In no time, the group arrived at the restaurant. It was a cinder block strip mall with about fifteen stores forming a semicircle along the busy highway road. All the shops were bright with lights and Open 24 Hours neon signs and other adverts in Day-Glo. There wasn't a time any of the kids had ventured here that it hadn't been busy. The strip mall provided services ranging from food to gyms to mechanics, cosmetics and the likes. And because the highway and bus stop and, consequently, various motels and hotels were nearby, it mostly rendered it's services to travellers and passerbys and tourists and other businesses around that might be needing their services.

"That's my Dad's work." Grace pointed to an auto shop towards the right wing of the semicircle. For an auto shop, it seemed to be made entirely of plexiglass. Bright blue neon signs on top announced that it was Parish and Whitaker's Auto Shop: The Original Car Doctors . . .

"Cool," said Yolanda, her mouth hanging wide open. "Cool," she said again, laughing. She was into cars. The arsenal of miniature models, complete with tools in her bedroom shelve attested to it.

She turned to Kalea, her green eyes wide. "Can we go inside?"

"After we go to Mom's," Kalea answered when she realized Yolanda had been talking to her. She was busy scanning the parking lot with her eyes. She had checked the restaurants from the glass window and hadn't seen her mom anywhere and she couldn't see her car or Dad's car anywhere in the lot either.

A frisson of panic seeped into her pores. She was gone!

Lacey and her siblings had also come to the same conclusion. They got down from their bikes and dashed up to the large restaurant.

Kalea only paused for a few seconds to say goodbye to Grace and Joy before she dropped her bike in the bike stand and followed the path the others had taken. She met them inside, talking agitatedly to Riff.

Riff, whose real name was Griffin, was busy patting a table with a towel and had on a confused look at the kids' moxie. His cream-tinted, natural dread locks was decorated in orange and black jack-o-latern beads and packed in a loose ponytail.

"I told you, Boss has gone back out. The parents' party at Essex Fair. And she didn't mention you guys were coming," he was saying.

"Yeah, but did she leave our phones? She said to come get them here." Lacey paced around the guy, arms on her hips. She looked like she could punch him if he didn't say what she wanted to hear.

Riff finished cleaning the table and turned to them. "First of all, I don't understand anything you guys are saying. Secondly, it's a busy night out here, you're getting in the customers' way, follow me towards back."

Without waiting to see if they obeyed or not, Riff made towards the back of the restaurant, untying his uniform apron and folding it unto a tray as they passed from the vast busy and steaming kitchen to the staff locker room.

Kalea had always admired the apron the staff at Mom's restaurant wore. It was a cobalt-blue piece of fabric, with thin royal-wine pattern lines crisscrossing the blues and loud canary-yellow sunflower designs on the blues. Growing up, she had wished to wear one like that and had told Mom so. Mom had laughed and said no daughter of hers was going to grow up to work for a restaurant owner.

Riff opened a backdoor that led to the back of the restaurant. Here, the roads weren't as busy as upfront but had cars running them all the same. A three floor motel loomed ahead across the road, glittering with Halloween designs.

"Okay, so what were you guys all worked up about?"

"We kind of have an emergency in our hands and we need Mrs K to help us. But now you said she's gone," Lacey said dejectedly.

"Yeah, sorry. She didn't say anything about you guys coming, though. What was all that stuff about a phone?"

"She left a note back home saying she had taken my phone, and Lacey's, to work and we should come get it," Kalea explained.

Riff frowned and rummaged in his pocket for something. The kids had dared to hope Mom had left the phones with him and he was about to produce them any second from now. But it was only a packet of cigarettes. Riff lit one of the sticks with a flick lighter and took a drag to fan the red tip.

"Okay, let me get this straight . . . you are all here because you got something important to tell Boss. And you also need your phones to tell her."

Yolanda sighed, slightly annoyed. "No. That's not it."

"Does it matter?" Tobie said. "Even if we got the phones, it'd have done nothing. We need an adult to believe us and call the police."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up a sec. Police?" Riff dropped his barely smoked cigarette into a potted plant, grinding the tip into the soil. He stood straight to face the kids, a look of horror on his face. "What about the police? What are you kids up about? What happened?" His eyes jumped from face to face.

Art rolled his eyes. "Nevermind, Riff. You're not gonna believe us."

Riff groaned. "Try me."

