With him was a fine looker who also sported an orthodontic miracle for a smile. Actually, she was absolutely striking—black hair and blue eyes, a completely killer combination.
“Why?” Trix said. The tone of her voice switched to bored.
“Just wanted to get to know the man who found the big clue,” he said, setting his tray of food on the table. He clapped me on the back and then sat next to me while Blue Eyes sat on the other side next to Audrey. He reached over to shake my hand. “I’m Nash Pierce,” he said. “This is Brett Seagreaves.”
Brett. A girl named Brett. So here I was at the table with Beatrix, Nash, and Brett, thinking, Don’t rich people ever have regular names? It was like their names were fancy brand names, you know? Like brands of clothes I couldn’t afford.
I introduced myself and Audrey, and Nash asked the inevitable where-do-you-go-to-school question. I admitted the whole truth, and surprisingly he’s like, “That’s cool. I’ve always wanted to know someone who went there. You guys have a badass reputation.”
I’m like, “Really? We do?”
And he’s, “Sure. Everyone at Hollister thinks that. So how did you happen to come all the way up here to join the search party?”
“We’re working on a story for the school paper,” Audrey said. “He’s a reporter, and I’m the photographer.”
“That’s interesting,” Nash said. Then he looked me in the eyes. “So, how did you do it? How did you find her shoe? Did you have some kind of system for searching for it?”
“He’s just an amazing detective, that’s all,” Trix cut in.
“He must be awesome,” Nash said. “Maybe you’ll be the one who finds Ashton. I hope so. We’re really worried about her.”
Usually, I have a pretty strong irony detector—you can’t love Walker, Texas Ranger like I do without having a good sense of irony—but I wasn’t sure whether Nash was putting me on or whether he really did think I was awesome. Maybe it was the hamburgers. I have to admit they left me feeling a little intimidated. You have to assume these Hollister kids are mega-smart. I mean, if they’re going to use only the best ingredients in their burgers, you can just imagine what they put into their education.
Anyway, I figured the best strategy for dredging up some scoop from these people would be to play humble, so I’m like, “Oh, I’m just trying to be of whatever help I can. Maybe if I knew a little more about Ashton, I could contribute some little something or other. How well did you two know her, Nash?”
Before he could answer, Brett cut in: “Nash and Ashton used to date.”
“That was a year ago,” Nash said.
Very interesting—Nash seemed cool, but the ex-boyfriend has to rank pretty high on the suspect list. Maybe he was just playing friendly with me to find out how much I knew.
So I asked him what happened with him and Ashton, and he’s like, “I don’t know. She’s a sweetheart, but, well, we were just juniors, you know?”
“And then Ashton started to get this whole save-the-world thing going,” Brett added.
“Like that’s supposed to be a bad thing?” Trix cut in.
“That was a long time after I dated her,” Nash said. “I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact she’s missing.”
“Was she dating anyone else?” I asked. “You know, more recently?”
“Yeah,” Brett said. “As a matter of fact, she dated Rowan Adams up until the end of summer.”
Another suspect for my list. This was getting good.
I asked if this Rowan guy was around anywhere, and Nash goes, “I’m sure he is,” but before he could point him out, a voice came from over my shoulder.
“Hey, Nash, you saving this empty seat for anyone?”
I looked around to see Tres Browning standing behind me, a gloomy expression on his pale turtle face. Nash told him we were saving the seat for him and introduced me as the guy who found Ashton’s shoe.
“I heard about that,” Tres said as he sat next to Brett. He had kind of a queasy air about him, like, as rich as he was, he still wasn’t quite in the same league with Brett and Nash. “I was wondering,” he said, looking at me without raising his head all the way. “Can you tell me what the shoe looked like or if you happened to see what brand it was?”
I felt stupid for not checking the brand. I guess I was too excited. Not that I’m much of an expert on running shoes. “Well, it wasn’t a Nike. I can tell you that much.” Nike being the only logo I would probably recognize. “But I can tell you it had a logo that was sort of a sideways triangle with a line sticking out of it.”
“That sounds like her shoe all right,” Tres said, looking solemnly down at his plate.
“Why?” I asked. “Were you thinking maybe someone came out here disguised as her?”
“What?” He looked up. “Did the police say they thought that’s what happened?”
“No,” Audrey volunteered. “That’s just one of his crazy theories.”
A crazy theory. That’s what Detective Svendsen said to the Andromeda Man too.
But then Nash’s like, “I don’t think it’s so crazy. What if someone did come out here disguised as her to throw everybody off?”
I looked at him but still couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Just then, sploosh! Tres dropped his soda cup smack into the middle of his plate. His hand was trembling.