Finally, the three of them made for the door. And sure, Mickey knew that Jonathan and Arno were as much running away from a whole bunch of girl problems as they were going to find their buddy, but that didn’t mean the search was a bad idea.
Mickey had filled a thermos with what he was calling “Patch Punch.” Arno was having trouble walking so he’d borrowed a silver-tipped cane from Mr. Flood’s umbrella stand. Each boy had his cell phone and some cash, courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Flood. They’d helped themselves from the big laughing Buddha jar in the Floods’ bedroom, which was where everyone knew to go to get money. They figured it was fair to use Flood money to find a Flood son, after all.
“Let’s go,” Mickey said. He was wearing aviator goggles, and the pants of his jumpsuit were rolled up high.
“Ready,” Jonathan said.
“Ready,” Arno said. But he didn’t sound that way.
“Let’s go!” Mickey yelled again.
“Wait,” Jonathan said. “Where’s David?”
And of course that was when all three of them figured out at the same moment that David had been missing and so had Kelli and that meant something. But nobody said it aloud—because it would be painful for Arno to hear and, after all, he’d already been kicked in the gentles.
They stood on the stoop. Nobody really wanted to go back in the house.
“February is going to kick out all those sophomores in about five minutes,” Jonathan said. “We don’t want to be around for that.”
“Shit,” Mickey said. “I’ll go.”
They weren’t in the parlor, so Mickey hit the top floor first, but nobody was up there except for a pair of February’s friends who were finishing their chicken dinner in the middle of Mr. and Mrs. Flood’s massive four-poster bed.
“David,” he yelled. He tried the third floor, where people rarely went, because it was just the library and the maid’s quarters and a family room that was basically used as storage space. Mickey sniffed around. Things were too quiet.
“Coming,” David said. Mickey heard this as a kind of muffled cry. Without thinking he pushed open the door to the library. A chair fell over. David and Kelli were putting their clothes back in place.
“Ooh,” Mickey said.
“Hi,” Kelli said back.
David looked at Mickey and sort of bit his lower lip. Mickey nodded and said, “We have to go find Patch. You want me to make them wait for a few minutes?”
“No,” David said. He turned and kissed Kelli once on the cheek. She smiled at him.
“We’ve got to find our friend,” David said.
“That’s cool,” Kelli said. “Is Randall Oddy still downstairs? I promised I’d hang out with him.”
Mickey rolled his eyes at David, who only shrugged.