Vanished Books Three & Four by Meg Cabot

Author:Meg Cabot
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse

Sanctuary

CHAPTER 1

This time when it started, I so totally wasn’t expecting it.

You would think I’d have figured it out by now. I mean, after all this time. But apparently not. Apparently, in spite of everything, I am just as big an idiot as I ever was.

This time when it started, it wasn’t with a phone call, or a letter in the mail. This time it was the doorbell. It rang right in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner.

This wasn’t so unusual. I mean, lately, our doorbell? Yeah, it’s been ringing a lot. That’s because a couple of months ago, one of my parents’ restaurants burned down, and our neighbors—we live in a pretty small town—wanted to show their sympathy for our loss by bringing over beef Stroganoff and the occasional persimmon pie.

Seriously. As if someone had died. People always bring over gifts of food when someone has died, because the grieving family isn’t supposed to feel up to cooking, and would starve to death if friends and neighbors didn’t come over all the time with lemon squares or whatever.

Like there was no such thing as Dominos.

Only in our case, it wasn’t a person who had died. It was Mastriani’s, an Establishment for Fine Dining— the choice for pre-prom dinner, or catering local weddings or bar mitzvahs—which got burned down thanks to some juvenile delinquents who’d wanted to show me just how much they didn’t appreciate the way I was poking my nose into their business.

Yeah. It was my fault the family business got torched.

Never mind the fact that I’d been trying to stop a killer. Never mind that the folks this guy had been trying to kill weren’t just, you know, strangers to me, but people I actually knew, who went to my school.

What was I supposed to do, just sit back and let him off my friends?

Whatever. The cops nailed the guy in the end. And it wasn’t like Mastriani’s wasn’t insured, or that we don’t own two other restaurants that didn’t get incinerated.

I’m not saying it wasn’t a terrible loss, or anything. Mastriani’s was my dad’s baby, not to mention the best restaurant in town. I’m just saying, you know, the persimmon pies weren’t strictly necessary. We were bummed and all, but it wasn’t like we didn’t feel like cooking. Not in my family. I mean, you grow up around a bunch of restaurants, you learn how to cook—among other things, like how to drain a steam table or make sure the perch is fresh and that the fish guy isn’t trying to rip you off again. There was never a shortage of food in my house.

That Thanksgiving, in fact, the table was groaning with it. Food, I mean. There was barely room for our plates, there were so many serving dishes stacked with turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, two kinds of dressing, string beans, salad, rolls, scalloped potatoes, garlic mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, turnip puree, and creamed spinach in front of us.

And it wasn’t like we were expected to take, you know, just a little bit of everything.

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