Free Deadly Pink by Vivian Vande Velde Page B

It wasn't that my head still hurt from that rebounding rock, but it shouldn't have hurt in the game, either, not that intensely, and that was yet one more thing Ms. Bennett had said simply shouldn't happen.
    “I think,” I said, making a conscious effort to put my hands in my lap, “we really need to get in contact with Frank Lupiano.”
    Adam grunted but pretended he was caught up in studying the computer readouts from those minutes I'd just spent in the game.
    “What are you thinking?” Mom asked me.
    I didn't want to hurt her, but I didn't want us to miss something because I'd tried to spare her feelings.
    “Surely,” I said, “it can't be...” Hmm, what was the word I was looking for? Normal? Right? Healthy? I veered and approached from a slightly different angle. “It can't be a coincidence that all the guys in Emily's world either don't speak English, or don't speak at all?”
    Ms. Bennett said, “So you suspect...?”
    Suspect was too active a verb. “So I'm wondering ... I don't know ... maybe something happened with Frank. A fight? Maybe she doesn't want to hear what guys have to say because she's mad at him.”
    Mom glared at Adam, who— for the moment, in this room, anyway—represented all guys in all their reprehensible breaking-daughters'-hearts ways.
    Ms. Bennett said, “We've been trying to reach this Frank ever since your mother gave us his name.”
    “How?” I asked.
    Although she looked puzzled about why I was questioning that, she answered, “Your sister's phone. We got the number from her contact list, but he hasn't been answering.”
    “Which he might not,” I pointed out, “if you've been using her phone and they had a fight.”
    Ms. Bennett nodded, even as she said, “But we left a voice mail, and tried texting him, too.”
    “From her phone,” I repeated. It almost made more sense than switching to a land line. That way, they could keep hitting redial.
    Unfortunately, that was just the way a jilted girlfriend might think. Not that I'd ever done that. But I might have considered it. Once. With a particular seventh-grade boy I have long since realized I was lucky to be rid of.
    “Still,” Adam was saying, “I identified myself as being from Rasmussem and said that there was an emergency with Emily and that we needed to talk to him.”
    “Adam,” I said, suddenly feeling like I was the one with experience and he was the little kid. “Like a certain kind of ticked-off girl wouldn't text something exactly like that if she was being ignored?”
    I could tell by their faces that they saw I was right. Even Mom.
    “Call from the phone in my office,” Ms. Bennett instructed Adam.
    “Too late,” I said. “He might not pick up if he doesn't recognize the incoming number.”
    “What do you recommend, Grace?” Ms. Bennett asked me.
    “A call he can't ignore...”
    “The police?” Mom asked.
    “Mom! No.”
    My thinking was Too much time trying to explain. But Ms. Bennett wore a horrified look, and I'm guessing that she was thinking Too much opportunity for a publicity leak.
    I suggested, “Announce yourselves as being from Stoney's Barbeque Pit. You know how they have that promotion going: 'Answer your phone or call us back in five minutes, and win a barbeque feast for you and four of your friends.' ”
    “Misrepresent ourselves on the phone?” Ms. Bennett asked. But in another moment she told Adam, “Do it.”
    I said, “But Adam already left a voice message. Frank might recognize his voice. It might be better if you did this.”
    Ms. Bennett said, “Do I sound like a Barbeque Pit sort of gal?” She sighed but started for the door.
    “Should we be there?” I called after her. “Just in case?”
    “Just in case what?”
    Just in case you try something—I don’t know what, but the truth is I don't fully trust you, since you have Emily's best interests at heart only so long as they don’t clash with Rasmussem's best interests.
    But while I was trying to figure out a