As soon as we got back, Mr. Solomon dragged us all the way down to Sublevel Two to review surveillance tapes and take a pop quiz. (I scored a 98%.) By the time we got upstairs to the foyer I heard the scraping of forks and the clanking of ice in our second-best crystal, but I totally wasn't hungry, especially when I saw Macey walking through the front door.
"Macey!" I yelled.
"Cam." Bex and Liz ran behind me. "What's going on?"
It was a normal night at a very abnormal school. But even by Gallagher Academy standards I'd had a very exceptional day, so I raced through the entry hall and climbed the stairs, still calling, "Macey!"
By the time I caught up to her she had already taken off her jacket and was standing there in a silk blouse. She was carrying a string of pearls and had crammed the scarf she'd been wearing at the rally into her purse. With every step, Macey was shedding her fake façade—her cover—one piece of pocket litter at a time.
"You're back," I said.
"Yeah," she said in the tone of the incredibly tired, "very observant. Hey, what was up with you today?" She took another step, then shed another piece of the clothing that only a mother can love. "When I saw you, you looked kind of…freaked?"
"Wait," Bex said, "you saw her?"
"Yeah, I was going to tell you, but well … we haven't exactly had a moment…And it's not exactly something you…And I just didn't know how…And—"
"Cammie." Bex snapped me out of it. She crossed her arms, stared me down, and gave me that "you've got some explaining to do" look that I've come to love. And fear. (Well, mostly fear.) And I knew I couldn't keep my secret any longer.
"I saw something!" I blurted. Then I had to correct myself as I said, "Someone."
The halls were quiet around us. Dark. The days were getting shorter. Summer was finally gone. And maybe that was why I shivered as I said, "Zach."
Time it took me to tell the whole story: twenty-two minutes and forty-seven seconds.
Time it would have taken me to tell the story had I not been constantly interrupted: two minutes and forty-six seconds.
Number of times Liz said, "No way!": thirty-three.
Number of times Bex gave me her "You could have brought me with you" look: nine.
"But what was he doing there?" Liz was asking again (time number seven, to be exact).
"I don't know," I managed to mutter. "I mean, one minute I'm thinking he's breaching security—well, technically, he did breach security …" I trailed off. "And the next I'm flipping him to the ground and—"
"Staring deeply into his eyes?" Liz guessed, because while security breaches might be serious, eye-staring-into is something that should never be ignored.
"Maybe Blackthorne was there for an assignment too?" Bex asked.
"Maybe," I said, but my heart wasn't in it. I thought about his cryptic postcard—his warning—and the way he'd looked at me that day. "It's just that something about him seemed…different."
"What?" Bex said. I could feel her moving toward me. Like a tiger. She was lethal and beautiful and very, very catlike in the curiosity department. "What are you thinking about?"
I didn't know what was more concerning—that there had been a gap, however small, in Macey's security perimeter, or that Zach had slipped through it.
I thought about the boy who had kissed me last spring and the one who had looked at me under the bleachers. "He seemed"—I started slowly, still trying to put the pieces together—"worried."
"Ooh!" Liz squealed. "He wants to protect you!"
"I don't need protecting," I told her, but Liz only shrugged.
"It's the thought that counts."
"Well, there is another option," Bex said, with a very mischievous grin. "Maybe he went under the bleachers knowing you wouldn't be able to resist following him under the bleachers…"
She let her voice trail off as she stared at me, the possibilities lingering until Liz felt the need to blurt: "So you could be alone!"
Okay, I don't want to sound braggy. Or unprofessional. Or naïve. But is it wrong to admit that I'd been kind of hoping all day that was the reason? (Partly because, as a girl, that's a good reason, and as a spy, it meant he wasn't conspiring to commit high treason.)
"No," I blurted. "No. That can't be possible. He wouldn't leave school and go all the way to Cleveland and sneak into a restricted area and everything just to see…me." I turned to Macey, our resident expert on all things boy. "Would he?"
"Don't look at me," Macey said, waving her hands (which were, by that time, holding a pump, a jacket, and a "walk the walk" campaign button). "I have a whole other kind of boy problem."
Wait. MACEY McHENRY HAD A BOY PROBLEM? I couldn't be sure I'd heard correctly, and evidently I wasn't alone.
"Boy"—Liz stammered—"problem. YOU?"
Macey rolled her eyes. "Not that kind of problem. Preston."
"Oh," Liz said, sounding way too matchmakery, if you want to know the truth. "He is kind of cute. And really socially aware. You know, I read this article in—"
"He's a dork," Macey said, cutting her off.
"But you have so much in common," Liz protested. Macey glared. "I mean, besides the dork thing."
"'Common' is overrated," Macey said with another sigh.
"Well then," Liz said, "what's the problem?"