Free Chasing the Skip by Janci Patterson Page A

likely to use those cards,” Dad said. “I can track them if he does, and use that information to find him.”
    “You can track someone else’s card numbers?”
    “That’s my job.”
    Caroline passed Dad’s bounty-hunting license over the seat, and I took it. As I leafed through Dad’s clipboard to put it away, I came across a mug shot of Ian. His physical description was printed under it, as well as his former addresses. At the bottom of the page, someone had written, “Charges that didn’t stick,” followed by a string of abbreviations.
    “I’ll take that back now,” Dad said, grabbing the clipboard from me before I could decipher them.
    “You don’t have to give me any information you don’t want to,” Dad said to Caroline. “It’s up to you. I’ll give you the ride either way, but if you don’t tell me anything, it’ll be a while before you see that car again.”
    Dad handed his cell phone to Caroline again. “You also might want to call the credit card companies,” he said. “Tell them to put a watch on your cards.”
    Dad handed me his clipboard and pulled onto I-80 in the direction of Laramie.
    The first call Caroline made was to her roommate again, to check the license plate information on her registration and the credit card numbers from her old statements. She still hesitated with the card information, but then she read it off to me, letting me take it all down. By the time we reached Laramie, she’d reported all her cards stolen, and I’d noted a pretty extensive list of data. I sat up a little taller in my seat. It felt good to actually contribute to Dad’s business for once, instead of tagging along. Maybe, in some small way, it made up for how I’d taunted him with Ian.
    “This is good,” Dad said. “Shouldn’t take more than a day or so for us to find him.”
    “Thanks,” Caroline said. “I really appreciate that.”
    “Thank you ,” Dad said. “Trust me, this helps us both.”
    We dropped Caroline off at her dorm, and Dad stopped at the university library so I could upload my nonexistent homework while he called around to get reports on Caroline’s car and credit cards.
    With no homework to upload, I went directly to my e-mail. Maybe Mom had contacted me. Maybe I’d finally get to know where she was.
    I had one new e-mail. From Anna. At least that was something.
    The library computer took forever to load, and I bounced up and down in my chair a little, waiting for the words to pop onto the screen.
    Gonorrhea is on standby , Anna wrote. Investigation in progress re: his jerkiness. Love you.
    I smiled. Anna was probably following Jamie through the hallways, quizzing everyone he breathed at. She never did anything halfway.
    That was it on the e-mail—nothing from Mom, nothing from Jamie, not even any spam. I sighed. My old life dwindled away, one piece at a time. Meanwhile, where was Mom that she couldn’t even get to a computer? I couldn’t exactly be mad at her when she might be tied up in a basement somewhere.
    I rubbed my eyes. Sometimes all those news stories poisoned my brain. I had to stop reading about kidnappings until I knew where Mom was.
    Instead I pulled up my blog and logged in. Maybe I’d get an e-mail from Jamie if I gave him a reason to be jealous. I could sure find a story now.
    Dad picked up a particularly dangerous skip this morning. We’ll call him the Bull. I could tell that he was a force of nature—wild and untamed. His eyes looked right through me, like he could see into my soul.
    I rolled my eyes and deleted the last clause. This was getting dangerously close to emo. Ian must have addled my brain. Whatever. Now was the time to set objectivity aside and make Jamie’s eyes burn.
    His eyes looked right through me, but there was also a soft sexiness about him. I interviewed him twice but couldn’t get him to break.
    “Interviewed” might be a stretch, but it’s what a reporter would say, even if she was just talking to a person on the