13
Before I can truly freak out, I’m face-to-face with the baby-faced Agent Sharp. Disappointment washes over me, even though I hadn’t really let myself believe it could be Miles who requested this meeting. Not completely.
“Thanks for that Welcome to New York City initiation,” I say, forcing calm despite the near heart attack I just had.
He flashes me an all-American grin. “Just testing out our communication system.”
“What system?” I scoff. “Kidnapping girls at the hotel vending machines is hardly a form of communication.”
“I apologize,” Sharp says, sounding sincere enough. “I meant to say that we need to create a communication system right now.”
This hotel room is a more traditional room—two full beds, bathroom, TV. No separate front room with sofa bed and mini kitchen. A suitcase, clothing, laptop, and various chargers are strewn across one of the beds.
“Are you staying here?” I ask, unable to hide the disbelief from my voice. “In New York City? Down the hall from my classmates and me?”
“Yeah,” he says, like this is common knowledge. “And Agent Sheldon is staying next door—she’s running surveillance right now. Did you think we’d leave you to fend for yourself?”
Yeah, actually, that’s exactly what I thought. “I haven’t heard from either of you in days; what was I supposed to think?”
We have a five-second-long stare off, and then Agent Sharp is the first to blink when he reaches for a clipboard on the desk nearby. “Should we get down to business, then? According to the itinerary, there’s a Holden group dinner in Ballroom D in thirty minutes.”
I release a breath, shake off the tension, and prepare to plan this plan. Fortunately, while uncovering a murderer together, Miles taught me quite a bit about undercover ethics and laws—of course, we ended up breaking many of those rules. But Sharp and Sheldon will need this job to be squeaky-clean and by the book so that everything is admissible in court. If I want to rid myself of the guilt that accompanies helping my own mother win a decade in prison, I’m going to have to follow the rules.
Sharp shows me a map of the hotel on his clipboard. He’s labeled the two chaperones’ rooms, among other details. But there’s a navy duffel bag lying near his feet that distracts me from memorizing the information. A large, white tag is tied to the strap. I bend down and flip the tag over, reading it.
Hayes, Eleanor
My hand jerks back in surprise. I haven’t seen or thought my previous last name for a very long time, have only said it out loud once in the past year. I stand upright again. “Where did you get that?”
“The bag?” Sharp lifts an eyebrow at the haunted look that is likely on my face right now. “Right before catching my flight to New York, I was in the evidence room and spotted this bag with your name on it. Probably got mixed up with lost and found. Happens all the time: stuff just magically walks right out of the evidence room.”
“Or right into it,” I say, eyeing him, then glancing at the bag again. I lower my voice in case Sheldon has returned to her room and can hear us through the joining doors. “You stole this for me? How did the FBI get it?”
He scratches the back of his head and glances nervously around the room. “It’s your bag, right? And it’s just clothes?”
“Right,” I agree, but it’s more than just clothes. The things I’ve borrowed from Harper for the past year are just clothes. These are my clothes.
“So the third-floor service elevator…see it here?” He taps a pen to the map on his clipboard, obviously uncomfortable discussing the stolen evidence.
I’m too shocked and appreciative to disrespect his wishes. “Yep, I see it.”
…
“Took you long enough,” Chantel says when I return to our room from my eighteen-minute excursion to the vending machine. “Dinner is in ten minutes.”
The bathroom door opens and Justice emerges, fresh makeup on and the scent of fruity body spray trailing behind her.
“Good, you’re back. I was getting worried.” She glances at the bottle of Pepsi in my hand, then at the black duffel on my shoulder. “I thought you only had one bag?”
“I had two, just forgot about the second one. Luckily the taxi driver saw it in the trunk and left it at the front desk.” I step into the bathroom, the bag still on my shoulder. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes, but you guys can head down without me if you want.”
“Okay,” Chantel says quickly.
“Ballroom D,” Justice calls through the door, but I barely hear her. My fingers are already clutching the zipper of the bag. “See you in a few.”
I force myself to hold still until hearing the door to the hotel room shut. Then I tug the zipper, revealing clothing tangled and piled hastily inside. We always packed up before a job, usually had to take off right after the finale. The scent of my family’s camper—a mix of campfires and those cheap, gas-station air fresheners shaped like pine trees—hits me right away like it’s grown stronger and more powerful in its containment. And as much as I want to hate it, the familiar warmth envelops me like an old friend. My new life is supposed to be an honest one, and there’s still a great deal of pretending involved, but in that camper with my parents and Harper before she took off…it was a place where I rarely had to pretend, where I could just be.
I toss aside a pair of jeans that used to fit me perfectly, and several more articles of clothing join the jeans on the hotel bathroom floor until I’m near the bottom of the bag and feel something firmer than clothing. My fingers land on a plastic hand, and I pull until the object is free. The blond-haired American Girl doll is still wearing the blue dress my thirteen-year-old self last dressed her in. Her hair is a little frazzled, she could use a day at the doll salon, but otherwise she’s perfect. I tuck her back in and lift a pair of gold heels from the bag. An image of my mother walking gracefully across the camper in these heels flashes in my mind. “See, honey? Easy as pie. Now your turn.”
She was so beautiful—probably still is—teaching with such patience and love. No one instilled more confidence in me than my mom.
Dominic sends me a text asking where I am, so I put the ax on my trip down memory lane and collect the items strewn all over the bathroom floor. When I stand up and face myself in the mirror, I hardly recognize the brown-haired girl in the plaid pleated shirt and navy sweater bearing the Holden Academy crest on the front. The firewood and fake pine scent still lingers in the air. I close my eyes, and I can practically feel the nightly chill in the air, the crackling of burning wood, laughter in the distance from some of my family members, and my mother’s voice. She would sing nearly every night.
I don’t want that life again; I know I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I can stop myself from wishing for pieces of it.