Skink--No Surrender Read Online Free PDF Page B

what she told me,” I said.
    “So it’s possible she knows him better than we think she does. Maybe that’s why she’s not afraid.”
    It was definitely something to hope for.
    “Maybe this whole thing was her idea,” Trujillo said, “not his.”
    “The fake name? Or the running away?”
    “Maybe both. If only we had her computer, we could find out who she’d been emailing and trace his screen name.”
    Unfortunately, Malley had taken her laptop with her.Ever since she’d gone missing, I checked my own emails about a dozen times a day. Her not texting or calling—that I could understand, if she didn’t want the cell phone tracked. Yet she could have safely emailed me (or, even better, her parents) from anywhere on the planet.
    So why hadn’t she? It wasn’t something I chose to think about very long.
    “Hang tough,” said Detective Trujillo. “Call me anytime.”
    When I came out of my room, Mom waved me into the kitchen, where she was sitting with Trent. She told me she was going to Gainesville for a few days to see Kyle and Robbie, my brothers. They were both doing summer terms at the university so they could take off during winter semester, when the surfing was best. Kyle was majoring in business and Robbie was in advertising.
    “I haven’t seen the boys since May,” my mother said.
    She’d been looking forward to the visit for a while, and I didn’t expect her to cancel on account of the Malley situation. There was nothing more to be done; the rest was up to the police. Or up to Malley.
    “You want to come along?” Mom asked. “A road trip, just you and me.”
    Normally I would have said yes. I worry about her when she makes long drives alone, and besides, she’s fun to travel with. Every fifty miles we switch out our iPods on the sound system; that way, each of us gets to hear the music we like. Plus it’s the only time she lets me orderdrive-through for lunch, when we’re on the highway and she’s in a hurry. At home it’s nothing but healthy food, organic everything , except for Trent’s Mountain Dews and ice cream.
    This time, though, I couldn’t go with her to Gainesville. My gut would have been churning the whole trip. What if Malley called needing something, and I was the only one she trusted to help her?
    “I think I’ll stay home, just in case,” I told my mother. “That okay?”
    “Of course. Trent will be here.”
    He looked up and grinned. “We’ll have some bro time, you and me.”
    “Sorry, Mom.”
    “I understand completely, Richard. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
    “Idea number one,” Trent burbled. “Tomorrow a.m. we go out to the club and hit a bucket or two of balls. Then we grab lunch on the veranda and watch all the old geezers triple-bogey the eighteenth!”
    The sad part: That was Trent’s idea of a rockin’ good time.
    Mom had bought me a set of second-hand clubs because she’d wanted me and Trent to bond, but golf is an impossible sport, and I didn’t enjoy much about it except watching the gators cruise the lakes. One day I counted five.
    For a while I went along with the great golfing project,and give my stepfather credit—he was incredibly patient. The man really tried. But I was hopeless with a seven-iron in my hands. A menace, if you want the truth.
    I’d been hoping Trent would give up on me, but it hadn’t happened yet.
    “Or we could do some fishing,” I suggested, watching Trent’s expression go blank.
    He wasn’t a good fisherman—restless, noisy, uncoordinated. I knew he’d rather be strapped in a dentist’s chair than stuck on a boat, trying to pinch a shrimp on a hook.
    When my father died, I’d inherited his fourteen-foot skiff. It was in almost-new condition because Dad hardly ever used it. Now a week didn’t go by when I wasn’t out on the river, sometimes with Malley or my friends but more often alone. Dad’s boat had a heavy fiberglass hull and a small motor—a twenty-horse outboard—so I never went too