seventeen
For a moment, Jeremy and I can only gape at Pam. Then Jeremy voices the same thing I’m thinking: “This is a setup.”
“What do you mean?” Pam looks baffled.
“It means we were led here on purpose,” I tell her, trying hard not to let my fear come out in my voice. “Someone wanted us to come here.”
“Yeah. Your dad wanted us to come here, right? That’s why he left the coded message?”
Jeremy expels a lungful of air. “Our dad wasn’t the one who hacked into the TV at the gas station and showed you exactly how to get to this address. That was someone else. Someone who’s probably following us and leading us into a trap.”
“What do you mean?” Now Pam sounds frightened. “It was just some TV channel that showed how to get to certain addresses. 756 Hillbrook wasn’t the only one they showed; it was just the only one I paid attention to. Right after I finished paying for the gas, I heard them announce it, so I stayed and watched.”
Pam doesn’t get it. Of course she doesn’t get it--she’s never seen a TV before. She probably thinks TVs are magical things that show you whatever you want to see, whenever you want the information.
“The thing is, there aren’t any TV channels that show how to get to certain addresses,” I explain to her. “Somebody was playing that on the gas station TV because you were in there. Because they wanted you to see it and know how to get here.”
“Because they knew you wouldn’t question it, because you’ve never even seen a TV in real life,” Jeremy growls.
I can see the magnitude of the situation playing out on Pam’s face. She looks terrified and remorseful all at once. “Well, how was I supposed to know?” she whimpers.
“You weren’t,” I say, speaking more gently than Jeremy. “It’s not your fault--you thought you were being helpful. But someone took advantage of you.” I can’t help shivering. “Someone knew we were there. Someone knew we were at that exact gas station at that exact moment, and that Pam was the only one in the convenience store.”
“I know.” Jeremy pushes down the lock on the driver’s side door--Pam’s dad’s truck is so old it doesn’t have a button that will lock all of the doors at once. Pam takes his cue and locks the door on her side as well.
I know I don’t have any doors to lock in the back, but I check the walls on either side of me anyway. It’s terrifying to think that someone knew where we were. That someone probably knows where we are right now.
“So what are we going to do?” Pam asks.
“What can we do?” I moan. “Our only plan was to go to this address. It’s our only lead about what’s going on and how to get our family back.”
Jeremy and Pam are silent. They know I’m right.
Finally Pam speaks up. “Then that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Haven’t you been listening?” Jeremy explodes. “They set us up! If we go in that house, we’ll be walking right into their trap!”
“Right, but they don’t know we know that,” says Pam calmly. “So if we come up with a plan about how to beat their trap, we’ll be the ones with the upper hand. They’ll think we’re just walking blindly into a trap, when all along we’re onto them.”
There are a whole bunch of things that could go wrong with that plan, but at the moment, it’s the best one we’ve got. “When are we going to go in?” I ask.
“Tomorrow?” Jeremy suggests. “I mean, it’d be kind of weird to show up at someone’s house at 10 pm.”
I hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. Now that we’ve found the place we’re supposed to go, the idea of sitting around in the truck for the next ten or so hours with nothing to do is not appealing. “We’re not going for a visit,’ I point out. “We’re on a mission. This whole situation is weird. Why not make it a little weirder by showing up to the house at night?”
Jeremy isn’t convinced. I appeal to Pam, expecting her to be on my side--after all, she was the one who was so gung-ho about getting everything done right away before. But now she’s shaking her head, biting her lip nervously. “Maybe we should wait until morning. We can get some sleep and come up with a plan.”
I don’t know how she expects to get any sleep with all three of us crammed in a truck cab and anxious about what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I’m outnumbered. I sigh and try to arrange myself into a more comfortable position while Jeremy drives to a less conspicuous location.
It takes a while, but I actually do manage to get to sleep. When I wake up, it’s bright in the vehicle, and Jeremy and Pam are talking quietly in the front seat. When Pam notices me stirring, she shifts so that I can see her better and then says, “So Jeremy and I have come up with part of a plan.”
“Why didn’t you wake me as soon as you woke up?” I ask, annoyed that they’ve been talking long enough to come up with a plan and didn’t even bother to ask for my input.
“Sorry,” Jeremy apologizes. “I just figured, with all that’s been going on, we can use all the sleep we can get.”
