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.
"Duchess," I whispered, praying Bex would answer—or better yet—tap me on the shoulder and scold me for not having a little faith. "Bex, I'll let you choose any code name you want, if you'll just answer me," I whispered through the dark.
Josh was crossing the porch.
Josh was opening the front door.
"Guys, if you can hear me, just hide, okay? The Subject is entering the house. I repeat. The Subject is entering the house."
The door closed behind him, so I jumped out of the tree and hurried to take cover in the bushes, constantly keeping an eye on the front door, which sounds great in theory except that meant I totally missed seeing Liz and Bex crawl out of a second-story window and take refuge on the roof.
"Chameleon!" Bex called through the dark, scaring me half to death as I dove headfirst into the bushes and then peeked up to see Bex peering over the eaves of the house.
They must have thought Josh was home for the night because they started attaching rappelling cables to the chimney, and they were about to jump off the roof, but then Josh stepped through the front door!
I watched from the bushes, frozen in terror, as I realized that my two best friends were about to land on top of the cutest boy I've ever seen—and the apple pie he was carrying.
They couldn't see him. He couldn't see them. But I could see everything.
He took a step. They took a step.
We were seconds away from disaster, and honestly, I didn't even know what I was doing until the words, "Oh, hi," were out of my mouth and I was standing in the middle of the Abrams family yard.
From the corner of my eye, I saw terror register on Bex's face above me as she grabbed Liz and tried to pull her away from the edge, but I wasn't really paying attention to them. How could I, when a boy as dreamy as Josh Abrams was walking toward me, looking totally surprised to see me— which was perfectly understandable.
"Hi. I didn't expect to find you here," he said, and immediately I freaked out. Did that mean he'd been thinking about me? Or was he simply trying to figure out how and why a strange girl dressed all in black appears in your front yard? (Thank goodness I'd dropped my hat and utility belt in the bushes.)
"Oh, you know the Joneses," I said, even though I didn't, but judging by the line of people going in and out of the house at the end of the block, it was probably a pretty safe thing to say.
Luckily, Josh smiled and added, "Yeah, these parties get wilder every year."
"Uh-huh," I said, all the while watching as Bex struggled to drag Liz across the roof—to the back of the house—but Liz slipped and started sliding down. She tried to hang on to a gutter, but slipped, and soon she was swinging off the side of the Abramses' house, and my heart was pounding harder and harder (for a lot of reasons).
Josh looked as embarrassed as I felt as he nodded toward the pie in his hand and said, "My mom forgot this." He paused, as if debating whether to say more. "Except she never just forgets her pies." He rolled his eyes. "See, she's kind of famous for her pies, so whenever she goes anywhere, she likes for people to ask about her pie about ten times before she unveils it, or something." His free hand was back in his pocket. He looked embarrassed that he'd shared that deep, dark family secret. "Lame, huh?"
Actually, the pie did look really good, but I totally couldn't tell him that.