15
“You didn’t see anyone collecting or offering money?” Agent Sheldon drills while pacing across the carpet in Agent Sharp’s hotel room.
The room is now littered with computers and technical equipment along with half a dozen takeout containers. I don’t know where he sleeps. Unless… My gaze roams to the open door joining their two rooms. There’s an empty bed in my line of sight. Big enough for two.
“No exchange of money at all,” I say from my seat at the tiny table across from the bed. “I heard that Bruno guy tell at least a dozen people that the agency doesn’t charge a fee until the client books something and gets paid.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Sheldon says, clearly disappointed.
“It’s a long con.” Sharp looks up from the laptop where he’d been taking notes. He’s ignoring FBI dress code today, wearing gray sweats. “This requires establishing relationships and offering a legitimate product.”
I point a finger at Sharp while keeping my attention on the still-pacing Agent Sheldon. “Exactly what he said.”
“And you definitely don’t recognize the man called Bruno?” Sheldon asks, and I shake my head. “Is that normal for your family to bring in outsiders?”
“No,” I admit. It’s definitely not normal. “My dad doesn’t even trust me with details of the operation because I’ve been an outsider for less than a year.”
“I’m guessing the outsiders are providing the space in that building,” Sheldon assesses while Sharp types away at his laptop, probably transcribing all this. “Even the smallest office in that building costs a fortune.”
“That Bruno guy had a perfect New Jersey accent, but he seemed more like a secretary than a partner,” I remind them. “My dad literally snapped his fingers and he came running.”
“Maybe the accent isn’t an act. Maybe he’s local. And if he isn’t in charge, then that means there are more,” Sheldon says with a nod. Her eyes have a glint of greedy hope now. “Behind the scenes.”
“Most likely,” I agree. “I need more time to earn my dad’s trust before I’ll be able to figure out where the payoff is and who else is involved.”
“Of course,” Sheldon says.
I glance at my cell and then spring to my feet. “Are we done here? I have a tour of Shakespeare’s Garden to get to.”
After I’m dismissed, I slip inside the hotel coin-laundry room to return a missed call from Aidan.
“Hey, kiddo, I don’t have much to offer,” Aidan says right away, probably sensing my need for information. “I can’t get ahold of Miles, and when I contacted Marshall Academy, they basically evaded giving me any real answers as to whether or not he’s on campus. Maybe that’s their security system, but I know the school head; we did a tour in Iraq together when I first enlisted. And we’ve talked about Miles before. It’s weird that he wouldn’t tell me anything. But then again, I couldn’t exactly say why I needed the information.”
“What did you tell him?” I prompt, ignoring the turmoil of panic in my stomach.
“Just that I knew some Holden kids who knew him and wanted to get ahold of him and that it might be best if we didn’t leave them to dig around,” Aidan tells me. “I don’t want you to worry, okay? Most of the time, no news is good news in these situations.”
“That’s bullshit,” I say, but gently. He’s trying to make me feel better. “Give me something, then. Hypotheticals… What would make him go off the map? Before last Sunday when we were supposed to meet, I assumed he was back in the country, but I never did get confirmation of that. Maybe his parents’ mission in Turkey went wrong and they had to vanish, and because Miles was with them he had to vanish, too?”
“That’s pretty much what I was thinking.” He sighs loud enough for me to hear it through the phone. “The Becketts are phenomenal agents and will do anything to protect their son, so really, if something bad happened there is no better place for him to be than with his parents.”
“Right, okay.” I release a frustrated breath. I’ve definitely moved on from deciding whether or not my concern is justified or leftover paranoia caused by the kidnapping experience. It’s definitely justified now.
“If I had access to the school’s servers, I’d risk being caught to look at attendance records or something—anything to see if his person has been spotted somewhere,” Aidan says, surprising me with his own growing worry.
We end the call shortly after, and I’m still clinging to his mention of school servers. I do know someone who has the skills to get inside Marshall Academy’s system. A savvy DC tech store owner named Connie. She’s helped me in many binds and asked for little in return. She’s all about breaking the law for the purpose of finding truth. She knows Miles and she’s proven to be trustworthy with sensitive information. I pull up Connie’s number and take a deep breath before hitting send. I have to know, one way or the other, if he’s there at school.
I have to know.
…
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day—”
“Macbeth,” several of my classmates shout in response to Mr. Lance standing on a huge rock and challenging us to a name-that-Shakespeare-quote competition.
“Well done, but that was an easy one,” Mr. Lance says from the rock above us. His nose is red from the cold, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. He opens the bag on his shoulder and removes a hand warmer pouch. “If you get the next one, you win this.”
Our tour guide informed us before leaving the hotel for Central Park that we were lucky to get such a warm day. Apparently twenty-seven degrees is well above average for January in New York City. But tell that to my frozen toes.
Beside me, Justice rubs her hands together and blows on them through her knit gloves. “I’m so winning this.”
On my other side, Ms. Geist looks like she might be cold enough to challenge her students.
Mr. Lance clears his throat and takes his dramatic stance again. “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players—”
“As You Like It!” Justice shouts, jumping up and down.
“Yes.” Mr. Lance points a finger at her, a big grin on his face before he tosses the hand warmer in our direction. “Bonus point if you can name the character speaking.” Justice catches the plastic pouch with ease but comes up blank on answering the question. Mr. Lance scans our group. “Anyone?”
Slowly, I lift a hand in the air. “Jacques.”
