Shelter (Book One): A Mickey Bolitar Novel

I FOUND SPOON right before lunch.

“Look at this,” he said.

He handed me an article he’d printed out. I figured that it would be on turkey sounds or Beyoncé, but no, it was a small piece on last night’s “attempted robbery” at the Kent home. According to the police, a man had broken in and started ransacking the house when he realized that Mr. Kent was home. The intruder assaulted him but ran off when Mrs. Kent arrived. Mr. Kent’s injuries were minor. He had been released from the hospital. The investigation was ongoing.

I still didn’t get it. Did the Kents have a daughter or not? Maybe it would pay to visit the house again.

“Which way to her locker?” Spoon asked.

I showed him. As we walked, Spoon got his key ready.

“I’ll need to do this fast,” he said. “You block the line of vision. I don’t want everyone seeing that I can open their lockers.”

I nodded my agreement. But when we turned the corner and approached Ashley’s locker, I could see right away that something was wrong. Spoon stopped and looked up at me.

Ashley’s lock had been smashed open.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Students were passing us by, oblivious, rushing to lunch or another class. I reached to open the locker and see what was inside when I felt eyes upon me. I turned and felt the quiet boom from her eyes.

It was Rachel Caldwell.

This won’t sound like an earth-shattering pronouncement, but boys get funny around really hot girls. Rachel could tell the lamest jokes and boys fall about the place in laughter. She could offer the smallest smile and fill a boy’s head with dreams that would last deep into nightfall. I would like to think I was above such things. For all I knew, Rachel had the brains of banana bread. But for a moment I met her gaze and felt my throat go dry.

Rachel stepped toward us. “Hi,” she said.

Spoon licked his hand, patted down his cowlick, and gave Rachel the eye. “Did you know,” he said to her, “that an octopus can’t give you rabies?”

Rachel smiled at that. “You’re cute.”

Spoon swooned and almost fell backward.

She turned and met my eye again. “What are you doing?”

I shrugged and said the first thing I would ever say to Rachel Caldwell, School Hottie: “Uh, nothing.”

The Return of Mr. Smooth.

Rachel looked at me again and then at the locker. For a moment I thought that she’d say more. But instead she gave the locker one last look and walked down the hallway. We watched her walk away. Rachel had some kind of walk.

“Put your tongues back in your mouths.”

It was Ema.

“Hi,” I said.

“Men,” Ema said, shaking her head. “Or should I say, boys.”

Spoon turned and stared at Ema.

She frowned at him. “What’s your problem?”

Spoon licked his hand, patted down his cowlick, and gave her the eye. “Did you know,” he said to her, “that an octopus can’t give you rabies?”

“Creep.”

Spoon shrugged at me. “It worked once. I figured . . .”

“I got it,” I said.

“What are you two doing?” she asked.

I didn’t bother answering. Instead I opened the locker. No surprise. It was empty. The bell rang, making us officially late for lunch. We hurried toward the cafeteria. I got in line. Spoon excused himself. I got two slices of pepperoni pizza and an apple—dairy, meat, fruit, bread, and if you counted tomato sauce, a vegetable. I moved to the table where Ema was sitting alone.

“Bolitar!”

I looked across the room to see who’d shouted my name. It was Buck and Troy. They glared at me and mashed their fists into their palms.

“I know,” I said to them. “Dead man.”

I put my tray next to Ema’s. Two days in a row. That got some tongues wagging. Ema unwrapped the plastic from her sandwich and said, “So what was all that with the locker?”

I was about to answer when I heard someone making kissing noises in our direction. I turned and saw Buck and Troy, both still wearing their heavy varsity jackets. It had to be eighty degrees in here. I wondered if they slept in them.

“Awww,” Buck said, “isn’t this romantic?”

“Yeah,” Troy added. “Two lovebirds sitting all by themselves.”

They made more kissy noises. I looked at Ema. She just shrugged.

Buck: “You gonna start kissing now, lovebirds?”

Troy: “Yeah, you gonna start making out in the lunchroom?”

“No,” I said, “we’ll leave that to you two.”

Buck and Troy turned chili-pepper red. Ema suppressed a smile. Buck opened his mouth but I held up a hand to stop him. “I know,” I said. “Dead man.”

“You don’t know nothing,” Troy spat. “You think you’re so cool, right? Well, you’re not.”

“Good to know,” I said.

Buck joined in. “You’re new here, so we’ll clue you in. You’re sitting with a loser.”

Troy said, “Yeah, a loser.”

I took a bite of pizza.

Buck again: “Did she tell you how she got her nickname?”

I glanced at Ema. She nodded for me to let him keep going.

“See, one day, right, she was acting all emo in Spanish class, okay, and she’s a chick, a fugly one, but a chick—”

I was about to get up, but Ema just shook her head.

“—right, not a guy, so, so we, one of us, actually I think it was Troy, right, Troy, it was you?”

“Yeah, right, Buck.” Troy swelled with pride. “It was me.”

They were both giggling now.

“So Troy says, just like this, no thought or nothing, just off the cuff, in the middle of class, Troy says, ‘That fugly’s not emo, she’s Ema.’ Get it?”

I said, “I get it.”

“Because, see, we’re in Spanish class with all the a’s and o’s at the end, and Troy just comes up with this name, Ema, just like that, and boom, it stuck. You see?”

I nodded. “You guys are the balls.”

Spoon appeared. He put his tray on the other side of Ema’s. Buck and Troy couldn’t believe their luck. “Oh man, you’re sitting here too?” Buck said. He pretended to jam a flag into the ground. “I declare this table Loserville.”

More giggling.

“Loserville, USA,” Troy said.

“USA,” I said. “In case, what, we don’t know what country we’re in?”

I was about to get up again, but Ema put a hand on my forearm. “Hey, Buck,” Ema said, “why don’t you tell Mickey how you got the nickname ‘Wee Wee Pants’?”

“What? That was never my nickname!”

“Sure it was. Troy, you probably never heard this one either, but it’s absolutely true. See, when Buck was in fourth grade, he went to a birthday party at my house—”

“I’ve never been to your house! I don’t even know where you live!”

“And Bucky had a little accident—”

“That’s not true!”

Troy looked at Buck funny now. “Dude?”

“She’s lying, Troy! Take it back, you dumb b—”

Ms. Owens appeared. “Is there a problem here?”

Everyone went silent. There were a bunch of “No, Ms. Owens” and then Buck and Troy faded away. I looked over at Ema. “Wee Wee Pants?”

Ema shrugged. “I just totally made that up.”

Oh man, did I love this girl. “Really? So the part about a birthday party . . . ?”

“Made it up. The whole thing.”

We bumped fists.

Spoon said, “Would you like to know a few fun facts about Troy?”

I took a bite of pizza. “Sure.”

“Troy is a senior. He is captain of the boys’ basketball team.”

Terrific, I thought.

“But the most interesting fact about Troy is his last name.”

“Which is?”

Spoon smiled. “Taylor.”

I stopped mid-bite. “Taylor?”

“Yup.”

“As in that cop who hassled us last night?”

“That was his dad,” Spoon said. “He’s actually the police chief here. In charge of the entire department.”

Double terrific.