Wild Sky

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Dana gave him her best dead-eye glare. “You don’t mind if I check it out? The men’s room and the loft?”

  “Actually I do,” Morgan said, “but that’s not going to stop you, is it?” He turned back to Cal who was now pulling on an Adventure City sweatshirt. “Don’t schedule the wedding date just yet. I suspect Dana and I are not entirely compatible, especially since we both find you a bit uncomfortably attractive. For me, the discomfort comes from your being straight.”

  “You’re gay,” Dana blurted.

  “For Dana, it’s more complicated,” Morgan told Cal. He turned to Dana. “Cal said he wants us to be honest. Do be honest, Dana.”

  “I don’t give a shit that you’re gay,” she blurted.

  “Appreciated,” Morgan said, “but I’m pretty sure Cal was hoping you had something to tell him…?”

  Dana opened her mouth, but then closed her mouth. She opened her mouth again, and said, “Calvin, it’s always been yuh—What?” She closed her mouth and even clapped both her hands over it as she continued to make some very strange sounds, her eyes wide. She turned to look furiously at Morgan.

  “Don’t fight it,” he said. “Yeah, you’re powerful, but, darling, you’re no match for me. Let’s make this easier. Look, Ma, no hands!”

  “Hey,” Cal said as Dana suddenly stood up tall. Her hands flew away from her face as her arms went down straight by her sides.

  “Calvin,” she said, “I really suck at things like love because I’m scared to let people get too close, but I’m so, so crazy about you.” Her eyes welled with horrified tears. “I’d die for you, and I think maybe that means I love you because if anything ever happened to you, I’d fucking kill everyone!”

  “Hey!” Calvin said even louder, his eyes hard as he rolled toward Morgan. “What the hell are you doing to her? You cut that shit out! Right now!”

  “Suit yourself.” Morgan shrugged, and Dana collapsed into herself, nearly falling to the floor as he released her from whatever kind of weird control he’d had over her.

  Calvin was at her side instantly, but it was clear that he didn’t know what to do. He awkwardly reached out and patted her shoulder, but she pulled away, her face hidden in her hands as she muttered, “Oh my God, oh my God…”

  “That was you,” I realized, turning to glare at Morgan, remembering the unexpected declaration of love from the jock named Eric. “At the CoffeeBoy! You can mind-control people into, what? Embarrassing themselves?”

  “Into speaking the truth,” Morgan said. “Your turn, Cal. Fair’s fair. You said you wanted honesty…”

  Cal had been leaning over Dana, but now he straightened in his chair as if a puppet master had yanked hard on his strings. “Dana, I thought I was in love with you from the very first moment I saw you,” he said, “but as I got to know you, I realized just how incredibly special you are and—”

  “Stop it!” Dana said, erupting up from the floor and getting directly in Morgan’s face. “Whatever the hell you’re doing, it is not okay!”

  Morgan held his ground. “And whatever the hell you’re doing? That is okay? Coming here, tracking me down, getting me tangled up in the rest of your drama? Helping Sasha, finding Lacey, saving Jilly? Gods, Calvin, your emails damn near wore me out with the details of your quixotic quests. Tell me, does it ever end? And do you honestly think any of that bullshit is going to matter in the long run?”

  Dana was silent, and I knew admitting as much would be all but impossible for her. So I stepped forward and said it for her—and Cal did, too.

  “Hell, yeah.” He spoke over me as I said, “Absolutely—it matters.”

  Morgan laughed and threw a Can you believe these crazy kids look at Milo, who folded his arms across his chest and quietly said, “We all believe it matters. Whether we save one girl or a hundred. It matters.”

  Morgan shook his perfect head as he turned back to ask Dana, “How many years do you really think we have before we’re kidnapped and bled dry, too? Those of us who are G-Ts, that is. The others, Calvin and Hot-Angst-Guy over here—they’ll just be killed. Brutally, probably while we’re forced to watch. Or maybe we don’t have years before that happens. Maybe we only have months. Days. Hours. Hey, I have a good idea! Let’s spend it doing something else—anything else! Okay?”

