Sketchy Behavior Page 20

People were yelling outside, “FBI! FBI!”

  My head was ringing. I’d fallen on my knees right in front of the door. I reached up to unlock the second lock.

  I heard the snap almost before I felt it. John X had hit my left wrist so hard, he’d broken it. I started crying in pain.

  The door in front of me blistered right as the windows shattered, but didn’t break. They were bulletproof, after all. I screamed.

  I scooted to the wall by the door, still holding the gun in an iron grip with my right hand. John X was kneeling right in front of me, pulling his fist back, shaking his head, aiming for my face.

  “Stop right there.”

  John X froze.

  My dad stood there behind him, 9mm trained directly on John X’s head, his legs spread in a shooting stance. He didn’t even look at me, he just kept both hands on the gun and both eyes on John X.

  “Hands on your head. Now.”

  Slowly, ever so slowly, John X lifted both hands and put them on his head, falling cross-legged to the floor.

  The front door busted open and suddenly the place was swarming with men with guns. Dad didn’t move. John X didn’t move.

  And I sure didn’t move because the two of them were trapping me against the wall.

  One of the men pulled a set of handcuffs from his back pocket and wrapped them around John X’s wrists, yanking him up and pushing him outside. “You know what?” he was saying as he escorted John X out. “I’m not even going to read you the Miranda warning. I’m going to let you tell it since you know it so well.”

  “Kate,” Dad said, dropping to his knees in front of me. “Oh, Katie.” He gripped me in a short hug and then stood. “I need a doctor!” he yelled, looking at my quickly swelling and bruising wrist.

  I still had John X’s gun in an iron grip against my chest. “DJ,” I muttered, tears still streaming down my face.

  Dad nodded. “They arrested him before they broke in,” he said.

  I blinked and looked up at him. “How did you —?” As far as I knew, there was only one way into the house and one way out. And the front door was it.

  Dad shrugged. “I shattered the back window when they were making all the commotion in here.”

  “It was bulletproof,” I said.

  “You can only make glass bulletproof to a certain extent, Kate.” The engineer in my dad was taking over. “I shot three holes in it and then used the tire iron from Kent’s car to break it the rest of the way. See, bulletproof glass works because it has several layers and the layers absorb the bullet so it doesn’t pierce all the way through. But it does damage the rest of the glass, because —”

  I shook my head and interrupted, because quite frankly, at that moment, I didn’t care. “Mom? Detective Masterson?”

  “Both fine. DJ knocked Kent out and locked him in the shed before he tried to come get you. I guess he was planning on taking you away from here to keep John X from finding you.” Dad was shaking his head.

  Mom ran into the house then, panicking. “Kate! Kate!” she screamed, dropping to the floor beside me. “Are you okay? You’re alive! Where’s the doctor? Where’s an ambulance?” She grabbed my face in both hands. “Don’t worry, Kate, we’re getting you into intense psychotherapy when we leave here!”

  I was worried about that. Actually, no I wasn’t.

  I just smiled at my parents and sniffled back the tears. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Twenty

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  THE BELL WAS RINGING AND I LAID MY MATH HOMEWORK on my teacher’s desk. “Don’t forget about the pop quiz Monday!” he yelled over the bell as we left.

  Yay.

  It was the last class of the day and I was officially done with school for the week. In three weeks, I was going to be officially done with school for the entire summer. I stopped by my locker to grab my other books.

  “Hey.”

  I looked over. Justin.

  “Hey,” I said, closing my locker and stuffing the extra books into my backpack.

  “Are you coming to church on Sunday?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Pretty sure.” We’d been last Sunday. We again went to the late service and missed out on hearing the multicolored choir and the amen-ers, but I did meet a few more people from school, and now they waved and stopped to talk to me in between classes.

  I had more friends than just Maddy. My mom was thrilled.

  She hadn’t made me go to psychotherapy, but she did ask me to let her know anytime I started thinking about what happened at the little house in the woods.

  And she started reading through Luke with me.

  So far, this guy named Jesus had made some pretty huge claims about himself. I was curious if they were going to hold true. I couldn’t really understand why God had answered my prayer at the house, but he had and I was willing to learn more about him.

  Justin nodded. “Want to come study with me?”

  I shrugged on my ridiculously heavy backpack, sighing. “I can’t. I’ve got work.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  He actually looked kind of sad.

  “I can come tomorrow though,” I said.

  He grinned at me. “Sounds good. See you tomorrow, Kate.”

  And then he winked at me before he left.

  My stomach twisted slightly, and I cleared my throat. There was no time to think about Justin right now. I was already late.

  I ran for my car and tossed my backpack into the passenger seat. We’d gotten a huge check as reward money for finding John X, and Dad had used it to upgrade my car. “I guess it’s fine for you to drive something a little newer,” he’d said grudgingly one day when I got home from school. A two-year-old Jeep Wrangler sat in the garage.

