Wanted! by Caroline B. Cooney Page A

was easy.
    She went back out the inner door—no ID needed, but there was an alarm, so presumably if she were skipping out with a computer it would go off. At least she had not done that today. Alice held the chocolate bar in her teeth and shoved the heavy glass with both palms to open it.
    A lot of time had passed. It was dark out.
    It was night.
    Night, and Alice Robie was alone with nowhere to go.
    Flight had been possible when the sun was shining. But flight in the dark seemed grotesque and terrifying.
    The door closed behind her before she realized what a mistake that was. She could have spent the night in the lab. But she was outside now, among unknown buildings, squat and shadowy. The temperature had dropped and she needed a jacket, and she did not know one more thing about her father’s murderer than she had known before.
    She tried to walk down the dozen cement steps and could not make herself move. Her toe explored, like a little kid testing the water.
    A thought quivered up Alice’s spine and into her brain. It was a cold thought, and sharp, like crushed ice.
    That phone call to her mother. The next call, to 8789.
    Mom didn’t have Caller ID. But if 8789 had it, he would know Alice had used a State University phone, because all SU phones had the same first three digits.
    Half an hour ago, she had told a murderer where she could be found.

Chapter 7
    F INGERS CREPT UP HER shoulder.
    Alice leaped away, flattening herself against the wall.
    It was Paul of the ID card.
    His fingers wired her fears of the dark. The only knowledge Alice possessed was even darker: Alice had nowhere to go.
    Paul was stricken. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    She could not pull herself together. She could not even decorate her face with a pretend smile.
    “You okay?” he said worriedly. He didn’t touch her again. She could see him wanting to soothe her, casting for a method, finding none.
    “Hard day,” she said raggedly. “I’m sorry I jumped.” She looked away from him to keep from spilling her story.
    The dark was not complete. Every building had spotlights at the corners and doors, and the diagonal paths threading everywhere glowed like white lines on a map.
    “What dorm are you in?” he asked. “I’ll walk you there. If you wait for the campus escort bus, it’ll be fifteen minutes.”
    So it was a dangerous campus for other people, too, not just those whose location was known to murderers.
    Alice tried to have a strategy. I must be a college student, she thought. Somebody three years older than I really am, who actually does live here, and would have waited for the campus bus. “That’s very nice of you,” she said, and remembering the girls in the van, she added, “I live in Flemming, Paul.”
    It was his turn to be startled. “How do you know my name?”
    “Your friends were teasing you when you let me in. Besides, Paul is a nice-person name.” She smiled at him, but it was a failed smile. Her lips didn’t cooperate. She tried to breathe again. What would happen when they got to Flemming? What was she to do all these long hours of night? And the next day, and the next?
    “So, in what way was the day hard?” said Paul, heading down the last steps.
    She went with him. She tried to think of a good lie.
    Couldn’t.
    Shrugged instead.
    Paul grinned at her. “Guys with nice-person names try to be sympathetic.”
    Alice could not help returning this smile. If criminals didn’t get caught phoning their mothers, they probably gave themselves up to the first warm smile. “My roommate and I had a terrible fight,” she told him. “I can’t imagine where I’m going to sleep tonight. I just can’t go back to the room.” Nice of Bethany to provide her with behavior excuses as well as a dorm name.
    Paul nodded. “I’m in a triple. My two roommates and I fight like that all the time. There’s never a night when I want to go back to the room.”
    Since Alice had no idea