by Meg Cabot
Chapter 5
THIS TURNED OUT TO BE A PHOTO OF Nikki Howard. Which in and of itself wouldn’t have been that extraordinary. There were hundreds—no, thousands—of photos of Nikki Howard all over the place. But this one was of Nikki Howard in that extremely awkward phase all of us go through when we’re thirteen, just turning fourteen. What Britney Spears called “not a girl, not yet a woman. ” I’d never have guessed Nikki Howard had gone through that phase…or anything that could remotely be called awkward…let alone have allowed anyone to take a picture while she was going through it. From what I could tell, Nikki was nothing if not ruthless about having all photos in which she looked the slightest bit bad destroyed. But not this one, that’s for sure. “Oooooh,” Lulu cooed as she leaned forward to peer at the photo. “Look at you, Nik! You had braces! And were you using Sun-In back then? My God, I’m surprised you have a hair left on your head. ” “Flip to the next photo,” Steven said to me. Obediently, I flipped to the next photo. It was of Nikki in the same hairdo and braces beside a slightly younger version of Steven, hosing down a poodle that looked not unlike Cosabella, only with black fur, in what looked like some kind of doggie grooming parlor. Both siblings—and they looked even more alike in this photo, recognizably related—were grinning, although Nikki’s grin looked strained, what I’d come to recognize (having seen endless Polaroids of my new face during photo shoots) as her hurry-up-and-take-the-photo-already-I’m-sick-of-this smile. “That,” Steven said, about the photo of the two of them, “was taken about the year before you decided you were embarrassed to be seen with me. And Mom. Before that talent agent lady’s car broke down outside of town and she saw you at the Stop ’n Shop and asked if you’d ever thought of modeling, and the next thing we knew, she was signing you up to be the new Face of Stark. Next time I saw you, it was on the cover of some magazine. ” I nodded. I believed him now. This sounded too much like the Nikki I knew—the one who kept only photos of (and press clippings about) herself lying around—not to be true. “Okay,” I said softly, handing the wallet back to Steven. “I’m sorry. Of course you’re really my brother. I-I’m not saying I didn’t believe you. ” Even though I hadn’t. “I just…I mean, I had to check. There’ve been a lot of creeps who’ve shown up saying all kinds of crazy things. So…what have you found out so far? About, um, Mom?” “That no one’s seen or heard from her since shortly after your accident. ” He said the word accident like there were quotes around it…or like he didn’t believe there’d ever been one. “She hasn’t used any of her credit cards since then, either. Or paid any of her bills. ” Lulu gasped. “Oh, my gosh!” she cried. “I saw an episode of Law and Order like this once! Did anyone call the police?” I shot her a warning look. I mean, this was the guy’s mother we were talking about, not some TV show. I didn’t want him getting upset. Or more upset than he already was. “Well,” Lulu said, noticing my look but evidently not registering why what she was saying might be upsetting to anyone. “What if there’s been foul play? On the Law and Order episode I saw where this woman disappeared, everyone thought she’d run off with her boyfriend, but really she was inside the couch the whole time because the boyfriend had conked her on the head and hidden her dead body there! Your mom could be inside the couch. Did anyone look?” “Lulu,” I said severely. “I notified the local police when I got home and found her gone,” Steven said. I realized the reason he wasn’t offended by Lulu was because he was ignoring her again. “I tried calling you to see if you’d heard from her, but you wouldn’t return my calls. So I had to come here in person to see if you’d heard from her. ” I bit my lower lip. But what could I say? His call was just one of thousands I’d ignored on Nikki’s cell. Thankfully, Steven went on without seeming to expect a comment from me. “The cops said there’s nothing they can do. A woman not using her credit cards or refusing to answer her cell phone and leaving her apartment and business in a lurch isn’t a crime. It’s more like she went on vacation without telling anybody. And took her dogs with her. ” “Well,” I said hopefully. “Maybe she did just that. ” “You think Mom just took off,” Steven said, “on vacation, without letting any of her customers know she was going? She didn’t cancel any of her grooming appointments. She hasn’t paid up the rent on either her apartment or the kennel. You really think that’s something a dedicated business owner like Mom would have done—left for a fun-filled vacation without finding someone to take over her appointments first?” “So,” Lulu said, looking wide-eyed. “You really think your mom’s…missing? No one knows anything about where she could be?” “No one I’ve talked to,” Steven said. “Nikki was my last hope. But”—he glanced down at the espresso in front of him, which by now had gone cold—“I guess that was a waste of time. ” “Maybe I can get a printout or something of the incoming calls I’ve had,” I offered. I desperately wanted to do something—anything—to help him. He just looked so tired and sad. “And see if any of them were from your—I mean, Mom. Then maybe we can see if the phone company can figure out where she was when she made them. ” “They can triangulate her position through the position