  And that was something Dana could respond to. “I’ll spend my last fucking minutes on Earth searching for my sister and yes, protecting my friends, if that’s what I have to do.” She glanced over at Calvin when she said friends, and Morgan laughed again.

  “Oh, we’re back to pretending it’s just friends, are we?” he said. “I’ll tell you what, Dana.” He said her name mockingly, as if it were two separate words. Day. Nah. “I’ll help you. I’ll go meet little Sasha and fish around inside her sad, broken little head for any sign of Lacey.”

  “Sasha’s not broken,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure about that.

  Meanwhile, Dana’s eyes had narrowed. “What’s the catch?”

  “Ooh, you heard that silent but deadly if, did you?” Morgan asked. “If you manage to do anything at all in the next, oh, let’s say…ten minutes. Yes. Starting right now, you have ten minutes to do something that completely surprises little, old jaded me. Ready? Go!”

  Dana laughed, but it was devoid of humor. “Figures you would make it into a game.”

  “It’s life and death for us,” I chimed in.

  “Darling, we’re G-Ts,” Morgan chided me. “That’s nothing new. It’s life and death for us twenty-four seven. And it’s nine minutes and thirty seconds now. Ticktock.”

  “Just tell me what you fucking want me to do,” Dana snarled.

  “Oh, anger and foul language,” Morgan said, feigning a yawn. “That’s no surprise.”

  In a sudden flash, I knew what Morgan wanted Dana to do—what would surprise him—and when Cal looked up at me, I realized that he’d figured it out, too.

  “Hey, c’mere,” Cal said, holding out his hand to Dana. He pulled her with him over to a bench shaped like a happy-go-lucky wooly mammoth and tugged her down so that she was sitting at his eye level. “I know you’re gonna hate this because it’s so public, and you probably would walk away from me even if it was just the two of us alone, but…” He took a deep breath and exhaled fast. “I’m completely in love with you.” She started to get up, but he didn’t let go of her hand. “And that’s me talking, that’s not Morgan doing his voodoo, and I think from what you said when he was doing his voodoo that you maybe kinda like me, too, and I also think it would surprise the crap out of him if you were honest about that. To me. With me.”

  Dana was silent. She was just glaring down at her boots, muscle jumping in her jaw.

  Cal reached out and gently tipped her chin up so that she had to meet his eyes, and he quietly added, “And if I got it wrong, and you really only want us to be friends, Dana, then I’m kinda trusting you here to break that news to me gently. I know that’s what you’d do, but see, Morgan? He doesn’t know you at all, so that’ll surprise him, too. Either way, we win this.”

  Those tears were back in Dana’s eyes as her mouth moved, half in a smile and half in refusal to cry.

  “Winning is good,” Calvin continued. “Helping Sasha and finding Lacey is better and we’re gonna do that, regardless of—”

  “Just shut up,” Dana said, “and kiss me.”

  And Calvin did just that.

  ————

  I pulled both Morgan and Milo away in an attempt to give Cal and Dana a little privacy.

  “Surprised or not, you’re helping us,” I told the powerful G-T.

  “Oh, I’m surprised,” he said. “Beyond surprised. Fully flabbergasted, in fact. So, fair’s fair. You win.”

  “Thank you,” I said grudgingly. “Although, FYI, you suck. And this is Milo, by the way.” Not Hot-Angst-Guy, as Morgan had nicknamed him.
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  I glanced over at Milo, who’d reached into his pocket for his burner phone. It was chirping. “I gotta take this,” he told me before turning to include Morgan. “Excuse me.” He headed back to the front door and stepped outside, probably hoping for better cell service.

  All I could think was, Who was calling Milo? Was it Rochelle—Rochelle—ROCHELLE! ARGH!

  Of course, now Morgan was eyeing me. One side of his mouth curved up into that now all-too-familiar impish grin. “Trouble in paradise, I’m sensing.” He kept his voice low so that neither Dana nor Cal could hear him.

  My stomach did a flip-flop, and for a second, I almost considered playing it off like I didn’t know what Morgan was talking about. But his musical laughter was enough to let me know that not only did he more than sense the tension between Milo and me—he knew that it existed. And he also knew that I was trying hard, right then and there, to figure out how to pull a BS card on him.

