"In the apple?" he clarified.
"I don't know what you're -" I tried to push past him and into my mother's office, but his hand was on my arm. His breath was warm in my ear.
"You can try ot lie to me, but I wouldn't recommend it."
My father's journal was in my backpack, and it felt like a talisman, giving me strength.
"Get your hand off me." Townsend eyed me but didn't move, and I tried to twist free.
"Teachers can't manhandle students and make wild accusation. The trustees would never
-"
"Oh, but the trustees have been employing a famous double agent for almost two years.
They're very eager to help."
"I'm still a student at this school and -"
"Now, now, Ms. Morgan. Wither you're a trained operative I'm supposed to distrust and respect, or a sixteen-year-old girl -"
"Just turned seventeen," I corrected him.
" - I'm supposed to go east on. You can't have it both ways." He released my arm and steeped away. "I would have thought your precious Mr. Solomon would have taught you better than that."
"He's not my Mr. Solomon."
"Sure he is. Isn't that why you and your little friends tried to hack into my records? Stake out my office? Put some nasty concoction inside the apple of an unsuspecting teacher?"
I didn't say a thing.
"That's good; don't dent it. Denying the undeniable just makes you sound like a fool as well as a liar. In this profession, you can be one - sometimes the other. But never both.
He moved through the Hall of History, eyeing our most prized possessions as if they were trinkets at a fair.
He didn't face me as he asked, "You believed him, didn't you? Thought he was a good guy? Well, that's your mistake. No one - and I do mean no one - in this line of work is ever truly a good guy. It we were, we'd be doing something bloody well different form this."
He didn't know what he was talking about. He didn't know . . . anything. I started toward my mother's office, needing her more than ever, desperate to shoe her - to prove that we weren't fools.
"She's not in there," he called across the empty hall. I felt my blood turn cold.
"Where is she?"
He smiled slightly. "Gone."
"What did you do to her?"
"Me?" he laughed. Yes, actual laughage. "Allow me to clear some things up for you, Ms.
Morgan." He stepped closer. "I'm not a member of the Circle. I've never even seen Blackthorne. Of course, we probably had something like it - couldn't rule it out." He shook his head. "But I was never a part of that."
"A part of what?"
"I am the bloody good guy."
I stood silent, watching him walk away, until . . .
"You're wrong!" I yelled, the words echoing down the empty hall. "You're wrong about everything!"
Agent Townsend stopped and turned slowly.
"Nine hours ago, a CIA transport team was ambushed outside of Langley. Three guards were killed and Joe Solomon was taken." He stared at me down the long corridor. "Your innocent man is back with the Circle tonight, Ms. Morgan. They have him. He's free."
That night I had the strangest dream. I was standing at the top of the Grand Staircase in a long beautiful dress. I heard the sounds of the Virginia reel come sweeping toward me, and below me, people crowed the foyer floor. But the strangest thing of all was that my father was standing at the bottom of the staircase, waiting.
I descended the stairs and took his arm, and together we made our way through the crowd that filled the Grand Hall. There was dancing and drinking. It was a party, but the feeling in the room was that there was no reason at all to celebrate.
And then suddenly, a man appeared, holding a sword.
I knew I had to stop him - I had to make it stop - but the man moved faster toward where I stood. His eyes pulled closer in the dim ballroom, and I stared at a face I knew.
A face I've kissed.
"No." I might have said the word, but I hand was over my mouth. Strong arms were holding me down while I kicked at the covers wrapped tightly around my legs.
Then I heard a deep voice whisper my name. "Cammie, wake up."
"No," I mumbled, still fighting and half asleep.
"It's okay, Gallagher Girl. It's okay. Wake up."
Chapter Thirty-Four
There are many ways a self respecting (not to mention sane) teenage girl might react to having a teenage boy suddenly appear in her bedroom in the middle of the night.
Hit.
Panic.
Flail.
Freeze.
But I didn't do any of them. Not right then, because I was lying tangled in the sheets and Zach's arms. Tears streamed down my face as I thought of my father and Mr. Solomon and Gilly - for a split second I knew what it felt like to be Gilly.
"It's okay, Gallagher Girl." He smoothed my hair. "It was just a bad -"
"What are you doing here?" I whispered.
Two feet away, Liz shivered and rolled over. In the corner, Bex was starting to snore.
Macey lay perfectly still on her back, her dark hair splayed across her pillow like Sleeping Beauty. I jerked my head in their direction.
"Tell me why I shouldn't wake them?" I whispered. "Tell me why I shouldn't push that?"
I pointed to the panic button on the wall.
He smiled. "Now, where would be the fun in that?"
"Zach," I hissed, and let my hand creep closer to the button.
"Okay," he said, reaching out to gently take that very hand. "I'm here because we need to take a walk."
When we were in the tenth grade, Zach went to my school for an entire semester. We'd shared the hall as classmates. As equals. But walking into Madame Dabney's empty tearoom, the playful look he'd had in his eyes that semester was completely gone. I'm not sure what kind of look I had in my eyes, because I totally avoiding my own reflection in the gilt-framed mirrors. (Now was not the time to be worried about pillow-cheek wrinkles and middle-of-the-night crazy hair.) instead, I studied him.