Free Code Name Cassandra by Meg Cabot Page A

they’d run out of clarinet reeds.
    But of course that wasn’t it. Of course it turned out to have something to do with me after all.
    “Jess,” Pamela said. “I was just going to look for you.”
    “You were?” I blinked at her. There was only one reason for Pamela to have been looking for me, and that was that I was in trouble. Again.
    And the only thing I’d done recently—besides make a personal call from a camp phone—was the whole ghost story thing. Had Karen Sue ratted me out for that? If so, it had to be a record. I had left her barely five minutes ago. What did the girl have, bionic feet?
    It was clear that Pamela was on Karen Sue’s side about the whole not frightening little children thing. I could see I was going to have to do some fast talking.
    “Look,” I said. “I can explain. Shane was completely out of control last night, and the only way I could get him to stop picking on the littler kids was to—”
    “Jessica,” Pamela interrupted, sort of sharply. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s … there’s actually someone here to see you.”
    I shut up and just stared at her. “Someone here?” I echoed lamely. “To see
me
?”
    A thousand things went through my head. The first thing I thought was … Douglas. Douglas’s phone call the night before. He hadn’t just been calling to say he missed me. He’d been calling to say good-bye. He’d finally done it. The voices had told him to, and so he had. Douglas had killed himself, and my dad—my mother—my other brother—one of them was here to break the news to me.
    A roaring sound started in my ears. I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of my stomach.
    “Where?” I asked, through lips that felt like they were made of ice.
    Pamela nodded, her expression grave, toward her office door. I moved toward it slowly, with Pamela following close behind. Let it be Michael, I prayed. Let them have sent Mikey to break the news to me. Michael I could take. If it was my mother, or even my father, I was bound to start crying. And I didn’t want to cry in front of Pamela.
    It wasn’t Mikey, though. It wasn’t my father, either, or even my mother. It was a man I’d never seen before.
    He was older than me, but younger than my parents. He looked to be about Pamela’s age. Still, he was definitely Do-able. He may have even qualified for Hottie. Clean-shaven, with dark, slightly longish hair, he had on a tie and sports coat. When my gaze fell upon him, he climbed hastily to his feet, and I saw that he was quite tall—well, everyone is, to me—and not very graceful.
    “M-Miss Mastriani?” he asked in a shy voice.
    Social worker? I wondered, taking in the fact that his shoes were well-worn, and the cuffs of his sports coat a bit frayed. Definitely not a Fed. He was too good-looking to be a Fed. He’d have drawn too much attention.
    Schoolteacher, maybe. Yeah. Math or science. But why on earth would a math or science teacher be here to break the news about my brother Douglas’s suicide?
    “I’m Jonathan Herzberg,” the man said, thrusting his right hand toward me. “I really hope you won’t resent the intrusion. I understand that it is highly unusual, and a gross infringement on your rights to personal privacy and all of that … but the fact is, Miss Mastriani, I’m desperate.” His brown-eyed gaze bore into mine. “Really, really desperate.”
    I took a step backward, away from the hand. I moved back so fast, I ended up with my butt against the edge of Pamela’s desk.
    A reporter. I should have known. The tie should have been a dead giveaway.
    “Look,” I said.
    The icy feeling had left my lips. The roaring in my ears had stopped. The feeling that the bottom of my stomach had dropped out? Yeah, that had disappeared. Instead, I just felt anger.
    Cold, hard anger.
    “I don’t know what paper you’re from,” I said stonily. “Or magazine or news show or whatever. But I have had just about enough of you guys. You