Free Unplugged by Lois Greiman Page A

said, and swore on my brothers’ future graves to redouble my efforts to find the knobby little nerd.

 
    6

Let us talk about oxymorons. Common sense, for instance.
—Sister Celeste,
first-hour English

    I T WAS WELL past midnight when I arrived at Solberg’s house. Or, more correctly, when I arrived half a block down the street from Solberg’s house. I’d called him a couple dozen times on my cell phone on the way there, just to make sure he really wasn’t home.
    Either he wasn’t or rigor mortis had already set in. No one could resist the phone that long and still be breathing.
    My heart was pounding and my mouth felt dry when I turned off the Saturn, but damn it, no one dumped Brainy Laney Butterfield.
    I was going to get to the bottom of this. In other words, I was going to find Solberg, and if he was still alive, I was going to kill him.
    I sat in the dark and ruminated. What the hell am I doing? was the first thought that zipped through my head. But I was fueled with twelve thousand fat grams and girlfriend rage, so finally I pulled the keys from the ignition, shut off the dome light, and stepped silently into the night. Okay, “silently” might be something of a misnomer, since I dropped my keys on the street and they rattled like a fifty gun salute. But I did step into the night. Streetlights lined the curving boulevard, but it was still relatively dark.
    I hadn’t returned home after Elaine’s. Instead, I had driven straight to La Canada after her horrific “I don’t give a damn” performance.
    Luckily, I wear black as a matter of course. Not because it’s slimming. When you’re as naturally svelte as I am, you don’t have to worry about such mundane considerations. I just wear it because it’s chic. And God knows I’m nothing if not chic. I glanced down at my footwear. Reeboks. Can’t get classier than Reeboks. At least if you’re a prowler.
    Little bits of gravel crunched under my shoes. I paused, listening, then continued on. I would have liked to cut across the lawn, but the sprinklers were at it again, so I stopped at the end of Solberg’s drive and glanced casually up and down Amsonia Lane. My heart didn’t jump out of my chest. Casual. Not a creature was stirring. Which meant the children must be nestled all snug in their beds.
    The climb up Solberg’s drive felt like the ascent to Everest. Not that I’ve ever scaled Everest. In fact, I didn’t even like StairMasters, but still . . .
    My heart was beating like a mixer on high speed by the time I reached his front door, but I put on my devil-may-care face and leaned on the bell. Inside the house, his chandelier was still blazing and his odd techno bell chimed.
    There was no other noise. I tried again, holding down the button and counting to ten. Still nothing. The tinny song faded into oblivion. Maybe I was just trying to delay the inevitable when I pushed it a third time. But the results were the same.
    I glanced around again. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have survived the shock if I had actually seen someone, but I was absolutely alone. All evidence indicated that I might also be insane.
    I’d called the sheriff’s department and been coolly informed that the La Crescenta precinct was doing everything it could—which, I determined after about thirty seconds of conversation, was just short of nothing.
    So, cranking up my courage, I stepped carefully into the bushes. From the half shadows, I studied the surrounding neighborhood again. The sprinklers whirred. A dog barked somewhere toward the rugged darkness of the San Gabriel Mountains. Besides that, nothing.
    I swallowed my bile and went to work. I had read somewhere that over seventy-five percent of Americans keep a key hidden near their front door, but I wasn’t relying on that general assurance. Instead, I had spent a nauseating amount of time recalling everything I could about Solberg—every bray-infested conversation, every idiotic come-on—and sometime before retching