What Goes Around
Page 23
We are pulling into the apartment complex where I live now, the streetlights lighting up the inside of the car. Lighting up Sean’s face.
“Seventeen-ten,” I say. “Up there on the right.” And Sean pulls up in the empty parking spot in front of my front door.
“Well,” I say. “Thanks for the ride.” I look out the window, there’s so much rain pounding down it’s like the whole world is underwater. It’s like here, in this car with Sean, is the only safe place left on earth.
“No problem,” he says.
I reach down and unfasten my seat belt. “So…um.” I know I’m supposed to get out now, but I am struck with the sudden intensity of how much I do not want to. “Well…thanks again.” I cringe, hearing myself. This is ridiculous. I have to go.
I start to reach for the door handle and glance over at him one last time. Our eyes meet and there’s that flash again.
Sean takes a deep breath.
“I had a brother once,” he says. His hair flops over one eye and he pushes it away. “But he died.”
My breath catches in my throat. The rain starts pounding harder now, and there is thunder in the distance.
“What?” I blink.
I watch his mouth.
“My brother died,” he says again. “So that’s how I know about that stuff I said.”
I raise my hand up to my mouth. “Oh God.”
He smiles this sad half smile. “It was a long time ago.” He looks down, looks back up, his face is flushed. “If there was even the slightest chance that I could see him again, that there was something I could do to make that possible, I would never stop trying. Ever. This is fate, Ellie, me meeting you, I think. Because I don’t have a chance to get my brother back. Nothing I do can change the fact that he’s gone. But maybe what I’m supposed to do now is help you.” Sean pauses. “Do you think that sounds crazy?”
I shake my head. I feel something inside me warming up.
“So should I come in, then?” he says. “Maybe see the drawing?”
I hesitate for only the tiniest shred of a second, enough time for me to look through all that rain at the front windows of our building and remember that my mother is working the night shift tonight, which means she is gone now and won’t be home until early in the morning.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “That would be great.”
I realize, as we walk into my room, that this is the first time a guy has ever been up here.
I try and imagine how it must look to Sean, messy unmade bed, a dresser, a nightstand, a desk, a few items of clothing tossed around on the floor. It probably looks like no one spends much time in here, which is true since I’m almost always at Amanda’s.
I sit on my bed and Sean sits in my desk chair and I continue explaining Nina’s drawing. “So then I called the number on there but the guy didn’t know anything, didn’t even remember her. And the guy at the Mothership says he just found the book in the basement and it was practically empty when I was down there, and even if there were any more clues there, they’re all burned up now.”
Sean reaches out his hand and I give him the drawing. My fingertips brush against his, just for a moment. I am very aware of it. Sean holds the drawing close to his face and stares. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t blink, it doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. And I’m wondering if he’s beginning to regret offering to help me since he is probably quickly realizing how futile this is.
“No pressure,” I say. “I mean, or…” And then I stop because Sean’s mouth has just dropped open, and then this huge grin spreads over his face. “Ellie,” he says slowly. His eyes are shining. “Did you notice this?” He jumps off the chair and lands next to me on the bed. He flips the drawing over so I can see the fake credit card printed on the back.
“What about it?” My heart is pounding.
“This is a cardboard credit card.” He taps it with his finger.
I nod, blinking. “Right.”
“And do you know where people get these? With credit card offers in the mail…” Sean is nodding at me, trying to lead me to his conclusion. “So…”
I shake my head slowly. “So…”
“So, your sister turned eighteen only a couple months before she left, right? Credit card companies have this list, of all the people in America who are about to turn eighteen. So they can start sending them credit card offers right around their birthday and sucker them in.”
“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“Chances are your sister got a ton of credit card offers in the mail before she disappeared, right? So what if she actually applied for one?” He turns the card over and points to the bank’s name on the back. “Say from Bank of the USA? I bet we could sign into her account no problem since you’re her sister. All we’d need is her Social Security number, and then we’d probably just have to answer a bunch of random security questions and the answers would be things like your mom’s maiden name and other stuff you’d already know.”
“Oh,” I say. I try and force a smile.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s a nice idea! And thanks for thinking of it!” I frown.
“You’re frowning,” he says.
“I just don’t think it’ll work.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too easy.”
“But that,” Sean looks me straight in the eye, his mouth curled into a mischievous little smile, “is exactly why it’s going to.”
Copyright
Trademarks used herein are owned by their respective trademark owners and are used without permission.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Copyright © 2009 by Denene Millner and Mitzi Miller
All rights reserved. Published by POINT, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, POINT, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Millner, Denene.
What goes around : a Hotlanta novel / Denene Millner, Mitzi Miller. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Wealthy and beautiful African American twin sisters Sydney and Lauren must solve a family mystery before their privileged life in Atlanta comes to an end.
ISBN-13: 978-0-545-00310-0
ISBN-10: 0-545-00310-5
[1. Sisters — Fiction. 2. Twins — Fiction. 3. Wealth — Fiction. 4. Fathers and daughters — Fiction. 5. African Americans — Fiction. 6. Atlanta (Ga.) — Fiction.] I. Miller, Mitzi. II. Title.
PZ7.M63957Wh 2009
[Fic] — dc22
2008036062
* * *
First printing, April 2009
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-545-23165-7
); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share