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her car, with her wallet and cell phone inside, although her license was missing. Her car keys were in the ignition and the driver’s door was ajar.”
    â€œThe door was a jar? But how can that be?” Josh jokes this pathetic joke we’ve made a million times before, at the absurdity of anyone using the word ajar . I only now used it because the cop did, and it’s pissing me off that Josh is being so goofy about all of this.
    â€œI’m just reporting what the officer said. The police officer ? Who called me on my phone?” I emphasize the words to drill it into his brain that police are now calling me to ask where Penny is.
    â€œWait—the police called you about Penny. So that means that they think…What, exactly?” Josh is more serious, as if he finally recognizes the possible weight of the situation.
    â€œI don’t know if they think anything. He said he was calling to let me know that Penny is missing and that if I have any information I should call him.”
    â€œBut why you? Why’d he call you ?”
    â€œBecause I was the last phone number that Penny called from her cell phone at four thirty in the morning.” I sigh at the idiocy of it all. Not only did Penny seriously make it look like she may have been kidnapped—abducted? I don’t know what to call it, since she’s not technically a kid—by leaving her car, purse, and phone, but she’s implicated me by calling.
    â€œSo how do we know she didn’t actually get taken somehow? Like, if you were going to run away, wouldn’t you take your purse? Or at least your phone?” Josh doesn’t seem to get the illogical way Penny’s brain works. Or doesn’t work.
    â€œThe whole mad scheme was because she didn’t want people to know where she was going. And, I gotta say, I’m sort of impressed. Leaving her purse, the door open. Very believable. But her license was missing, so isn’t that like a dead giveaway that she took it out? Who kidnaps someone and is, like, ‘I better take their ID in case we need to rent a DVD or something’?” I’m wavering between kind of annoyed and kind of in awe. Annoyed that I’m the keeper of secrets and awed by her follow-through, albeit a shady one. “She’s usually so passive.”
    â€œIf she’s truly faking her own kidnapping just so she can get away from her life, I’d have to label that one as passive- aggressive . It’s like the wussiest thing on earth to not have the balls to say, ‘Look, I’m leaving town. Don’t follow me, don’t try to stop me. I’ll call when I feel like it.’ But she”—he stutters, incredulous—“she can’t even leave a note? Instead, she puts you in the middle of some sort of elaborate kidnapping plot, just so she can get a little love, and she’s off roaming the country. How do we know the cops aren’t calling you because her parents tipped them off or something? Maybe they think you kidnapped her! And you’re holding her for ransom and won’t take less than an olive tree in exchange for her life,” Josh pontificates animatedly.
    I know he’s kidding, but it’s kind of weird that the police called me. Like, maybe they do think I know something? Because I do. But they don’t know that. Or do they?
    My cell phone rings again, and I jump. Thank god it’s my mom’s number that appears on the caller ID.
    â€œHi, Ma,” I answer, relieved.
    â€œHi, honey. Everything OK?” Mom sounds concerned but like she’s trying not to.
    â€œSure. Yeah. Why?”
    â€œUm, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, sweetheart, but a policeman came by the house looking for information about your friend Penny. It seems, well, she may have been abducted.” My mom sounds devastated, like this is the worst news a mom could tell her daughter. I want to give it up, right now, to end