Read Online Wanted! by Caroline B. Cooney - Free Book Online

trapped Alice beneath the Corvette? A person who would not only kill Dad, but think of a way to hold Alice responsible.
    The voice had commented out loud on Alice’s clothing thrown on the floor. He’d been looking for Alice when he opened the garage door. What if Alice had not been perfectly hidden? What if the murderer had seen her on the garage floor? What if he had known all along that Alice was in the condo—and arranged to have the police come, and find her, filthy and sobbing and hiding under her father’s car? Having just sent a confession of murder to her own mother?
    The back of the van smelled of old food: faint whiffs of abandoned potato chip bags and french fry containers. Alice was so queasy she had to hold onto her mouth and stomach. She ordered herself not to get sick. She had done that once; she was not doing it again. Dad and I were going to eat out tonight at that new Japanese restaurant, the one where you sit in a circle and watch the chef.
    She thought: Dad is never going to do anything with me again.
    She thought: I know where he was. He was at that number. The number displayed on Caller ID. Either he was killed there, or he was caught there.
    She closed her eyes, trying to remember the number, trying to find it in her dark and angry mind. It had been a local call, so the first three digits were 399. The next four…they’d been a pair…some sort of match. If only Dad had the newer type of Caller ID, where it also displayed the name!
    She remembered the last four digits. 8789.
    The van slowed for a speed bump. “Uh—so—um—where do you want to get out?” called Bethany.
    Alice was shocked. She had forgotten the van and the girls and the college. She looked out the window, as afraid as she had been when she first heard the voice in the condo.
    I can’t get out; the van is so safe, dark, and cool.
    The van had come to a complete stop.
    “This is great,” said Alice, stepping forward in a crouch and yanking the door handle down. “You’re a peach,” she said.
    Bethany gave her the tight, irritated smile of somebody who is not a peach and does not want to be put in this position again.
    Alice hoped these girls never watched the evening news, didn’t care about local crime, but got into fights with their roommates tonight. She slammed the heavy door shut and walked away without looking back. Very difficult. She had not managed it with the Ford, but she disciplined herself, and managed it with Bethany.
    What were they saying about her? What observations had they made? What would they do next?
    They’ll forget me, she told herself. She shivered slightly.
    Pathways crisscrossed the grass. Whatever angle you needed to go, there was cement to follow. There was not a bush, not a flower, not a tree to relieve the cement slapped down in the grass. Alice’s shadow was like a silhouette on a wanted poster.
    It was hard to accept that she must hoist her body and voice and keep going. Keep going where?
    The campus was its own city. Each building looked exactly like every other building. Plain brick rectangles, as if the college had not used an architect, but bought buildings off a rack. We’ll have twenty dorms, please, ten classrooms, and a lab.
    Lab , thought Alice. This campus will have a computer lab. It will be open twenty-four hours, because computer users need to be in there any hour of the day or night.
    Each utilitarian building, like the elementary school, was named for a person. The Joe P. Johanneson Building. The Eunice I. McGarry Center. No clue as to the purpose of these buildings.
    Shadows leaped in her face. Shadows rushed past her, and got in front of her, and suddenly Alice realized that the afternoon was late; in fact, it was nearly evening. She was going to need dinner and a bed.
    Cars were entering and leaving the student parking lots. Doors were slamming, engines were refusing to turn over, gears were jammed, horns were honked, radios were blaring.
    Food she could get. She had a