“Very good, Miss Ames,” Lance says, and even though it wasn’t offered upfront, he tugs another hand warmer from his bag and sends it sailing through the air to me.
Much longer arms reach out in front of me, snatching it from midair. Bret Thomas. Several shouts of protest follow, but Bret turns to me, a smile on his face, and hands over the pouch.
“Just helping out the lady,” he says.
I study him for a moment while Mr. Lance pulls more items from his Mary Poppins man purse. Bret catches me staring and eventually shrugs as if to say, Do I need a reason to do something nice? The answer is yes, because this is Bret Thomas, the blond all-American prep-school boy who blackmails first, makes friends later. I decide to tuck the hand warmer into my coat pocket and save it for another day, especially if this temperature is above average.
Mr. Lance has a large Ziploc bag of sidewalk chalk in each hand, and he passes off one of the bags to Ms. Geist to hand out. “I would like all of you to leave your mark on this beautiful place where we honor a literary genius who has remained unmatched for centuries. Write your favorite Shakespeare quotes. From memory, no wiki quotes.”
I take a piece of blue chalk from the bag and hand it off to Chantel before attempting to squat down in a skirt. At least I took Dominic’s advice and bought some leggings at a store in Times Square yesterday.
“I only know Romeo and Juliet,” Chantel complains.
I test out my chalk, drawing a large blue heart. “Then quote Romeo and Juliet.”
“But it’s cliché,” she says, like I’m supposed to do something about it.
I take a note from Bret and just shrug.
I’m not going to get worked up over freakin’ Chantel. I have more self-control than that. The Miles situation has me on edge, not knowing, waiting to hear from Connie. Infiltrating my dad’s con is proving more challenging than I thought it would be. I guess it was easy to allow anger at him to cloud my memory of how good he is at the family biz.
Not wanting to deal with Chantel’s complaints, I get up and move somewhere else. I end up beside Dominic, who has put a fair amount of space between himself and the rest of the group. I approach him from behind and read his quote written in poor cursive with pink chalk.
Nothing will come of nothing.
I roll it around in my head but decide nothing will come of that quote, at least in its relevance to Dominic. Silently, I sit beside him and contemplate my own choice. Both my parents force-fed us Shakespeare from a young age. The works were easy to get for free and, much like foreign-language study, impressive at the right moment during a con. I’m not short of ideas for quotes, but the thought that it doesn’t matter what I write, it doesn’t need to follow any cover story or be graded, is a rare occurrence, and I guess that makes it more important to pick something that feels like me.
“You know, he might’ve been here,” Dominic says quietly. “If things had gone differently, he might have gone on this trip and won those hand warmers.”
Simon. That’s who might have been here.
With each passing month, it’s gotten easier to remember him without that familiar lump forming in my throat, but it’s hard to not feel wrecked thinking about everything he’ll never get to do.
“He definitely would have won the hand warmers,” I say, genuinely meaning it. Simon was number three in our class before he was murdered. He knew nearly every answer to every question that a teacher could throw at him.
I reread Dominic’s chosen quote with new perspective, knowing he likely chose it while thinking of Simon. And for a moment I’m hit with crushing pain in my chest, imagining what he must feel, what I would feel if I found out that Miles wasn’t just off the map, if he were—
I shake the thought from my head and refocus on the pink chalk writing.
Nothing will come of nothing.
“The job with my dad…why are you so determined to help?” I ask Dominic. “I just don’t get it.”
“I’m tired of doing nothing,” he says, his voice low and eerie. “Simon didn’t sit around contemplating shit—he acted. He sensed corruption in that secret group and he dug around.”
“He got himself murdered,” I remind him.
But Dominic plugs on, ignoring my comment. “And you and Miles, you didn’t believe it was suicide, and you did something about it…”
“And we nearly got murdered,” I say, but he ignores this comment, too.
“And I sat on my ass, feeling sorry for myself while holding on to some valuable information.”
As much as I’d like to offer him comforting words, I can’t exactly argue with his assessment of his part in the investigation of Simon’s death.
“I’m sick of being the guy who doesn’t do shit.” He finally looks me in the eyes. “No more of that.”
If he’s playing me, that was an Oscar-worthy performance. And I don’t think he’s that talented. “You really want to help with my undercover assignment?”
He pauses a beat and then nods.
“You’re gonna need some training,” I tell him. “You’ll have to work very hard, like up all night studying and preparing hard.”
“Okay,” he says with fervent enthusiasm. “I can do that.”
“Good.” I nod and then press my blue chalk to the sidewalk, deciding on a quote that doubles as a message for my new partner.
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
“Meet me in the laundry room on the seventh floor at midnight,” I say. “Find a tutorial on Australian accents and practice.”
He opens his mouth to argue, but I stop him.
“If anyone asks, tell them you’re learning it to pick up girls who love accents.” I roll my eyes. “It’ll go with your other cover story.”
That silences him, and after Mr. Lance compliments both of our King Lear quotes, our group is up and moving farther into Central Park despite the gray skies and negative wind-chill factor. I’m about to start mentally planning Dominic’s lessons, but a text from Daddy Dearest, code name Hayes, interrupts me.
HAYES: need u and bf tomorrow, wear the uniforms, bring tap shoes
I show the message to Dominic and watch with some amusement when his face pales slightly at the tap shoe mention. At least there is some entertainment in all this stress and worry. I get to imagine Dominic DeLuca tap-dancing a Broadway number.