"You okay, Matts?  You seem distracted."

I smile at the worry in Jake's voice. Ever since the hospital, he's been treating me like I'm his most prized baseball card and that's saying something. Jake and his dad are huge baseball guys. To say anything against the American pastime is like sacrilege or something to them.

Distracted. I chuckle. If he only knew. My mind has been spinning for the last two days trying to find clues in everything that has happened. I'm not the kind of person that can just sit and wait for someone else to do all the work. I'd given Dan my drawings, but I have this need to be out there looking too. I'd joked with Dan maybe I'd be a cop and he'd told me that wasn't a bad idea. I had good instincts and thought of things even he didn't. So why am I sitting here in a diner sipping on Coke instead of looking for Mary?

Jake Owens.

I have this urge to tell him what's going on, but I'm afraid that if I do, I'll lose him. Jake means the world to me. He puts up with my snarkiness and I'm not sure why. He's such a good guy, sweet, never a mean word about anyone. I can get so mean sometimes. That why I can't figure out what he sees in me, really. He should be dating Amanda, the shy girl from math class. She's just as sweet as he is. I'm the freak with a warped and twisted sense of morality.

"Jake, why do you like me?" It's a question I've never asked him, but one I've thought of asking him a hundred times.

"That's easy, Matts," he laughs.  "You're hot."

I laugh as well at the teasing tone in his voice, but I really want to know. "Seriously, Jake, why me and not someone else?"

He picks up my hand and his thumb starts rubbing slow circles into the back of of it. "Mattie, you are not like any other girl I know. All my other girlfriends were boring. All they ever wanted to talk about was what was happening on Gossip Girl or who Kim Kardashian was dating. Like I even know who that is? You're different. You don't care that I'm captain of the team, you see me."

"I don't get it, though. I'm not your type."

"My type? What makes you say that?"

"You're just so... so... so nice! I'm not. I'm snarky, sarcastic, and downright mean. Some of the stuff that comes out of my mouth..."

He starts laughing. I glare at him. Here I'm trying to have a serious conversation and he's laughing at me.

"Sorry, Mattie, but I couldn't help it. You sound so confused. Yeah, you're pretty mean sometimes, but I don't think you're totally serious about it, not really. The girl I know cares about people, but she hides behind all that snarkiness. Besides, it's cute. I don't think I've ever met someone brave enough to stand up and call Mr. Clayborne a...how did you put it?"

He's referring to our history teacher. Mr. Clayborne was a college football star with a busted knee. It kept him from going pro. During my first week here, he spent all his time reminiscing about the good old days and boring the class to tears. I'd called him a sad, pathetic, washed-up wannabe who whined instead of moving on. Not my best idea as it landed me in detention for the first week of school, but so worth it.

"That's my point, Jake. You don't seem like the kind of guy who'd put up with that from his girlfriend. Why you haven't dumped me and my mouth yet, I don't know."

He slips an arm around me. "Mattie, you've just had really bad things happen to you. I get that. I know that's why you act like an ass sometimes, but I also see the person you hide. You are a good person so deal with it. Besides, feel lucky you are dating the hottest guy in school who just happens to be a football god."

"Now who sounds conceited?" I laugh. Jake is one of the few guys I've ever met who has no issues talking about their feelings. Most guys consider it too girly, but that just makes Jake all the more special.

He leans over and kisses me and I forget about everything for just a few minutes. He has that effect on me. He can make me forget myself when he kisses me. I let myself get lost in the emotions, in the butterflies in my stomach and the sensations he evokes. Jake is such a good kisser.

"Get a room you two," says a familiar voice.  Geeze, Tommy, can't come up with anything more original?  So lame.

I reluctantly pull away when Tommy, Meg alongside him, slide into the booth. Meg is grinning like an idiot at me. She knows I've been thinking about Jake and sex. We had that conversation the day of the party. Meg's all for me devirginizing myself. Is that even a word? It should be. I haven't really given anymore thought to it with everything else that's been going on, but seeing Meg grin like that makes me remember and start to think about it again.

Sex is not something I've given much thought to outside of making sure I didn't get molested or raped in the foster homes. It gives me hives just thinking about it, honestly. Maybe it's because I associate it with the bad things that happen in some of the homes. After you hear the horror stories from so many kids, it gets to be something dirty and awful. I KNOW that my idea of sex is warped, but it comes from the environment I grew up in. I'm not sure I can do it without panicking. Look at my episode with Stevie the other day. I know he didn't want to do anything. But so help me, I can't get past the feel of his hands and what it might mean. I'm so messed up.

Crap. Tommy is staring at my chest again. He is such a slime ball. I cross arms over my girls. I have decent cleavage – one good thing inherited from my mom. She'd been gorgeous with a rack most of the girls in my school would sell an appendage for. I'd inherited some of that, but not her model-tall figure. I'm not short, but I'm not tall either. Stuck somewhere in the middle.

"So have you nailed her yet, Jake?" Tommy asks. He's grinning like a lech. What a creep.

"Tommy, shut up," Jake growls, fury in every word.

"What? The way you two were kissing looked like you were trying to crawl inside each other. I just assumed you've banged her."

"Tommy!" Meg yells, face red, looking like she wants to crawl under a rock and hide from the embarrassment. 

I'm all for smashing him into goo. "It's none of your business who I bang and who I don't," I shot back.

"This is true, but it might be mine," says a new voice.

We turn our heads to see Officer Dan standing not more than a foot away in full uniform. He is glaring at Tommy. Those brown eyes so do not look happy.

