Return to Paradise
Page 14It’s a little past 8 a.m. when Sarah comes outside, and I feel so supercharged with happiness and relief. She’s still here. They’ve let her go. Maybe this will end up all right after all.
Sarah looks a little scared, and it’s my first instinct to jump out and sprint straight to her. Instead, I drive along beside her as she walks down the street.
“Sarah,” I say as I pull up to the curb. The whites of her eyes are red, like she’s been crying recently. “Get in.”
“My parents are coming,” she says. “They came to the station when they realized I wasn’t at home and stuff was going crazy outside, but the agents at the front desk made them go back home—threatened to have them arrested if they stayed around asking questions about what happened. I told them to pick me up at the grocery store down the street so they wouldn’t have to come back in. They’re going to have so many questions.”
“Tell them I’m taking you home.”
“My cell phone’s gone.”
“You can use my mine,” I say, leaning over and opening the passenger-side door.
After a short phone call—lots of “I’ll explain in five minutes when I’m home”—she hands me back my phone and lowers her head into her hands.
“What are you going to tell them?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. Maybe I can tell them I need some sleep before we talk.”
“No,” she says through her fingers. “John came back. I got super emotional and weird with him because I was feeling so crappy about everything before he just magically showed up, and then the FBI tackled me. I don’t know where John is now, and I am officially pegged as a person who is somehow connected to all this. I’ve been sitting in an interrogation room for the last three hours.”
“What’d you tell them?”
“Nothing,” she says. “It was that Walker agent and a few other people. Noto. And some guy named Purdy.”
I note the name—the agent GUARD talked to on the phone. Is he the one in charge of everything going on in town?
Sarah continues.
“They wanted to know why John came to see me, and I told them it was because we made out a few times before he went crazy and he probably thought that I’d do it again if he showed up and threw pebbles at my window like we were in some kind of rom-com. I just pretended to be dumb.”
“And they believed that?”
“No, I don’t think so. But they let me go, at least. They have John. I think that’s all they really cared about. They just told me to make sure I didn’t leave town or there’d be trouble.” She shakes her head. “I’m on a freaking no fly list they said, as if I’d try to skip the country or something.”
“Shit.”
“No, it’s mine. My dad saw the text you sent. I shouldn’t have let that happen.”
She looks surprised about this for a second—even happy that what happened last night might not have been her fault. Then her face falls.
“They were probably watching me anyway. I should have told him, but instead I just ran outside. I was so happy to see him.”
“You don’t know that they had eyes on you.”
“I don’t know what they’ve done with him,” she says. Her voice is about to crack. “John . . .”
“I think he’s in Dumont. There’s some kind of FBI facility near the state border.”
“What?!” she practically shouts, jumping in her seat and straining against the seat belt. “We have to go. I have to talk to him. I have to explain to him that I didn’t—”
“No way, Sarah. You were just held and interrogated for being caught with him. You may not realize this now, but they could have arrested you for helping a criminal. The dude is on the most-wanted list, Sarah. I’m not taking you to an FBI prison so you can get yourself in more trouble. It’s not what he would want.”
The words come spilling out of me. Suddenly I’m hearing John’s voice in my head. That I have to make sure she’s kept safe. And right now, that means keeping her as far away from the Loric and the Mogs as I can.
“I guess you’re right. Sam was with him, but Six wasn’t. She’ll track them down if he’s in trouble, I bet.”
“I’m sure. She’s one girl I’d hate to have mad at me.”
Sarah scowls a little, but I can’t decipher what the expression means.
“I’ve got to buy a new phone,” she says. “Or try to get mine back from the FBI.” She gets quieter. “Like that’ll ever happen.”
“You should buy a burner phone.”
“A what?”
“You know,” I say. “Like they have in shows about drug dealers and stuff. A prepaid cell phone. You know the FBI’s going to be tracking every text message and call you get on your old number.”
“God. Are we like drug dealers now?” she asks, staring out the window of my truck like I’ve watched her do a thousand times. “How is this our lives?”
“Don’t blame me,” I say. “Blame the impending war for our planet between the humanoid aliens and shark-faced bastards with magical swords.”