Sam and Robb sat in Sam’s car outside Diane’s Burger Heaven.
They were both worried, but they were also hungry, and so the decision was made to get cheeseburgers, fries, and chocolate milk shakes.
They were going to eat and make a plan, but instead they sat in Sam’s car chewing in total silence.
Sam didn’t know if he should tell Robb Ellis about his encounter with Destiny.
Could Destiny have told Emily about last night?
Was it possible the two girls were together?
Would Destiny have tried to hurt Emily?
And if he was really worried about the issue of Emily’s personal safety, shouldn’t he call her parents?
Robb, eating his cheeseburger in the passenger’s seat, had his own list of questions.
How he was going to explain to his parents that he’d basically been lying about sleeping at Rory’s?
Because, if Destiny Verbeck stole his car, which was a distinct possibility, who knew what else she might have up her sleeve that belonged to him?
Robb wondered if she’d gone to San Diego. Hadn’t she said something about wanting to see panda bear babies that were just born? She’d said something about panda bears; he felt certain of that. The trouble was that she talked so much. He didn’t actually hear half of what came out of her mouth.
And she got irritable easily. Or at least it felt that way. Especially since a lot of her irritation was directed at him.
And now this.
Robb glanced over at Sam. He looked a million miles away. Then Sam suddenly said, “I should tell you something.…”
Sam put the rest of his cheeseburger into the greasy sack and obsessed over making the now-trash bag as small as possible as he continued. “Destiny showed up at my summer school class yesterday.… I ended up driving her back to the motel.”
Robb raised an eyebrow. For him, this was a big reaction. But he didn’t say anything.
“In the car she was… sort of… all over me. I told her I had a girlfriend, which of course she already knew. But she didn’t seem too happy about that.”
Robb kept eating his French fries. Dipping each one deeper into the ketchup as if he were being paid for how well he coated the end of the potato piece. It looked like he wasn’t even listening now.
But he was listening. Totally listening. And he heard a voice inside his head screaming, Why does this stuff always happen?
Why do chicks turn against me?
He tried.
He really tried.
He bought Destiny the pink gemstone hairclips she liked so much at Rite Aid.
He held the door for her when they walked into buildings, like his parents had always told him to do.
He told her how pretty she was, and he brushed his teeth before he kissed her. And he used dental floss.
It was just so unfair.
Okay, so she didn’t like him that much. So what?
She was just a short girl with bizarro clothes who smelled like candy corn, which was weird, because he never saw her even eat a single kernel of candy corn. And it was a fact that he never trusted her.
Not really, anyway.
Sam could have her.
Robb glanced over, and the expression on Sam’s face said he really didn’t want her. But he looked guilty, so maybe he did want her a little bit.
That wasn’t even the point.
Robb needed to stick to the real problem, which was that his car was missing.
He tried to keep his voice from getting all high and squeaky, because it sometimes could be that way when he was upset. “I’m not that into Destiny. I’m really just worried, you know, about my car right now.”
Sam replied, “Okay, well, I am worried about Emily. And maybe the car is connected. So what do you think we should do?”
With the disclosure about Destiny now behind them, they were finding more stable ground.
Robb Ellis knew about law enforcement and stolen property. “The first thing you always do is report the crime.”
And then it was like a lightbulb came on. For the first time that day, Robb Ellis felt like his world wasn’t collapsing. He wasn’t trapped in an airless plastic container.
“I’ve got OnBoard. My car. It’s got that service.”
“What’s OnBoard?”
Robb erupted. “It’s a security system—you pay for it. You know, remote diagnostics. It records everything, turn by turn. It’s tied into the car’s phone system. It uses the GPS technology. It can even slow the car down. It’s remote interface.”
Sam didn’t understand, but it was obvious to him that whatever Robb was saying was a big deal.
“So you mean we call the police and we report your car missing, and they can find it?”
Robb shook his head. “We don’t need the police. My mom’s a detective. I just call the service like I’m someone from her office. She’s hooked up. There’s a code I give the OnBoard operator, and then they’ll give me a location. You and I can take care of this ourselves.”
Sam knew that he had a lot to learn about the real world, but this was a revelation.