Trail of the Spellmans Read Free Page A

a file that was already two inches thick.
    “Tell me about the Blake case,” I said when my father eventually entered the office.
    “We took the meeting last week,” my dad replied defensively. “Okay.”
    “You were busy.”
    “Okay.”
    “I think you were at Walter’s.” 1
    “I’m sure I was. Tell me about Ms. Blake.”
    “Her parents hired us.”
    “To find her?” I asked.
    “No. She’s not missing.”
    “Then why did her parents hire us?”
    “The Blakes want us to follow their daughter.”
    My father settled into his chair and made an effort to appear extraordinarily busy. Before I continued interrogating him, I decided to familiarize myself with the Blake file. It began with an e-mail she wrote after her first month as a freshman at Berkeley.
To: Ma and Pa Blake
From: Vivien Blake ([email protected])
Re: greetings
Mom and Dad,
I hope this e-mail finds you well. Despite your concerns before I left home, I have not become a drug addict, a cult member, or a hippie. Sadly San Francisco isn’t what it used to be. I’ll own up to eating too much pizza and soda, but you must allow me a few vices. I can honestly report that I’m attending all of my classesexcept the eight A.M. world history seminar. I tried to get into the noon one, but it was overenrolled. I just buy the notes later. You can do that, you know. I think it’s also worth pointing out that I got an A on the first world history exam.
As for church, I haven’t made it there yet, but it’s on my to-do list. I would go if it started at noon. I don’t know why they haven’t implemented late-riser services yet. It’s a niche most religions have failed to tap into.
I do have a favor to ask, aside from more pizza money, if you think of it: If you’re concerned about me, call me. Not my roommates. Sonia found that last phone call a bit . . . how do I put it? Awkward. Most parents don’t do that sort of thing. Just so you know.
Not much else to report: I’m alive, my clothes are relatively clean, I’m getting enough sleep, and all the golf carts of the world are where they should be. And if they’re not, it was not my doing.
Give Prof. Fuzzy a kiss for me. Remember, that’s a two-person job. If I were you, I’d wear gloves.
Love, your law-abiding daughter,
Vivien
    It took me about an hour to scrutinize the Blake file. The story is simple enough. Vivien’s parents were concerned about their daughter, a straight-A student and class president who’d been accepted at a number of Ivy League schools but decided on the equally impressive and yet less expensive Berkeley. She was also a bit of a rebel, with a bent for getting into the kind of trouble that occasionally resulted in mild police intervention. Her parents wanted her tailed to make sure that the trouble she was currently getting into would not interfere with her education or future prospects.
    To put it bluntly, they were scared of and for their daughter. They collected her e-mails as evidence rather than keepsakes. She was a differentsort than they were. Harvey Blake was a life insurance salesman, always calculating risk. His wife was a homemaker of the old-school variety, the kind that ironed her husband’s shirts and had dinner on the table at six forty-five on the dot. But their daughter was someone else. For years they had shared their house with a polite, friendly, free-spirited alien. 2
    Still, as far as I was concerned, Vivien Blake was simply a strong-willed young woman figuring out her place in the world. Since I had spent decades stirring up trouble, why would I investigate someone who was no worse than I at her age and yet managing to excel at the same time?
    After I’d reviewed the file and the “evidence” within it, which included letters from sleepaway camp, text-message transcripts, a month of e-mails, and a photo of Vivien wearing a homemade prom dress constructed out of tinfoil and duct tape, I took a stand. I waited until my mom and Demetrius returned from