Taken

Chapter 9{Book 2}

RIKKI

February 13, 2014 6:00 p.m.

"I'm glad we decided to do this," I said as I stepped out of Bailey's green Mustang.

"Yeah," agreed Lacey. "I hope we can actually find some information on Troy and Carlos's childhoods."

"Yeah, hopefully we can find something helpful," said Tanya.

"Well, we should probably get started with our research if we don't want to be here until midnight. This could take a long time," I reasoned. We all walked through Bailey's front door and into her comfy living room. We all sat in our usual seats, Bailey and me on the leather couch, Lacey and Tanya each in different recliners.

"How about two of us look up Carlos and two look up Troy," Tanya suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea. I'll Google Carlos," I said.

"I'll look him up, too," said Bailey.

"Well, it looks like we've got Troy," Lacey said as she looked over at Tanya. We all got out our assortment of smartphones, laptops, and Chromebooks and began vigorously looking for any information from Troy and Carlos's childhoods that would hint where Jeff and Carlos might be.

After about fifteen minutes of silence, I said, "Has anyone found anything?"

"I found that Carlos grew up in New Jersey in a town that's about twenty minutes away from New York City," said Bailey.

"Yeah, and he moved to Los Angeles when he was about thirteen. I wonder why he moved," I said.

"I don't know," said Bailey. "Maybe there's a place in New Jersey that they're hiding out in."

"I don't know," I replied. I looked over at Lacey and Tanya and asked, "Have you guys found anything?"

"Troy grew up up north in a little down by Duluth," said Tanya.

"Yeah, and then he went to college at Duke," Lacey said.

"Ugh, this is just too much information," groaned Bailey.

"I know, right. How are we ever going to figure this out?" wailed Lacey.

We all sat in silence for a while when a sudden thought hit me. "Wait a second!" I exclaimed.

"What?" my best friends asked.

"I remember something from about seven or eight months ago. Troy spent a lot of his money on a brand new beach house. He spent so much money that he almost went broke. The only problem is that the article I read didn't say where the beach house was located. It didn't say a town or state or anything. I looked into it even more, but there wasn't a location given."

"Well, at least it's a start. Maybe something will come out that will give us a hint as to where the beach house is," said Bailey.

"Yeah, but we don't know if that's really where Jeff and Carlos are hiding out," Lacey pointed out.

"For now, that's basically all we have to go on," said Bailey. "Well, I'm done with all of this serious stuff for the day."

"Yeah, me too," said Tanya. "So what are you guys doing for Valentine's Day?"

"Lance is going to take me out for a romantic dinner after the basketball game. He wants to wait until after the game so he can watch Kade and Taylor," said Lacey.

"Zayn's doing the same thing for me," replied Tanya. "I'm really excited. What are Kade and Taylor doing for you guys?"

"Kade's going to do something special for me, but he won't tell me what it is. I guess he wants it to be a surprise, but I really want to know what he's going to do!" I said. Last week, Kade had told me that he would be doing something special for me on Valentine's Day after his game was done. I asked him what it was, but he told me it was a surprise. I had been begging him to tell me what we were doing all week, but Kade wouldn't crack.