She thumbed through the thick book one final time as she said again, "This is just this month."
Every spy knows that what you don't say is just as important—maybe more so—than what you do. Aunt Abby didn't tell me that what was going on was bigger than four Gallagher Girls in training and a secret room. She didn't tell me that there were a whole lot of psycho people in this world, and a whole lot of them were fascinated by one of my best friends. But those were maybe the only things I was sure of as I stepped toward the door.
Still, there was one thing I had to ask.
"What's this symbol?" I asked, pointing to the satellite photo of the hand, which had fallen to the floor. My aunt casually glanced my way.
"Not sure. That's one of the leads we're tracking down. It's probably nothing, though. They were too good to make a mistake that could lead us to them."
"That's what Bex says."
"Bex is good."
"Yeah," I said, turning to leave. Then I stopped. "I've seen it before…before Boston."
"You remember where?" Abby asked. A new light filled her eyes, and I got the feeling we were playing a game of covert chicken, both of us waiting to see if the other would blink first.
"It'll come to me," I said, which didn't exactly answer her question, but that's okay. I got the impression that it didn't exactly matter.
"If you remember, let me know," she said, and I would have bet the farm (or…well…Grandma and Grandpa's farm) that she already knew. I was halfway to the door when she called, "Cam." She held out a piece of paper. "Since you're here, would you mind giving this to Macey?"
I stood in the hall for a long time, reading the first line over and over, wishing the note were written on Evapopaper, trying to find a way to make the words dissolve.
Itinerary: Saturday, 5:00 a.m. Peacock departs Gallagher Academy for Philadelphia, PA.
Things You Can Do When the Life of One of Your Best Friends May Be at Risk, and She's Got to Help Her Dad Campaign for Vice President Anyway, and You Really, Really Don't Want Her to Go:
1. Sweet-talk Mr. Mosckowitz into moving up the exercise where the ninth graders (the grade Macey was up to now) are locked in a room and can't get out until they break the Epstein Equation.
2. Hack into Secret Service databases, leaving indications that the aforementioned roommate had been making some incredibly dangerous threats against another protectee, Preston Winters (because she totally had).
3. If the roommate were to have an allergic reaction to her mother's experimental night cream, resulting in a terrible zit outbreak that leaves her very unphotogenic and unlikely to test well with undecided women between the ages of 21 and 42 in the process, then maybe she wouldn't be required on the campaign trail after all!
4. Two words: food poisoning (but only as a last resort).
They really were good plans. After all, Bex and I hadn't just aced Mr. Solomon's Logistical Thinking and Planning for Success midterm for nothing. Logistically speaking, we'd been about as covert as we could possibly be without coming right out and hog-tying Macey to her desk chair (a plan that Bex proposed frequently).
But Mr. Mosckowitz wasn't doing the locked room assignment this year, since he'd developed a case of claustrophobia after a top-secret summer assignment that involved a Porta Potti and two Lebanese hairdressers.
And it turns out the Secret Service doesn't take death threats by protectees all that seriously. Especially if they're girls. Even if they're Gallagher Girls.
And we should have known that Macey would never get a pimple. Ever. It goes against the laws of nature or something.
And worst of all, the last part of our master plan didn't work because a person can't possibly get food poisoning if the person no longer eats food.
I didn't know if it was nerves or fear or if she really was reverting back to the Macey she had been when she came to us a year before, but night after night we sat at the juniors' table in the Grand Hall while our roommate pushed the food around on her plate—not eating, not laughing. Just waiting for whatever would come next.
"This is bad," Liz said Friday morning as we left Culture and Assimilation. The halls were filling up. And time was running out.
"We could always—"
"No!" Liz and I both snapped, not really thinking that was the time or place to be reminded of Bex's "no one can get out of my slipknots" argument, but it was Macey who made us stop.
"It's okay, guys," Macey said. She turned toward Dr. Fibs's basement lab. "Thanks for trying and everything, but I've got to go." The way she said it, I knew that getting her out of her trip wasn't really up for debate. She shrugged and added, "It's the job."
I might have argued; I might have pleaded, but right then I realized that Bex and I weren't the only ones who had been born into a family business—a genetic fate. Macey's first full sentence had been "Vote for Daddy," and not even a kidnapping attempt, midterms, and the three of us could keep her off the campaign trail.
As Bex pulled me toward the elevator and Sublevel Two, the chaos of the halls faded away, replaced by the smooth whirring of the elevator and the lasers and the sounds of a new set of worries in my head.
"What?" Bex asked.
"Zach," I said numbly.
"Cam, he is bloody dreamy—I'm not going to deny you that—but I don't think boys are really the most important thing right now."