So Art proceeded to tell him the story, intentionally editing and highlighting the part where his phone had been murdered and Kalea had stabbed a way to their escape. And then he told him about calling the police and the notes on the Post-Its.

"Whoa," said Riff, placing a palm on the back wall to steady himself. "That's a pretty adrenaline rush. I bet it was cool."

"Cool?" Kalea croaked. The incredulity of Riff's reply was enough to choke her voice.

Riff gave a slow smile and shrugged. "Come on, it was obviously a prank gone wrong. I had a similar prank played on me on my way to work. This group of guys threatened to tie me up and dress me for their Halloween cannibal feast." Riff broke into boisterous laughter. "Man, was it funny. I pity the guy Kalea slipped a knife into, though."

"What about Art's phone?" Yolanda's voice was raised, just a notch below a shout.

Riff thought about it, scratching at his locks. "Well, since destroying his phone is close to a felony I don't think they would have actually done it. Maybe it's like all these magician tricks. Your phone's probably still with them and they'll be calling any of your close contacts to pick it up any instant."

"For crap's sake, why is nobody half as serious about this as we are!" Lacey lamented. She shot the smiling Riff a disapproving scowl. "Riff, I am highly disappointed in you."

Riff shrugged like it didn't matter. "Doesn't remove a loc from my dreads. See, I got to go back inside, my shift ends in a few minutes at nine twenty, I don't want anybody extending my shift for being absent."

He stared longily at the box of cigarettes in his hands and tucked it into his pant pocket. "From me to you, you had better not mention stuff like this to Boss when you find her, she'll think you had misplaced your marbles." He dusted any remnant of ash off his fingers and checked his hair. "Meanwhile, you're all welcome to grab free dinner before you leave. Boss wouldn't mind." And he was gone.

The kids watched the chrome and glass back door swing back and forth in his absence. Nobody knew what to say. The backdoor of the convenience store to the right swung open and a tall guy stepped out, a steaming plate of food and a glowing cigarette in his hands. He started when he saw them and frowned, finding it suspicious to see five kids standing at the back of a restaurant.

"You lost?"

"No." Kalea motioned for the others to go back inside.

"If nobody is believing us, why would Mom?" Tobie reasoned, as they passed through a second door and cut through the locker room.

"I just want my phone back," Art said. "Is that too much to ask for?"

"No." Yolanda touched his forearm lightly. "We'll figure something out."

"We'll figure nothing out," Kalea repeated with a hiss as they passed through the throng in the dining area. "I'm starting to think Dore might have been right."

Lacey's face turned down in a sad kind of expression. She stopped, just as they all stepped out of the restaurant unto the pavement. "About what part? Wasting our time? Being stupid to read much into a prank?"

"Yeah, all of them?"

"Seriously, Kalea, you believe her now?"

"Maybe she was right, Tobie. Maybe we're all just wasting our time on a silly merry dance. Crap, do you know how many precious hours we've wasted since meeting those weirdos? Almost two hours."

"What if those weirdos had harmed other kids? They sounded like some serial killers, what if they've murdered more kids by now, just because we were busy arguing about nothing?" Lacey questioned.

"Okay, what do you want us to do now? Walk to the police station? Stop the first patrol car we see? With what evidence? Are you willing to put yourself in trouble for something you're not even sure of?"

Lacey stared into Kalea eyes until her own blue ones went moist with tears. She looked away with a heavy sigh. "Okay then."

"At least we tried," Yolanda said. "Let's all go home and call it a night."

Tobie sighed in resignation and Art still maintained his adamant look. He huffed and made his way down the parking lot to where his bike lay.

"Shouldn't we still go to your mom's and get our phones?"

"Yeah." A frown started to form on Kalea's face. "I still don't get why she said she was going to drop our phones and didn't. Or why she took them in the first place."

"Maybe she forgot to drop them?" Yolanda splayed her palms in question. "Anyway, I don't think we should go find Mom. Essex Fair is miles away, and unless we take a taxi, we won't reach there anytime soon."

"Besides, I don't wanna bike on the highway at night. We'll just have to wait till tomorrow," Lacey agreed.

"Let's go back home, then," Tobie offered.

Kalea could see Art at the side of the road when she stood on her tiptoes. A thin storm was brewing on his face and even from here she could see it on his face. "Art is in a really bad mood. Nobody try to say anything to him or respond to his intentional jibes."

Yolanda sighed. "I hope that stuff about magic trick was true and the weirdos would call somebody to come pick the phone."

