Blood

8. The Girl on the Roof

"Okay, now what?" I asked. I know it was my adventure but I was in the habit of asking Hedges for advice.

"Get out of here," he said. "Even if they can't trace that phone, they just might think of looking for you at your best friend's house. You hang out here almost every day, after all."

"Well someone's got to be in charge of the fire extinguisher," I said.

"Right. Come on," he said, heading for the door. "We can take my truck. Uh, speaking of which, can you bring a fire extinguisher? One I haven't taken apart? I've been having a little trouble with a fuel leak."

Last year we got back from school to find that Hedges' dad had his oldest truck hooked up to his newest one and was about to tow it to a junkyard. Hedges talked him into giving it to us. Well, to Hedges mostly. I usually had hockey practice or had to lift weights whenever Hedges said it was time to work on the truck. But after a month of tinkering, he got it going again. That was last year. Since then he's souped up the engine and added a bunch of special equipment, most of which I didn't really pay attention to, but it drove well. We used it to get around whenever we thought the police chief was busy somewhere else (which was easy to figure out because of the police scanner radio in the truck). Hedges is like me, still driving on a learner's permit. His dad's always too busy to do official practice, just like my mom.

The only thing is, he hasn't found a matching starter cylinder to put into the truck yet, so he has to jump it whenever we want to drive. I haven't mastered the trick but he's good at it. After fiddling with some loose wires he got it going. "What's the nearest address?" He asked.

"Let's go to Pine Street," I said, flipping through the sheets of paper in the folder, each of which had a picture, name, and address. "It's a high street number so it must be down at the end," I added. Which meant, in our town, the border. When a local road got there, it usually stopped.

The engine roared and gravel flew behind us as Hedges accelerated.

It took us five minutes to get there. He slowed and we rolled down Pine Street. "Who's the target?" He asked.

"Amira Abbasi. According to her birth date she's 21. Too old for us to know her from school."

"This must be her house," he said, braking. "Looks normal."
"So did mine," I said. "Wait here."
"Why?"
"And honk if you see any suspicious vans. Or people. Or anything at all." "Uh, be careful," he said.

"Too late for that," I said as I got out.

The doorbell rang from somewhere inside but no one came to the door. I tried again. Still no answer.

Hedges was watching from the truck. He pointed toward the upstairs. "Someone's looking out a window," he said. "Second floor, right."

I smiled. Did I mention that I like to climb? Trees when I was little, then the rock climbing gym two towns over whenever I could. Getting to a second floor window was a piece of meat. Cake! I meant cake.