Wired by Francine Pascal Read Free Book Online Page A

to take care of her. His smile was warm and inviting. She didn’t share any of Liz’s skepticism about his motivation for offering to help.
    She shook her head. It was only a
smile
, for chris-sake.
    â€œYou wanna come?” Liz offered. “Hot times at ABC Carpet are guaranteed.”
    Gaia smiled again but shook her head. Tempting as the offer was, whatever this magnetic draw to Skyler was, she couldn’t act on it. She couldn’t let Liz see her spontaneously become her older brother’s lapdog. “I should be getting home. But you kids have fun.”
    Liz and Skyler said their goodbyes and Gaia wandered off, more perplexed by the day’s events than she’d been in a good while.
    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    Re: Prom
    Jake—
    I know things have been a little off between us lately; even a freak like me can tell that there’s trouble in paradise. And I’m sorry, because I take the full blame. I’ve been a complete weirdo lately, looking for reassurance and afraid of my own shadow. Nothing like the girl you first met. But I think we can work things out, and I think it’s worth it to try. If you can be normal, Jake, I can be normal, too. Apparently I can be normal and cheesy and write totally pathetic e-mails to my boyfriend practically
begging
him not to be mad at me so that we can go to the prom like every other red-blooded American teenage couple….
    [delete]

Verboten
    â€œDAD?” CHRIS PUSHED THE DOOR TO his father’s home office open slowly. He knew his dad was busy; after all, Dr. Rodke hardly ever worked from home. And when he was at home, the office was verboten to the rest of the Rodke clan, and it was a given that the rest of the family’s activity had to be restricted to a dull roar. Chris knew he wasn’t supposed to be bothering his father with anything that wasn’t seriously important.
    He hoped, then, that his father would agree that his news was important.
    Stepping inside the office, he saw his father hunched in front of a flat-screen PC, tapping away intensely at the keyboard, wearing his lab coat for no apparent reason other than pure habit. A small microscope stood to the side of the desk. A stand containing several test tubes lay next to the microscope, small amounts of fluid slopping back and forth slowly. Chris wasn’t sure what was in the test tubes, but he had an idea.
    â€œDad?” he repeated, suddenly less sure of the significance of his information.
    His father swiveled in his ergometric chair and looked at Chris as if he were some sort of lab rat that had escaped its cage. One that wasn’t really worth recapturing. “Yes?” he asked impatiently. “Can I help you with something?”
    â€œI, uh…” Chris swallowed. “I don’t mean to disturb you. I just wanted to tell you that the cops were questioning Liz today. In the park. This morning.”
    His father’s level of interest instantly soared. He pushed aside the file of documents he’d been so engrossed in only moments before. “About what? Is she in some kind of trouble?”
    â€œNo, of course not” Chris assured his father, shaking his head vigorously. “Of course not,” he repeated.
    â€œThen what?”
    â€œShe was walking through the park this morning on her way to school, and the cops pulled her aside to ask her if she knew anything about Invince. About God. They were looking for leads “
    His father’s steely blue gaze mirrored Liz’s own from lunch this afternoon. “And did she have any?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so. I mean, she hasn’t bought, used, or sold any Invince, you know. So why would she know who God is?”
    â€œWell, I don’t think she would,” Dr. Rodke agreed, somewhat amiably. “I don’t think she would at all. Thankfully.”
    â€œShe wouldn’t really have any idea where Invince came