"What," I said flatly.

"Are you a lesbian?"

I closed my eyes. I counted to ten. I tried to ignore the giggling from the other beds.

I opened my eyes and said, "No, I am not a lesbian. As a matter of fact, I have a boyfriend."

"Who?" Arthur wanted to know. "One of those guys I saw you with on the path? One of those other counselors?"

This caused a certain amount of suggestive hooting. I said, "No. My boyfriend would never do anything as geeky as be a camp counselor. My boyfriend rides a Harley and is a car mechanic."

This caused some appreciative murmuring. Eleven-year-old boys are much more impressed by car mechanics than people like … well, my best friend, Ruth, for instance.

Then … don't ask me why—maybe I was still thinking about Karen Sue over there in Frangipani Cottage. But suddenly, I launched into this story about Rob, and about how once this guy had brought a car into Wilkins's Auto that turned out to have a skeleton in the trunk.

It was, of course, a complete fabrication. As I went on about Rob and this car, which turned out to be haunted, on account of the woman who'd been left to suffocate in its trunk, I borrowed liberally from Stephen King, incorporating aspects from both Maximum Overdrive and Christine. These kids were too young, of course, to have read the books, and I doubted their parents had ever let them see the movies.

And I was right. I held them enthralled all the way until the fiery cataclysm at the end, in which Rob saved our entire town by bravely pointing a grenade launcher at the renegade automobile and blowing it into a thousand pieces.

Stunned silence followed this pronouncement. I had, I could tell, greatly disturbed them. But I was not done.

"And sometimes," I whispered, "on nights like this, when a storm somewhere far away douses the power, blanketing us in darkness, you can still see the headlights of that killer car, way off on the horizon"—I flicked off the flashlight—"way off in the distance … coming closer … and closer … and closer …"

Not a sound. They were hardly breathing.

"Good night," I said, and went back into my room.

Where I fell asleep a few minutes later, after finishing the box of Fiddle Faddle.

And I didn't hear another peep out of my fellow residents of Birch Tree Cottage until after reveille the next morning. . . .

By which time, of course, I knew precisely where Taylor Monroe was.

C H A P T E R

5

"I was so scared, I almost wet the bed," said John.

"Yeah? Well, I was so scared, I couldn't get out of bed, not even to go to the bathroom." Sam had a towel slung around his neck. His chest was so thin, it was practically concave. "I just held it," he said. "I didn't want to run the risk, you know, of seeing those headlights out the window."

"I saw them," Tony declared.

There were general noises of derision at this.

"No, really," Tony said. "Through the window. I swear. It looked like they were floating over the lake."

A heated discussion followed about whether or not Rob's killer car could float, or if it had merely hovered over the lake.

Standing in line for the Polar Bear swim, I began to feel that things were not nearly so bleak as they'd seemed yesterday. For one thing, I'd had a good night's sleep.

Really. I know that sounds surprising, considering that while I'd slept, my brain waves had apparently been bombarded with all this information about a five-year-old kid I had never met. On TV and in books and stuff, psychics always get this tortured look on their faces when they get a vision, like someone is jabbing them with a toothpick, or whatever. But that's never happened to me. Maybe it's because I only get my psychic visions while I sleep, but none of them have ever hurt.

The way I see it, it's exactly like all those times you've been sitting there thinking to yourself, Gee, So-and-So hasn't called in a while, and all of a sudden the phone rings, and it's So-and-So. And you're all, "Dude, I was just thinking about you," and you laugh because it's a big coincidence.

Only it's not. It's not a coincidence. That was the psychic part of your brain working, the part hardly any of us ever listens to, the part people call "intuition" or "gut feeling" or "instinct." That's the part of my brain that the lightning, when it struck me, sent all haywire. And that's why I'm a receiver now for all sorts of information I shouldn't have—like the fact that Taylor Monroe, who'd disappeared from a shopping center in Des Moines two years ago, was now living in Gainesville, Florida, with some people to whom he wasn't even remotely related.

See, ordinary people—most everyone, really, even smart people, like Einstein and Madonna—use only three percent of their brain. Three percent! That's all it takes to learn to walk and talk and make change and parallel park and decide which flavor of yogurt is your favorite.

But some people—people like me, who've been hit by lightning, or put into a sensory deprivation tank, or whatever—use more than their three percent. For whatever reason, we've tapped into the other ninety-seven percent of our brain.

And that's the part, apparently, where all the good stuff is. . . .

Except that the only stuff I seem to have access to is the current address of just about every missing person in the universe.

Well, it was better than nothing, I guess.

But yeah, okay? In spite of the psychic vision thing, I'd slept great.

I don't think the same could be said for my fellow campers—and their counselors. Ruth in particular looked bleary-eyed.

"My God," she said. "They kept me up all night. They just kept yakking. . . ." Her blue eyes widened behind her glasses as she got a better look at me. I was in my bathing suit, just like my boys, with a towel slung around my own neck. "God, you're not actually going in, are you?"

I shrugged. "Sure." What else was I supposed to do? I was going to have to call Rosemary, as soon as I could get my hands on a phone. But that, I was pretty sure, wasn't going to be for hours.

"You don't have to," Ruth said. "I mean, it's just for the kids. . . ."

"Well, it's not like I could take a shower this morning," I reminded her. "Not with eight budding little sex maniacs around."

Ruth looked from me to the bright blue water, sparkling in the morning sun. "Suit yourself," she said. "But you're going to smell like chlorine all day."

