THE CAR’S DOR swung open, and someone got out. Still blinded by the headlights, I couldn’t see who it was. My heart thudded hard in my chest.

“Hey.” The voice was friendly and unexpectedly familiar.

“Romy?” I shielded my eyes against the glare and felt lightheaded with relief. “Turn off the lights. You’re blinding us.”

“Oh, sorry.” She reached into the car and cut the headlights.

It took a moment to readjust to the dark. “What are you doing here?”

“Your mother called,” Roman said. “You told her you were going to my house, so I didn’t know what to say, and then she pretty much knew anyway that you weren’t there.”

There was something odd about the way she was speaking and how she kept glancing at Whit.

“So…you decided to come look for me?” I asked.

“First I texted you, but you texted back you couldn’t talk, and

then I got worried that maybe you were in some kind of trouble.”

“How did you know I was here?” I asked.

“Just a lucky guess. Like, where else would you be?” Roman said.

I found that hard to believe. Meanwhile, she kept glancing at Whit, so I introduced them.

“I’ve read your stories in the Snoop,” Roman said. “They’re really good.”

Whit thanked her, and she turned to me again. “So what’s going on? What’re you doing here?”

I didn’t know how to answer. Besides, I’d just realized something. There was one sure way she could have known Whit and I were here—if she’d been here first. Had she been the one who’d slid the plastic into the doorjamb, hit Whit over the head, and run out? What better way to divert suspicion than to return and act like she didn’t know what was going on?

Or had she been looking for something in the office and now come back to see if we’d found it?

Or was I just being completely over-the-top paranoid? After all, she was my best friend.

Roman was still waiting for an answer when Whit spoke up. “I asked her to bring me here. After writing all these stories about her dad, I really wanted to see the place.”

“Uh-huh.” From the way Roman nodded, I knew she didn’t believe that. But maybe it didn’t matter.

“I better get going before my mom sends the police to find me,” I said.

I got into my car feeling wound up and tense about Roman being there and about going home and facing Mom, who would demand to know why I’d lied to her and where I’d really been. I’d barely gotten out of the studio parking lot before my BlackBerry rang. It was Roman, calling from her car.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“How did you know we were there?” I asked back.

“I asked my question first,” she said.

At that point I didn’t care who’d asked first. I was feeling seriously stressed and suspicious. Roman was my best friend. If I couldn’t trust her, then who could I trust? “I’m serious. How did you know?”

“I told you, it was a lucky guess, pure and simple. Where else would you have been?”

“I can think of a hundred places.”

“Well, I don’t have your imagination. So what’s the story?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I thought we were best friends,” she said.

“And you’ve never kept a secret from me?”

“What’s that got to do…,” she began to ask, then realized.

“Oh, so that’s the deal? I must have kept secrets from you, so it’s okay for you to keep this secret from me?”

I didn’t answer.

“Since when don’t we trust each other?” she asked.

Was she right? Was I being crazy paranoid? She couldn’t possibly have anything to do with those missing girls, could she? And yet, I still didn’t understand how she could have known that Whit and I were at the studio just now. Could it really have been as simple as a lucky guess?

“I’m almost home,” I lied. “I have to go in and face Mom. We’ll talk about this later.”

A few moments later I pulled into the driveway but didn’t get out right away. I was scared. I wished I could tell Mom the truth, but Whit had made me swear that I’d keep the Janet thing a secret.

I couldn’t sit in the car forever, putting off the inevitable, so I took a deep breath and got out. As I walked to the front door, I expected that Mom would be waiting in the living room.

What I didn’t expect was for Dad to be waiting there, too.