Vanishing Act by Barbara Block

threatened me with a bat?”
    â€œMarks told me,” I replied, thinking as I did that this was the second time in two days that I’d heard Bryan and a weapon mentioned in the same sentence.
    â€œHe burst in here and started right for me. That guy is crazy. You tell him, he comes near me again and me and my friends will hurt him real bad.”
    The perks of living in a fraternity. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”
    â€œSo you say,” he sneered. He was now about six inches away from me.
    I held my ground. “Yes, I do.”
    Tommy stopped. I think he’d expected me to flinch and move back. When I didn’t, he didn’t know what to do. I looked up at him. “Don’t you want to know what happened to Melissa? Don’t you care?”
    â€œOf course I do,” he exclaimed.
    â€œThen why don’t you help me find her?”
    â€œYou want to find her, talk to her brother.”
    â€œI have, and now I want to talk to you.”
    â€œMy father told me not to talk to anyone else.”
    â€œYou always do everything your father asks you to?”
    Tommy flushed. A murmur went up from the guys standing around us. “It’s not that,” he stuttered, deflated.
    â€œThen, what is it?”
    He ground his heel into a floorboard and glared at me helplessly.
    I glared back. “Bryan said you didn’t care. I guess he was right.”
    Tommy swallowed. I watched the conflicting emotions march across his face. I could understand why his father had told him not to talk to anyone. He seemed like the overly emotional type, reactive, vulnerable to whatever came along, easy to bully. In that way he and Bryan were a lot alike. They acted first and thought about the consequences later. Maybe that’s why Melissa had been attracted to Tommy in the first place. Because he reminded her of her brother.
    â€œHe’s always hated me, right from the day we met,” Tommy stated, intruding on my train of thought.
    â€œActually, I think it’s your Burmese he hates.”
    Tommy’s frown dissolved into a mischievous grin, transforming his face into one that looked boyishly charming. He chuckled. “Yeah, he’s scared of her all right.”
    I couldn’t help smiling as well. I knew the guilty pleasure of handing someone a snake and watching them jump back.
    â€œBut Missy loved Burma. She used to say she thought she was the perfect combination of beauty and strength.”
    â€œThey are that,” I agreed as I watched the guys around us turn and drift back into the other room. Since there wasn’t going to be a fight, there was no point in staying.
    â€œCan I see her?” I asked after they’d gone.
    Tommy beamed. Who said the way to man’s heart was through his stomach?
    â€œI’ve had her since she was six months old,” he told me as I followed him up the large winding staircase that I was sure, in its younger days, had heard the crinkle of taffeta as young women swept down the steps in their ball gowns.
    â€œWhat’s she eating?”
    â€œA mouse once a week. I was feeding her twice a week, but I read that wasn’t good.”
    â€œNo, it’s not.” Overfeeding is as bad for snakes as it is for people. “She shedding okay?”
    â€œFine. You sound like you know about this stuff. Do you have one?”
    â€œIn a manner of speaking. I own Noah’s Ark.” By now we’d reached the landing. I glanced around. The long, wide hallway meandered off to the left. A worn red print carpet covered the floor. The yellowish-white walls looked as if they could use a coat of paint.
    Tommy smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand as he walked. “God, I feel like an idiot. I hear you got some great stuff in there.”
    I smiled. “We try.”
    â€œCould you get me an emerald boa?”
    â€œI could order one for you, but they run somewhere between four and five