Shattered

by Amanda Valentino

  He made a universal phone call signal with his outstretched fingers. “Let’s give this call another go.”

  I nodded and took a seat on the front steps. Callie and Hal sat beside me. I blocked my number, set the mode to speakerphone, and then I dialed her.

  The phone rang, and I felt my heart tighten.

  Four rings. Five.

  “Not such a good sign. Nobody picking up,” Callie noted, drumming her fingers.

  After the ninth ring, the phone finally made a click sound. A recording came on, informing us that the number had been disconnected, and that no further information was available.

  “So, this was indeed the place,” I said, still wondering about the sunflower clue.

  “I really think we need to check out that airstrip next,” Hal said. “We’re running out of clues.”

  “Tomorrow,” I agreed. “We’ll go to the airstrip after school. It’s a half day.”

  “Sounds good,” Callie said, checking her watch. “But right now I have to go.”

  We said good-bye, and then each started to race off on our separate ways to meet our curfews, but before I could even reach the end of the street, I felt myself come to a sudden halt.

  Right in front of me, spray-painted on the side of the gas station building, was a giant sunflower.

  I quickly turned back to see where Hal and Callie had gone, but unfortunately neither of them was anywhere in sight.

  CHAPTER 20

  At home that evening, my mother and I were in the kitchen, chopping garlic and mincing onion, absorbed in our ritual of preparing my father’s favorite empanadas, when the kettle whistle sounded, announcing that Dad’s tea was ready. “Would you mind bringing your father his chai?” Mama asked, eyes runny from the onion.

  “Sure,” I said, adding not one, not two, but exactly one and a half sugar cubes to the cup—precisely the way he liked it. We are a particular family, the Riveras. One and all. I stirred it up well and then took the tea to the living room, where he had a coaster already set out.

  “Thank you, Nia a mi corazón,” he said, barely looking up from the sports section of the daily paper. “What time is dinner tonight?”

  “I think Mama said seven, just after Cisco gets home from soccer.”

  “Let me guess: auction committee meeting?” Finally he folded down a corner of the paper and smiled at me.

  I smiled, too. There was something about my father’s face, particularly when he was smiling—the crinkle of his dark eyes, perhaps, or the way his cheeks formed deep dimples—that always made everything feel a little better.

  I watched him take a sip of chai, wondering how someone as noble and respected as he could possibly be involved in anything as shady as that list.

  Unless maybe he didn’t even know about the list. And maybe he’d never seen the photo of Thornhill beneath the vase.

  But was my mother capable of keeping such big secrets?

  A second later the doorbell rang. I crossed the living room to answer it, figuring it must be a UPS delivery or a FedEx package for my father. But when I looked through the peephole, I was absolutely stunned.

  Because Keith Harmon was there.

  Keith Harmon—who I’d barely even spoken to since that whole mortifying debacle in middle school, who was no longer even a speck on my proverbial radar now, but who somehow still managed to cause the slightest of stings whenever I saw him.

  What could he possibly want?

  I reluctantly opened the door. Keith waved when he saw me, and mouthed a “Hey” through the door glass. I looked toward the back of my father’s head, a good twenty feet away. And then I opened the door to invite Keith inside.

  “Hey, Nia. Do you have a second?” Keith asked. He was standing in the front entryway now.

  Dad glanced in my direction and then stood from the sofa when he saw Keith. Apparently my father did not like what he saw. He has impeccable instincts, that man. “Is everything okay, Nia?” he asked, taking an extra moment to stare Keith down.

  “Keith is just a friend from school,” I said. A blatant lie.

  Dad nodded the chilly hello he seemed to reserve for boys and then reluctantly sat back down.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked Keith, wondering if this was yet another I-Girl plot.

  Keith scratched at the back of his neck and shuffled his feet a couple of times, seemingly as uncomfortable as I was. “Wow. Awkward.” He let out what I guessed was a nervous laugh. Still, his dark gray eyes scanned my face, as if surprised by what he saw—almost like he didn’t know me anymore, like he’d forgotten who I was.

