Lucky Me

by Saba Kapur

  “Say something,” he hissed.

  “You say something!”

  “Gia!”

  “I can hear you, you know,” came the auto-tuned voice through the speaker, and Jack and I froze.

  “Hey man,” I said, and Jack closed his eyes, shaking his head. “W—What’s going on?”

  “I suggest you stop this childish investigation, Gia.” Dr. D said.

  Jack held the phone between us and we listened silently, waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t I looked at Jack and he shrugged.

  “Hello?” I said, leaning in closer to the phone so Dr. D could hear me.

  “You need to stop searching for answers. You’ll get them eventually. Investigating will only get you hurt.”

  I would have been shitting myself if it hadn’t been for the auto-tune. Don’t get me wrong, I was still freaked as heck. But the editing of his voice kept making me want to laugh. It’s hard to take someone seriously if they’re threatening you in singsong.

  “Are you here right now?” I asked him, scanning my surroundings.

  I couldn’t see any creepy lurkers, peeping out from behind trees with binoculars, dressed in black from head-to-toe. There was silence for a few seconds and I looked at Jack expectantly. He was staring intently at the phone in his hands, waiting for Dr. D to reply.

  “Let this be a warning call,” Dr. D finally said. “Or else I’ll be forced to put the pain in T-Pain.”

  The line went dead and Jack and I stared at the phone for a few more seconds in silence before he handed the phone back to me. I replaced it in my pocket shakily, as Jack put a comforting arm around my shoulder. Under other circumstances, I would have been overjoyed, but my heart could only deal with one extreme emotion at a time, and fear was definitely winning over lust.

  “He didn’t actually just say that, did he?” I asked Jack.

  “It was super lame, but I think he did.”

  “Well what do we do now?”

  He thought about it for a beat as I gave a defeated sigh. Jack looked at me, almost smiling but not quite. A part of him was secretly enjoying the thrill, I could tell.

  “Well,” he said. “Get your party shoes on.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Winterses’ household was packed with cops the next afternoon. They were scattered across all rooms, searching for any electronic bugs that may have been planted anywhere in the house, allowing Dr. D inside access into everything I do. Everything had been arranged the night before, when Detective Reynolds had suggested that we let the LAPD do a scan of the house for any listening devices or cameras that shouldn’t be there.

  Dad hadn’t believed for one second that I was just at school, but he’d been surprising cool about the whole thing, losing interest after a few questions. It was probably because Mom had told him to suck it up and let me live my life. He did, however, tell me that I was still under house arrest and needed his permission to even open the window, which I promised I would adhere to. And I really meant it for five minutes. Maybe it was because Jack was always around so he knew I’d be safe, or maybe he had just given up on me. Either way, he had given me a pleasant surprise, but I made a mental note not to push my luck.

  Jack and I couldn’t tell my parents about the latest phone call from Dr. D because that would involve us going into detail about where we were and what we were doing. But Jack had assured me that he had informed Kenny and Detective Reynolds in private. The party on Saturday was still our little secret though. It probably wasn’t a brilliant idea to keep secrets about this particular issue, but really, Dad was leaving me no choice with his psycho protective behavior.

  But he was the last thing on my mind as I watched in dismay as two complete strangers dismantled my phone on the kitchen island. I know he was just doing his job, but if that cop so much as scratched my specially made gold back cover, there would be hell in all forms coming his way. I was concentrating so hard on the destruction of my phone that I didn’t realize Milo had quietly slipped into the room and taken a place next to me, leaning against the entrance of the kitchen.

  “Hey,” he said with a smile. “How’s it going?”

  My whole body tensed as I mustered an animated smile. “Good I guess. Not sure how I feel about this guy destroying my phone though.”

  Milo gave a light laugh and said, “We’re just double checking to see if there are any listening devices embedded in it. You’ll have it back in no time, don’t worry. These guys are experts.”

  I frowned at the officers who were still working on removing the back of my iPhone. I looked away before I started yelling about his lack of care with what I considered to be my lifeline.

  “So how’s the investigation going?” I asked Milo.

  “Pretty good. We still don’t really know how everything ties together, but if we find anything in your house today we can get a better idea of who we’re dealing with.”

  There was a big chance Milo was sounding optimistic just to keep me from freaking out any more than I already was. Because from where I was standing, finding listening devices in my home was by no means a good potential outcome. But what did I know? He was the officer-in-training, not me.

  Milo walked further into the kitchen, the other officers ignoring him completely. I didn’t follow him, choosing to stay put near the entrance. Getting in close proximity to Milo would involve a lot of restraint on my part, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me. The further the distance, the safer my hormones were.

  “I like the Hepburn poster,” he said, fiddling with the cuff of his uniform.

  “The what?”

  “In your room,” Milo said. “The one above the bed. It’s nice.”

  My face drained of color. Milo Fells had been inside my bedroom, and I hadn’t even gotten a chance to enjoy the special moment! What kind of cruel joke was the universe playing on me? Even worse, what if I had accidently left a bra lying on the floor or something? I mean, you got to at least take a girl to dinner before you check out her Guia La Bruna.

