#scenebreak
As we drove, I sent a text: dance cru @ studio. now. pls. Fxtrt.
My phone didn’t buzz once, but the studio was already bustling when we arrived. They must’ve already congregated.
So. . . there we were. . . Awk-ward.
Everyone shouted at me at the same time.
“Shut up,” Ms. D yelled. “We all know Ethan’s a piece of shit. Fine. Can we please move past that and try to help your friend?”
Murmurs of confusion told her some of them weren’t sure who Ethan was. She rolled her eyes and pointed at me. “Foxtrot,” she amended. “Man, you people are obsessive about nicknames.” Hands in her pockets, she surveyed everyone there. “I’m Ethan’s attorney, and I’m the best shot any of you have at staying out of jail and God help you all. Call me Saundra.”
Now they were interested. While she spoke, I checked out the room. Not everyone was there.
“As we speak, my interns are compiling a class action suit on behalf of everyone you know for wrongful imprisonment, mental anguish and anything else they can make up a Latin name for.”
Ephraim and Woody were missing, and we were short one girl. Mono, who was usually almost invisible, anyway.
“It’s mostly meant to scare Officer Warren and his little friend and to keep them scurrying around chasing their tails while the twenty-four hours runs out and the real police can step in. We’re going to e-mail a preliminary draft to get their attention.” She looked at me. “They have internet out here, right?”
“Is she serious?” Juicy muttered.
“Of course, they do,” I said.
No one would look at me. Cosita’s elaborate shoulder shrug and turn made it obvious she was keeping her back to me on purpose.
“I see Ethan’s father didn’t exaggerate everyone’s current disdain for his son,” Saundra said. “Please understand I don’t give a shit what you think about him right now. I’m here to help find this girl and her kidnapper.”
“You can do that?” Taco asked.
She waved him off. “I’m not a cop, but I’m hoping to piece something together by the time the state police are involved.” She looked at her tablet. “Which one of you is Gertrude?”
Snickers.
“My friends call me Juicy.”
“So I’ve heard.” Saundra pointed from Juicy to me. “You and Ethan are going to be suspects number one and two, with you at the top.”
The crowd murmured and Juicy shrank. Cosita threw an arm around her. Hmm?
“The two of you are the only ones with a motive for the prior stalking.” Saundra looked Juicy straight in the eye. “You actually were a secret admirer and have a history of lying. Also, the keys Ethan found had the Juicy Couture key tag.” She stepped closer. “Could’ve been a gift to Katy from her best friend. Could also be that her best friend had a key to her mother’s car. Katy was in the trunk and you left the engine running while you went into the studio to clean up after a struggle. When Ethan blundered in, you knocked him out, took Katy’s keys from her purse and beat it.”
Juicy turned pale. “You really think I could fucking do that?”
Saundra stared at her. “I don’t know you well enough to have an opinion. But Ethan tells me you wouldn’t.”
Juicy looked my way, gratitude written across her face.
The lawyer towered over her. “The problem is you look guilty.” She moved away. “I don’t buy the football player theory, either. If this was just revenge, there are a lot of ways to get even with someone without committing a felony. Those guys had enough control to keep from killing Ethan. Why suddenly go postal before it even goes to trial?” She leaned against the barre. “Frankly, it could be any of you.”
Murmurs ran through the group. Crap, that had come from out of the blue. I’d missed my chance to read anyone’s reaction.
Saundra’s sly smile told me she hadn’t missed out. “I’m convinced the ‘sick little twist’ who trashed her car is the one who has her now.”
Ring tones and vibrators went off all across the room.
What the hell? Everyone grabbed their cells, including me.
I had a text. From the looks on everyone’s faces, we all did. Mine read: not evn clos
K-pop said, “Not even close?”
For two seconds, everyone froze, then a flurry of fingers typed in a variation on: who r u?
One cell vibrated: mine.
Everyone looked at me.
I opened the message and read it out loud: “The sick little twist.”
They crowded around me to get a look.
“Did he hear me?” Saundra asked the air.
My cell vibrated: how do u no i’m a he?
Murmured cursing surrounded me as the crew read the text on my cell.
Saundra shoved everyone away. “Read the texts out loud, Ethan. I hate that impoverished spelling shit.” She looked around the room. “You can hear us?”
“Yep,” I read off my cell.
Everyone looked around.
“The place must be bugged,” K-pop offered.
Bngo, the txt on my cell began.
“Bingo,” I read out loud. “Naughty, naughty boys and girls.”
At least I wasn’t the only one embarrassed. Apparently most members of the crew had spent time in there doing more than dance.