  Just like he had forgotten before.

  He forgot that time in the sixth grade, when Ms. MacKenzie, our art teacher, had us re-create the scene from Matisse’s painting The Dance. A group of us stood in a circle, holding hands, doing our best to sway in our ring-around-the-rosy-type dance.

  Keith and I had been holding hands, and at one point he tripped over his feet, and toppled right onto me. We ended up in a tray of purple paint. Ms. MacKenzie was not amused, but Keith and I couldn’t stop laughing—so hard that my stomach ached. Keith managed to giggle out an apology, and I accepted by painting a line down his face with my finger. He did the same—only instead of a line down my face, it was a giant heart on my cheek.

  And suddenly things weren’t funny anymore. Of course, he managed to forget all that the next year.

  “What do you want?” I asked him, wondering if he ever thought back to that day when I sat in the cafeteria waiting for him, only to be ridiculed by the whole lunchroom. Or if he ever thought back to art class in sixth grade . . .

  “Well, I actually have something to give you, if that’s okay.” He pulled a box from his pocket and held it out.

  I took it, almost expecting it to be part of a joke. I opened the lid and removed a layer of tissue.

  Inside was a black onyx stone—just like the one placed in the eyes of the serpents around town. Also inside was a tiny wooden tile from an old board game. I picked up the tile and flipped it over in my palm. The word CAREFUL was printed across the front, and a picture of a coyote had been stamped onto the back.

  My heart pounded. “Where did you get this?” I demanded.

  “I found it,” he said. “On my windowsill. When I got up this morning.”

  “And do you know who it was from?”

  “There was just a note attached.” He shrugged. “But it said that I should give this to you.”

  I shook my head, knowing there had to be a lot more to it. Why else would he bother giving it to me? Why wouldn’t he simply throw it away in the trash and forget that it ever existed? Why potentially embarrass himself by coming to my house?

  “Where is the note?”

  “Gone.” He shrugged again. “I pitched it.”

  My face flashed red, because I knew that he was lying. “What does Amanda have on you?” I asked him, keeping my voice low. “Do you two have a past that I don’t know about?”

  “Nia?” my father asked, turning to gaze back at us.

  “Everything’s fine,” I told him. “We’re just trying to determine the best argument for a Mock UN debate.”

  “Um. What makes you think this is about Amanda?” Keith asked me, lowering his voice now, too. “I didn’t say anything about that chick.”

  “I know it’s about her,” I said, correcting him. Why else would Keith, of all people, have been chosen to give me this warning?

  Keith folded his arms and stuck out his chest—a move I’d seen him do before, especially with I-Girls. “You’ve changed a lot this year, haven’t you?” he said, giving me the once-over. “It’s like you’re a totally different person.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed, remembering how Louise had mentioned it, too. Fashion and makeup aside, I was no longer the same girl.

  And I had Amanda to thank for that.

  “Well, thank you for the delivery. I will take it from here.” I was fairly certain it was pretty useless trying to
get more information out of him. I nodded to the door, but Keith suddenly seemed less than enthusiastic to leave.

  “You know there’s a cool new café in town,” he started. “Everybody’s saying they make the best mochaccinos around. Want to try it out one day?”

  “I like coffee,” I said coldly. “But not nearly that much.” And with that, I opened the door wide and kicked him to the curb.

  CHAPTER 21

  School on Friday went by in a blur, mostly because everyone was so excited about the talent show that night. No one was really paying much attention in classes, including Mr. Richards. He kept going on about the stand-up routine he was going to do, using us as the guinea pigs for his George Carlin–wannabe one-liners.

  I made an honest effort to laugh in all the right places, especially since I was grateful to skip track exercises as a reward. It gave me more time to chart our afternoon’s activities

  By noon dismissal time, I was more than ready to leave. And so when the early release bell finally rang, I think I literally was the first person out the door. But I wasn’t exactly the only anxious one. Hal and Callie weren’t even two minutes behind me. When they got to me, I was sitting on my bike.

