Wherever Nina Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

would be uniformed servants inside, silently serving tea cakes on expensive china to immaculately dressed people with perfect table manners. But what’s actually in front of us is a futuristic art carnival on acid dressed up for Halloween, sprinkled in glitter. There are so many people spilling in every direction we don’t even know where to begin looking. Right in the middle of the front lawn is a giant guy with a shaved head, standing behind a giant folding table, wearing an enormous set of headphones. The table in front of him is covered in laptops and various other pieces of electrical equipment, all the wires leading to a black van that’s parked behind him. On top of the van is a row of a dozen giant speakers facing in every direction, blasting what sounds like traditional Indian music backed by heavy electronic drums, loud and fast. I can feel my heartbeat speeding up to match it.
    Off to one side a few dozen people dressed up as an assortment of sea creatures—mermaids, mermen, giant glittering starfish—are dancing under a massive silver net.
    Off to the other side a half-dozen girls with Bettie Page haircuts and little sailor suits and a half-dozen guys in vintage motorcycle helmets are jumping on a giant trampoline.
    Up ahead a girl on stilts walks by wearing a flowing dark green wig, holding a long clear plastic tube that leads into a large green backpack. She stops in front of a cute guy who’s dressed as a pirate and holds the tube up over him. He tips his head back and opens his mouth just in time to catch a gulp of gold-flecked drink.
    And about twenty feet straight back two shirtless guys are emerging from the front door with a green velvet couch hoisted up on their shoulders on which two girls are sitting dressed in jewels and elaborate ball gowns. The guys lower the couch down in the middle of the grass and the girls step off, like princesses exiting a carriage.
    Amanda and I just stand there, staring at all this. “I guess it’s now or never,” I say. And we walk toward the door just as the girls in the ball gowns rev up a pair of chain saws and start chipping away at the front of the house.
    There’s a boom, a crash, loud cheers, and then all around me, tiny bits of plaster detach themselves from the ceiling and flutter to the floor like snowflakes. The white plaster flakes are everywhere. I can feel them on my skin and in my hair. When I breathe, I can taste them.
    The last three hours have been a series of tiny disappointments. Since we got here I’ve shown exactly sixty-four different people the photograph of Nina. And twenty-one of them saidshe was pretty and nineteen of them liked her hair, but sixty-three of the sixty-four people told me they had never seen her before. And the sixty-fourth couldn’t answer because he was too busy puking an inch away from my shoe.
    I know I shouldn’t be surprised. It was a long shot anyway, finding someone who’d remember a girl they might not have seen for two entire years in a house full of probably six hundred people. I knew that coming into this. But there is still one person I really need to find, the guy from the video, and so far there’s been no sign of him. I once heard if you’re looking for someone in a big crowded place, the best way to find them is to stand still, because they’re bound to pass you eventually. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but I figure this standing-still thing is worth a try, since moving around wasn’t working out too well.
    About twenty minutes ago Amanda went outside to talk on the phone to Eric. So here I am standing by myself against the wall while people swirl around me, part of a chaotic dance of big blinking eyes and wild arm gestures. Only there’s one other person who is not moving. And he’s been staring at me for the last five minutes. A guy, in loose jeans, a black T-shirt, and black skater shoes. His face is covered by a big rubber-person face mask. It’s pretty damn realistic looking and I