I walked over to where Rob and Keely were sitting.
"Hey," I said. "We got visitors."
Rob looked around the restaurant. "Oh, yeah?"
"Outside," I said. "The white van. Don't look. I'll take care of it. You stay here with Keely."
Rob shrugged, and dipped a fry into some ketchup. "No problem," he said.
To Keely, I said, "Your dad's on his way."
Keely grinned happily and sucked on the straw in her milk shake.
I went up to the counter and ordered two cheeseburger meals to go. Then I took the two bags and the little cardboard drink holder and went out the door opposite the one where the van was sitting. Then I walked all the way around the outside of the restaurant, past the drive-through window and the Dumpsters out back, until I came up behind the van.
Then I opened the side door and climbed on in.
"Ooh," I said appreciatively. "Nice air you got in here. But you'll wear out the battery if you sit here and idle for too long."
Special Agents Johnson and Smith turned around and looked at me. They both had sunglasses on. Special Agent Smith lifted hers up and looked at me with her pretty blue eyes.
"Hi, Jessica," she said, in a resigned sort of way.
"Hi," I said. "I figured you guys might be getting hungry, so I brought you this." I passed her the drinks and the bags with the cheeseburgers and fries in them. "I super-sized it for you."
Special Agent Smith opened her bag and looked inside it. "Thanks, Jess," she said, sounding pleasantly surprised. "That was very thoughtful."
"Yes," Special Agent Johnson said. "Thank you, Jessica."
But he said it in this certain way that you could just tell he was kind of, you know. Unhappy.
"So how long have you guys been following me?" I asked.
Special Agent Johnson—who hadn't even touched his food—said, "Since shortly after you left the camp."
"Really?" I thought about this. "All the way from there? I didn't notice you."
"We are professionals," Special Agent Smith pointed out, nibbling on a fry.
"We're supposed to be, anyway," Special Agent Johnson said, in this meaningful way that made his partner put down the fry she was eating and look guilty. "How'd you know we were here, anyway?" he asked me.
"Come on," I said. "There's been a white van sitting on my street back home for months now. You think I wouldn't notice?"
"Ah," Special Agent Johnson said.
We sat there, all three of us, basking in the air-conditioning and inhaling the delicious scent of fries. There was a lot of stuff in the back of the van, stuff with blinking red and green buttons. It looked like surveillance equipment to me, but I could have been wrong. Nice to know the government wasn't wasting the taxpayers' money on frivolous things like the monitoring of teen psychics.
Finally, the luscious odor of Mickey D's proved too much for Special Agent Smith. She reached into her bag again and this time pulled out one of the cheeseburgers, then began unwrapping it. When she noticed Special Agent Johnson glaring at her disapprovingly, she went, "Well, it's just going to get cold, Allan," and took a big bite.
"So," I said. "How you two been?"
"Fine," Special Agent Smith said, with her mouth full.
"We're doing all right," Special Agent Johnson said. "We'd like to talk to you, though."
"If you wanted to talk to me," I said, "you could have just stopped by. I mean, you obviously know where to find me."
"Who's the little girl?" Special Agent Johnson said, nodding toward the window, where Rob and Keely were sitting.
"Oh, her?" I leaned forward and, since he obviously didn't want them, dug my hand into Special Agent Johnson's fries and pulled out a bunch for myself. "She's my cousin," I said.
"You don't have any cousins that age," Special Agent Smith said, after taking a sip from the soda I'd bought her.
"I don't?"
"No," she said. "You don't."
"Well," I said. "She's Rob's cousin, then."
"Really?" Special Agent Johnson took out a notepad and a pen. "And what's Rob's last name?"
"Ha," I said, with my mouth full of fry. "Like I'd tell you."
"He's kind of cute," Special Agent Smith observed.
"I know," I said, with a sigh.
The sigh must have been telling, since Special Agent Smith went, "Is he your boyfriend?"
"Not yet," I said. "But he will be."
"Really? When?"
"When I turn eighteen. Or when he is no longer able to resist the overwhelming attraction he feels for me and jumps my bones. Whichever comes first."
Special Agent Smith burst out laughing. Her partner didn't look so amused though.
"Jessica," he said. "Would you like to tell us about Taylor Monroe?"
I cocked my head innocently to one side. "Who?"
"Taylor Monroe," Special Agent Johnson said. "Disappeared two years ago. An anonymous call was placed yesterday to 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU, giving an address in Gainesville, Florida, where the boy could be found."
"Oh, yeah?" I picked at a loose thread on my jeans. "And was he there?"
"He was." Special Agent Johnson's gaze, reflected in the rearview mirror, did not waver from mine. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Jess?"
"Me?" I screwed up my face. "No way. That's great, though. His parents must be pretty happy, huh?"
"They're ecstatic," Special Agent Smith said, taking a sip from her Coke. "The couple who took him—they apparently couldn't have children of their own—are in jail, and Taylor's already been returned to his folks. You never saw a more joyous reunion."
"Aw," I said, genuinely pleased. "That's sweet."
Special Agent Johnson adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see my reflection more clearly. "Very nicely done," he said drily. "I almost believed you had nothing to do with it."
"Well," I said. "I didn't."
"Jessica." Special Agent Johnson shook his head. "When are you finally going to admit that you lied to us last spring?"
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe when you admit that you made a big mistake marrying Mrs. Johnson and that your heart really belongs to Jill here."
Special Agent Smith choked on a mouthful of cheeseburger. Special Agent Johnson had to ram her on the back a couple of times before she could breathe again.
"Oh," I said. "That go down the wrong pipe? I hate when that happens."
"Jessica." Special Agent Johnson spun around in his seat—well, as much as he could with the steering wheel in the way—and eyed me wrathfully. Really. Wrathful is about the only way I can describe it. Hey, I took the PSATs. I know what I'm talking about.
"You may think you got away with something last spring," he growled, "with that whole going-to-the-press thing. But I am warning you, missy. We are on to you. We know what you've been up to. And it's just a matter of time—"
Over Special Agent Johnson's shoulder, I saw a Passat come barreling through the intersection. Brakes squealing, it pulled into the McDonald's parking lot and came to a stop a few spaces down from the van. Jonathan Herzberg popped out from the driver's seat, so anxious to see his daughter he forgot to take off his seat belt. It strangled him, and he had to sit back down and unsnap it before he could get up again.
"—before Jill or I or someone catches you at it, and—"
"And what?" I asked. "What are you going to do to me, Allan? Put me in jail? For what? I haven't done anything illegal. Just because I won't help you find your little murderers and your drug lords and your escaped convicts, you think I'm doing something wrong? Well, excuse me for not wanting to do your job for you."
Special Agent Smith laid a hand on her partner's shoulder. "Allan," she said, in a warning voice.
Special Agent Johnson just kept glaring at me. He'd been so upset, he'd knocked over his fries, and now they lay all over the floor beneath his feet. He had already squashed one into the blue carpeting beneath the gas pedal. Behind him, Jonathan Herzberg was hurrying into the restaurant, having already spotted his daughter through the window.