Unforsaken Read Online Free Page B

followed Kaz instead. Followed him to his job, pretending to be exterminators, biding their time, guessing that eventually he would lead them to us. And they had been right.
    “Stupid,” I muttered.
    And then I snapped out of my trance.
    I raced into the apartment, phone clutched in my hand, and grabbed my purse. Then I left, not even bothering to lock up. As I ran down the hallway, I dialed Prairie; when I got to the elevator, her phone was ringing.
    I was alone in the elevator, and I paced the tiny space. The two-floor descent felt like it took an eternity as I waited for Prairie to pick up. The phone rang four times before going to her voice mail; I heard the familiar greeting I’d reached many times before.
    “This is Holly Garrett. I’m currently away from my desk.… ”
    Stupid, stupid . I dug my nails into the soft flesh of my palm, furious with myself. But beating myself up wasn’t going to fix things. I’d gotten us into this mess, and now I had to find a way to get us out.
    Taxis weren’t hard to come by at our apartment building. The complex was built on a strip of land that once formed the barrier between downtown Milwaukee and the grand old mansions of the East Side, and despite what Jess’s parents thought, many young, rich professionals and families called it home, and cabbies often cruised by looking for fares.
    Today was no exception. A man in expensive sunglasses and the kind of golf shirt that nobody plays golf in took the first cab I spotted, barely pausing in the conversation he was having on his earpiece to open the door.
    I got the next one.
    I’d become pretty good at it, stepping into the street a couple of paces and raising my hand high, looking like I meant business. I’d found that you had to look like you expected them to stop or they drove right by. If you had told me six months earlier that I would ever hail a cab, I would have thought you were crazy. In the entire time I lived in Gypsum, the only cabs I saw were on TV.
    I reeled off the address of Chub’s preschool, which Prairie had made me memorize the minute she signed Chub up. The ride took only ten minutes, but it seemed endless. I had to resist urging the cabbie to go faster. When we pulled up in front of the school, I threw some bills onto the front seat and bolted out of the cab.
    I’d come only once before, with Prairie, back when Chub had been the newest kid there, and this time I took a wrong turn before finding the desk separating the reception area from the classrooms and play spaces. I could hear children shouting happily, but I couldn’t see any of them. A young woman with a long braid down her back came through a frosted glass door, pulling it shut behind her. She held a stack of construction paper in one hand, and when she noticed me waiting, she gave me a tired smile.
    “Can I help you?”
    “Yes, I’m, um, I’m here to pick up my little brother. Charlie Garrett?”
    “Charlie? Is something wrong?”
    “No, no, I just … my aunt wanted me to pick him up for her. Holly. Holly Garrett.”
    Now the young woman frowned. “Holly hasn’t called in.”
    “That’s right. She hasn’t had a chance to. She’s tied up at work. She said I should just come get him. I can show you my ID if you want.” One of the benefits of paying for a fake ID was that even though I didn’t have a driver’s license yet, I had a state ID card and a social security card that were guaranteed to be one hundred percent indistinguishable from real ones.
    “Please give me a second,” the woman said, but I saw the change on her face, the way her eyes turned opaque and suspicious. She went to a computer at the reception desk and typed for a moment with a small frown on her face. When she looked up at me, the suspicion had deepened. “I’m sorry, but your aunt is the only person authorized to pick Charlie up.”
    “But I’m his sister ,” I protested, even though I wasn’t, not really. “Please, you have to let me take him.