Page 69 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

“Hey—” She breaks off, and I hear the grunts of a struggle. Her voice gets distant. “Let go of me!”

“Marlowe?”

The phone goes silent.

Chapter 22

“Marlowe?” I yell into the phone and press it hard against my ear, straining to pick up anything.

“No,” I hear her say. “You can’t make me.”

“Sure I can, kiddo,” says a voice on the other side of the phone.

Shit.

She’s actually in trouble. Who is it? Can’t be Tond or Benny; it kinda sounded like a woman’s voice. Please don’t tell me there’s another player in this that I haven’t thought of yet! Figuring out this murder was exhausting enough!

I spin in place for a second, clocking my options. Back the way I came, the firefighter is pulling Claudia’s back door shut, so I can’t run through the house. The shortest way to the sidewalk where Marlowe’s standing is down the alley for half a block,aroundthe construction site, and then right onto Claudia’s street. I sprint down the alley and all I can think is that I am not in good enough shape to save this poor child in time.

“Marlowe!” I yell into the phone. “Punch her in the tits!”

“Who’s that?” says the voice.

“Hey!”Marlowe says. “You can’t take myphone!”

I’m fully panicking now, imagining this mystery lady wrestling Marlowe into an unmarked van, andthis is exactly why you don’t get a kid sidekick!!

“Hello?” says a new voice.

“I know MMR, you monster!”I yell into the phone. Dammit—I’m almost past the construction site, but I know I’m too late.“I know MMR!!!!!”

“You know... measles mumps rubella?” asks the voice.

“I am a martial artist!” I yell, clocking that I may have messed up the acronym.

“Um, hi, this is Shoshanna Golden? Marlowe’s mom?” the woman says into the phone. I stop dead in my tracks. Crap, wasn’t she alawyer? “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I was just alerted to the fact that mychilddeepfaked my voice for a school absence. If you’ve been aiding and abetting her truancy, you’re in huge trouble.”

Oh my god. I slow down and peer around the corner, my heart still pulling some kind of Blue Man Group shit in my chest. Sure enough, there’s Marlowe sulking on the sidewalk, and the woman in the photo from her “partition”—the middle-aged woman with the hip glasses and short hair—is pacing back and forth, calmly eviscerating me over the phone.

Marlowe conveniently left out that detail.

I try to catch my breath.

“Certainly not,” I say in my grown-up voice, while hiding out of sight. I pull out my vest—I’m supposed to beprotectingkids. And yeah, Marlowe will hate me for throwing her under the bus like this, but believing that something bad was happening to her was the scariest thirty seconds of my entire life, and honestly she reallyshould be in school. “I’m the Walters crossing guard, and I noticed she was playing hooky.” None of this istechnicallyuntrue. “I’m so glad you are there to take her back to school, where she belongs.”

Shoshanna Golden is silent for a moment, and I can hear her lawyerly brain trying to figure out if I’m telling the truth. “Why do you have her phone number?” she asks.

“I have all the kids’ contact info,” I say(act confident).“Just in case of emergency.”

“Marlowe,” she says. “You are in big trouble. It’s one thing to deepfake an absence, it’s another to treat this crossing guard like your own personal truant officer.”

We say an awkward goodbye, and I hang up to hear Marlowe’s yell echo through the neighborhood.“Mo!!!!!!!!!!”

Yeah, I know. But I’m an asshole because I care.

I am also a coward, because I hide around the corner, pressed up against the construction fence until I’m sure they’re inside the school. From my spot, I can hear as the fire truck drives away, too, and the block is finally quiet.

“Oookay, that is just about enough sleuthing for today,” I mutter, taking into account that I’m sticky with sweat and the mystery envelope is getting soggy under my armpit. I’m a little nervous to look inside; it’s probably got naked blackmail photos of Claudia or something. I should definitely weed out the most embarrassing ones before I turn it over to the police, but I am not looking forward to it.