Oh my God, what was wrong with me? I could barely muster up the enthusiasm to make out with my own super hot boyfriend, and I was . . . oh dear God, was I blushing? Ugh.

Ugh ugh ugh.

Yup, the car chase had clearly addled my brain.

I was about to say something mean to David, you know, to restore equilibrium, when his eyes got big and he blurted out, “Bad guys in the pool!”

Huh? Was that like thinking of baseball when—OH! Right!

I pushed open my door and leapt out into my yard, taking deep breaths, hoping the cool air and sight of people drowning in my pool might get my hormones or whatever back under control.

I had knocked over Mom’s birdbath. It lay in three big pieces right under David’s bumper. And then, of course, there was the giant hole in our fence. But those were really the least of my problems. This biggest issue was the black Cadillac currently sinking into my pool.

No sound came from the car, and there didn’t appear to be any activity inside, so I guessed the impact had knocked out the driver and any passengers he or she might have had.

David was standing next to me, watching the car as the aqua water bubbled and churned around it. “So are we, um, are we gonna let them drown?”

I was glad he said that. We.

I had killed Dr. DuPont, and I didn’t feel bad about that. I couldn’t. He had been seconds from killing me when I jammed that shoe into his neck. But whoever was in that black car . . . well, I didn’t know what they’d wanted. My gut told me they had been bad guys, but that still didn’t make me feel great about letting them drown in my pool.

I was also more than a little worried about explaining this whole thing. All evidence of my fight with Dr. DuPont had mysteriously vanished, but I wasn’t sure how whoever had worked that particular mojo could cover this up. I expected our neighbors to start congregating in the street any minute now, like they did when the power went out.

David gave a huge sigh and ran his hands over his hair. “Well, this is weird. And awful.”

“Yup.” My skirt had gotten twisted around my hips somewhere in all of this, and I started straightening it. Anything to avoid looking at the pool.

“Who are you?” David asked me for the second time that day. “International assassin? Ninja? Vampire slayer, maybe?”

I lifted my head. “No, I’m a—”

There was a slight popping sound from the pool, and David and I both turned our attention back to the water.

Which was now empty.