Page 79 of Jake Forever
Chapter 29
I answered with a terse, "What?"
Jake's voice was annoyingly calm as he said, "Is there something you wanna to tell me?"
I was getting a little tired of that question. "Yeah," I said. "I'm trapped in a parking garage. How's that?"
Next to me, Anthony snickered.
On the phone, Jake asked, "Who's that?"
My tone grew snotty. "Don't you know?"
"If I did, I wouldn’t be asking."
"Right. Except it seems to me that you're getting all these updates, so you probably know exactly who that was." I glanced around. "And where we are. And what we're doing. And–"
"Let me talk to Marshall," he said.
"No," I told him. "If you want to talk to Marshall, call him yourself."
"Alright." And then he was gone.
A moment later, a cell phone rang. Marshall reached into his inside front pocket and pulled out his phone. He answered with a no-nonsense, "Marshall here."
It was so ludicrous that I might've laughed, except for the fact that by now, I was far too irritated.
I watched in sullen silence as Marshall and the caller – Jake, obviously – exchanged a few words, mostly along the lines of, "Yeah. She's out here with two guys claiming to be her brothers…"
"Claiming?" I muttered. "Well, that's rich."
A moment later, Marshall ended the call and returned his phone to the same pocket. Immediately, my own cell phone started buzzing again.
Sure enough, it was Jake. I hit the answer button and said, "So, were you happy with what you learned?"
"Happy as I’m gonna be."
"What doesthatmean?"
"It means you promised to stay put. If you're not, I need to know."
"Oh yeah? Why's that?" A sudden popping noise made me pause. The sound hadn't come from my end of the phone. It had come from Jake's. I swallowed. Fireworks? Somehow, I didn't think so. "What was that?"
Jake's response was scarily long in coming. "Eh, normal stuff. Not a big deal."
"Normal stuff? What kind of normal stuff?"
"It's nothing," he said. "So you're not going anywhere, right?"
"Quit trying to change the subject. That wasn't 'nothing.' I could tell."
I heard fumbling like he was looking out a window or something. "Eh, nothing that involves me." In his voice, I heard the hint of a smile. "You weren't worried, were you?"
"Yes. Iwasworried, actually."
"Yeah? Now you know how I feel."
I gave a small shake of my head. "Huh?"