  Now I couldn’t help grinning as I drove to work. The sun was shining, the birds were singing. I had the windows down and the breeze was rifling through my hair.

  I pulled into a parking place and walked inside, waving at the front-door secretary.

  “They’re waiting for you in the conference room,” she said, smiling at me.

  I opened the door and Detective Masterson and Deputy Slalom were both sitting in the conference room. Detective Masterson stood and smiled shortly at me.

  “Hi, Kate. How was school?”

  “Fine. I actually —”

  Deputy Slalom cut in then, stripping off his sports coat and rolling up his sleeves. “That’s great, Kate, but we don’t have time for pleasantries today. We’ve got a new witness for you, and this case is a doozy. Started in Arkansas and now this creep is moving north.”

  I sat down at the table, took a deep breath, smiled at Detective Masterson, and nodded at Deputy Slalom.

  It was going to be a great summer.

  Normal.

  Discussion Questions for Sketchy Behavior

  1. From the beginning, Maddy and Tyler have a dramatic relationship. And according to Kate, Tyler is a jerk. Why do you think Maddy and Tyler keep getting back together?

  2. Kate’s entry into forensic sketching is a little … sketchy. If you were Kate, how would you have reacted to the news that your art teacher had you draw a wanted criminal and the police knew about it? Do you think Miss Yeager and Detective Masterson’s idea was worth the risk? Why?

  3. Kate’s brother, Mike, is never around. In fact, except for the time Kate’s “big arrest” was on the radio, he never calls to find out how his sister is doing. How did this affect your opinion of Mike? Do you think he was aware of everything that was happening in South Woodhaven Falls?

  4. Kate has a dating incident that will not be spoken about, ever. What do you think that event could be?

  5. Even though she’s in a lot of danger, Kate handles her sudden fame and her fear of John X with humor. If you were her, how would you have reacted? Do you think her humor in this situation is a coping mechanism, or is it just who she is? Why?

  6. When Kate decides to grab her sunglasses during the parade, it ends up saving her life. Do you think that was more
than a coincidence? What moments throughout the book seemed like coincidences at the time, but wound up becoming very important later?

  7. Throughout the book DJ is a major person in Kate’s life, living at her house as a bodyguard and interacting with her and her family in an almost brotherly way. Based on his characterization, did his past come as a shock to you? Why do you think DJ was involved with the case and showed up at the FBI hideout? What do you think will happen to DJ?

  8. Kate’s mom decides that the family needs to attend church because “we need all the help we can get right now” (p. 60). What do you think of her mom’s thought process? Do you know anyone who thinks the same way? What would you say to them?

  9. In your opinion, why does Kate take the summer forensic sketching job after everything that happened with John X? Would you want Kate’s job? Why or why not?

  10. What do you think will happen between No-Longer-Silent Justin and Kate? What would you like to happen?

  Acknowledgments

  To my parents — Doug and Susan Mangum, thank you for loving me, raising me, and giving me the gift of a crazy imagination. I’ve always loved you, but I never appreciated you fully until we had Nathan! Thank you for everything you’ve done for me!

  To my family — Bryant, Caleb, and Cayce Mangum; Greg, Connie, Allen, Vicky, Tommy, and Ashlee O’Brien: thank you for the laughs, the prayers, and for encouraging me. I am so blessed to have you as my family. I love you all!

  To my friends — Clint and Leigh Ann Trebesh, Eitan and Kaitlin Bar, Mario and Elisa Martinez, Greg and Jen Fulkerson, Barb Walker, Shannon Kay, and my wonderful friends at Mars Hill ABQ — thank you for being such an incredible blessing in my life!

  To the friends I’ve made at Zondervan, particularly Jacque Alberta — thank you! My agent, Steve Laube — thanks for helping me find a home for this novel.

  Finally, to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ — may everything I write be a way to draw closer and closer to You.

  ZONDERVAN

  Sketchy Behavior

  Copyright © 2011 by Erynn Mangum O’Brien

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

  EPub Edition © AUGUST 2011 ISBN: 978-0-310-40800-0

  This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook.

  Visit www.zondervan.com/ebooks.

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

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  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mangum, Erynn, 1985–

  Sketchy behavior / Erynn Mangum.

  p. cm.

  Summary: As part of an art class assignment, high school junior Kate unwittingly sketches a wanted murderer, propelling her into instant celebrity and extreme danger while her parents fret and police provide constant protection.

  ISBN 978-0-310-72144-4 (softcover)

  1. Murder — Fiction. 2. Artists — Fiction. 3. Police — Fiction. 4. Celebrities — Fiction. 5. High schools — Fiction. 6. Schools — Fiction. 7. Family life — Missouri — Fiction. 8. Missouri — Fiction. I. Title.

  PZ7.M31266532Ske 2011

  [Fic] — dc23

  2011013223

  * * *

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Cover still-life illustration: Connie Gabbert

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  * * *

  11 12 13 14 15 16 /DCI/ 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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