of the cell towers,” Lulu said. When we both glanced at her, she said, “I saw that on an episode of Law and Order, too. ” Then she added, “Oh, and you can hire a private detective, Nikki! My dad used to hire those to follow my mom around when he thought she was cheating on him. ” She gave Steven a brilliant smile. “I come from a broken home. ” I’m sure if he’d ever seen a single episode of Entertainment Tonight, he already knew this. But Steven wasn’t paying any attention to her. “I don’t want Nikki to do anything she doesn’t feel comfortable doing,” he said stiffly. “It’s no problem,” I said. “I’ll hire a private investigator to find…Mom. Maybe you can recommend some good ones, Lulu, since you seem to have so much experience with them. ” “Oh, yeah,” Lulu said, twinkling. No, really. She twinkled as she said it, like freaking Tinker Bell. “Mind you, detectives aren’t cheap. ” “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Steven said, with a smile in my direction. “Nikki can afford it. ” I smiled sweetly back at him, but all I could think was, I am so dead. And not even literally, for once. I couldn’t hire a detective. A detective was only going to uncover stuff related to my brain transplant and blow this Stark thing sky-high, and next thing I knew, it’d be on CNN and I’d be on the run from Brandon’s dad’s armed gunmen. And don’t tell me Robert Stark doesn’t have them. Okay, just calm down and smile at the nice sailor and go, “Okay, fine then. So, I’ll start calling private eyes first thing in the morning. ” Seriously. This was my life now? Well, why not? I’d already had a brain transplant and had to wear mascara every single day. Why not this? “And in the meantime”—Lulu twinkled some more in Steven’s direction—“you have to stay here with us. Because we’re having this holiday party, and we want you to be the guest of honor. ” I threw Lulu another warning look, because having Nikki’s brother stay with us didn’t exactly seem like a good idea to me. For one thing, we only had the two bedrooms, so where was he going to sleep…on the couch? And for another, how long was it going to take him to catch on that I wasn’t calling private detectives like I said I would…oh, and that I wasn’t his sister at all but another girl living in his sister’s body? Plus, there was the whole thing about him being the guest of honor at a party at which I wasn’t even going to be in attendance, except I hadn’t quite worked up the courage to tell the hostess yet… And what about our loft possibly—okay, probably—being bugged by parties unknown (even though I was pretty sure who was responsible)? “Uh,” Steven said, looking uncomfortable. Who could blame him? I was a virtual stranger to him (in more ways than he knew). “Thanks for the invitation, but I grabbed a hotel room uptown—” Lulu looked horrified. “A hotel room!” she cried. “No! You’re family! Stay here. That’ll give you and Nikki a chance to reconnect. Right, Nikki?” “Sure,” I said, hoping Steven didn’t sense my reluctance. “Although we do only have the two bedrooms—” “He can
sleep in my room,” Lulu volunteered. Then, looking a little embarrassed—a first for Lulu—she explained, “What I mean is, Nikki has this huge, king-size bed. I can sleep with her and, Steven, you can have my room. ” “No,” Steven said, not unkindly. There was warmth in his voice, and in his expression—real, human warmth…the first I’d seen him show since meeting him downstairs in the lobby. I felt bad about the fact that I had no intention of helping to look for his mother. Wait. I did intend to help him look for his mom. I just didn’t intend to hire a detective to do it. Only how do you find a missing woman on your own? “Thanks, that’s really nice of you,” Steven said. “But I wouldn’t want to put you out—” “Stay,” I heard myself saying. I don’t know what came over me. I mean, I needed Nikki Howard’s brother hanging around the loft like I needed a(nother) hole in my head. But I knew from something I’d seen in the photo he’d shown me—the one of him and Nikki washing the dog—that Steven Howard loved his mother. I was pretty sure she’d been the one taking the picture that he had in his wallet. The look in his eyes as he gazed at the person holding the camera had been one of pure—if slightly irritated—affection. I knew what I had to do. And that was everything I could to help him find her. It was the least I could do to make up for Nikki having been such a horrible sister and daughter. So horrible she had never even kept a picture of either her brother or her mother in her room or wallet. “Really,” I said, when he turned his astonished gaze toward me. “You have to. I insist. ” “You insist?” He gave me a strange look. I didn’t know if it was because I’d used the word insist, and that’s not the kind of thing Nikki ordinarily would have said, or because he was the older one and he wasn’t used to Nikki bossing him around. Whatever the reason, my insisting did the trick. He shrugged, and said, “Well, if you insist. I’ll just go back uptown then and get my gear. ” Then, without another word, he slid off the kitchen stool and headed for the elevator. No one seemed to have come home from either the gym or Starbucks since Nikki’s brother and I had got off the elevator earlier, because the elevator door slid right open. He stepped inside and looked at Lulu and me for the second before the door closed again. “See you in a few,” he said. And then the door closed, and he was gone.