Prank Wars (22 page)

“Hello?” My voice echoed into her apartment. No one answered. After a moment of stupid waiting, I took a step inside. Muffled country music followed my footsteps inside. At least it wasn’t the awful old stuff now. Taylor Swift was singing about finding Romeo. The sound seemed almost haunting in here. What if Thanh was inside...hiding in a paper thin closet? I leaned against a wall, sternly getting a hold of myself. What was wrong me? I couldn’t allow some scary remakes of Japanese horror movies stop me from being a good Samaritan. Thanh could be in trouble. I took a steadying breath and felt a presence behind me. I couldn’t bring myself to look back. “Thanh?” I asked.

“Nope.” The voice was masculine.

I screamed, whipping my head around to defend myself. My fists went up.

“It’s okay.” Eric stood in the doorway. He had rolled up the sleeves of his blue plaid button-up, the veins standing out on his forearms. Once again, he had caught me in a compromising position. I shouldn’t be in here. I realized what it could look like. Still, he was a welcome sight. He held up his hands to show he wasn’t a threat, wearing a slight smile. “You know. This is called breaking and entering in some places.”

“Not in Provo.” Despite my brave words, I had to stop myself from clutching at my heart. I couldn’t believe I was inside Thanh’s apartment. If I didn’t think she was somehow hurt, I wouldn’t have trespassed—last time didn’t count. I had no idea she was living here.

Eric looked around, taking in the mess with serious eyes. “So what are you doing this time? Sightseeing?”

I shook my head. “I think something’s wrong.”

“Yeah, me too. Who lives here?”

“Some girl who’s really neat, so neat that we didn’t even know she lived here last time we...uh, visited. And now look at the place.”

He gingerly lifted a scrap of paper with the toe of his Vans, his eyes moved to me. “What should we do?”

“Call the police?” But it was too late. I could already hear the sirens outside. Even the country music couldn’t drown them out. The house with the family must’ve called them. I pulled a hand through my already messy hair. It was a typical end to a typical day. “They’re coming for me.”

He laughed, but I didn’t mind, even though he was laughing
at
me. “I heard the music as soon as I parked my car,” he said. “I could only assume it had something to do with
our
next adventure.” The blue and red lights cast a glow over his face. It was an attractive one, despite the sinister look. Wait. Sinister? This whole place was sinister. He held his hand out to me. “What do you say Madeleine? Should we turn ourselves in to the coppers?”

I stared at his hand. There was something about Eric that drew me to him. He was so open and affectionate, or maybe it was something else? I didn’t think it was bad boy allure because the more I talked to him, the less of a bad boy he seemed. Even at my worst, he was actually pretty nice…in a dangerous way because he was getting through my defenses. “I can help you turn off that noise too,” he said. “You want me to break into your apartment for you?”

That was it. My hand was in his. “Can you figure out how to get through a locked window?”

“It depends.” He shut Thanh’s door behind us. “What will you give me if I do?”

This sounded suspiciously like flirting. I smiled. “I’ll stop accusing you of being a spy.”

“Tempting. I have something else in mind though.”

Before I could ask, I saw the two policemen coming for me. They marched up the stairs. Their hair was buzzed short and both had equally grim sets to their jaws. There was no use flirting myself out of this one, not that I was the girl for that job—I’d need Kali for that. I broke away from Eric to head them off. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!” It was best to pretend that I was desperate to see them. “My neighbor’s place has been ransacked. Thanh’s gone missing.”

Eric froze. Okay, so I admit that came out pretty crazy, but the police would see the truth of it for themselves. “Missing?” one of them asked. He was a solid guy with a no-nonsense air. His name tag said Officer Oliveira. “What’s missing?”

“Thanh. My neighbor! C’mon. Her place is a mess.” I ran solidly into Thanh’s door. “Ouch.” I held my nose. Apparently, the door automatically locked when closed.

“Are you sure?” one of the police officers asked. He held his notebook tightly. His eyes were accusing.