  “Yeah, fine, whatever,” I grumbled. “It’s not that serious.”

  “You don’t believe that in your heart,” Morgan replied. “And it’s eating you up inside.”

  I felt my eyes well with tears but I blinked them back. Hard. I didn’t want to talk about this right now. I didn’t want to talk about this—ever. And the absolute dead-last thing I wanted was Milo being mind-controlled by Morgan and blurting out some horrible truth, like he thought Rochelle was a million times hotter than me, because let’s face it, she was. Yes, she was also disgusting and dangerous, but… I shook my head and cleared my throat and stood up a little taller, my nose in the air.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “And he’s fine. We’re fine.” I sniffed. “Okay? So don’t even think about doing your truth-telling voodoo on Milo. Or me.”

  Morgan smiled. “I can see that you love him. With your whole entire rookie heart. But.” His eyes grew solemn. “Of course, you know that love sometimes just isn’t enough.”

  I opened my mouth to respond—Gee, thanks for the pep talk, Coach—but just then a series of huge cacophonous BAMs, one right after another, rang out in the corner. Instead of speaking actual words, I screamed. In my defense, while I screamed, I also leaped on top of a display counter in order to give myself the elevation I needed to scan the room. The first thing I noticed was that Dana and Cal were no longer smooching on the wooly mammoth bench. In fact…

  “Oh God, sorry sorry sorry!” Cal jerked back from the pile of Russian dolls, all of which were now lying on their sides in a heap. Apparently, he had gotten too close to one of them and tipped it over—which had prompted the others to fall, like a series of enormous egg-shaped dominoes.

  Dana, clearly spooked by the sound, cascaded down the firefighter pole from the second floor, where no doubt she’d been double-checking Morgan’s security. As always, making sure Calvin and the rest of us were safe. Her leather pants squeaked against the metal as she landed hastily on the tile. “What the eff?” she barked. As usual, she used the full f-bomb.

  “Everyone’s good!” Morgan exclaimed. “Just a minor doll avalanche. Kind of like global warming—the cause was human error.”

  Dana scowled at Morgan, but then looked over at Calvin and saw the gigantic mess that surrounded his chair. She tried her best to keep scowling, but instead she started cracking up. It wasn’t every day that Dana belly-laughed. The sound was nice. Calvin thought so too. He smiled and shrugged. “I’ll be here all night,” he said and took a bow from his chair.

  It was then that Milo came back inside. He looked concerned, his cell phone still pressed against his ear as he stepped through the doorway.

  But Dana gave him the silent thumbs-up. He looked visibly relieved as he nodded and then said something softly into the phone receiver before hanging up and putting the cell back in his pocket.

  “Who was that?” I asked. And then I felt like a complete idiot for prying.

  But Milo didn’t seem to mind. “Garrett, with an update on Ro and Ashley. Rochelle’s still completely passed out—but Ashley’s moving a bit, like she’s going to be waking up soon.”

  “Rochelle better wake up. She’s got a hot date with you in just a few hours,” Dana replied.

  Morgan’s eyebrows were raised as he digested Dana’s words.

  “Fake date,” Cal explained. “Crazy D-bag addict has the hots for Milo.”

  “I’ll keep her distracted while they search a locked closet for Jilly.” Milo finished the explanation.

  “Ah, yes, Jilly. How very…valiant of you to distract the crazy D-bag like that.” Morgan turned and studied me for a moment. His eyes looked as though they had changed color since the first time I’d met him in that CoffeeBoy. I’d remembered them as being bright green. At that moment, they were dark pools of hazel brown.

  I narrowed my own eyes at him in a silent Don’t you dare.

  “Well, okay then,” he said. “Since you’ve got hot date and closet-rescue plans for tonight, I’ll assume you’ll be in contact with a day and time for our special meeting with adorable little Sasha. Oh, and of course, it’s still a thousand dollars. Payable in full in advance. Small bills preferred.”

  Dana looked at him with disgust.