That’s actually pretty considerate. “All right, so what’s the plan?” I ask. “Or--did you say you only have part of a plan?”
“Yes,” says Pam. “All we really figured out is that one of us needs to stay outside the house, because if all three of us get trapped in there, we’re at a dead end. But if one of us stays in the truck, we can arrange some sort of signal for the ones inside to give to indicate that everything’s okay. If the person in the truck doesn’t see the signal within five minutes, they know there’s a problem and they have to figure out how to get the others out.”
I gape at her, then at my brother. “There are so many things wrong with that plan I don’t even know where to start.”
Jeremy sighs heavily. “There are, but what else can we do? If all three of us go inside, we might not ever come back out. If only one of us goes in… it just seems kinda stupid, like there’s safety in numbers, you know? So that leaves the current plan.”
“Couldn’t we just go out and buy a couple of cheap cell phones first?” I ask. “So we can actually text each other rather than having to rustle the window shades or whatever?”
Pam guffaws. “And you said my plan had a lot of problems.”
“I would feel more comfortable that way,” Jeremy admits. “Having a reliable mode of communication rather than just having to guess whether the person in the truck saw the signal. Plus, it’s a lot less suspicious to see a teenager staring down at their phone than for one of us to go over and start messing with the window blinds or something.”
“A reliable mode of communication?!” Pam shrieks. “A reliable mode of tracking, more like. Having cell phones would put us on the radar of every tower in the county!”
“We’re already on someone’s radar,” I point out. “And we could get the no-contract kind, where we don’t have to register it to our names or anything. It’s totally anonymous.”
“We’d still need to set it up, though,” Jeremy sighs, looking defeated. “And we’d need Wi-fi for that. And I don’t know how much it would cost to get two phones and two plans…”
Pam, who’s been staring at both of us like we’re speaking another language, shakes her head. “No. I will not even consider allowing cell phones to accompany us on this journey. Too much risk of exposure. We’ll just do things as originally planned. Which one of us is going to stay in the car?”
We all look at each other.
“I think it should be Krystie,” says Jeremy. “Pam, you’re good at fighting and stuff, and I’m tall, so people might think twice before messing with me. It’ll be safest if Krystie stays in the car.”
I glare at him. I know he’s trying to protect me from the unknown, but I don’t appreciate it. Waiting in anxious silence by myself while I have no idea what’s happening to Jeremy and Pam inside the house sounds like nothing short of torture. “I definitely don’t think it should be me,” I say. “Let’s say something does happen inside the house, and the person in the truck needs to make a quick getaway. I’m the only person here who has no clue how to drive.”
Jeremy frowns, but before he can respond, I think of something else. “Plus, remember, we’re trying not to let them know that we know something’s up. If anyone at that house knows anything about Jeremy and me, they’d expect us to be together. Not for Jeremy to show up with some random girl and me to hang out in a pickup truck across the street. That’s suspicious.”
Pam scowls. I can tell she recognizes that I’m right. “So I’m the one in the truck, then?”
“Guess so,” says Jeremy, not looking happy about it.
We fine-tune the plan as we’re driving back over to 756 Hillbrook. It’s a very sketchy plan, and I still have reservations about it. But we’re not going to learn anything unless we give it a shot.
“Remember,” Jeremy says to Pam as we turn into the neighborhood. “Keep your eyes on the entire front of the house. If everything’s okay, one of us will ask to use the bathroom within the first five or ten minutes we’re there. We’ll try to get to one of the front windows and do something. No guarantees what.”
Pam nods. “And if I don’t get the signal?”
I look at Jeremy. He grimaces. “I guess keep waiting around here until you find out what’s going on. Unless people start coming after you, in which case you’ll have to drive away.”
We park, slightly down the street from the house in question. I take a deep, steadying breath. Jeremy hesitates before opening his door. “Maybe it would be best if both of you stay here.”
“No way.” I slide up to the front, squeezing next to him. “The fake dude’s name was Jeremy Krystie, not Jeremy Jeremy. I’m coming with you.”
We exit the truck, watching Pam lock the door behind us. We walk slowly across the street to the average-looking white house with blue shutters and a plain black mailbox labeled 756. I chance a glance back at the truck. Can we trust Pam? How do we know she’s not just going to drive away without us?
I turn back around and face the house. It’s not Pam we have to worry about. It’s whatever’s waiting for us inside.