"Wait, how is it any of your business?" I demand.

He grins and taps his badge. "You're only sixteen, Mattie. Tommy, you and Jake are seniors right?"

"So?" Jake asks.

"Eighteen?"

"Yeah."

Oh, no. "You wouldn't dare." My mind scrambles for what the legal age of consent is in North Carolina, but for the life of me I don't remember. Would Dan really go there?

Officer Dan grins wickedly at me. "You bet I would."

"Excuse me for a second." I push out of the booth and grab Officer Dan, pulling him outside the diner.

"Now look here..."

"No, you look here," he interrupts. "I'm trying to help you."

"Help me?" I screech. "Jake is my boyfriend and if I want to... to... well, I will!"

"I'm not worried about, Jake. It's Tommy I'm trying to warn off," Dan says, face serious.

"What?"

"Look, there have been several complaints about him, but none of the girls would press charges. I want to make sure he knows someone is looking out for you, someone official. I saw the way he was staring at you and I figured he needed a reminder that you're off limits."

My anger deflates like a popped balloon. "Oh."  Wow. Officer Dan is looking out for me?  That's really sweet. "Sorry I yelled at you."

"No, you're not," he laughs. "You yell at me all the time."

"True, but you deserve it. Have you found out anything about the kids I told you about?" I switch topics on him, knowing I'll only have a minute or two more before Jake comes looking for me.

"Yeah, a lot actually. I'm off tomorrow so I'll pick you up and show you everything I've found out – if that's cool?"

"Yeah, that's great. I need to be home before five, though. It's Saturday so Jake and I are going to a movie."

"Uh-huh. I'll swing by in the morning around seven then. You can have breakfast with me and my parents."

"Your parents?"

"Yeah, you are forgetting I'm still in college? Apartments aren't cheap, Mattie. I don't pay rent at home."

I can't stop the laughter from bubbling up. "Ohmygosh, Officer Dan, you still live at home with your parents."

"Shut up," he growls. "It's not funny. It's called being responsible and saving my money."

"If you say so..."

"Mattie, you are such a dork."

That only makes me laugh harder and he stomps away. I'm still chuckling when I go back in and sit down. Jake does not look happy. Ohhhh, is he jealous?

"You know Dan Richards?" Meg all but yells, bouncing in her seat. "He is sooo HOT!"

"Officer Dan? Yeah, I guess," I say, remembering the horrified look on his face when I'd started laughing at him. "He's more of a pain in the rear than anything else."

"Ass, Mattie," Meg laughs, "He's a pain the ass."

I shrug.  "That, too."

"So how do you know him?" Meg asks, but Jake answers.

"He was one of the cops investigating her foster sister's disappearance." There is a definite bite to his tone. Oh, yeah, my boyfriend is sooo jealous of Officer Dan.

"I forgot about that," Meg frowns. "Do they know what happened?"

I shake my head. "No, they think she ran away, but she didn't."

Meg looks like she wants to say something to me, but isn't sure how. I know that look. I saw it from Mrs. Olson and from Nancy. Meg figures she ran away, too. I am not wasting my breath arguing with her.

"Anyway, shouldn't we get going to the game? Coach'll kill you and Tommy if..."

A little old woman I don't know is waving her cane at me and distracts me from what I start to say.  She's standing there in the middle of the waitresses moving around carrying food to tables, just waving at me.  Her hair is a silvery color, almost with a hint of blue in it. She's wearing old lady clothes, the kind with the floral prints all over them. I blink rapidly. Maybe I'm seeing things, but no, she's still there and coming towards me! Another ghost? Great.

"If what?" Jake prompts.

"Huh?"

"You okay, Mattie?"

"Yeah, fine," I say. "Just tired."

The little old woman moves until she is standing behind Tommy. "I need help," she tells me.

"You look like you just saw a ghost," Meg laughs.

"Ghost? No, no ghosts," I deny quickly. Meg, you have no idea what that really means.

The woman jabs her cane at me. "You!" she says.  "You have to help me. Oliver needs help. He's all by himself in the basement. Someone has to let him out."

"I think we probably should all head over to the school." Jake stretches. "Coach will be mad if we're late."

"Coach?" the woman yells, waving her cane. It goes right through Tommy's head. He doesn't seem to feel it, but I stare, wide-eyed at the site of the cane moving back and forth through his head. "What about Ollie?" she says.

"Ollie?" I whisper, fascinated as the cane cuts through Tommy's head again and again. How can he not feel that? So cool, and so weird.

"Who's Ollie?" Jake asks, his eyes going from me to Tommy. He can't see the old woman, so he's frowning.

Dang, gotta watch that stuff. "What? No one. Come on, let's get going before you two get into serious trouble with Coach." I slide out of the booth then leave the diner, eyes straight ahead, refusing to look at the old woman screeching behind me. Ignore her and she'll go away, ignore her and she'll go away, I mutter to myself. They always do. Right?

Jake takes my hand and leads me to his car. As I buckle the seatbelt, I can see the old woman standing outside the diner, yelling at me, but I can't hear her anymore. She is persistent. I have a feeling next time I go back to the diner, she'll still be there waiting for me to help Ollie. None of the ghosts are giving up so easily – now that I've started getting chatty with them. Rats.

"You okay?" Jake asks me while he puts his Jeep into gear.

"I will be," I tell him. And I would. As soon as I can figure out what happened to Sally and the others and maybe save Mary. Then I can go back to ignoring the ghosts and maybe they'll go back to ignoring me.

God, I hope so.