I took my hand from my aching nose. “See for yourself.” I tried to direct them to the windows, but too late I noticed the curtains were drawn. “You’re going to have to believe me on this one,” I said. “We’ve been inside and it’s a mess. Thanh’s normally really clean.” One of the officers shifted against the railing. I had nothing to convince them with, except my female intuition. “I heard loud crashes earlier.”

“Through all this music?” Officer Oliveira asked.

“Before the music. And then...when I came over here, I saw someone trashed the place. And Thanh was gone!”

“You realize we’ll have to get a search warrant to check out your claim.”

A search warrant? That would take forever. What about poor Thanh? “
I
don’t need a warrant. I’ll just break in real quick and make sure everything’s okay. Just stay out here and make sure no one kills me.”

The other police officer’s eyes got huge. Before he could deliver a lecture or worse, slap cuffs on me, Byron stepped out of nowhere. I had no idea where he had come from. He looked relaxed like a fine English gentleman out for a stroll...in Nikes. “Good evening. Sergeant. Brady, right?” The officer nodded and straightened out of respect. What a lousy judge of character, especially once I spied Byron slipping keys that looked suspiciously like ours into the pockets of his gray striped khakis. “You don’t need a warrant, sir,” Byron surprised me by backing me up. “You can check it out if you have reasonable suspicion someone is in danger inside.”

After a long look, the officer lowered his notebook. He took his two-way radio from his belt and brought it to his lips. “We have a missing person report,” he shouted over the noise from my apartment. He glanced at me. “Do you have a description?”

“Um...she’s Japanese?”

“Vietnamese,” Byron corrected without a beat.

“Vietnamese,” the officer said over the receiver. Apparently Byron was a more reliable source. I glared at him just as I saw the little Vietnamese girl in question trudge up the steps behind him. Her face looked unnaturally pale.

“Thanh.” Though as I said it, I felt my face drain of color to match hers. There went the rest of my credibility. Thanh’s long black hair seemed a little messier than this morning, but other than that she was still alive. Well, as far as any of us knew, but that was just the scary movies talking. Everyone turned to her. Thanh stepped back and I remembered too late she didn’t know me. “Uh, we were worried about you,” I said. “Your door was open and it looked like someone messed up your place.”

She colored slightly. It was an improvement, since she seemed so devoid of color. “Yeah, that was me. I was looking for something...”
Oh.
Now it was my turn to blush. I felt like an idiot. “Am I in trouble?” Thanh asked the two reluctant officers. She sounded tired.

The two were already laughing. “Yeah, your landlord sent us.” At her somber look, Officer Oliveira dropped the jokes. “We’re real sorry, young lady, for the mix-up. As far as I know you can’t get arrested for keeping a messy place. What do you say, Brady?”

“No, but my wife might think differently.” They gave into their laughter again.

Thanh bit her lip. Despite her disheveled state, she had incredible fashion sense. Byron would appreciate that. She wore calf-high boots and a plaid dress over her leggings. She was refined and delicate, everything that I constantly proved I wasn’t. I glanced over at Eric and then at Byron. Neither of them could take their eyes off her. Byron’s were assessing. Eric looked curious.
Men.

“I’m sorry,” Thanh said. “Things are a little hectic right now.” She put her slender hand on her door, a book bag and a black backpack slung over her shoulder. She carried more of her books in front of her. “I’m grading tests and working on a thesis. I’ll clean everything up as soon as I can, okay?” She faced the group a little nervously. Her big eyes went from me, lingered on Eric, but got even bigger when she saw Byron. “You’re here too?” He nodded. I pretended not to care that he had lied to me. These two were way too tight for it to be otherwise. “How was study group?” she asked him.

He cleared his throat. “Good. Thanks. I learned a lot.”

She hesitated. “Have you looked over…uh…?” She glanced over at us as if embarrassed to be talking about something as mundane as school. “Have you studied your notes?”

“Almost.” Byron nudged me meaningfully with his elbow.

Thanh looked disappointed. “Well, tell me if you have any...questions.” She unlocked her door. “Is it okay if I go in?” she asked the police officers. “I have a lot of homework to do.”

