Sanctuary by Meg Cabot

see—all I could feel—was what Seth was seeing and experiencing at the exact moment my mind, expansive in sleep, reached out to him.
    And that was the cold confinement of the closet he’d been locked into. The throbbing pain of the ropes cutting into his wrists, cruelly tied behind his back. The rough gag biting into the corners of his mouth. The muffled but still terrifying sounds he could hear outside the closet door.
    That was Seth Blumenthal’s reality. And my nightmare.
    The fact that that nightmare was ongoing was almost more than I could bear.
    “Jessica,” Cyrus Krantz was saying. “I know how you feel about me, and about my organization. But I swear to you, if you would just give us another chance—one more chance for us to work together—you won’t regret it. We need to find this boy, Jessica, and soon. He’s in danger. Real danger. The people who have him are animals. Anyone who would torture a twelve-year-old—”
    “What?” I’d been pacing up and down the hallway with the cordless phone gripped in my hand. Now I froze. “What do you mean, torture?”
    “Jessica,” Dr. Krantz said. “Haven’t you realized by now that all of this—Nate, the synagogue, Seth—is connected?”
    “Connected?” Something was buzzing inside my head. “To Seth? Connected how?”
    “How do you think the people who set that fire at the synagogue knew where to find the scrolls?” Dr. Krantz asked. “Think about it, Jessica. Who would know exactly where those scrolls were kept? Someone who would have been reading from them on his birthday today.”
    Seth. Seth Blumenthal.
    I couldn’t believe it.
    He didn’t wait for the information to digest. Dr. Krantz said, quickly, “That’s why I called. We desperately need your help, Jessica. Listen to me—”
    “No, you listen to me,” I said. “I tried to do things your way, and all it did was get a cop shot. We’re going to do things
my
way now.”
    Dr. Krantz sounded more frustrated than ever. In fact, now he sounded kind of pissed off. “Oh, yes? And how, precisely, are we going to do that?”
    But since of course I had no idea, I couldn’t answer his question. Instead, I pressed the Talk button, ending the call.
    “Whoa,” Mike said, looking at me from over Claire’s shoulder. She sat, seemingly frozen, in his lap. “Are you … are you okay?”
    “No,” I said. I lifted a hand to my hair, then noticed that my fingers were shaking. Slowly, I began to slide down the wall, until I was sitting in the middle of the hallway. “No, I’m not all right.”
    That’s when I heard a voice calling from the phone, “Mastriani? Mastriani!”
    Like someone in a dream, I brought the receiver to my ear. “Hello?”
    “Mastriani, it’s me.” Rob’s voice sounded irritated. “Remember? You put me on hold.”
    “Rob.” I had completely forgotten about him. “Rob. Yeah. Sorry. Look, I can’t go out tonight. Something came up.”
    “Something came up,” he repeated, slowly.
    “Yes,” I said. I felt as if I were underwater. “I’m really sorry. It’s Seth. The cops couldn’t get to him, and there was a shootout, and now one of them is in critical condition, and those people still have Seth, and I’ve got to find him before they kill him, too.”
    “Whoa,” Rob said. “Slow down. Who’s Seth?”
    “Dr. Krantz thinks there’s a connection,” I said. In some distant part of my brain, I realized I must have sounded to Rob like I was babbling. Maybe I
was
babbling. I just couldn’t believe it. A cop. A cop had been shot. And Seth was still out there. Seth was still in danger. “A connection between Nate, Seth, and the synagogue.”
    “Wait a minute,” Rob said. “Dr. Krantz? When did you talk to Krantz? Was that him just now?”
    “I’m sorry, Rob,” I said. I could see Mickey and Claire looking at me with growing concern. I knew I’d have to pull myself together soon, or Mike would go get my mother. “Look, I’ve got to go—”
    But Rob,