  “Um, thanks. She’s my favorite.”

  “I just knew you’d be into the girly stuff,” Milo said with a teasing smile. “I took one look at you and thought, yep, that’s a Tiffany’s kind of girl.”

  Hopefully he would remember that analysis when he was buying me an engagement ring. I took a couple of steps into the kitchen, deciding I was brave enough to test the waters of this conversation.

  “Oh really?” I said, as if challenging him. “What about you, smarty-pants? Are you a Tiffany’s kind of guy?”

  Milo’s smile widened. “I’m more of a Diehard kind of guy. It goes with my cop image.”

  I froze, racking my brains but coming up short. It’s like my mind had decided to temporarily go on holiday to the Bahamas. There were so many random violent movies with macho names that I had lost count.

  “Oh,” I said, as if I knew exactly which one he was talking about. Fake it ‘till you make it. “Yeah. Yeah! I love that movie! That’s the one with the guns. And the fighting. And the guys, you know, and that chick.”

  Milo was clearly suppressing a laugh when he said, “You’ve seen Diehard?”

  I gave him my best deeply offended look. “Of course I’ve seen Diehard! It’s only like my fourth favorite movie!”

  “Okay. Who’s the main actor?”

  Oh crap. He got me there!

  “Um . . .” I said, wondering if he would notice if I Googled it quickly. “It’s um, that guy . . . Harrison Ford.”

  Milo just stared at me for a few seconds, looking amused. “You mean Bruce Willis?” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  “Well what d’ya know? We found one,” one of the officers said.

  I sighed with relief. If Random Cop One hadn’t stepped in, I would probably have resorted to making up facts about Bruce Willis just
to keep my cover, and I wasn’t so great at fake trivia.

  “You found a bug?” I asked, leaning in closer. My phone was now unrecognizable as it lay completely dismantled on the kitchen island, tiny silver pieces scattered around it.

  Random Officer Two held up a small pair of tweezers with a tiny black thing attached at the tip. “There it is.”

  “He bugged my phone?” I exclaimed. I had been totally convinced they were wasting their time. “How could he have gotten to my phone? I always have it on me!”

  “Clearly not,” Random Officer One said, and I scowled.

  “It might have been the UCLA kid,” Officer Two said, placing the bug on the counter next to the rest of my phone’s insides. “He’s a tech student, so he’d know his way around your phone.”

  Well that was dandy and all, but I was more worried about how he reached my phone. Fear crept up my spine. What if he had snuck into the house while I was asleep? Our security was great, but this guy was clearly crafty. Officer One reached into his LAPD jacket and pulled out a similar black device to the bug, placing it inside the back of my phone, exactly where the other one had been.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “Didn’t we just take out a bug?”

  “Yeah.” Milo said. “Now we’re bugging your phone.”

  “I don’t get it. Isn’t that the bad guy’s job?”

  Milo’s lips curved into a half-smile. “Usually. But sometimes the good guys can use it to their advantage too.”

  “So . . . what does that mean?”

  “It means,” Officer Two said, restoring the small silver objects to their original places. He must have worked part-time at Apple in a previous life. “Next time Dr. D calls you, we’ll automatically be alerted and be able to listen in on the call. And if you keep him on the line for at least sixty seconds, we’ll be able to trace the call.”

  Alright, that was a little badass. Plus, it seemed simple enough. If bugging my phone meant that we’d be able to end all this drama in sixty seconds, I was down for that. The only problem was, those golden sixty seconds could still be ages away, and just the idea of that was making me restless.

  “So what do I do in the meantime?” I asked the officers. “While we wait for him to call, I mean.”

  “Sit tight,” Officer Two said, sliding my now completely intact phone across the counter toward me. “Don’t stress. Maybe invest in a guard dog.”

  “I already have a dog,” I told him.

  As if perfectly timed for the moment, Famous shuffled past the entrance of the kitchen and disappeared down the foyer. He seemed completely unfazed by the strangers dispersed around the house, and was concentrating heavily on sniffing the polished floor.

  “Yeah,” Officer One said with a snort. “Trained killer that one is.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the two officers, fighting back an aggressive eye roll. I sincerely hoped Milo’s police training didn’t involve cracking lame jokes, or else my love story would have a big problem.

  “I’m going to go update Reynolds,” Officer One said, after he had finished chuckling. “You guys check out the study; see if there’s anything there.”

  “You coming, Fells?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The two officers left the kitchen, leaving Milo and I alone in silence, except for the distant noises of the many cops shuffling around the house.

  “I better go check out the study,” he said, finally breaking the awkward tension.

  “Right.” I nodded. “I better go check the . . . fridge.”

  “Right.”

  Milo headed for entrance, and I slapped a hand over my eyes, my back to him. Fridge? Real smooth, Gia.

  “Hey, are you going to that Halloween party this weekend?”

  I lowered my hand and turned to face him. “What?”

  “I didn’t mean to pry,” Milo said. “I just saw the invite on your desk, and I was curious. I’ve got a few friends who go to school at UCLA, so I got an invite too. Are you planning on going?”