They nodded at her, their expressions turning gentle—I knew they’d never direct that look at me. “You’re fine,” the relaxed one reassured her.
That meant I wasn’t.
As soon as Thanh closed the door behind her, I knew I was in for it. The men turned on me with various looks of long-suffering. The officer with the notebook wrote furiously on it. The country music grated through the air and they squinted under it. I knew the feeling. My head pounded to the beat. The officers pointed at my apartment. “Are your keys locked inside?”

I glanced over at Byron, wondering what to say. “Uh...I can’t find my keys.”

“—because they’re not
your
keys?” Byron muttered under his breath. My eyes widened. It wasn’t the time to grill me about using our manager’s keys. I slanted a glance at the officers, but they hadn’t overheard. Eric had. He grinned and teetered on his heel, stepping back. I glared at Byron, knowing I couldn’t tackle him in front of the police to get my keys back.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve had complaints about things getting too loud around here,” the sergeant told me in a stern voice.

“Yeah. Sorry about that,” Byron pulled next to me, lending his strength. “We got locked out and I tried to break back in, but just ended up knocking the radio over and it forced the volume up too loud.” I studied Byron’s innocent face. He made lying look easy. “Right Mad?” he asked. “
You
didn’t touch the volume on your radio?”

“I would only listen to country music under torture.”

At my words, the music abruptly stopped…as if offended. The air tingled with the silence. I glanced around. Eric was missing. My heart gave an excited leap. He wasn’t lying when he said he could break in. I liked that guy, though I knew I shouldn’t. He’d get tired of this game soon enough. The two policemen grew noticeably calmer in the silence. Byron squeezed my arm. “You’ll have to excuse
us
for acting so…so uh…crazy. I think the noise was getting to Madeleine a little.”

“A little?” The sergeant sighed and crossed out whatever he had been writing. He peered at me under stern brows. “We’re not giving you a fine this time, little lady.” I winced at the endearment, but didn’t fight it if it got me out of this. “Consider this your warning. Next time, it’ll cost you.” That was the biggest threat against any starving college student and they knew it. I nodded wordlessly. After seeming to memorize my face, the sterner of the two turned. His partner followed him down the stairs. As soon as they were far enough away, they started laughing and elbowing each other. Yeah, we were a riot. I leaned the back of my head against the cool bricks of my apartment and closed my eyes.

“Sorry about that,” Byron said. He joined me next to my brick wall, and I felt the warmth of his shoulder meet mine. Was he actually apologizing? “You okay?” he asked. I opened my eyes to see him watching me closely. He was being nice, and I felt like I hardly knew him this way, a very dangerous position to be in when fighting a war with him. He reached into his pocket. “I got something for you.” I winced, but instead of throwing a frog or a spider, he dropped Tory’s cell phone into my palm and closed my fingers over it. His steady hands folded over mine and didn’t leave. I waited for him to say something smart, but he studied my face instead. “You haven’t seen my lost iPhone
perchance
?”
Perchance
sounded so foreign, especially when he said it with that funny little accent. I shook my head. His lips curled slightly, expecting nothing less. After a moment, he pulled away. “You know, if I don’t find it, my mom’s gonna think I’m dead, right?”

I smiled inanely at him. “Your girlfriends won’t. I sent a text message to them all with a declaration of your love.”

“Seriously?”

No. I hadn’t even checked the backpack for his phone yet, but a cell phone was just an added complication. I could only have something that time-sensitive in my possession for so long. After I stole his number and maybe changed his ski Utah screensaver to bunnies, I’d give the whole mess of a backpack to him tonight.

“If you did,” he accused me in a low voice, “…no woman will have me. You’ve ruined my future posterity.”

“Oh, that wasn’t me.”

“I suppose
you’ll
have to take me then...if no one else will.”

A loud clattering interrupted our meaningless bickering. Tory ran up the steps, taking two at a time. Her hair flew behind her, her freckles more pronounced. There was a twinkle in her eyes that I hadn’t seen before we left on our mission. I was immediately suspicious. “You aren’t dead?” I asked.