess of papers covers a desk, distributed as if someone was spreading them like a deck of cards. A glimpse at the living room down the hall reveals open cabinets and objects sitting askew. “Sabrina, this place looks like it was searched. I need you to tell me if anything is missing.”

She lets out a whimper but ducks into the kitchen. My chest squeezes at her cry of anguish upon seeing the mess. I wade through the piles of papers strewn about the floor, my shoes leaving footprints as I swing open the basement door.

Sabrina rushes to my side, grabbing on to my arm. “Nothing’s down there. No one uses that place anymore.”

“Gavin does. Right, Isla?” I wink at Isla as she crawls inside. My heart thumps at the memory of Friday night…and of Gavin’s insinuation that Isla had been here as well.

She squints at me. “What are you talking about?”

I scoff out a laugh at her feign of innocence and descend the steps two at a time. “Didn’t you teach Gavin how to play guitar down here?” The stomp of feet behind me indicates the girls decided to follow.

When we reach the closet door, she grabs my arm, her eyes swimming back and forth to assess my face. “Wait, did he bring
you
down here?”

“What are you talking about?” I mock, throwing her own words back in her face.

When I open the closet door, I breathe a sigh of relief as my knees sink onto the familiar pillows. A tinny sound reverberates and I dig beneath the fabric to find the ukulele. “Does this ring a bell?” I pass it to Isla.

“Ha!” she exclaims, and my heart sinks. “Gavin bought one of these! I told him to, but I didn’t think he actually would.” She strums
Breaking Free of Silence
in perfect rhythm.

My body thrums. Is this really her first time seeing the guitar? The closet?

“Whoa.” Sabrina crawls in behind me. “I had no idea Gavin hung out down here.”

“It’s his hideaway.” I run my hand over the wall, searching for the spot I’d kicked in. The white powder must refer to the dried plaster Gavin used to repair the wall. The hole has been freshly plastered and when I’d kicked it in, he’d thrown himself in front of it to shield it. There was something he didn’t want me to see. Maybe something inside.

As I scour the dry wall, I come across a spot that isn’t smooth, but contains bumps and scrape marks. Relief washes over me. This is it. “Stand back!”

Sabrina scrambles back toward the entrance. I lean against the opposite wall, bring my knees in, then launch them forward. My foot breaks through the wall with a sickening crack. White powder falls with the pitter patter of rain.

“Oh my God!” Sabrina shouts. “What are you—”

I stick my hand into drafty the hole. A wide open space greets my palm and my fingers graze over the crumbs from the wall coating the floor. I sweep away the particles until I touch on some soft padding rolled like a tube.

I pull it back out of the hole, knocking away more plaster. My eyes drink in a manilla envelope. This was what Gavin didn’t want me to see. “Something tells me this is what the intruder was looking for.”

Sabrina grabs it out of my hands and shakes off the plaster. “How did you know this was here? Did Gavin tell you? Why didn’t we come here first?” She crawls out of the closet so she can get a better look in the light.

“I didn’t realize the white powder referred to this until we were at the beach.” I blink against the harsh basement light as I emerge from the closet.

Sabrina raises a brow. “What does
1 of 2
mean then? It was written on the bag.”

I’ve been thinking about that. “Was Gavin good at chemistry? The only thing I can think of is that it meant
two
states of matter. It’s powder now. But the last time I saw it, it was liquid.”

“Last time you saw it? You knew where the hole was. How?” Sabrina’s eyes narrow.

I avoid Isla’s eyes. “Gavin and I came here Friday night… to be alone.”

“Alone as in making out?” Isla asks. “Or alone as in finding a mysterious hole in the wall?”

I bite my lip. “Do you want me to answer that?”

Isla lets out a strangled cry at my insinuation.

“I knew it!” Sabrina shrieks.

I tell them about accidentally kicking the wall but I leave off the catalyst for it. The kiss. Being ticklish.

Isla falls back into one of the desks, grabbing the side for support. “And then he called me for a date. Great. I’m sloppy seconds.”

“Well, if he didn’t want you to see this…then it must be important.” Sabrina opens the file.

The three of us huddle under the light, flipping through the files. Legal jargon fills the pages, all dated in 2001.

“2001. That doesn’t match 1994,” I point out.

“Wow, Moxie, you’re astute,” Isla says, an edge to her voice.

Guilt seizes me and my chest constricts. I shouldn’t have rubbed it in. I open my mouth to apologize but it comes out as anger. “Don’t be mad at me for kissing Gavin, okay? I thought we were getting along.”

I expect a biting comeback. But instead she just nods. “Sorry.”

I point at the phrase
Now, therefore, in consideration with the mutual promises, benefits, and covenants contained herein
, which in my eyes, is basically gibberish. “Do you guys understand this?”

They shake their heads. There are several places where Chuck signed his name, but a blank line rests under each spot, as if perpetually waiting for another signature. Dennis Cunningham’s name appears printed several times on the documents. Maybe he’s the absent signature.

“I have no idea what it says, but I know someone who might.” Isla checks her watch. “Becca doesn’t have lunch for another few hours. I can try her then.”

“Maybe this is the evidence Gavin referred to.” I animate the pages one more time. “But then why do we need a VCR?”

Isla shakes her head. “Legal documents can’t be evidence.”

“Wait, what’s that?” Sabrina yanks the papers out of my hands. She flips the last sheet over, revealing handwriting on the back of the page.

“All it takes is one call, my friend, and that happy little family of yours will blow away like dust on a prairie. Stay away from Lockhart. And from me.”