Saundra took control again. “All right. All right. I don’t care how many of you did the horizontal mambo in the studio.” She addressed her questions to me as if I were the one on the other end of the texts. “You know where Katy is?”
“Yes,” I read.
“Do you have her?”
“No.”
“Did you see who took her?”
“Please tell me there aren’t cameras, too,” Farmer-C whispered.
“No. No cameras,” I read. “Lol.” K-pop and I exchanged a glance. Where was Woody?
Saundra glared at Farmer-C but spoke to the sick little twist on the other end of my cell. “But you heard something?”
“I hear everything,” I read.
I had to ask my own question to the air up there: “Is she hurt?”
“No,” I read. Thank God for that. “At least not when she was taken.” What?
“Where is she?” Saundra asked.
The text read: someplace safe
“What the fuck?” I shouted. “Someplace safe? How the hell can she be safe if she was abducted?”
I read the screen and uttered another string of profanity.
“What’d he say?” Saundra asked.
“What an interesting question.”
“This is a game to you?” Juicy called out. “Tango’s been fucking abducted, and it’s a game to you?”
“Okay, that’s it,” Saundra cut in harshly. “I am the only one to talk to this person. You’re only going to make things worse.”
My cell vibrated. “This person?” I read. “What happened to Sick Little Twist?”
“Oh, that is still on the table,” Saundra admitted. “What do you want?”
“One date.”
That brought a lot more noise until Saundra threatened to kick us out of the studio. “You want one date with Katy as payment for telling us where she is?”
“Guarantee it,” I read. My spidey sense tingled.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” she said too fast for me to stop her. “It’s up to Katy. I’ll pass the request along. . .”
“No guarantee, no Katy,” I read. I looked Saundra in the eye and mouthed the word, “Please?”
After a moment, she nodded.
“Look, Twist.” I hoped that giving the sick little twist a nickname would endear him/her. “I will personally tell Katy you were the one to save her, and I will do everything I can to persuade her to go on that date with you.”
Time passed.
The bell on the door rang and everyone jumped a mile. Shilling shrieked.
The girl in the doorway froze. It was Mono.
K-pop ran over to her while we all fought to catch our breath and dry the pee running down our collective legs.
A message popped up on my screen: fuk u fox. Ur a manpultiv bstrd.
Fuck. I took a deep breath and only barely avoided throwing Dad’s cell across the room. I read the message out loud.
Farmer-C’s cell vibrated. His face turned bright red and he shot me a dark look.
“What’s it say, Corey?” Saundra asked.
He stared me straight in the eye. “How about you, retard. You wanna try?”
I could only hope that my face expressed my self-loathing.
He waited for Saundra’s permission before speaking. “Look, dude. . .” He glanced down at the vibrating cell and rolled his eyes. “Or dudette. You trashed her car. I can’t make any promises. I’ll do what I can, but what planet do you come from that you think—” He stopped when his cell vibrated again.
Saundra stepped closer. “What’s it say?”
“Try,” he read.
He shrugged. “I’ll try.”
He looked down at the cell.
“For a try,” he read, “I’ll give you a clue. 9-1-1.”
“What’s that mean?” Saundra asked.
Farmer-C stared at his cell but nothing happened.
“What do you mean?” the lawyer asked again, louder this time.
Time passed.
The crew fidgeted and muttered, but she waved them into silence.
When nothing seemed likely to happen, she headed for the door and encouraged us all to follow. While she walked, she placed a call. Outside, she led us far from the studio door.
Everything about her mannerisms changed. She stopped under a streetlight, one hand on her hip. “Sebastian Cawley,” she drawled in a thick, Southern Belle accent. Her free hand drifted up to her collarbone as if she were touching a string of pearls. “As I live and breathe, however are you doing?”
We surrounded her in silence, and I, for one, was amazed at the transformation.
K-pop nudged me and asked me with his face if I’d ever seen this act before. I shook my head. This character was new to me. At least, I wasn’t such a pariah he wouldn’t touch me.
“Well, I’m doing just fine, Sebastian. I’m out here in Doo-mahs, Texas, and I need you to see if there were any 9-1-1 calls placed near here. We have a sweet little girl missing, and I do believe she may have placed a call.”
She listened for a second and her face changed to stern and cold. She held up a finger, obviously warning us not to react to what she was about to say. Her voice never changed though. “Well, you know how folks are out here in the sticks, Sebastian, bless their simple little hearts. If we wait for the locals to figure this out, the poor thing’ll die of old age.” She listened. “Mmhm.” More listening. She smiled. “That’s all I can ask, sweetness. Thank you ever so much and please do call me as soon as you know something. Buh-bye.”
She ended the call and was greeted with a smattering of applause.