Lacey gasped. "What if they called Kalea's phone? Or yours?"

Yolanda shrugged. "I hope they don't. Or maybe they'll bring it to our address when nobody answers the phone."

"That's creepy." Kalea shivered. "Those creep-os had better not go near the house, or I'll legit call the cops."

"True." The others agreed.

The bell of the next-door convenience store tinkled severally and the kids noticed a girl behind a huge grocery bag trying to open the glass doors with her foot. But the force of her foot was not strong enough to push open the reeling doors and her arms were occupied with cradling the grocery bag.

Tobie ran over to hold the door open for the girl who stepped outside and breathed in relief, dropping the bag to the hard concrete floor with a thud. The top of the huge brown paper bag was rolled shut. The kids hoped the bag didn't contain any breakables.

"Thanks," she said, smoothing out her short blonde bangs with her fingers. She was Asian-American and could easily be in her late teens or early twenties. She looked really nice in her butter-cream bell pants and a light coloured woolen turtle neck under a dark jacket. Some sort of soft loafers housed her feet and looked slightly incongruous to the whole smart outfit.

She swung her gaze to Tobie when she noticed her still standing and staring. Her black cat eyes were as cold and hard as cash metal. "I said thanks." She turned to glare at the others.

Tobie looked away and stepped back, walking back towards the others. They ignored the rude stranger and made their way towards Art and their bikes, Tobie muttering under her breath, something about ungrateful humans. She only stopped muttering when her phone started to buzz somewhere in the bulkiness of her costume, like a trapped bee.

Making a mental note to change her plain and annoying ringing tone, she fished out her phone. Her face pursed in surprise at the caller ID and she handed the phone over to Kalea. "I think it's for you."

Kalea was equally surprised on seeing the caller ID. She picked up the call anyway, raising the phone to her ear.

"Hey," she said slowly.

"Hi, Kalea." Dore McLeod's voice was surprising soft and normal and had a tinge of apology in it.

Kalea found herself calming down at the voice. Dore was normally soft spoken and jovial, until sometime at the beginning of this week. The day after they had been grouped with Oren and the other boys. On a normal day, she and Oren had a bone to pick (for a reason no one knew about), but being on the same team with him had made her more bitter and angry and it consequently affected the people around her. She started lashing out at everybody around her in anger. Today had been the height if it all. Since morning, Dore had been extra pissed and extra saucy at everybody, especially Oren.

But now she was speaking in her normal voice, which probably meant she was sober and back to normal. So Kalea was glad for her best friend. Although they still had stuff to settle.

"Hi, Kalea." Dore's voice rose a bit. "Are you guys okay?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Um, I wanted to apologise for the way I behaved earlier. After I left you guys I spent some time alone and thought deeply. And I realized I'd been too harsh since morning. Kalea, I'm so sorry."

"Um, it's okay." Kalea didn't exactly know what to say to the unexpected apology. She did still owe the others an apology too, after all.

"Thank you so much," Dore gushed. "Tell the others I'm sorry too."

"Uh, okay," Kalea said and glanced at the others watching her, wondering how they were going to take the over-the-phone apology. "Where are you?"

"I decided to go to the AutumnWhit Lane party after all. It sounded fun, I'm just about to go. You guys should come."

"Uh, I don't think so. We're just leaving Mom's restaurant. We got there not long ago and guess what? She had gone and didn't leave the phones."

"Sorry about that," Dore said.

Kakea thought she didn't sound sorry. There was a palpable relief in her words instead.

Well, there's a certain relief that your thoughts turned out to be right, I guess.

But Kalea wasn't ready to argue about it, so she didn't say anything about it. "Thanks."

"You guys should really come join me. I'll be inside by the time you arrive."

"Dore, I don't think we'll be making it. Mom doesn't know about this plan and, besides, we promised to stay indoors."

"Come on. For just a little while, Kalea . . ."

Kalea shook her head, forgetting the other couldn't see her. "Dore. No," she said firmly. "I'm taking my siblings home right now."

Dore sighed into the phone and Kalea could imagine her rolling her eyes. "Fine. Come pick me at the place then. So we can go home together. I don't wanna be alone on the trek home."

Kakea could hardly classify the brightly lit streets filled with Halloween-happy people as alone, but she didn't say that. She just shrugged and said, "okay." And told the others about it when she got off the phone.