The Book Search

07 • Annoying Flutters •

Ryan lay sprawled across his bed as he watched me pace across the room, letter clutched firmly in my hands. Why would Stella's clue be from a book she's never read?

I had read and re-read the last line about a hundred times.

"Maybe, she was connecting the place she's going to, with the name of the book." suggested Ryan, sitting up.

"Yes, I think-maybe." I said, still thinking. That would make much more sense, wouldn't it?

"The Fifth Wave. Where would that lead us to?"

My mind started whirring, but a dark foggy mist clouded my thinking. Why was it that, when I thought too hard I would come up with nothing?

"What-what i-if she wasn't telling us the place she was flying to?"

"What do you mean?" he questioned, scrunching his eyebrows.

"What if, she was telling us were she was before she left for the airport?" I asked as the mist slowly started clearing.

"What makes you think that she was not in the car travelling to the airport when she sent that letter?"

"She had to have stopped by some hotel right? It takes around four to five hours to drive to the Ontario airport. She would have to stay the night somewhere. And besides-" I said, looking back at the letter. "Why would she say, 'David is calling me-' if she was inside a car? Also, apparently she didn't want him to know she was writing this letter to me and if she were in a car he would obviously find out, wouldn't he?"

"What if he had got out of the car?"

"This isn't a very short letter you know. It would have taken her at least a few minutes to write this, and it looks as if it were written on top of a desk, not in a car. It's pretty neat, even for Stella's messy writing."

"Why would she give us a clue to the hotel she's staying at and not the place she's flying to?"

"It's just a hunch, besides it's Stella we're talking about here-" I started, but he cut me off.

"Right. The more drama the merrier." he nodded, almost making me smile. He took out his laptop, once again. I walked over to the bed and reluctantly sat next to him.

He quickly pulled up the Google search engine page and searched for 'hotels near the Ontario California airport'.

We probably new a few, but with the help of Professor Google, we wouldn't have to tax our brains too much. How simple and organized our lives had become with the advent of the internet! But then again, as life got simpler, people got lazier and were even more stupid than before.

I looked at the letter once again. It was the only reassuring presence that Stella was out there and safe, for now.

It was the only clue to finding her. And we had to find her. If Ryan's vaguely put suspicions were correct, and this was related to some dangerous person trying to pose as David, things could get pretty ugly, fast.

"Stella probably didn't know about the letter that you got Ryan. The printed letter that you showed me today morning. Maybe that was the handy work of her friends." I replied in a contemplative voice.

"Maybe. Or maybe it's just Davids." he replied nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the computer.

"But, Bella's got to be in on the plan too right?" I asked, a little unnerved by his flippant reply.

"What makes you think that?" he asked, still not looking up.

"She would have known that the fake David wasn't really her brother from the start, obviously."