  “How do you always do that?”

  “What?” I said, raising an eyebrow in a move I stole from Ali McGraw.

  “Nothing.”

  “Never mind. Are we ready?” Hal sighed.

  “Not quite,” I said, pulling Keith’s gift box from my pocket. I showed them both the onyx stone and the wooden tile, explaining Keith Harmon’s visit.

  “A warning from Amanda,” Hal said, pointing out the coyote stamp on the back of the tile.

  “Definitely. But you and Keith aren’t exactly friends,” Callie said, stating the obvious. “So why would he bother doing what this missing note instructed?”

  “That was my question, too,” I told her.

  “Unless maybe he wants to be friends,” she wondered, winking at me. “I mean, you have been looking pretty smokin’ lately.”

  “I have a much more likely theory,” I said, glaring at her. “I think Amanda has something on him. Something really scandalous.”

  “Okay. But then why play that scandal card now?” Callie asked. “And with you. I mean, she could’ve had anyone deliver that gift.”

  “And she could’ve had Keith deliver it to either of us,” Hal added.

  “Right, but she chose to have Keith Harmon deliver the message to me,” I said, still slowly puzzling about that, as I had since last night.

  “Maybe because she wanted you to have closure from what happened in middle school,” Callie said softly, clearly trying to step carefully around my feelings.

  “Nice theory, but I don’t need closure,” I snapped. “What happened in middle school is yesterday’s news.”

  “Well, maybe Amanda didn’t think so,” she continued. “Maybe Amanda felt like you needed to face Keith in order to move on . . . to something or someone . . .”

  I looked away, hating to admit it—because I’d truly believed that I was over what happened in middle school—but it actually had felt liberating to face Keith. And once again, I had Amanda to thank. I gave Callie a sheepish smile, silently acknowledging that she was right.

  “So, the gift was obviously a warning,” Hal said, studiously avoiding our exchange. “I mean, ‘careful’ with the onyx eye. More than unusual, right? She must know we’ve been snooping around those buildings.”

  “And she must know that we’re getting dangerously close,” I agreed.

  “So, what do you say we get a little closer?” Hal grinned, grabbing Cornelia’s MapQuest directions from his bag. “Are we ready?”

  “I was ready yesterday,” I told him.

  “Me too,” Callie chirped.

  We set out on our bikes for the long ride. At least fifteen minutes after we’d entered the town of Saint Claude by way of Blackbird Avenue, things were starting to look pretty rural—as in Little House on the Prairie rural: tall grass, wide pastures, lots of farmland, and abandoned-looking structures.

  “Are you sure this is the right way?” Callie called out.

  But it made perfect sense that an airstrip would be in a remote location. We pedaled down a long dirt road. A grassy field stretched out on one side of us, while what looked like a wooded conservation lot was on the other.

  Finally we reached it: a sign that read CASTEEL MILITARY AIRSTRIP was staked into the ground. A barbed wire fence surrounded the property, and an unoccupied guard shack stood just beyond the locked gate.

  The airstrip was mostly vacant except for a hangar and a tanker truck, both at opposite ends of the property. I peered past a NO TRESPASSING sign. The hangar was exactly as I’d pictured: a giant steel building with dark blue stripes that ran along the front and side walls.

  “Okay, there is the small matter of how we get in,” Callie said, gesturing to a thick chain threaded through and around the opening. A padlock held it in place.

  I continued to scope the hangar out, wondering where the security guards were.

  Hal decided to check the lock. He twisted and pulled at it, trying to get it to budge. The muscles in his arms flexed as he strained. He even smashed it repeatedly with a large rock. Still it didn’t open, despite how old and rusty it looked. Callie walked a ways, looking for any downed trees to act as ladders and weak spots in the fence.

  I placed my foot against the gate, applying pressure as I leaned my weight forward. Gripping the bottom corner of the gate, I tried to bend it upward—just enough—so that we might be able to slip underneath. Hal attempted to help me, but even together we couldn’t get the gate to give.

