Sanctuary by Meg Cabot Page A

to keep a eye out, because I’d spotted my mother and Great-aunt Rose—horror of horrors—going into JC Penney, and I wanted to be sure to avoid running into them. I was fairly certain that if Great-aunt Rose hadn’t been visiting, there’d have been no way my mom would be at the mall the day after one of her neighbors found out their kid was dead. But I suspected since the neighbor in question was the Thompkinses, my mom hadn’t dared risk a sympathy visit, since Great-aunt Rose would have insisted on coming along. And knowing Rose, she’d have started in about the darkies, or something equally appalling.
    She was leaving on Sunday. Which might as well have been forever, it seemed so far away.
    “If I get a piece of his clothing,” Ruth was asking me, “could you do that thing? You know, that thing you did with Shane? And Claire? Where you smel—”
    She broke off with a cry of pain as I reached up and seized her by the back of the neck. She was so surprised, a piece of Cinnabon fell out of her mouth.
    “I told you not to talk about that, remember?” I hissed at her. Over at Santa’s Workshop—the day after Thanksgiving was the day Santa arrived at our local mall—a bunch of moms looked our way, disapproving … probably because we were still young and weren’t saddled down with three whiny brats, but whatever. “The Feds are still following me around, you know. I bumped into Cyrus just last night.”
    “Ow,” Ruth said, shrugging off my hand. “Leggo, you freak.”
    “I mean it,” I said. “Just be cool.”
    “You be cool.” Ruth adjusted her shirt collar. “Or try just being normal for a change. What is the matter with you, anyway? You’ve been acting like a freak all day.”
    “Gee, I don’t know, Ruth,” I said, in my most sarcastic tone. “Maybe it’s just because last night I saw the mutilated body of the guy who used to live across the street lying mangled in a cornfield.”
    Ruth curled her upper lip. “God,” she said. “Be a little gross, why don’t you?” Then Ruth looked at me a little closer. “Wait a minute. You aren’t blaming yourself over Nate’s death, are you?” When I didn’t reply, she went, “Oh my God. You
are
. Jess, hello? You didn’t kill him, okay? His little gang-bang buddies did.”
    “I knew he was missing,” I said. Over at Santa’s Workshop some kid was screaming his head off because he was afraid of the mechanical elves building toys in the fake snow. “And I didn’t try to find him.”
    “You knew he’d gone out for whipped cream,” Ruth corrected me. “And that he didn’t come back right away. You didn’t know he was being murdered. You couldn’t have known. Come
on
, Jess. Give yourself a break. You can’t be responsible for every single person on the planet who gets himself killed.”
    “I guess not,” I said. I turned away from the sight of the mall Santa ho-ho-hoing. “Look, Ruth, let’s go home. You can show me that picture. So maybe if the bar-mitzvah boy really is missing, I can find him before he becomes crow fodder, the way Nate did.”
    “Eew,” Ruth said. “Graphic much?” But she started heading toward the nearest exit.
    Only not soon enough, unfortunately.
    “Jessica!”
    I turned at the sound of the familiar voice … then blanched.
    It was Mrs. Wilkins. And Rob.
    Just about the last two people—with the exception of my mom and Great-aunt Rose—I’d wanted to run into. Not because I wasn’t happy to see them. Let’s face it, when have I ever been unhappy about seeing Rob? That would be like being unhappy about seeing the sun come out after forty days and nights of rain.
    But knowing what I knew now … what I’d learned overnight, as I slept, without consciously meaning to, and all because of that stupid picture I’d seen on Rob’s mother’s bedroom wall… .
    “Hi, you guys,” I said, brightly, to cover up what I was really feeling, which was,
Oh, shit
. “Wow. Fancy meeting you here.” Again,