James flipped his blinker. “Oh, yeah. The famous ‘sun chair.’ ”He shook his head. “I think I had, what? Like five seconds before some guards grabbed me?”
“You still almost broke it,” Isa said.
“Izzy, it’s not my fault that chair has very brittle bones.”
“It’s over two centuries old, J.”
“Well, the maintenance crew clearly needs to step up their game.”
The four of us laughed, then started reminiscing about that long-ago Mr.Adler–chaperoned field trip. James daring a random kid to lick the Liberty Bell’s glass casing, Isa correcting our tour guide in the Betsy Ross House, me buying out the National Constitution Center’s gift shop, and Ev embracing eighteenth-century cuisine at City Tavern. I’d personally thought the food was gross, but he’d been all about it, even taking home leftovers.
It was only when we turned onto Chestnut Street that our conversation stopped. “You have reached your destination,” Waze announced, and as if the app had the ability to comprehend sarcasm, James said, “Have we now?”
Because while there were several tourist groups here and there, barely any cars lined the street. James parked in one of the empty spots and threw on the hazard lights so Isa, Ev, and I could spill out and search for the sleek red Tesla. “This doesn’t make any sense,” I said after consulting my meterUP app. “We had twenty-five minutes left on the clock. Why would we get towed?”
“Butdidwe get towed?” Ev asked. “There’s no ticket on the meter.”
A lump rose in my throat. “Could it have been…”
My heart hammered. I couldn’t finish the question, now looking at Isa. While Ev and I were still pointlessly circling the area, she was petrified. Absolutely petrified, with a perfectly straightened spine, arms dangling lifelessly at her side, and a frozen face.
I, however, was not. “Oh my god, Isa!” I exclaimed. “I’m so sorry. You were right, and I was wrong—we shouldn’t have left the car here. I promised nothing would happen to it. Not a scratch, not a bruise, not a dent, nothing.”
“No, Grace,” Isa said softly, finding her voice. “Listen, it’s okay….”
I shook my head, eyes pooling. Someone had stolen the Tesla. Someone hadstolenMr. and Mrs.Cruz’s car, and it was all thanks to me. I’d persuaded Isa into taking it for an extended spin. “Isa, it’s my fault,” I croaked. “I’ll take the blame. We’ll go to your house and wait for your parents to come home, and when they get there, I’ll tell them I did it.” I swallowed hard. “They might not like me anymore, but—”
Isa moved forward and wrapped me in a hug. “That’s not true,” she said. “We’ll get in big trouble for today, but they’ll still like you. They’ll stillloveyou.”
Tears spilled down my face as I squeezed her tight. I didn’t want to do this, but I would for her.
James slow-clapped when we separated. He was sitting on the Subaru’s hood, like he didn’t give two craps about the situation.Why are you dating him, again?I wanted to ask Isa, but then James slid off the hood and spoke. “That wasbeautiful,” he said. “Your love for each other is truly touching.” One side of his mouth curled up. “Are we ready to go get the carnow?”
Ev raised an intrigued eyebrow. “You know where the car is?” he asked as I grabbed Isa’s arm with a flare of hope in my heart.
In response, James pointed to a streetlamp. A banner hung from it, advertising theRun for Independence!I squinted to see that it was a 10K…which just so happened to be taking place early tomorrow morning. I sighed. None of us needed a map to know that Chestnut Street would be on the route.
The Tesla had indeed been towed, but not because we’d overstayed our welcome. It had been towed because Philly was clearing the streets in preparation for the race. I looked up ahead to see a crew setting up bright orange traffic cones.
“But how?” I turned back to James. “No notice was left behind. How do you know where they’ve taken the car?”
My brother shrugged. “Intuition.”
If you asked me to take a guess, I would’ve said the police had the Tesla and its fellow cars towed to an empty lot only a few blocks away. A walkable distance, close enough to where we’d originally parked. Somewhere we could actuallyfindit without needing a forwarding address.
Not quite.
“You’re joking,” I said twenty minutes later, when Jamesswung the Subaru into a packed parking lot. We were back in South Philly, directly under I-95. “This can’t be the place.”
My brother turned off the car. “Well, I hate to break it to you,” he said, “but it is. This is the Island of Mis-parked Cars. Ryan, Caleb, and I had to come here once after a concert to find Ryan’s truck.” He popped open his door. “Trust me, this isdefinitelythe place.”
You could hear the cars, trucks, and motorcycles whip by on the highway. Isa squeaked when something with at least eighteen wheels thundered above us.
“I think we should split up,” James said after we determined there was no one manning the pickup booth. He scanned the rows and rows of cars. The Tesla was somewhere in the weeds. It had to be. “We’ll cover more ground that way?”
“Yeah, good idea,” Ev agreed. He too was scanning the sea for our ship. “It’ll save time.”
“Especially since we have tofind-find the car,” Isa said. “I was so nervous this morning that I accidentally grabbed the spare key fob with the defective alarm button.” She clicked it to demonstrate. No siren sounded. “And since it’s only the spare, my parents haven’t gotten around to contacting the dealership yet….” She trailed off to look at something on her phone. Her eyebrows knitted together. Was she concerned about the time?