Together, Jeremy and I walk up the front steps and ring the doorbell.
“What do you mean?” Pam looks baffled.
“It means we were led here on purpose,” I tell her, trying hard not to let my fear come out in my voice. “Someone wanted us to come here.”
“Yeah. Your dad wanted us to come here, right? That’s why he left the coded message?”
Jeremy expels a lungful of air. “Our dad wasn’t the one who hacked into the TV at the gas station and showed you exactly how to get to this address. That was someone else. Someone who’s probably following us and leading us into a trap.”
“What do you mean?” Now Pam sounds frightened. “It was just some TV channel that showed how to get to certain addresses. 756 Hillbrook wasn’t the only one they showed; it was just the only one I paid attention to. Right after I finished paying for the gas, I heard them announce it, so I stayed and watched.”
Pam doesn’t get it. Of course she doesn’t get it--she’s never seen a TV before. She probably thinks TVs are magical things that show you whatever you want to see, whenever you want the information.
“The thing is, there aren’t any TV channels that show how to get to certain addresses,” I explain to her. “Somebody was playing that on the gas station TV because you were in there. Because they wanted you to see it and know how to get here.”
“Because they knew you wouldn’t question it, because you’ve never even seen a TV in real life,” Jeremy growls.
I can see the magnitude of the situation playing out on Pam’s face. She looks terrified and remorseful all at once. “Well, how was I supposed to know?” she whimpers.
“You weren’t,” I say, speaking more gently than Jeremy. “It’s not your fault--you thought you were being helpful. But someone took advantage of you.” I can’t help shivering. “Someone knew we were there. Someone knew we were at that exact gas station at that exact moment, and that Pam was the only one in the convenience store.”
“I know.” Jeremy pushes down the lock on the driver’s side door--Pam’s dad’s truck is so old it doesn’t have a button that will lock all of the doors at once. Pam takes his cue and locks the door on her side as well.
I know I don’t have any doors to lock in the back, but I check the walls on either side of me anyway. It’s terrifying to think that someone knew where we were. That someone probably knows where we are right now.
“So what are we going to do?” Pam asks.
“What can we do?” I moan. “Our only plan was to go to this address. It’s our only lead about what’s going on and how to get our family back.”
Jeremy and Pam are silent. They know I’m right.
Finally Pam speaks up. “Then that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Haven’t you been listening?” Jeremy explodes. “They set us up! If we go in that house, we’ll be walking right into their trap!”
“Right, but they don’t know we know that,” says Pam calmly. “So if we come up with a plan about how to beat their trap, we’ll be the ones with the upper hand. They’ll think we’re just walking blindly into a trap, when all along we’re onto them.”
There are a whole bunch of things that could go wrong with that plan, but at the moment, it’s the best one we’ve got. “When are we going to go in?” I ask.
“Tomorrow?” Jeremy suggests. “I mean, it’d be kind of weird to show up at someone’s house at 10 pm.”
I hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. Now that we’ve found the place we’re supposed to go, the idea of sitting around in the truck for the next ten or so hours with nothing to do is not appealing. “We’re not going for a visit,’ I point out. “We’re on a mission. This whole situation is weird. Why not make it a little weirder by showing up to the house at night?”
Jeremy isn’t convinced. I appeal to Pam, expecting her to be on my side--after all, she was the one who was so gung-ho about getting everything done right away before. But now she’s shaking her head, biting her lip nervously. “Maybe we should wait until morning. We can get some sleep and come up with a plan.”
I don’t know how she expects to get any sleep with all three of us crammed in a truck cab and anxious about what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I’m outnumbered. I sigh and try to arrange myself into a more comfortable position while Jeremy drives to a less conspicuous location.
It takes a while, but I actually do manage to get to sleep. When I wake up, it’s bright in the vehicle, and Jeremy and Pam are talking quietly in the front seat. When Pam notices me stirring, she shifts so that I can see her better and then says, “So Jeremy and I have come up with part of a plan.”
“Why didn’t you wake me as soon as you woke up?” I ask, annoyed that they’ve been talking long enough to come up with a plan and didn’t even bother to ask for my input.
“Sorry,” Jeremy apologizes. “I just figured, with all that’s been going on, we can use all the sleep we can get.”
That’s actually pretty considerate. “All right, so what’s the plan?” I ask. “Or--did you say you only have part of a plan?”
