I started to share all this with Liz, but she'd already put on her white lab coat, and nothing gives Liz more joy than wearing a white lab coat, so I zipped my lips and tried to rest my head on the desk.
An hour later, Liz was shaking me awake, telling me that Josh's fingerprints were nowhere in the system (shocker, I know). This pretty much meant that he'd never been in prison or the army. He wasn't a practicing attorney or a member of the CIA. He'd never tried to buy a handgun or run for office (which, for some reason, came as kind of a relief).
"See?" I told Liz, thinking she'd abandon the hunt and allow me to go back to a proper bed, but she looked at me as if I were crazy.
"This is only Phase One," she said, sounding hurt.
"Do I want to know what Phase Two is?" I asked.
Liz just looked at me for a long moment and then said, "Go back to sleep."
"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," I said as we crouched in the bushes outside Josh's house. Another car drove by and the music got louder, and all I could say was, "I can't believe I let you talk me into this."
"You can't believe it?" Bex snapped then turned. "Liz, I thought you said that house was going to be empty at eight."
"Well, technically, the Abrams house is empty."
I couldn't blame Liz for being defensive. After all, it had taken her three hours of breaking through firewalls (ours, not theirs) and scrolling through the Roseville public schools' computer system to find out that "my" Josh was Josh Abrams of 601 North Bellis Street. It had taken another hour to access all the Abrams family accounts and intercept the e-mail in which Joan Abrams (aka Josh's mom) promised someone named Dorothy that "We wouldn't miss Keith's surprise party for the world! We'll be there at eight sharp!"
So imagine our surprise as we crouched in the azaleas and watched half the town of Roseville traipse in and out of a white house with blue shutters at the end of Josh's block. I pulled on a pair of glasses that only work if you're really nearsighted (they're actually binoculars) and zoomed in on the house where the party was in full swing.
"Keith who?" I asked, forcing Liz to think back on the e-mail we'd printed on Evapopaper and hidden under my bed.
"Jones," Liz said. "Why?"
I handed the glasses to her so that she too could look at the house at the end of the street and see the Keeping Up with the Joneses sign that hung over the front door.
"Oh," Liz mumbled, and we all knew that the Abrams family hadn't gone far.
I had imagined where Josh would live, but my dreams paled in comparison to what I actually saw. It wasn't a real neighborhood—it was a TV neighborhood, where lawns are manicured and porches are made for swings and lemonade. Before I came to the Gallagher Academy, we lived in a narrow town house in D.C. I spend my summers on a dusty ranch. I had never seen so much suburban perfection in one place as I looked through the dim streetlight toward the long rows of white picket fence.
Somehow, I knew a spy would never belong there.
Still, three were there—crouching in the dark—until Bex pulled out her lock-picking kit and rushed toward the back door. Liz was right behind her until she stubbed her toe on a garden gnome and landed flat on a holly bush with a quiet cry of "I'm okay!"
I helped Liz to her feet, and seconds later we were right behind Bex as she worked her magic on the lock of the back door.
"Almost got it," Bex said firmly, confidently.
I knew that tone. That tone was dangerous.
I heard the music from the party down the street, saw our picturesque surroundings, and a thought dawned on me. "Um, guys, maybe we should try—" I reached for the knob. It turned effortlessly beneath my palm.
"Yeah," Bex said. "That works, too."
Stepping inside Josh's house was like stepping inside a magazine. There were fresh flowers on the table. An apple pie was cooling on a rack by the stove. Josh's sister's report cards were clipped beneath a magnet on the refrigerator— straight A's.
Bex and Liz darted through the living room and up the stairs, and I pulled my thoughts together long enough to say, "Five minutes!" But I couldn't follow. I couldn't move.
I knew at once that I wasn't supposed to be there—for a lot of reasons. I was trespassing not only on a house, but also a way of life. I found a sewing basket in a window seat, where someone was making a costume for Halloween. A book about do-it-yourself upholstery lay on the coffee table, and four fabric swatches hung on the arm of the sofa.
"Cam!" Bex called to me and threw a transmitter my way. "Liz says this has to go outside. Why don't you try that elm tree?"
I was glad to have a job. I was glad to get out of that house. Sure, doing basic reconnaissance was an essential part of honeypot detection. After all, if Josh was getting instructions from a terror cell or rogue government or something, planting a Trojan horse on his computer and digging through his underwear drawer was probably the best way to find out about it. Still, it was a relief to go outside and climb the tree.
I was on the third branch of the tree, tying off the transmitter, when I looked down the street and saw a figure cutting through yards. He was tall. He was young. And he had his hands in his pockets, pushing down in a way I've only seen once before!
"Bookworm, do you read me?" I tried; but even though Liz had done her best to fix my shorted-out comms unit, the crackling static in my ear told me that her hasty repair job hadn't worked. I stayed crouched against the branch as summer's last remaining leaves swayed around me.