Rick walked over to us, shoving the phone back into his pocket. "Tanner, I need your car keys."

"Why?" he asked.

"I'm going to the airport to talk to her."

Tanner's head tilted back. "Right now? In the middle of auditions?"

"It will be too late afterward. The flight leaves at 1:00."

"How do you know that?" Tanner asked.

"I called the airlines. There's only one direct flight to Chicago." Rick looked at me then, but without the anger I'd expected. There was only bitter resignation. "I guess you'll win after all. Let me be the first to congratulate you."

I shook my head. "No. You stay here and finish the audition. I'll drive to Spokane and talk to her."

Rick snorted. "You already talked to her, and nothing you said made her want to come back. I'm going."

Tanner glanced back and forth at us. "You can't go to the gate to talk to her without a ticket."

"So I'll buy one," Rick said.

I only had a few dollar bills in my wallet, and I didn't own a credit card. Still, I wasn't about to let Rick win on this point. "I'll tell the airport people she's running away from home. They'll have to stop her. Rick can stay here and audition. I'll go."

"I'm going," Rick said.

"Fine, then we'll both go," I said.

Tanner held up his hands. "Neither one of you have a car, and I'm not letting either of you tear up the highway to Spokane in mine. Besides," he said as he pulled his keys from his pocket, "you'd kill each other before you reached the airport. I'll drive."

"Let's go then," Rick turned, and picked up his equipment. He handed some of it to Tanner to carry.

I ran over to Molly and Polly to let them know I was leaving. "You can withdraw from the auditions if you want. Or you can just do it without me."

They both stared at me over their books, wide-eyed. "We're backup singers," Molly said. "How would we do the song without you?"

"One of you could take my part." I didn't wait for their reaction to that suggestion because Rick was already striding toward the door and I didn't want Tanner and him to leave without me. I grabbed my purse but left everything else with the twins. Then I ran to catch up with the guys.

I sat next to Tanner in the front seat of his car while Rick leaned over the back seat and complained about Tanner's driving.

"Man, that light was almost yellow. You could have gone through it."

I glanced over my shoulder at Rick. "I'm surprised you're still alive."

Rick grunted. "I'm a good driver."

"I don't think she meant that," Tanner said tightly. "She meant she was surprised I haven't killed you yet. Keep telling me how to drive and you might not be so lucky"

Rick sat back in his seat with a thud. "We've got to get there before they board. At this rate it will take forever."

"We'll get there in time if the roads are clear," Tanner said.

The roads were clear, and once we got out on the highway, Tanner drove fast enough that even Rick couldn't complain. The rolling Palouse Hills zoomed by.

Tanner made Rick call their mother and explain the situation. She didn't pick up the call. They knew she wouldn't. The judges had instructed the audience to turn off their cell phones.

It was just as well, because neither Tanner nor Rick wanted to talk to anyone in their family anyway. They'd had a five-minute conversation beforehand about who should be the one to break it to their grandmother that her grandsons had taken the only car without flats and left everyone stranded at the auditorium.

But when Rick didn't show up on stage, they would check their cell phones.

It was a long drive, made longer by the fact that Rick kept tapping his door handle as though this would make the car go faster. Tanner hardly said anything. I could tell he was angry. It showed in the set of his jaw, in his grip on the steering wheel, and in the silence that surrounded him. I wasn't sure who he was angry at, but figured it was me. I didn't bring it up though. That wasn't a conversation I wanted to have in front of Rick. Besides I couldn't stop thinking about Adrian living with my father.

I watched the snow-covered hills and my mind flashed back to a winter night, one of the last we'd had before my mother left him for good. She was at work and Dad was supposed to drive us to a Christmas program at church. He stopped at a bar instead. There we were, in dresses and tights—Adrian just six years old, and I was eight. He said he'd only be a few minutes and left us in the car. We waited for a while, shivering in the cold, but I knew he'd be in there all night so I took Adrian's hand and we walked home in the snow. It was miles, and Adrian cried all the way because her pretty shoes were getting wet and ruined.

Dad didn't come home until hours later, but when he did he slapped me across the face for disobeying him. When Adrian shrieked in protest he slapped her too.

When we were twenty miles away, Mrs. Debrock called Rick's cell phone. He told her why he was heading to Spokane, reiterating all the reasons he'd already given her in his message. He grunted and rolled his eyes at whatever her response was. After he'd slid the phone back into his pocket he said, "Grandmother thinks I'm undependable, impulsive, and unable to see things through to the end."

Tanner looked straight ahead at the road. "I'm sure she'll cool down by the time we get home, but if not, hey, more of an inheritance for me."

I turned so I could see into the back seat. "You're being dependable—dependable for Adrian. That's something that's worth seeing through to the end. Your grandmother will realize that one day."

Rick didn't answer for a moment. He just stared at me like he didn't know how to react to my compliment. Finally, he looked out the window and shrugged. "Maybe," he said.

After that, we spent a few minutes planning what we would do when we got to the airport. Rick would buy a ticket and go talk to Adrian alone. I agreed to this only because I didn't have the money for a ticket. If he couldn't convince Adrian not to get on the plane, then he'd call me, and I'd tell the airport authorities that she was running away from home. We saved that option for last, because we didn't want to get Adrian in trouble if we didn't have to.

When we pulled up to the airport parking garage, my stomach was churning. The clock in the car read. 12:10. Her plane would probably start boarding in twenty minutes. How long would it take us to get to the gate? As we got out of the car, Rick carried his boom box with him. "Why are you taking that?" Tanner asked, but Rick didn't answer and there wasn't time to discuss it. We jogged into the airport.

Tanner and I went and stood in the ticket line, which was a dozen people long. Rick walked to the counter and told the agent he needed to buy a ticket right then because it was an emergency. She cast him an unimpressed stare and told him he'd have to wait his turn.

He swore about this, and continued to swear all the way to the back of the line. Really, the boy needed to expand his vocabulary.

"Would you be quiet," I hissed to him, "I'll handle this." I turned to the man who stood in front of us, tapped him on the shoulder, and gave him a damsel-in-distress smile. "Excuse me, sir, but my little sister is trying to fly to Chicago when she shouldn't. We need to buy a ticket so we can go back to the gate and keep her from getting on the plane. Can we cut in front of you?"