“Yes,” says Pam. “All we really figured out is that one of us needs to stay outside the house, because if all three of us get trapped in there, we’re at a dead end. But if one of us stays in the truck, we can arrange some sort of signal for the ones inside to give to indicate that everything’s okay. If the person in the truck doesn’t see the signal within five minutes, they know there’s a problem and they have to figure out how to get the others out.”
I gape at her, then at my brother. “There are so many things wrong with that plan I don’t even know where to start.”
Jeremy sighs heavily. “There are, but what else can we do? If all three of us go inside, we might not ever come back out. If only one of us goes in… it just seems kinda stupid, like there’s safety in numbers, you know? So that leaves the current plan.”
“Couldn’t we just go out and buy a couple of cheap cell phones first?” I ask. “So we can actually text each other rather than having to rustle the window shades or whatever?”
Pam guffaws. “And you said my plan had a lot of problems.”
“I would feel more comfortable that way,” Jeremy admits. “Having a reliable mode of communication rather than just having to guess whether the person in the truck saw the signal. Plus, it’s a lot less suspicious to see a teenager staring down at their phone than for one of us to go over and start messing with the window blinds or something.”
“A reliable mode of communication?!” Pam shrieks. “A reliable mode of tracking, more like. Having cell phones would put us on the radar of every tower in the county!”
“We’re already on someone’s radar,” I point out. “And we could get the no-contract kind, where we don’t have to register it to our names or anything. It’s totally anonymous.”
“We’d still need to set it up, though,” Jeremy sighs, looking defeated. “And we’d need Wi-fi for that. And I don’t know how much it would cost to get two phones and two plans…”
Pam, who’s been staring at both of us like we’re speaking another language, shakes her head. “No. I will not even consider allowing cell phones to accompany us on this journey. Too much risk of exposure. We’ll just do things as originally planned. Which one of us is going to stay in the car?”
We all look at each other.
“I think it should be Krystie,” says Jeremy. “Pam, you’re good at fighting and stuff, and I’m tall, so people might think twice before messing with me. It’ll be safest if Krystie stays in the car.”
I glare at him. I know he’s trying to protect me from the unknown, but I don’t appreciate it. Waiting in anxious silence by myself while I have no idea what’s happening to Jeremy and Pam inside the house sounds like nothing short of torture. “I definitely don’t think it should be me,” I say. “Let’s say something does happen inside the house, and the person in the truck needs to make a quick getaway. I’m the only person here who has no clue how to drive.”
Jeremy frowns, but before he can respond, I think of something else. “Plus, remember, we’re trying not to let them know that we know something’s up. If anyone at that house knows anything about Jeremy and me, they’d expect us to be together. Not for Jeremy to show up with some random girl and me to hang out in a pickup truck across the street. That’s suspicious.”
Pam scowls. I can tell she recognizes that I’m right. “So I’m the one in the truck, then?”
“Guess so,” says Jeremy, not looking happy about it.
We fine-tune the plan as we’re driving back over to 756 Hillbrook. It’s a very sketchy plan, and I still have reservations about it. But we’re not going to learn anything unless we give it a shot.
“Remember,” Jeremy says to Pam as we turn into the neighborhood. “Keep your eyes on the entire front of the house. If everything’s okay, one of us will ask to use the bathroom within the first five or ten minutes we’re there. We’ll try to get to one of the front windows and do something. No guarantees what.”
Pam nods. “And if I don’t get the signal?”
I look at Jeremy. He grimaces. “I guess keep waiting around here until you find out what’s going on. Unless people start coming after you, in which case you’ll have to drive away.”
We park, slightly down the street from the house in question. I take a deep, steadying breath. Jeremy hesitates before opening his door. “Maybe it would be best if both of you stay here.”
“No way.” I slide up to the front, squeezing next to him. “The fake dude’s name was Jeremy Krystie, not Jeremy Jeremy. I’m coming with you.”
We exit the truck, watching Pam lock the door behind us. We walk slowly across the street to the average-looking white house with blue shutters and a plain black mailbox labeled 756. I chance a glance back at the truck. Can we trust Pam? How do we know she’s not just going to drive away without us?
I turn back around and face the house. It’s not Pam we have to worry about. It’s whatever’s waiting for us inside.
Together, Jeremy and I walk up the front steps and ring the doorbell.
