Crescendo

knew not to accept drinks of questionable origin. For all I knew, it was tainted with GHB. “Tell Anthony I don’t drink from anything but a sealed can.” Wow. I sounded even dumber than I felt.

“Anthony?” Her face twisted with confusion.

“Yeah, Anthony Pimp-o-witz,” Vee said. “The guy who’s making you play delivery girl.”

“You thought Anthony gave me the cup?” She shook her head. “Try the guy on the other side of the room.” She turned to where Patch had been standing only minutes ago. “Well, he was over there. I guess he left. He was hot and wearing a black shirt, if that helps.”

“Oh boy,” Vee said again, this time under her breath.

“Thanks,” I told Brenna, seeing no choice but to take the cup. She faded back into the crowd, and I set the cup of what smelled like cherry Coke on the entry table behind me. Was Patch trying to send a message? Reminding me of my flop of a fight at the Devil’s Handbag when Marcie had doused me with cherry Coke?

Vee pushed something into my hand.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“A walkie-talkie. I borrowed them from my brother. I’ll sit on the stairs and keep watch. If anybody comes up, I’ll radio.”

“You want me to snoop in Marcie’s bedroom now?”

“I want you to steal the diary.”

“Yeah, about that. I’m sort of having a change of heart.”

“Are you kidding me?” Vee said. “You can’t chicken out now. Imagine what’s in that diary. This is your one big chance to find out what’s going on with Marcie and Patch. You can’t pass that up.”

“But it’s wrong.”

“It won’t feel wrong if you steal it so fast that the guilt doesn’t have time to soak in.”

I gave her a pointed look.

“Self-talk helps too,” Vee added. “Tell yourself this isn’t wrong enough times, and you’ll start to believe it.”

“I’m not taking the diary. I just want to … look around. And steal Patch’s hat back.”

“I’ll pay you the eZine’s entire annual budget if you deliver the diary to me in the next thirty minutes,” Vee said, beginning to sound desperate.

“That’s why you want the diary? To publish it in the eZine?”

“Think about it. It could make my career.”

“No,” I said firmly. “And what’s more, bad Vee.”

She heaved a sigh. “Well, it was worth a try.”

I looked at the walkie-talkie in my hand. “Why can’t we just text?”

“Spies don’t text.”

“How do you know?”

“How do you know they do?”

Figuring it wasn’t worth an argument, I tucked the walkie-talkie into the waistband of my jeans. “Are you sure Marcie’s bedroom is on the second floor?”

“One of her ex-boyfriends sits behind me in Spanish. He told me every night at ten sharp Marcie undresses with the lights on. Sometimes when he and his friends are bored, they drive over to watch the show. He said Marcie never rushes, and by the time she finishes, he has a cramp in his neck from staring up. He also said there was this one time—”

I clapped my hands over my ears. “Stop!”

“Hey, if my brain has to be polluted with these kind of details, I figure yours should too. The whole reason I know all this vomit-inducing information is because I was trying to help you.”

I flicked my eyes toward the stairs. My stomach seemed to weigh twice as much as it had three minutes ago. I hadn’t done anything, and I was already sick with guilt. When had I become low enough to snoop in Marcie’s bedroom? When had I let Patch twist and tangle me up this way? “I guess I’m going up,” I said unconvincingly. “You’ve got my back?”

“Roger that.”

I climbed the stairs. There was a bathroom with tile floors and crown molding at the top. I moved down the hall to my left, passing what looked to be a guest bedroom, and an exercise room equipped with a treadmill and elliptical. I backtracked, this time taking the hall to the right. The first door was cracked, and I peeked inside. The room’s color scheme was a frothy pink—pink walls, pink drapes, and a pink duvet with pink throw pillows. The closet had spewed itself onto the bed, floor, and other furniture surfaces. Several photographs, blown to poster size, were tacked to the walls, and all were of Marcie posing seductively in her Razorbills cheerleading uniform. I experienced a mild rush of nausea, then saw Patch’s ball cap on the dresser. Shutting myself in the room, I rolled the bill of the cap into a narrow cone and crammed it into my back pocket. Beneath the ball cap, lying on the dresser, was a single car key. It was a spare, but it had a Jeep tag. Patch had given Marcie a spare to his Jeep.

Swiping the key off the dresser, I shoved it deep into my other back pocket. While I was at it, I figured I might as well look for anything else belonging to him.

I opened and closed a few dresser drawers. I looked under the bed, in the hope chest, and on the top shelf of Marcie’s closet. Finally I slipped my hand between the mattress and box spring. I pulled out the diary. Marcie’s small blue diary, rumored to contain more scandal than a tabloid. Holding it between my hands, I felt the overwhelming temptation to open it. What had she written about Patch? What secret things were hiding in the pages?

My walkie-talkie crackled.

“Oh, crap,” Vee said through it.

I fumbled it out of my waistband and pushed the talk button. “What’s the matter?”

“Dog. Big dog. It just lumbered into the living room, or whatever you call this humongous open space. It’s staring at me. Like, staring right at me.”

“What kind of dog?”

“I’m not up-to-date on my dog species, but I think it’s a Doberman pinscher. Pointed, snarling face. It resembles Marcie a little too much, if that helps. Uh-oh. Its ears just went up. It’s coming toward me. I think it’s one of those psychic dogs. It knows I’m not just sitting here minding my own business.”

“Stay calm—”

“Shoo, dog, I said shoo!”

The unmistakable growl of a big dog came through the walkie-talkie.

“Um, Nora? We have a problem,” Vee said a moment later.

“The dog didn’t leave?”

“Worse. It just bounded upstairs.”

Just then there was a snapping bark at the door. The barking didn’t stop—it grew louder and more snarling.

“Vee!” I hissed into the walkie-talkie. “Get rid of the dog!”

She said something in response, but I couldn’t hear over the dog’s growls. I flattened my hand to my ear. “What?”

“Marcie’s coming! Get out of there!”

I started to shove the diary back under the mattress, but fumbled it. Handfuls of notes and pictures spilled from the pages. In a panic, I raked the notes and pictures into a pile and tossed them back inside the diary. Then I rammed the diary, which was quite small considering how many secrets it was rumored to hold, and my walkie- talkie into the waistband of my pants and flipped the light switch off. I’d deal with putting the diary back later. Right now, I had to get out.

I raised the window, expecting to have to remove the screen, but it was already done for me. Probably Marcie had removed it long ago to avoid the nuisance when she was sneaking out. That thought gave me a small measure of hope. If Marcie had climbed out before, I could too. It wasn’t like I was going to fall and kill myself. Of course, Marcie was a cheerleader and a lot more flexible and coordinated.

Poking my head out the open window, I looked down. The front door was directly below, under a portico supported by four pillars. Swinging one leg out, I found traction on the shingles. After I was sure I wasn’t going to