  “Seriously, darling,” Morgan said. “Did you think I was running a charity here?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Let me walk you to your car. My pups can get territorial.”

  And with that, he led the way out the door. I followed him, with Milo right behind me, into the overcast afternoon light.

  “I really, really liked our visit to Adventure City,” I heard Cal say.

  “Shut up, Scoot,” Dana grumbled, but when I turned around, Cal had pulled her down onto his lap and she was kissing him again as they rolled toward the gate.

  Cal caught me looking, and he grinned so widely that I couldn’t keep from smiling, too.

  ————

  It was early afternoon when we got back to Coconut Key. We had several hours to kill before Milo’s seven o’clock date with Rochelle.

  I decided to use the time to wrangle my mom. I turned on my real phone, sent her a quick text, and found out that she was home. I’d use the time to have a pretend conversation about my top choice colleges with her. Win myself some extra points.

  When I said I was going to do that, Milo asked to be let out of Cal’s car while we were still downtown.

  He didn’t say it, but I knew he was closely monitoring the status of the John Doe with “amnesia” from the day-before-yesterday’s Sav’A’Buck parking lot incident. The man had been in the hospital for more than two days now, and it was only a matter of time before the police let him go. And I knew Milo believed that the top bullet point on John Doe’s to-do list was Find the G-T who’d stolen his car and his assault rifle and had set free the little girl who was his latest intended payday.

  Of course, maybe I was wrong, and instead Milo was going shopping for a new shirt to wear for tonight’s date with Rochelle.

  I sensed Cal glancing at me in the rearview as he pulled into our neighborhood and approached our daylight drop-off place, right around the corner from my house. While I was now allowed to ride in Calvin’s car, I was supposed to keep my mom updated about when I did it and where we were going. We had to stay extremely local. Today, with our trip to Adventure City, we’d gone far outside of Mom’s ridiculously limited range.

  With Milo out of the car, we’d driven the last mile in silence, but the tension between Cal and Dana was pretty intense. I suspected they were holding hands in the front seat. Tightly.

  “Six thirty,” Dana ordered as Cal pulled over to the curb. “Cal’s house. Don’t be late, Bubble Gum.”

  “I won’t be.” As I met Cal’s eyes in the mirror, I was tempted to mock him with the same warning he always gave Milo and me. Eyes open! Even when you’re (insert immature smooching sounds here). Instead, I said, “I love you both.”

  As Cal lau
ghed and Dana turned to give me an Are you a moron? look, I shrugged. “Residuals of Morgan’s speaking the truth. I’m happy for you. That’s all.”

  Dana made a disgusted noise. “Just get out of the car.”

  I did, but first I blew Cal a kiss. I’d never seen him so euphorically happy.

  After I closed the car door, as I took the cut-through alongside the Patterson’s house, I glanced back. Probably to see why Calvin hadn’t pulled away.

  He was kissing Dana again, and she was kissing him back.

  It was a full-on Hollywood clinch—an embrace that seemed almost life-and-death, and I remembered Morgan’s dire words as I hurried home.

  How many years do you really think we have before we’re kidnapped and bled dry, too?

  ————

  When I got to Cal’s at a little before 6:30, Garrett was still sitting on the couch all by himself, looking absolutely bored out of his mind as he obediently studied the TV screen that showcased the three different views of the inside of Rochelle’s house. I could see with one glance that the sofa was now empty, and there was no sign of either Rochelle or her friend Ashley in the kitchen or hallway either.

  Garrett sat up as I came in. “Finally,” he said grumpily, rubbing his face. “That was the worst day ever!”

  I looked at the half-empty pizza box and the scattering of Chinese-food containers and fast-food bags that littered the coffee table in front of him. “Try it the way Cal and I did it yesterday—without any food.”

  “Jeez, just kill me now,” he said.

  “Where’re Dana and Cal?” I asked.

  “They’ve been in Cal’s room ever since they got home,” Garrett reported. “They ordered themselves their own private pizza and vanished with it.” He added a “Bow chicka bow bow!” along with a flurry of eyebrow movement.

  “Don’t even,” I said with heavy disgust, even though I was thinking Oh, really…?