"Yes," my mom said.
"According to the blueprints, you do have security cameras?" His gaze drifted along our ivy-covered walls.
"Yes," Mom said calmly. "Some."
(Actually, there are 2,546, but for obvious reasons she didn't share that.)
"Well," the agent went on, "I'm sure our people can consult with you on how to"—he seemed to be considering his words—"tighten things up a bit."
"Yes," my mom said with a glance toward me—her daughter, who had been slipping through the Gallagher Academy defenses for years. "That would be most helpful"
And then panic set in. The Secret Service was going to be "tightening" things?
"As the advance team told you last week, we'll be placing one of our agents with Ms. McHenry."
The Secret Service was going to be "placing" people?
"Full-time," Agent Hughes added. "Someone to go with her to classes. Live here. Accompany her everywhere she goes."
The Secret Service was going to be "accompanying" us places?
I looked at Bex and Liz, watched them swallow the same terror I was feeling. Our school has prepared us for a lot of things, but I had to wonder if anything had prepared us for that.
But the surprises were only just beginning, because then my mother smiled and said, "Of course."
The agent walked ahead, appraising our grounds, our walls, our life. At the end of our long (and heavily protected) lane, satellite dishes rose from news trucks, ready to beam pictures of our school around the world, and I knew the most dangerous thing in our history was about to happen in front of this man's very eyes.
And there was nothing any of us could do to stop it.
"Oh," Agent Hughes said when the gates parted for one last car. "Right on schedule."
The limo turned onto the drive, but instead of pulling closer to the mansion, it stopped. Men in dark suits swarmed the car, and I remembered how, a year ago, a car just like that had brought Macey to us. Like deja vu, Senator and Mrs. McHenry climbed from the backseat and stood framed between our great stone gates.
I could hear the reporters' chatter in the distance. The flashing bulbs of their cameras sparkled even in the summer sun.
And then the car door opened again.
And just like that the deja vu was over.
A year before, Macey had stepped from the backseat of a nearly identical car, but this time, instead of combat boots, she wore pumps almost exactly like her mother's. Her short skirt and diamond nose stud were replaced with modest black pants, a sweater, and a sling.
At first I hoped her clothing was the only difference; but I barely recognized the girl who allowed her mother to hug her tightly, who didn't protest when her father took her good hand and lifted their united fists toward the sky.
Bex cut me a look that said Are you sure you were the one with head trauma? but I just watched the three McHenrys push past the cameras and the questions and start toward the school. Back to us. I thought about the girl who had come to us last fall and the one who had left last spring and, finally, about the young woman who had shivered by a lake, and I wondered which one of Macey's cover identities she was going to be now.
As they came closer I waited for her to catch my eye and smile that mischievous smile she'd given me outside her parents' suite in Boston, but when I stepped forward, a broad body in a dark suit moved to block my path.
"Excuse me, miss," the Secret Service agent said. It was the first time any of them had seen me as a threat, but I didn't take it as a compliment.
Behind me, I heard my mother say, "Senator, Mrs. McHenry, it's so nice to see you both again. I'm only sorry it has to be under such troubling circumstances." She gestured toward the front doors. "Won't you come in?"
Just when I felt myself getting pushed out of the picture, the procession stopped. The senior senator from Virginia stepped toward me and said, "Cammie?" He placed his large hands on both of my shoulders, gripping tightly.
"Thank you," he said, and I could have sworn I heard his voice crack. When he looked into my eyes, I couldn't help myself: I felt my lips tremble. My vision blurred. It was easy to remember what having a father feels like as the senator whispered, "And I'm so sorry."
It might have been about the sweetest, most genuine moment in McHenry family history, if Macey's mother hadn't then turned to her daughter and whispered, "Go to the bathroom and put some concealer on that." She pointed to the bruise at the corner of Macey's eye. "Really," she told her daughter, "there's no need to look like a common street thug when there aren't even any cameras around."
And, like that, the moment was over.
Chapter Seven
There are many things to love about the welcome-back dinner.
1. Hearing what everyone did over their summer vacation (which is probably far more interesting at a school where there's a very good possibility that the stories include actual gunfire).
2. The fact that even though Grandma Morgan probably makes the best chicken and dumplings in the entire world, our chef used to work at the White House, and sometimes a girl just needs a little crème brûlée.
3. Gossip.
But that night, neither I nor 2 could really hold a candle to 3. At all.
"So, Cammie," Tina Walters said as she squeezed onto
the bench across from me, squishing Liz and Anna Fetterman together, "I heard you put three of them in the hospital."