"I stay off the grid, for starters," Bex said, and I nodded. "Credit cards and passports are amateur hour. I don't care what grade she's technically in, Macey's no amateur."
Bex gestured as if to say it was my turn. "If I had the most recognizable face in the country and two disguises in my possession, no way I'd travel all the way to Europe without using one of them."
Bex nodded and I looked at Liz, who shrugged.
"I'm a nerd," she admitted. "I don't know CoveOps."
"You know Macey," Bex whispered, and it was maybe the truest thing any one of us had said in a very long time.
Liz settled back on her bed. I could see her flipping through the giant database that is her mind, but the answer wasn't in there—it was in her heart. So finally she took a deep breath and said, "I guess I'd just want to go someplace safe."
The mansion was quiet. I leaned against a drafty window, watching the pieces of the puzzle float through my mind until I knew they didn't quite fit. I thought about Liz's words, and the pale, ghostly look on Macey's face as we'd stood in the too-bright light of a chilly football field. Cool air washed over my arms—I saw our roommate shiver in the wind. And then … I knew.
"Get the keys to the Dodge, Liz," I said as I stood and started for my closet.
Bex was already gearing up—for what, it didn't matter. But Liz studied me.
"Where are we going?"
"To bring our sister home."
Chapter Twenty-six
I don't think any girl in the history of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women had ever run away from school before that weekend, but by Tuesday morning, the total had climbed to four.
While Liz slept and Bex drove, I sat in the passenger seat of the Dodge, worrying that we might not find it. After all, at the end of summer, the forest had been thick with green foliage, weeds, and tall grasses lining the narrow roads. But by November, the fields were fallow, the trees were bare, and in the pale light of dawn, the whole world seemed like a mirage, or maybe just like a very good cover, and I couldn't help but think that, spy skills or not, I had been a girl with a concussion the last time I'd been there.
Bex drove slowly down a blacktop road until, finally, I saw a gravel lane no more substantial than a trail, and said, "Turn here."
"What is this, some kind of safe house?" Bex asked as we
both squinted through the pale light and dense woods, and I thought about what our CoveOps teacher had said.
"It had better be," I said as Bex came to a stop. "Mr. Solomon owns it."
Covert Operations Report
Operatives Morgan, Baxter, and Sutton decided to proceed on foot, considering the property's owner was a highly trained security professional (in addition to being really, really hot).
Pushing through the woods, I searched for something familiar. The roof of a cabin was barely visible through the trees, but there was no smoke from the chimney—no signs of life— and a hundred doubts seemed to nag at me: What if I was wrong and this wasn't where Macey had run? What if we were too late? So I asked one question that scared me the least, "What if it isn't the right house?"
As I took another step, Bex's hand grasped my forearm, and I froze. I didn't have to look down to know that my right foot was inches away from a thin wire that would, no doubt, trigger a silent alarm. I didn't have to hear Bex say, "It's the right place," to know that it was true.
Now, normally, under ideal covert circumstances, a highly trained operative would slow down. And survey the scene. And plan a careful route, or regroup. But ideal covert circumstances hardly ever include Liz.
"Hey, what are you guys…" she started, and in the next instant she was stumbling over a rock with a cry of, "Oopsie daisy!"
She soared headfirst over the trip wire by my foot and landed on a pile of leaves. Bex and I lunged for her, but it was too late: gravity was taking over, and Liz was sliding down the hill, tumbling through bushes, slicing between two infrared motion sensors so perfectly that I'm sure we couldn't have duplicated the precision if we'd tried.
"She's gonna hit that—" Bex started but then couldn't finish, because instead of tumbling into a fallen log, Liz somehow managed to change direction and plow through a thicket of blackberry vines.
"Liz!" I yelled, running after her until the ground was too steep, the fallen leaves too wet with dew, and my feet flew out from under me as well. Behind me, I heard Bex gasp as she lost her footing too.
Branches whipped across my face. My hands fell wrist-deep into mud, and still I tumbled forward, faster and faster. In my mind, sirens were already sounding—a S.W.A.T. team was already on its way.
And then, finally, the tumbling stopped. I sat on the ground, covered in mud and decaying leaves. I felt nothing but my breath and the crush of Bex, who landed on top of me. I managed to wipe the mud out of my eyes, as two impossibly long legs appeared above us, and Macey McHenry said, "You're late."
The Operatives decided, to take this rare opportunity to do a detailed reconnaissance of the part-time homes of trained security professionals, during which they discovered the following:
• A box of lures, rods, and hooks that could be VERY helpful in illegal interrogation tactics. (But upon closer inspection they appeared to be used for actual fishing.)
• Four plain white T-shirts
• Six pairs of tube socks
• One Swiss Army knife (that appeared to have been issued by the actual Swiss Army)
• Forty-seven maps in sixteen languages
• Zero love letters, pictures, or notebooks with doodles on the cover