"Yeah," I said. "And who's going to get close enough to smell me?"

We both looked over at Todd. He, too, was in a bathing suit. And looking very impressive in it, as well, I might add.

"Not him," I said.

Ruth sighed. "No, I guess not."

I noticed that while Todd might be ignoring us, Scott and Dave definitely weren't. They both looked away when I glanced in their direction, but there was no question about it: they'd been scoping.

Ruth, however, only had eyes for Todd.

"And you have your tutorial today," she was pointing out. "I thought that flute guy was pretty hot. You don't want to smell chlorine-y for him, do you?"

"That flute guy" was the wind instructor, a French dude name Jean-Paul something or other. He was kind of hot, in a scruffy-looking French kind of way. But he was a little old for me. I mean, I like my men older, and all, but I think thirty might be pushing it a little. How weird would that look at prom?

"I don't know," I said as our line moved closer to the water. "He's Do-able, I guess. But no Hottie."

I hadn't realized Karen Sue Hanky was eavesdropping until she spun around and, with flashing but deeply circled eyes, snarled, "I hope you aren't speaking of Professor Le Blanc. He happens to be a musical genius, you know."

I rolled my eyes. "Who isn't a musical genius around here?" I wanted to know. "Except you, of course, Karen."

Ruth, who'd been chewing gum, swallowed it in her effort not to laugh.

"I resent that," Karen said, slowly turning as red as the letters on the lifeguard's T-shirt. "I will have you know that I have been practicing for four hours a day, and that my dad's paying thirty dollars an hour to a professor who's been giving me private lessons over at the university."

"Yeah?" I raised my eyebrows. "Gosh, maybe you'll be able to keep up with the rest of us now."

Karen narrowed her eyes at me.

But whatever she'd been going to say was drowned out when the lifeguard—who was also pretty cute: definitely Do-able—blew a whistle and yelled, "Birch Tree!"

My fellow birches and I made a run for the water and jumped in simultaneously, with much shrieking and splashing. Some of us were better swimmers than others, and there was much choking and sputtering, and at least one attempted drowning, which the lifeguard spotted. Shane was forced to sit out for twenty minutes. But, otherwise, we had a good time.

I was teaching them a new song—since Pamela had put the kibosh on "I Met a Miss"—when Scott and Dave and Ruth and Karen strolled by with their campers. All of them, I noticed, looked a little bleary around the edges.

"I don't understand how you can be so wide awake," Scott said. "Didn't they keep you up all night?"

"No," I said. "Not at all."

"What's your secret?" Dave wanted to know. "Mine were bouncing off the walls. I had to sleep with a pillow over my head."

Ruth shook her head. "Their first night away from home," she said knowingly. "It's always the toughest. They usually settle down by the third or fourth night, out of sheer exhaustion."

Karen Sue exhaled gustily. "Not mine, I'll bet." She glared at some passing Frangipanis, who giggled and tore off along the path, causing all of us to chime, in unison, "Walk, don't run!"

"They are little monsters," Karen muttered, under her breath. "Won't do a thing I say, and the mouths on them! I never heard such language in all my life! And all night long, it was giggle, giggle, giggle."

"Me, too," Ruth said tiredly. "They didn't nod off until around five, I think."

"Five-thirty for me," Scott said. He looked at me. "I can't believe that Shane of yours just slipped off to Slumber land without a fight."

"Yeah," Dave said. "What's your secret?"

I honestly didn't know any better. I said, cheerfully, "Oh, I just told them all this really long story, and they nodded off right away. We all slept like stones. Didn't wake up until reveille."

Ruth, astonished, said, "Really?"

"What was the story about?" Dave wanted to know.

Laughingly, I told them. Not about Rob, of course, but about the killer car, and the appropriating of some of Mr. King's works.

They listened in stunned silence. Then Karen said vehemently, "I don't believe in frightening children with ghost stories."

I snorted. Karen, of course, didn't know what she was talking about. What kid didn't love a ghost story? Ghost stories weren't the problem. But the fact that a three-year-old could be kidnapped from a mall and not be found until two years later?

Now that was scary.

Which was why, instead of joining my fellow Birch Trees for breakfast that morning—even though I was starving, of course, after my swim and my Fiddle Faddle dinner of the night before—I snuck back into the camp's administrative offices, in the hopes of finding a phone I could use.

I scored one without a lot of trouble. The secretary with the NASCAR-driving boyfriend wasn't in yet. I slipped into her chair and, dialing nine first to get out, dialed the number to the National Organization for Missing Children.

Rosemary didn't pick up. Some other lady did.

"1-800-WHERE-R-YOU," she said. "How may I direct your call?"

I had to whisper, of course, so I wouldn't be overheard. I also assumed my best Spanish accent, just in case the line was being monitored. "Rosemary, por favor."

The lady went, "Excuse me?"

I whispered, "Rosemary."

"Oh," the lady said. "Um. One moment."

Jeez! I didn't have a moment! I could be busted any second. All I needed was for Pamela to walk in and find that not only had I abandoned my charges, but I was also making personal use of camp property. . . .

"This is Rosemary," a voice said, cautiously, into my ear.

"Hey," I said, dropping the Spanish accent. There was no need to say who was calling. Rosemary knew my voice. "Taylor Monroe. Gainesville, Florida." I rattled off the street address. Because that's how it comes. The information, I mean. It's like there's a search engine inside of my brain: insert name and photo image of missing child, and out comes full address, often with zip code attached, of where child can be located.