D D D
Walking out of the locker room, Madison saw Jake standing with a bunch of guys from the boys’ team. Her black eye was pale yellow and purple by now, but she was sporting a fresh cut on her cheek courtesy of an intentionally thrown elbow, and there were more bruises on her arms and legs. Jake said good-bye to his friends and walked over.
“Are you on the soccer team or the boxing team?” Jake asked with his usual wide grin.
“I have a group of eighth graders determined to break my neck before we play our first game,” she answered angrily.
“No way. If you broke your neck, then I’d have to find your missing friend by myself, and I don’t even know what she looks like. So, have you called, emailed, and tried to get through on Facebook?”
Madison sighed. “Yeah, all of the above. Now I think it’s time for me to try a low-tech approach.”
“Huh?” Jake said.
“You know, actually going to her house,” Madison said. “It’s pretty close to school. Want to come? I mean, if you’re not busy . . .”
“Sure,” Jake said.
Ann lived in Northwest Portland, a section of the city on the northern edge of downtown. Hip boutiques and cool restaurants clustered on 23rd and 21st streets, and the surrounding area was populated with a densely packed blend of fancy old houses and apartment buildings. After an easy twenty-minute walk, Madison and Jake approached Ann’s street. The houses were a mix of Victorians, Dutch Colonials, and other styles popular in the early part of the twentieth century, and all of them—except for one—had one thing in common: their lawns were mowed, their flower gardens were well tended, and none of them looked like they were in need of repair.
Ann’s lawn looked like it hadn’t seen a mower in ages, the paint on the siding of the house was peeling, and the place looked deserted.
“Does Ann’s house always look like this?” Jake asked.
“No,” Madison replied nervously, “it usually looks great. Ann’s mom is always in the garden planting flowers and stuff, and her dad mows the lawn every weekend.” She looked at the unkempt grass again. “Well, at least he used to.”
“The house looks like it should be in a Friday the Thirteenth movie.”
“Ann and her dad have been in Europe all summer. I guess her mom didn’t keep the place up.”
Jake studied the house. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Madison thought she saw a light in a second-floor window. But when she turned her head, it was gone.
“I thought I saw a light on upstairs,” Madison said, “but I can’t see anything now.”
Jake followed her gaze. “In the daylight it’s hard to tell.”
They walked up to the front door and Madison rang the bell. After a few moments with no answer, she tried knocking. Then she called out, “It’s Madison, Ann. Are you home?” There was still no answer. Shrugging her shoulders, Madison walked back to the front yard. The second-floor windows all looked dark, and Madison couldn’t see the light she thought she’d seen before.
“I guess no one’s home,” Jake said.
“Yeah, it seems like it,” Madison said miserably.
“Do you want to grab some pizza and figure out what to do next?”
“Sure. Let me call my dad and tell him I’ll be late.”
As Madison dialed her cell phone, she looked back at the house and thought she saw a window curtain move on the second floor. She was tempted to go back to the house and look around more, but Jake had already started walking away.
When they got to Amore Pizza, a popular hangout for Madison and her friends just a few blocks from Ann’s house, Jake went to the counter while Madison found a booth. By the time Jake sat down with a small pepperoni pizza and two Cokes, Madison could feel her tightly wound nerves fraying.
“I think we need to go to the police,” she said as she ripped a napkin into tiny pieces.
Madison remembered The Spy Vanishes. “What if Ann was hit on the head and is wandering around Europe with no memory?”
“Let’s not panic. You said that Ann was in Europe all summer, right?”
“Yeah. Ann’s dad is some sort of famous scientist. I think he was giving lectures over there.”
“Maybe his lectures were so good that he stayed.”
“Like they extended the trip or something?”
“Yeah.”
Madison thought for a minute. “But Ann has to go to school. And why wouldn’t she call me? Or email or something?”
She took a bite of her pizza. Jake’s usually joking expression had been replaced with a thoughtful one. After a few quiet moments he looked up. “You said your father is a criminal lawyer.”
Madison’s mouth was full of cheese, so she nodded.
“Has he ever handled a kidnapping case? Maybe you should ask him about Ann.”
“I dunno . . . Dad is so busy right now. He just got a really hard new case.” She took a sip of Coke.
“Oh yeah? What’s it about?”
She quickly swallowed. “This woman called the police and said that she heard her neighbor being murdered. When the police went into the house, they found a knife and blood. And the most awful part is the missing woman is my second-grade teacher.”
“Oh my God! I really liked Mrs. Haggard, my second-grade teacher,” he said mid-bite.
“I really liked Mrs. Shelby too, and I can’t stand thinking that something bad has happened to her. I’m so worried.”
“Is there a chance she’s alive?”
“No one knows for sure. They haven’t found Mrs. Shelby’s body, but they arrested her husband for murder anyway.”
“Wow! That’s like CSI,” Jake said. “Have you ever seen a trial in person?”
“Oh, yeah,” Madison replied casually. “I go all the time.”
“Can anyone watch?”
“Sure!”
“I’ve never been in a courtroom. It would be pretty cool to go. . . .”
“There’s a bail hearing for Mr. Shelby on Friday. That’s a teacher-training day, so there’s no school or soccer practice.”
Jake was reaching for his third slice of pizza. Madison couldn’t believe the words that came out of her mouth next.
“Do you want to come with me?” She ducked her head and filled her mouth with more pizza.
Jake flashed his wide gap-toothed smile. “That sounds great.”
Madison was about to say, “It’s a date,” but she caught herself. Was asking Jake to watch a bail hearing the same thing as asking him out on a date? Dates were usually, like, going to movies or to the mall, so she wasn’t sure. She decided that going to court would be educational, so it couldn’t be a date.
“Is your mom a lawyer, too?” Jake asked.
It was the question she always dreaded. In a few seconds, her mood went from high to low.
Discussing her mom always made her sad. She guessed she’d never get used to not having one. One time many years ago, Madison and Peggy had had a serious talk about Madison’s mother. Madison had been in a school play, and Hamilton couldn’t come because he was in a big trial in California. Madison had been staying with Peggy, and Peggy had come to school in Hamilton’s place. After the play, Madison saw all of her friends with a dad and a mom and she’d gotten teary-eyed. Until that day, Madison had accepted having a dad and no mom. She knew her mom was dead, but they had never really talked about it. On the ride home, she’d asked Peggy why other dads had wives and other kids had a mom and a dad.