  “We could always scale the fence,” he said, all out of breath.

  “Are you kidding?” Callie asked, back from surveying the fence. “That’s got to be at least twelve feet high. Not to mention the fact that I really don’t feel like becoming a barbed wire ornament.”

  “We’ll throw a jacket over the wire.” He pulled a Swiss Army knife from his back pocket and poked the point of the nail file into the lock. He jiggled it back and forth in a final attempt. But that didn’t work either.

  “Let me try. You guys don’t know my past as an international jewel thief,” she joked. Callie grabbed the file right out of his hand and squatted down in front of the lock. Hal and I huddled up to conceal her. After a few seconds spent trying to finagle the lock open with the file, she threw the knife down and tried to pull the chain apart.

  With her hands.

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the sight of Callie in her baby-doll dress and ballet flats, manhandling the steel links. Still, her arms pulsed, every bit as taut as Hal’s.

  Callie let out a groan as she worked to pull two of the rustier links apart. Finally, the chain broke. Callie fell backward, glancing off the fence and losing her balance from the blow. She DID it.

  “How is that possible? Are you suddenly some kind of Amazon?” I asked, helping her up.

  Hal managed a small smile, but it was clear that he was completely bewildered, too.

  “I don’t know,” she said, shocked. “I guess I didn’t realize how determined I was.” She peered down at her small, slender hands, suddenly noticing a cut about five inches long.

  Blood ran down her arm where a sharp corner of the fence had torn right through her skin.

  I unwound my scarf from my neck and used it as a tourniquet around her arm. Meanwhile, Hal moved closer to see if he could help, offering his bottled water to clean the cut.

  Most people would have been reeling in pain, but Callie waved us off: “I’m fine, really,” she said, eager to keep going. She got up and blotted the blood with the scarf’s slack. “And I’ll pay for your dry cleaning.”

  “Who cares about the scarf,” I told her. “As long as you’re okay.”

  “Definitely okay, honestly,” she said, clearly not wanting to make a fuss. “Let’s crack this place.”

  “Wait, did you guys just hear somet
hing?” Hal turned his head and held his hand up, looking all around us.

  “Hear what?” I asked, unable to detect much more than the whirring wind and the sound of our own breathing.

  “Nothing.” He was still for a minute and then shook his head and went for the chain again. He unthreaded it from the gate’s opening. “We’re in.”

  Before we headed to the hangar, we stashed our bikes behind a clump of bushes several yards from the entrance. Hal closed the gate behind us, and we hurried across the airstrip—probably about as wide as our high school parking lot. We ducked behind some oil drums, just a few feet away from the open garage door.

  “What now?” Callie wondered.

  Before we could answer, Hal snuck from around the side of the drums and went inside the hangar. “Come on,” he whispered, squatting down behind a set of stairs on wheels (the kind the airlines use to get people on board) just inside the doorway.

  Callie and I joined him. The hangar looked mostly empty except for some storage boxes, a luggage carrier, and a dark green convertible Jeep parked on the opposite side. I stood up to venture out a little farther. At the same moment, Callie grabbed hold of my sleeve, and I quickly ducked back down.

  There was a man sitting at a desk only a few yards away, to the side of us. He was completely slumped over, almost flush with the top of the desk. His head was down, resting on the pages of a book.

  “Shhh,” Hal hissed. “He’s sleeping.”

  Dressed in a dark uniform, he was some sort of a security person, although fairly incompetent, obviously. A golf cart was parked beside him.

  A second later, an engine roared. The sound echoed across the building and woke the security guard. His head jerked up, feigning alertness.

  It took me a second to realize where the sound was coming from. The Jeep pulled forward with a screech. Its bright lights shined in my eyes, nearly rendering me blind. At first I thought the Jeep was coming right for us, but instead it stopped just shy of our hiding place.

  We remained crouched behind the set of stairs. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure they could hear it, too.