Need (27 page)

“I have my computer with me,” I say. “If we find somewhere for me to get online, I can do a search on her.”

“Why not use your phone?”

“Reception out here sucks. The laptop would be easier.” Besides, I haven't a clue what I'm looking for. I need a bigger screen and a lot of luck if I'm going to come up with something useful fast.

“It's the middle of the night.” Bryan is exasperated and tense. “We can't go to my house without my parents flipping out. You can't go back to your house without risking arrest, and nothing is open at this time of night.”

“No.” But Bryan has given me an idea. “You know, locking the doors and flipping off the lights doesn't turn off the Internet signal. A lot of places just leave the signal up and running at night. If we can find a business with public Wi-Fi, we can park next to the building and I can log on.”

While Bryan steers the car down the snowy streets, I try doing a few searches on my phone. All it yields is a link to the school's website, with her credentials as a psychiatrist—an undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. A graduate degree in public policy and a Ph.D. in behavioral science from Johns Hopkins. Well, there's no denying the woman is smart. The psychology degree I sort of understand, and behavioral science seems self-explanatory. But what does public policy have to do with either one of them? I'll have to wait until I get a better signal to find out because the Johns Hopkins website won't load on my phone.

But wait. There is one other interesting piece of information on the high school's site. Dr. Jain is quoted as saying, “Wisconsin has held many fond memories for me. It broke my heart eleven years ago when I moved away. I hope I can help ease the hearts of many Nottawa High School students and make my mark on the community now that I am back.”

Eleven years. Dr. Jain moved out of the area more than a decade ago. That had to have been when her husband left her. Unless she wasn't telling the truth about that. Maybe it's a stretch to think why she's here now is related to why she left then, but what other reason could she have to return and bring something so terrible with her?

I look at my phone. Twelve fifty a.m. Nate has been missing for only a couple hours, but there's no telling what has happened. My brother and mother might be on their way to Dr. Jain's place. Part of me thinks we should skip trying to hook up to the Web and just go to the address Dr. Jain gave me. I wish I knew what the right thing to do was. Will talking to Dr. Jain help? Or am I rushing headlong into danger and dragging Bryan along with me?

There's only one way to find out.

E
THAN SMILES
at the message on his phone. Asking for more information is always a good idea.

An ambulance cruises out of the school parking lot. Lights flashing. Siren blaring. Both give Ethan a rush. But beneath the rush nags worry. From his spot down the street he can't see what's happening, but the speeding ambulance makes him think that perhaps Hannah survived the explosion and fire. He should have moved her closer to the explosion, but he figured she'd be dead no matter what.

Maybe she is dead and someone else is injured. He has to hope for that outcome, because if Hannah is alive and she recovers she'll be able to point her finger at him. He can't allow that to happen.

He looks back at the message on the phone. Does he follow instructions and remove the assigned target or head after the ambulance? Or maybe he should just blow town.

No. He can't leave. He has no money and nowhere to go. So really, he has two choices in front of him. Which to choose? He pulls a quarter out of the cup holder. Heads he goes for the target. Tails he covers his own tail and makes sure that Hannah is eliminated for good.

Ethan gives the coin a flip, catches it, and slaps it onto the back of his hand. He glances at the quarter and dumps it back into the center console.
Fate has decided,
he thinks as he puts the car in gear. He takes one last look at the smoking building and the lights flashing in the school parking lot. Fate decides everything. Too bad Fate is a total bitch.

O
UR SLOW PACE
on the slick roads and the lack of reception on my phone make me want to scream. But I have to hold it together. Dr. Jain expects me to lead with my emotions. To charge into the situation without thinking it through. She thinks she knows who I am. But she doesn't. How could she when I'm not sure I really know who I am yet myself?

“I think Jammin' Joe might have free Wi-Fi and I doubt the staff is tech savvy enough to turn it off when they leave,” Bryan says. “You want to stop or keep going?”

All sorts of terrible scenarios have been playing in my head while Bryan has been driving. Most I know are unrealistic and worthy of the horror films Nate is so fond of. But one of them won't let go. If Dr. Jain has figured out a way to orchestrate an accident for Nate that will put him on life support, then she doesn't need my brother here yet. The hospital can keep Nate alive with machines until his family decides what to do. Dr. Jain could believe she can convince them to turn an apparently innocent tragedy into something positive.

As much as I want to tell Bryan to keep driving, I open my laptop and say, “Let's see if we can get a signal.”

Bryan misjudges the size of the parking space and the car jumps the curb. I clutch my laptop and scream. So much for staying calm. But he misses slamming into the handicapped parking sign by a couple inches, so that's good.

When the car is stopped, we look at each other for a second. I take several deep breaths before typing my password into the laptop and let it search for a network to connect to.

Come on.

The cursor spins and spins.

“How long does the GPS say it will take to get to the address Dr. Jain gave us?” I ask.

“Seven minutes. But fifteen minutes ago it said it would only take that much time to get this far. And it took double that. The streets are plowed better here, but it will probably be worse outside of town.”

I try to figure out how long Dr. Jain thinks it will take me to get to her location. A while, especially since she believes I'll have to find a car. Arriving faster than she plans would be a huge advantage. One I don't want to lose.

“Ten minutes,” I say as the cursor stops spinning and
Accept the Terms and Conditions of the free Wi-Fi page
appears. Score. “I'll look for information for only ten minutes. Then, no matter what I say, I want you to put the car in gear and go.”

Bryan nods and I open up my browser and get to work. The first thing I search for is the address we are going to. What is it? What's around it?

Not much. At least not from what I can tell. It looks as though it is out in the middle of nowhere. No surprise. But there is one entry for that address—a link to something called Everything Nature—Stone Pottery. Martin A. Boone is the owner, but when I click on the link a message tells me the site no longer exists. So I do a search on “Martin A. Boone” and find a new address for Everything Nature—Stone Pottery. I click on the link and watch the site load.

