But would Rob want to know?
There was only one way, really, to find out. But I really, really didn't want to do it. Just come out and ask him if he wanted to know, I mean. Because I didn't want him to know I'd been snooping. I hadn't, really. His mom had needed that apron from her room. Was it my fault that while I'd been in there, I'd happened to see a picture of Rob's dad? And that afterward, as always tended to happen when I saw photos of missing people, I dreamed about his dad, and exactly where he was now? Was it my fault that, thanks to that stupid lightning, that I can't see a picture—or sometimes, even smell the sweater or pillow—of a missing person without getting a mental picture of their exact location?
"Listen," I said, pressing myself a little harder against his back. It was damned cold on the back of that snowmobile. "Rob, I—"
"Mastriani," Rob said, sounding tired. "Not now, okay?"
"What?" I asked, defensively. "I was just going to—"
"I am not going to tell you," Rob said.
"Tell me what?"
"What I'm on probation for. Okay? You can forget it. Because you're never getting it out of me. You can drag me out to the middle of nowhere," he said, "on some lunatic mission to stop a murdering white supremacist. You can make me sit for hours in sub-zero temperatures until my fingers feel like they are going to fall off. You can even tell me that you love me. But I am not going to tell you why I got arrested."
I digested this. While this was not, of course, the subject I'd meant to bring up, it was nonetheless a very interesting one. Perhaps more interesting, even, than the current location of Rob's father. To me, anyway.
"I didn't tell you that I love you," I said, after some thought, "because I wanted you to tell me what you're on probation for. Although I do want to know. I told you that I love you because—"
Rob swung around on the back of the snowmobile and threw a gloved hand over my mouth. "Don't," he said. His light-colored eyes were easy to distinguish in the moonlight. Because yeah, there was a moon. A pretty full one, too, hanging low in the cold, cloudless sky. Any other time, it might have been romantic. If, you know, it hadn't been like twenty below, and I hadn't had to pee, and my boyfriend had actually sort of liked me.
"Don't start on that again," Rob said, keeping his hand over my mouth. "Remember what happened last time."
"I liked what happened last time," I said, from behind his fingers.
"Yeah," Rob said. "Well, so did I. Too much, okay? So just keep your I love yous to yourself, all right, Mastriani?"
Sure. Like that was going to happen, after a girl hears a thing like that.
"Rob," I said, tightening my arms around his waist. "I—"
But I never got to finish. That was on account of a figure moving toward us through the trees. We heard the snow crunching beneath his feet.
Rob said a bad word and turned on the flashlight Chick had loaned us.
"Who's there?" he hissed, and shined the flashlight full on into the face of none other than Cyrus Krantz.
Now it was my turn to say a bad word.
"Shhh," Dr. Krantz said. "Jessica, please!"
"Well, whatever," I said, disgustedly. "What are you doing here?"
I couldn't believe his getup. Dr. Krantz's, I mean. He looked like somebody out of Icestation Zebra. He had the full-on arctic gear, complete with puffy camouflage ski pants. I had barely recognized him with all the fur trim on his hood.
"I followed you, of course," Dr. Krantz replied. "Is this where they're holding Seth, Jessica?"
"Would you get out of here?" I couldn't tell which was making me madder, the fact that he was putting our plan to rescue Seth in jeopardy, or that he'd interrupted Rob and me just when things had been starting to get interesting. "You're going to ruin everything. How did you get out here, anyway?" If he said snowmobile, I was going to seriously reconsider my refusal to work for him. Any institution that willingly supplied its employees with snowmobiles was one I could see myself getting behind.
"Never mind about that," Dr. Krantz said. "Really, Jessica, this is just too ridiculous. You shouldn't be here. You're going to get hurt."
"I'm going to get hurt?" I laughed bitterly—though quietly. "Sorry, Doc, but I think you got it backward. So far the only person who's gotten hurt is one of yours."
"And Nate Thompkins," Dr. Krantz reminded me softly. "Don't forget him."
As if I could. As if he wasn't half the reason I was out there, freezing my hooha off. I hadn't forgotten my promise to myself to try to help Tasha, if I could. And the best way to help her, I couldn't help thinking, was to bring her brother's murderers to justice.
And of course to keep them from hurting anybody else. Such as Seth Blumenthal.
"Nobody's forgetting about Nate," I whispered. "We're just going to take care of this in our own way, all right? Now get out of here, before you mess everything up."
"Jessica," Dr. Krantz said. "Rob. I really must object. If Seth Blumenthal is being harbored on this property, you are under an obligation to report it, then stand back and allow the appropriate law enforcement agents to do their—"
"Oh, bite me," I said.
I couldn't be sure, given the way the moonlight, reflecting off all the snow, made it hard to see past the thick lenses of his glasses, but I thought Dr. Krantz blinked a few times.
"I b-beg your pardon," he stammered.
"You heard me," I said. "You and the appropriate law enforcement agents don't have the slightest clue what you're dealing with here, okay?"
"Oh." Now Dr. Krantz sounded sarcastic, which was sort of amusing, considering the fact that he was such a geek. "And I suppose you do."
"Better than you," I said. "At least we've got a chance at infiltrating them from the inside, instead of going in there blasting away, and possibly getting Seth killed in the crossfire."
"Infiltration?" Dr. Krantz sounded appalled. "What are you talking about? You can't possibly think you have a better chance at—"
"Oh, yeah?" I narrowed my eyes at him. "What number comes after nine?"
He looked at me like I was crazy. "What? What does that have to do with—"
"Just answer the question, Dr. Krantz," I said. "What number comes after nine?"
"Why, ten, of course."
"Wrong," I said. "What are Coke cans made out of?"
"Aluminum, of course. Jessica, I—"
"Wrong again," I said. "The answer to both questions, Dr. Krantz, is tin. I've just administered a Grit test, and you failed miserably. There is no way you are going to be able to pass for a local. Now get out of here, before you ruin it for the rest of us."
"This," Dr. Krantz said, looking scandalized, "is ridiculous. Rob, surely you—"
But Rob straightened on the back of the snowmobile, his head turned in the direction of the lights from Jim Henderson's house.
"Bogey," he said, "at twelve o'clock. Krantz, if you don't get the hell out of sight, you're gonna find yourself with a belly full of buckshot."
"W-what?" Dr. Krantz looked around nervously. "What are you—"
Rob was off the snowmobile and shoving Cyrus Krantz behind a tree before the good doctor knew what was happening. At the same time, I saw what Rob had seen, a light coming toward us through the thick trees on Jim Henderson's side of the barbed wire. As the light came closer, I saw that it came from one of those old-fashioned kerosene lanterns. The lantern was held by a big man in red-plaid hunting gear, a rifle in his other hand, and a dog big enough to pass for a small pony at his side.
The dog, when it noticed us, began hurtling through the snow in our direction. For a second or two, as it came careening toward us, its long tongue lolling and its eyes blazing, I thought it was one of those hell dogs. . . . You know, from that Hound of the Baskervilles they made us read in ninth grade?
But as it got closer, I realized it was just your run of the mill German shepherd. You know, the kind that clamp down on your throat and won't let go, even if you hit them over the head with a socket wrench.