I shot him a warning look. "Watch it, Comic-Book Boy," I growled.
Douglas, looking alarmed, noticed Mom standing there with the broom. "Oh, hey," he said, putting his empty dinner plate down in the sink. "I'll clean it up, don't worry. It was my fault, anyway."
My mom snatched the broom out of his reach. "No, no," she said, hurrying back into the dining room. "I'll do it."
Which was kind of sad. Because of course she was only doing it because she didn't want Douglas messing with bits of broken glass. His suicide attempt last Christmas had convinced her that he wasn't to be trusted around sharp objects.
"See," Douglas said, as the swinging door closed behind her, "what I go through for you? Now she's going to be watching me like a hawk for the next few days."
I suppose I should have been grateful to him. But all I could think was that things would be a lot less stressful if Douglas would just come clean.
"Why don't you go tell them now?" I asked. All right, begged. "Before Entertainment Tonight. You know Mom never lets a fight last more than five minutes into ET."
Douglas was rinsing his plate.
"No way," he said, not looking at me.
I nearly burst a capillary, I was so mad.
"Douglas," I hissed. "If you think I'm not telling the Feds, you're out of your mind. I can't let them go around thinking they have something on me. I'm telling them. And if they know, how long do you think it's going to be before Mom and Dad find out? It's better for you to tell them than the damned FBI, don't you think?"
Douglas turned the water off.
"It's just that you know what Dad's going to say," he said. "If I'm well enough to work behind the counter at the comic book store, I'm well enough to work in the kitchens at Mastriani's. But I can't stand food service. You know that."
"Who can?" I wanted to know. But when your dad owned three of the most popular restaurants in town, you didn't have much of a choice.
"And Mom." Douglas shook his head. "You know how Mom's going to react. That out there? That was nothing."
"That's why I'd tell them now," I said, "before they find out from somebody else. I mean, for God's sake, Douglas. You've been working there for two weeks already. You think they aren't going to hear about it from somebody?"
"Look, Jess," Douglas said. "I'll tell them. I swear I will. Just let me do it my own way, in my own time. I mean, you know how Mom is—"
The swinging door to the dining room banged open, and my mother, carrying the now full dustpan, came into the kitchen.
"You know how Mom is what?" she asked, looking suspiciously from Douglas to me and then back again.
Fortunately, the phone rang.
Again.
I leapt for it, but I was too late. My dad had already picked up the extension in the den.
"Jess," he yelled. "Phone for you."
Great. My mother's eyes lit up. You could totally tell that she thought it was starting for me. You know, the popularity that she had had when she was my age, which had so far eluded me during my tenure at Ernie Pyle High. As a daughter I was, I knew, pretty disappointing to her, because I wasn't already going steady with a guy like Mark Leskowski. I guess at this point, even a date with Skip was preferable to no date at all.
Or Rob.
Too bad she didn't know that the kind of calls I'd been receiving all night were not exactly from members of the pep squad, wanting to discuss the next day's bake sale.
No, more like members of the death squad, wanting to discuss my imminent demise.
But when I picked up, I found that it wasn't my prank caller at all. It was Special Agent Johnson.
"Well, Jessica," he said. "Have you given any thought to our conversation this morning?"
I looked at my mom and Douglas. "Uh, do you guys mind?" I asked. "This is kind of personal."
My mom's eyebrows furrowed. "It isn't that boy, is it?" she wanted to know. "That Wilkins person?"
That Wilkins person. It was almost as bad as the Jerk.
"No," I said. "It's another boy."
Which wasn't technically even a lie. And which made my mom smile as happily as she left the room as if I'd just been voted Most Likely to Marry a Doctor. Douglas left too, only he didn't look half so happy as Mom did.
"Which conversation?" I asked Special Agent Johnson, as soon as my mother was gone. "Oh, you mean the one where you suggested my brother might, in fact, be Amber Mackey's killer? And that if I didn't help you track down your little Ten Most Wanteds, you'd haul him in for questioning about it?"
"Well, I don't think I put it quite like that," Special Agent Johnson said. "But that, in essence, is why I'm calling."
"I hate to break it to you," I said, "but Douglas has got a rock solid alibi for the times both those girls disappeared. Just ask his new employers down at Comix Underground."
There was silence on the line. Then Special Agent Johnson chuckled.
"I was wondering," he said, "how long it would take for him to work up the courage to tell you."
I felt a jolt of rage. You knew? I was going to scream into the receiver.
But then it hit me. Of course he'd known. He and his partner had known all along. They'd just been using the fact that I didn't know to yank my chain.
Well, that's what they get paid for. Covert operations.
"If you're done having your little fun with me," I said—with more irritation than was perhaps necessary, but I felt tears threatening again—"you might actually want to do some work for a change. I mean, I know it's more fun for you all to try to get me to do your job for you, but in this particular case, I think you've got the expertise."
I told him about my mysterious caller. Special Agent Johnson was, I must say, mightily interested.
"And you say you didn't recognize the voice?" he asked.
"Well," I said. "It sounded kind of muffled."
"He probably put something over the mouthpiece of the phone he was using," Special Agent Johnson said, "for fear you might recognize him. Let me ask you something. Was the voice distinctive in any way? Any accents, or anything?"
For some reason, I found myself remembering the Grit Test. You know, the pen versus pin thing.
"No," I said, with some surprise at myself for not having realized it before. "No accent at all."
"Good," Special Agent Johnson said. "Good girl. All right, we'll work on seeing if we can come up with the number this person called from."
"Well, I would think you should be able to come up with that pretty easily," I said. "Seeing as how you've had my phone tapped since like, forever."
"That's very funny, Jessica," Special Agent Johnson said, dryly. "You are aware, of course, that the Bureau would never do anything to violate a U.S. citizen's rights during an investigation."
"Haw," I said. Somehow, knowing Special Agent Johnson was on the case made me feel better. Crazy, huh, considering how much having the Feds following me around all the time used to bug me? "Haw, haw."
"And don't worry, Jessica," Special Agent Johnson said. "You and your family are in no danger. We'll post plenty of operatives outside your home tonight."
Too bad that isn't what they chose to destroy in order to assure me of how serious they were about their threats. Our home, I mean.
Instead, they burned down Mastriani's.
C H A P T E R
17
You'd have thought I'd be able to catch a break, wouldn't you? I mean, it wasn't like I'd gotten any sleep the night before. No, they had to make sure I didn't get any the next night, either.
Well, okay, I got some. The call didn't come until after three.
Three in the morning, I mean.
But when it did come, there was no sleep for anyone in the Mastriani household. Not for a long, long time.
I, of course, thought it was for me.