“Very well, Ms. Morgan.” We’d reached a place in the market where the streets branched and the crowds were thinner. He released my shoulders and stepped slightly away. “What do you see?”
I took a deep breath and told myself that it was just another school assignment. There was no difference between that busy foreign street and the Roseville town square. It was just another Wednesday.
I turned and looked, saw a vendor selling cashmere gloves and heavy coats. I smelled freshly roasted nuts, and in the distance, someone was playing a guitar, picking out a song with words I didn’t know. It was the kind of place a person might go to fall in love; but Zach was on another continent, and my mind was totally supposed to be on other things.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the hot sun on my skin. I mentally changed the bulletproof vest for a tank top, my sneakers for sandals. A sweet taste lingered on my tongue, and part of me knew that I’d tasted the gelato before—that I’d sworn to come back and try that place again.
“Take your time, Cam,” Bex said, and I opened my eyes just as the crowd parted, and I found myself staring at an old woman in a stall twenty feet away.
“Ah, signorina,” the old woman said to Macey, reaching for her arm. Abby moved to block her way, but then the old woman saw me. She stopped and stared and said, “So you did come back.”
It took me a moment to register that she was speaking in Italian.
And she was speaking to me.
“Your friends”—she gestured to Bex and Macey—“they like very much?”
“What are you talking about?” I moved toward her too quickly. I could tell she was afraid, but I couldn’t slow down as I blurted, “How do you know me? What—”
“Cam.” Bex’s voice cut me off. “Look,” she said, pointing to the jewelry that filled the woman’s booth. Necklaces and earrings and bracelets—hundreds of bracelets exactly like the ones my best friends wore.
“I make myself,” the old woman said. Her English was broken and heavily accented. “You look so lovely, signorina.” She patted her hair as if to say that something was different. “I like. Shows your pretty face.”
I had been there. I’d had long hair, and I had been there.
“When?” Macey pushed me aside to ask the question. “When was she here?” she said again, this time in Italian.
The old woman looked at her as if she were crazy not to just ask me, but then she shrugged and answered. “It was July, I think. Very hot.” She fanned herself and turned to me. “Very busy day, but you waited. You and your young man.”
For a moment I was sure I must have been hearing things. The crowded streets were too loud, my head too broken. But the words were still there, echoing down the cobblestones.
Me and my young man.
“What…what does it mean?” Macey asked.
“It means Cammie was here,” Townsend said simply.
“And I wasn’t alone.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Abby must have been the one who found the safe house, because Townsend didn’t like it.
“The building across the street is under construction,” he snarled as soon as we’d carried our bags inside.
“The elevator has key card access, and I’ve hacked into the surveillance cameras from every system on the block,” Abby argued. “We have a three-hundred-sixty-degree visual.”
“Excellent.” Townsend dropped his bag. “Now the Circle can see us from every angle.”
“Don’t mind Agent Townsend, girls,” Abby told us. “He’s a glass-half-empty kind of spy.”
“Also known as the good kind,” he countered. Abby huffed.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” she said, but Townsend either didn’t hear or didn’t care. He just went to check the windows of the small apartment, mumbling about inferior locks and closed-circuit TVs as he went.
There were only four rooms in the flat, a living room with galley kitchen, two bedrooms, and one bath. Abby pointed to the door that led to the largest bedroom in the back. “You’re in there. It’s time for you three to get some sleep.”
“But I’m not sleepy,” Bex said.
“Doesn’t matter. We lost six hours in flight, and now it’s bedtime.” Abby cocked a hip. “Jet lag—it’s killed more spies than anthrax. Now, go. Townsend and I will take shifts. We need the three of you rested.” Abby grabbed a duffel and headed down the narrow hall. “Meanwhile, I’m going to call in.”
I didn’t follow. I just stayed in the dim living room, listening to my aunt’s voice, soft and low, coming from the other room. Somewhere in the apartment, water was running. I could imagine Macey washing her face, Bex brushing her teeth. The smart thing would have been to do exactly as my aunt had told me and at least try to rest, but I was both too wired and too exhausted to sleep. Rome was right outside our window, and through the glass, the city called to me. It felt like we were playing a very strange, very high-stakes game of hide-and-seek, and I didn’t have a clue where Summer Me might have been hiding.
“It’s probably best not to stand next to the window, Ms. Morgan.”
“I know,” I said, the words coming out harder than I’d intended. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I guess—”
“It’s okay, Cammie. I know that you know. Your aunt hasn’t ruined you entirely. Yet.”
And then, in the reflection in the glass, I could have sworn I saw Agent Townsend smile. It was the closest thing to a compliment I’d ever heard him give. And even though it wasn’t much of one, I was willing to take it.