Mojo Read Online Free PDF

of those people. But there was something else about her too, a certain mystery in those blue eyes. It made a weird contrast to her little thin smile. I felt like she was looking straight into me, asking, “Can’t you help me?”
    I guess maybe I fell a little bit in love with her right then.
    “There you go,” Audrey said. “Made to order. You find her, and you’ve got your mojo—or whatever.”
    “Yeah, but how am I going to find her?”
    “I don’t know, Dylan. You’re the detective-show junkie.”
    Then I’m like, “Wait a minute. Look at this. They’re asking for volunteers to come out to the nature park tomorrow to help search the place, I guess for clues or who knows—maybe her body.”
    “Well, you’ve got experience with that.”
    “You’re right. I do.” That’s when it hit me, the wholeinvestigative-journalist thing and all the mojo that went with it. Sure, I didn’t know Ashton like I knew Hector, but in a weird way I felt like if I could find her, it’d be like making things up to Hector. “This is it,” I said. “This is what I was meant to do. We have to go out there.”
    “What do you mean,
we
? I’m not going out there. I was just kidding you. They have all the cops they need to find her. You’d just get in the way.”
    “I won’t get in the way. It says right here they need volunteers. I’d make as good a volunteer as anyone. Besides, I could write about it for the school newspaper, and you could take the pictures. After all, you’re the one always telling me I need to take on some more hard-hitting topics.”
    I had her there. She sat staring at the phone for a second. “You know, you’re actually right for once. This would make a great story. And I could get some seriously kick-ass photos.”
    “I’m telling you.”
    Brenda came back with our order and I moved back to my side of the booth. The Number 11 sat there on the table, gazing up at me with all its fat-packed goodness, like a reward for coming up with the best idea since the invention of the emoticon.
    “There’s just one problem,” Audrey said as she lifted her meatless Number 2 from the dish. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Don’t you work Saturday?”
    My heart sank. “Crap. That’s right.”
    “You could quit.”
    “I can’t just quit. I’m saving up for a car—the ’69 Mustang.”
    “Then you’re just going to have to decide what’s more important. You can’t really keep working there and expect to do much for the paper anyway. If you want to be the guy who does more than get a piddling article about flu season or somethingin every third issue, then you’re going to have to put in time after school. It’s up to you. You can work on the all-time best story that’s ever been in the paper, or you can sack groceries.”
    “And don’t forget I’m also going to find this missing girl.”
    “Whatever. The real thing—the important thing—is working on this story.”
    I looked back at the Number 11. It was definitely on the side of finding Ashton Browning. “Okay,” I said. “I’m out of the grocery business and on to being a full-time investigative reporter. With emphasis on
investigative
.”
    Audrey wiped her mouth with her paper napkin. “I’m so proud of my boy. He’s getting all grown up.”
    After we finished eating, I stopped out front to give Rockin’ Rhonda the change I got from paying for my meal.
    “Thank you,” she said, Elvis-like. “Thank you very much.”
    “Rhonda,” I said, “you’ve heard of mojo, right?”
    With what you might call the classic faraway look in her eyes, she’s like, “Mojo? Sure. ‘Mojo Hand,’ by Lightnin’ Hopkins. ‘Got My Mojo Workin’,’ by Muddy Waters, ‘Mr. Mojo Risin’ ’—Jim Morrison and the Doors. Oh yeah, man.
Mojo
.”
    “So what does it mean? It’s like power, right?”
    “Oh yeah, it’s the special power. It’s the magic power.”
    I looked at Audrey. “See, I told you.”
    She gave me the
whatever
eyebrow