  I blinked at him for a few seconds, unsure of what the right answer was. Jack and I had thought about going, but hadn’t come to a decision yet. But if Milo was going to be there, I definitely needed to re-evaluate my options.

  “I don’t really know too many people there,” I told him. “But I might. How about you?”

  “It’s not really my scene,” he said with a smile. “But if you wanted some company then I’d be happy to tag along.”

  Um, YES. That would be fabulous, thanks. A night out with Milo Fells would make my life. I just needed to work around the whole bodyguard dilemma. There was no way I could get Milo to fall in love with me with Jack always standing an inch away. Plus, there was still the issue of Brendan, who at the end of the day, was still technically my boyfriend. Technicalities. They’ll always get you.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m always up for a good shindig!”

  Oh good God. Why couldn’t the ground just split into two and swallow me up? Never in my entire life had used the word “shindig” like some kind of hippie living in a van, and my brain had chosen that exact moment to make a life change. Jack appeared suddenly in the doorway, allowing me a second to cringe as the attention shifted to him. He looked at Milo, then at me, and back at Milo.

  “The officer with the unibrow is looking for you,” Jack told him. “I think he wants to check out the fourth floor.”

  “Thanks,” Milo replied. He glanced at me with a smile. “I’d better go check it out.”

  My over-enthusiastic smile didn’t drop until he had left the kitchen, and his footsteps were no longer audible in the foyer.

  “What?” I snapped at Jack, who was clearly itching to pass some judgement.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Yeah, but you’re going to.”

  “Gia,” Jack said, giving me a knowing look. “He seems a little more interested in getting in your pants than actually solving this case.”

  I stared at Jack for a few seconds. “Is that bad?”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “You’re beyond help.”

  “What’s it to you anyway?” I demanded.

  “I’m actually doing something to keep you safe,” Jack replied, looking annoyed. “He’s just playing footsies in the kitchen while everyone else is doing their job.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “What, are you jealous?”

  “I don’t do jealous, Gia,” Jack replied with a scoff. “Besides, he’s not even a real cop! It’s like playing dress-up.”

  There was an awkward silence as Jack and I glared at each other. What the hell was he so worked up about? Jack was acting way out of line for someone who didn’t seem to give a damn about my personal life on any other day.

  I opened my mouth to continue fighting, but the sound of a familiar voice calling my name out caught me off guard.

  “Brendan?” I said, more to myself.

  “Gia?” Brendan repeated, his voice coming from somewhere near the front door.

  “Oh my God,” I said, eyes widened. “Brendan!”

  Speaking of jealousy, Brendan really did have the worst timing. My boyfriend was in the same house as Jack, my extremely attractive but equally frustrating bodyguard whom he hated, as well as my perpetually annoyed father and the future love of my life, Milo. My L.A. mansion had turned into the House of Horror in the blink of an eye.

  I pushed past Jack roughly, passing four LAPD cops as I ran to the front door in a panic. If I got to him before Dad, then maybe I could do some damage control. Unfortunately for me, Dad was already at the front door, alongside an officer I had forgotten the name off. He was watching Brendan disapprovingly, Aria and Veronica unexpectedly standing by his side.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed, a little out of breath. “Hey guys.”

  “Hey Gia!” Brendan replied. He look
ed like he wanted to hug me, but kept glancing nervously at Dad who was now eyeing the gun holstered on the officer’s belt.

  “Can we talk?” Aria said, giving me a little smile.

  “Nice to see you kids again,” Dad said politely, and frowned at Brendan one last time before making his way down the hallway.

  I led the gang into the closest living room, awkwardly watching two cops make their way past me. I had no clue why we needed so many officers to search the house! Sure, six stories is a lot, but Dad had practically ordered the whole of the police department to conduct the process.

  “So what are you guys doing here?” I asked once the police officers had left the room. Brendan took a seat uncomfortably on the edge of the sofa, but the rest of us remained standing.

  “I needed to talk to you about something but my car broke down at school,” Brendan explained. “So Veronica and Aria gave me a lift.”

  “You’re never at school anymore,” Aria said, as if I hadn’t noticed. “So we figured we’d all stop by and see what’s going on.”

  “Nothing’s going on,” I lied.

  Veronica raised her eyebrows and said, “Gia, you and Jack are always AWOL, you never reply to our texts or calls, there are cops all over your house and a giant police van parked in your driveway. Want to tell me again how nothing’s going on?”

  “I’ve been sick. Super sick,” I said nervously. “So has Jack. I think he caught it from me.”

  Brendan, Aria and Veronica evaluated my appearance as I fidgeted uncomfortably. An Alexander Wang romper and a full set of makeup didn’t exactly scream illness. The outfit had been planned with Milo in mind, not an impromptu high school reunion!

  “You don’t look sick,” Veronica said.

  “Well, I am.”

  “And then what?” Aria asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “You decided to kill someone? What’s with all the cops?”

  “Does this have something to do with Dr. D?” Veronica asked, and my eyes widened in alarm.