“We know one thing at least,” she declared. “It’s not anyone here.”
“How can you be sure?” Juicy asked.
“Well, none of you can be the stalker anymore, obviously,” she said. “And when the sick little twist revealed he knew who it was, you all reacted exactly the same, and I know none of you can act as well as I do.”
Which narrowed it down to any of a couple thousand residents I’d never met. I still had my money on the mailman. Although Ephraim and Woody hadn’t shown, yet, either.
“Do you have a way to find the bugs in the studio, ma’am?” Farmer-C asked.
She shook her head and scrolled through her cell. “What do I look like? CSI: Dumass?”
“It’s pronounced Doo-mahs,” Juicy muttered. Cosita put an arm around her shoulders. Maybe Juicy wasn’t as alone as she’d thought?
“Sure it is, sweetie.” Saundra tapped the cell and held it up to her ear. “I do have a guy who can do that sort of thing. Don’t try it yourselves. Depending on what kind of bugs they are my guy may be able to trace them to Sick Little Twist. Max, sweetie, how are you?” Instantly Rastafarian, she gave her full attention to her cell and walked away. How many women was she, and how did she keep track of them all?
Turning around, I faced the dance crew. They stared at me, and I couldn’t tell what any of them thought. I was so worried about Tango and guilty because of my own stupidity I didn’t have a thing to say.
Fortunately, I didn’t need to.
Juicy was the first to wrap her arms around me. “Thanks for telling the scary lawyer lady you knew it wasn’t me.” She squeezed me. “I’m pretty sure she wanted to throw me under the bus to save your ass.”
I held her tight and choked out a laugh. One by one, the rest of the team joined us in a great big group hug. Thank God. Seriously.
“Looks like you’re officially part of the crew, Foxtrot.” K-pop reached over Shilling and held the back of my neck. He pressed his forehead to mine. “It’s not official until you do something totally boneheaded and stupid to piss us off, hai?”
Everyone chuckled.
As grateful and relieved as I was for the gesture and the sentiments, they fell a little flat when the crew released me. Farmer-C wasn’t a part of the huddle. He stood a few feet away with his hands in his pockets.
He nodded to the side, indicating I should follow him.
We walked around a corner and into the alley before he stopped and turned to me. He stared at me before speaking. “Don’t ever call me that again.” His voice was low and shaky with emotion, but I wasn’t sure what the emotion was.
My stomach churned. “Never.”
“I mean it.”
“Me, too.”
“Once is a bonehead accident. Twice says you think it’s true.”
I nodded. “Understood.”
A single tear slid down his cheek. “I’m really scared. I know Tango dumped me, but I still really love her.” He had to stop to swallow. “Really, really love her.” He swallowed again. “And you’re the only one. . . who doesn’t laugh at me. . .” He had to take a breath. “Who doesn’t laugh at me. . .”
I was the only one who didn’t laugh at him when he cried. Jesus. I closed the distance between us and opened my arms. He held me tight and wept silently into my shoulder so no one around the corner would hear him.
When we finally rejoined the group, Ephraim had appeared.
“Where’s Woody?” K-pop asked him.
Ephraim was the crowned king of scoffing. “Bitch didn’t pick me up. Do you have any idea how much guilt a Jewish mother can lay down when you ask her for a ride at the last minute?” He looked around with disdain. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”
“You don’t have your own car?” I asked, trying to make conversation.
The disgust on his face nearly crushed me. “You assume I’m rich because I’m Jewish? Wow. You are so fucking racist.”
Picture me standing there with my mouth open, utterly unable to speak.
eighteen
Twist hugged himself in the middle of his living room, trembling in anger. He’d had to get Fox to help. Fox. The enemy.
But he couldn’t take Katy on his own. He’d tried and failed. He’d found her in the one room in that stupid building where he didn’t have a camera. The sight of her bound and gagged in the flesh had overwhelmed him with desire. He’d been taken by surprise. His face and his ego both held the bruises to prove it.
He wanted to steal her away. He deserved her. She was his. But he’d tried the direct approach and failed. Fox was sure to run in like some stupid hero. Someone would get shot, killed. Maybe both of them, both Fox and the son of a bitch who’d beat Twist to Katy. Ha! And then Twist would be there for her, to hold her, console her after her ordeal, after the death of her gay boyfriend. That’s what would happen.
Twist
moved into the bedroom and leaned his forehead on the shoulder of his favorite Katy, the one in lingerie. He inhaled the scent of the candles and forced himself to calm down. Soon. It would all be over soon. His two greatest enemies would die in a bloody gun battle and he would watch on his tablet, just outside, so he could run in after it was over and hold Katy in his arms, and she’d offer herself to him. Gratefully.