There's a picture of a blond man standing in front of shelves filled with bowls, plates, and vases. Something about him looks familiar. I click on the bio page and learn that he's a lifelong resident of Wisconsin who has embraced techniques used by Native American tribes from this area to create his art. He's newly remarried, has a studio-gallery in Burlington, Wisconsin, and travels to art festivals around the country, displaying and selling his work.

Remarried. And Dr. Jain is divorced. Is he her ex-husband? Burlington isn't far. Fifteen miles. Twenty, tops. And his business was once located at Dr. Jain's mystery address. He's connected to her in one way or another. As interesting as that is, I don't find anything that tells me why he looks familiar or if he is tied in to what's happening now.

I copy the link into a document and then glance at the time. Four minutes used up. I have to move on to the next search. This time I dig for information on Amelia Jain herself.

“I see headlights,” Bryan says. I crane my neck and look toward the road, hoping they belong to a plow. A cop might stop to see what we're doing here.

The school website information that I had previously found appears, as do a couple of articles from local papers about her accepting the job at Nottawa High. The first article shows a photograph of Dr. Jain looking stern yet calm and includes a press release the school must have written for the occasion. An article on the
Racine County News
website starts off the same, and I'm about to click away when I notice it continues where the other stopped. This reporter must have actually talked to Dr. Jain because he writes that while she enjoyed the government research job she took after earning her Ph.D., she wanted a chance to get out of the lab and apply all she had learned to real communities.

Research.

Apply what she had learned.

“The headlights turned into a parking lot up ahead. I think it might be a police cruiser.”

“Give me one more minute.”

Typing as fast as I can, I search for the program Nate thought he was taking a survey for. Not there. I think about the email address I saw on his phone and do a search for information about .gov websites. Access to registering those sites is restricted to government entities and the domains are administered by the General Services Administration. An agency that is part of the federal government. Nate wasn't fooled into thinking the Nottawa Project was a government program. It
was
a government program.

“I think the other car is turning around.”

“One more minute,” I say as I open up my email. As fast as my fingers will go, I type out the things I think NEED is responsible for—Amanda's death, Nate's kidnapping, the dead dogs, fights, broken mailboxes. I then mention the Nottawa Project survey that was sent to Nate. I stress it was a government website that came up when Nate looked for information. This isn't just about Dr. Jain. There is more at work here.

“The car is coming back this way.”

I add the email address for the police department from Officer Shepens's card and then go back to the body of the email to add the URL for the NEED site and my belief that Dr. Jain, with her prior government connection, is involved in the administration of NEED. I even tell Officer Shepens that the motive for her launching this in Nottawa might somehow involve her ex-husband, who lives nearby. It's not a lot. But Bryan is starting the car and I don't have time to write more. Hoping it's enough to help Officer Shepens start looking for answers, I hit Send.

We are turning onto the road as the approaching car slows. Neither of us says a word as the distance increases between our car and the one behind us. If it is a cop, he must have decided we aren't in trouble.

Bryan glances at me. “So did you learn anything useful?”

“Maybe.” I give him the rundown on everything I found on Martin Boone and his business, how I think he might be connected to Dr. Jain, and the government website that Nate saw when he got his survey.

“Why would the government be involved in creating a scary social media site for a bunch of high school kids? Call me crazy, but I can't imagine iPads and iPods would be approved as a line item in a departmental budget. Our government does some stupid things, but I have a hard time believing they'd be part of something like this.”

“People are apparently capable of lots of things we'd have a hard time believing as long as the reward is high enough.” NEED has hammered that lesson home.

“But we're kids.” Bryan shakes his head. “If we were adults, I guess I might buy it. But the government isn't supposed to screw with kids.”

“I don't think that's a law.” It should be, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. Yes, it seems crazy, but it's the only thing that makes even a little bit of sense. “Dr. Jain did research for the government and helped develop government programs. It would make sense that they'd want to test programs on a control group to make sure things work before launching the program for a wider audience.” Science isn't my best subject, but I'm pretty sure I understand the way test subjects work.

Bryan opens his mouth, then closes it and frowns. He drives in silence as I look out the window. The town is behind us. According to the GPS, we're a mile from our destination.

Minutes. I'm just minutes away from confronting Dr. Jain. From seeing if Nate is okay and maybe learning if my brother and mother are all right. I wish I could call Mom and hear her voice. But I can't. I just hope if things go bad for me she'll eventually understand what I did. That she'll know I was telling the truth. I can't bear the thought that she'd never understand what I'm doing now or why. I'd like to believe that she'd be proud.

“Stop!” I say louder than I mean to. Bryan jams on the brakes and the car skids.

“What's wrong?”

“You can't keep driving.”

“Why not?”

“Dr. Jain doesn't know you're with me. If I drive in on my own, you can follow on foot and help me if I get into trouble. Here.” I take the flashlight from my bag and hand it to him.

“I can't let you go in alone,” Bryan says. “The whole reason I'm here is to help fix things.”

“That's why you have to let me go by myself,” I insist. “Dr. Jain knows all of us. She knows how we think, which is why she has been able to manage everything that has happened up until now. We have to surprise her. Doing something she doesn't expect might be the only way we survive this. We have to go in separately.”

Bryan sighs and puts the flashlight in his lap. “Okay. Once we get to the right street, I'll get out and you can drive the rest of the way in. You have a license, right?”

“I haven't taken the test yet.” And I suck at driving because my mother never bothers to take me out to practice. But Bryan doesn't need to know that. I'll just go slow. “Don't worry. I'll get the car there in one piece.”