Free Sybil at Sixteen by Susan Beth Pfeffer Page A

going? Why make two flights?
    But then she thought about it, and realized there were three flights, not two. The shuttle from Boston to New York, to throw off anybody who might be following him. The next flight must also be a precautionary one. Instead of flying directly to wherever, Sam was breaking up the trip, flying different airlines, using, undoubtedly, different names. He must have told Evvie what names he’d be using, in case one or another of the planes had crashed. But they hadn’t, and Evvie, in her carelessness, hadn’t bothered to erase the flight numbers from the paper. For all her years of lying, she still wasn’t a professional conspirator.
    The first flight number didn’t matter, Sybil decided. She only cared about Sam’s final destination. That was Cont. 142. Continental Flight 142. Departing from someplace at 6:45. Arriving at Linda Steinmetz’s side at 9:15.
    Sybil picked up the phone and got Continental’s 800 number from information. She pressed the numbers into the phone, and within two rings had a Continental ticket agent.
    â€œI’m calling about your flight yesterday,” Sybil said. “Flight number one-four-two. I think it left from Chicago.”
    â€œLet me check,” the agent said. “No, flight one-four-two left from Kansas City, not Chicago.”
    â€œSo it wasn’t your Chicago to Seattle flight?” Sybil asked.
    â€œNo, one-four-two left yesterday from Kansas City at six-forty-five P.M. and arrived in San Diego at nine-fifteen,” the agent replied. “Why? Was there some sort of problem with your luggage?”
    â€œNo problem at all,” Sybil said. “I was simply given the wrong information. Thank you.” She hung up the phone and sat down swiftly on the bed. San Diego. That’s where Sam had ended up last night.
    Of course he might have taken another flight out of San Diego, but there were no notations to indicate that he had, and Sybil could see no reason for yet another flight. Ultimately Sam had to end up where his mother was, and San Diego seemed as likely a final spot as anyplace else in America.
    Sybil automatically massaged the backs of her calves. It was a habit she’d gotten into, smoothing out the pain. Sam was in San Diego. It had really been so easy to find out. Evvie thought she was so clever, so good at concealing things from her family, but Sybil had proved smarter. Claire wasn’t the only one who could find out family secrets and use them to her own advantage.
    San Diego. They’d considered a rehab center there. Nick had heard about it from one of his acquaintances a few years back. It was supposed to be a wonderful place. They performed miracles. But the cost was prohibitive, and Nick had learned after a little more research that the center focused more on back injuries, anyway. Sybil wondered what kind of kidney specialists there were in San Diego. She supposed the FBI could find out quickly enough if they were so inclined.
    For a moment she thought about going to San Diego, finding Sam, and warning him how easy it would be for his secret to be found out. She was sixteen years old, and in less than an hour had located him. She could describe Evvie’s carelessness to him, the way she kept the spare key where it always was, the way she’d failed to change the locks on the door, the way she’d left specific information about where he could be found right in their bedroom. Evvie had betrayed him in a hundred little ways, starting, Sybil realized, by telling her family in the first place. Claire had known and not cared and never broken the confidence. But Evvie, who professed to love Sam, was casual with his life.
    But of course there would be no flight to San Diego, no alignment with Sam and his mother against Evvie. Sybil wouldn’t even know how to find Sam once she got there.
    That decided, the next step was to pick up the phone and call Nick. He would do the rest