“Cool,” I say. “Can I have the keys now?”
“Once you get that tire off and the spare on.”
He’s not kidding.
Under his direction, I successfully position the jack. By the time I’m removing the lug nuts from the front tire, I’m sweating, but he doesn’t lift a finger to help.
“You want my keys, you’ll figure it out.”
I do. I drag the spare out of the trunk myself. I jack up the car and slide it into position. And after thirty-five minutes, I have changed my first tire.
I rise, arms raised victoriously as I take a victory lap around the car.
Then he makes me change it back.
I tell him this is why we have cell phones. This is why tow trucks were invented. There is a whole profession of people dedicated purely to roadside assistance.
He doesn’t seem to care.
And honestly, it is kind of interesting.
He shows me how to open the fuel lid, and turn on my flashers, and pop the hood. There, he points out the main pieces of the engine and where, if I touch, I’ll get shocked or lose a hand. We walk through the process of jump-starting the engine, and when I pass his little quiz, I’m pretty damn proud of myself.
Only then does he give me the keys.
It’s different than driving with Caleb. First, the lot is empty, which does wonders for my self-esteem. Second, Moore sets up a system where I’m constantly checking my mirrors and the road as I move forward. I still ride the brake hard, but after a few stops and starts, I’m actually driving.
“Thanks,” I tell him as we switch back to our regular seats. Almost two hours have passed, and it’s time to get back to school.
“Someone’s got to teach you.”
Caleb said Dr. O taught him. I wonder if they went through the same process—if Dr. O crouched outside the car beside Caleb as he sweated to turn the tire iron. If Caleb could relax, or if he was only thinking about what mistakes he was making because of what hung in the balance.
Even a driving lesson is weighted when the man teaching you is responsible for keeping your dad alive.
“Mom got a job at Wednesday Pharmaceuticals,” I say.
Moore doesn’t respond, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t hear me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Moore, it’s that he hears everything. He’s worse than Ms. Maddox.
“I keep thinking I should tell her not to take it,” I say.
We’ve never talked about Dr. O’s ownership of Wednesday. By Moore’s non-expression, I doubt he’s surprised I know about it.
“What happens if you do?” he asks.
We’re back on familiar roads now, and the properties are growing larger, with more distance between each massive house.
I think of Mom’s face when she told me about the job and the new apartment. How much this could mean for her.
“She stays in Devon Park.”
“Is that so bad?”
She deserves more. Now, with Pete gone, she has a chance to move on. If she doesn’t, she could meet someone new, maybe worse, and get tied to the neighborhood all over again.
“She could do better.”
“Like you did?”
The way he says it makes me squirm in my cushioned leather seat. I am doing better. I live in a mansion.
Filled with lies and complications.
Doesn’t matter. It’s better than what I had before, and it’s going to get me somewhere so far up, I can’t even see the slums anymore.
“Devon Park’s just a place,” he says. “Can’t make you any happier than anywhere else.”
I cross my arms, and my legs for good measure.
“Are you happy?” I ask.
“Don’t I look it?”
Shadows flicker across his brown skin as we make the final turn toward our drive. He reveals nothing, as always.
I can’t tell Mom not to try for something better. Aiming high is what got me where I am today. She’ll be safer out of that run-down house. She’ll have more money in her pocket with a new job.
But what if I screw up with Dr. O and he takes it all away?
An ache pounds through my chest, hard enough I have to rub the top of my ribs with the heel of my hand to ease the pressure. These are questions Caleb lives with every second of every day, and right now I miss him so much I can barely breathe.
These stupid assignments pitted us against each other. I thought we were strong enough to withstand them, but how could we, when he was spying on me? When Grayson now stands directly between us?
Right now, Caleb feels farther away than ever.
Headlights appear in the distance, at the iron gate that marks the private drive to the mansion.
“Who is that?”
As we approach, a beige car comes into view. Two men are already standing outside, one of them in a black, knee-length coat, the other in a brown suit. They hold their hands up to block our lights, hiding their faces.
My blood turns cold.
“Stay in the car,” Moore tells me.
He stops beside the car, which has blocked the keypad access to the gate, and gets out, standing in the open hinge of the door.
“This is private property,” he calls.
I lean forward in my seat, wariness crawling down the back of my neck. A flashlight is lifted and shined in my face. I quickly block the beam with my forearm.
“Perfect timing,” says one of the men. “No one’s answering the speaker. I was just about to call for someone to knock down this gate.”
“Why would you want to do something like that?” Moore’s voice is hard, sending prickles of fear over my skin.
The man in the brown suit moves closer to the car and becomes visible again through the crack in Moore’s open door. He opens his jacket, and I swallow a gasp as a gun is revealed in a leather holster beneath his left arm.
He takes a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and holds it in front of Moore’s face.
“Sikawa City Police Department,” he says. “We have a warrant to search this property.”
CHAPTER 21
The beige car backs up so that we can pull forward, and when Moore enters the code, he holds his finger on the last button for a long time, until the box makes a series of beeps and then goes black.
As many times as I have been in and out of this gate, I’ve not seen it do this. It must be some kind of a warning.
The gate pulls open, and Moore drives down the lane. The headlights of the car behind us reflect in my rearview mirror, urging my pulse faster.
I pull out my cell to text the others what’s coming and find a blank screen. A picture of Charlotte and me is usually my background, but it’s missing now, and when I search for my speed dials, the menu is empty.
It’s like my phone has been reset.
“Put it away,” Moore says. “They’ll ask to see it.”
My breath is hot and raspy in my throat. I can’t hold still; my whole body is twitching, a live wire.
“Leave your ID in my glovebox,” he orders.
I rip the Jaime Hernandez, THE LOFT employee card over my head and pop open the glove box, stomach turning to water when I find a gun beside the car registration.
I place my card on top of it and close the box.
“What’s going on?” I whisper, as though they might hear. “Why are the cops here?”
“Relax.” His voice is the same, but the muscles in his jaw flex around the word. “If this were a raid, there’d be more than just two.”
A raid? I picture twenty FBI agents and police officers storming the mansion, throwing smoke bombs and tackling students to the ground.
“So what do they want?”
He doesn’t answer.
It could be anything. Beneath the surface, we operate in everything from fabricated IDs to political manipulation.
“Where is everyone? Why didn’t someone answer the speaker?” I ask.
“Dr. O has a meeting in the city,” Moore says. “Mr. Be
lk took him.”
Which means the only adult on the property would be Ms. Maddox, who can’t speak and wouldn’t be able to answer the gate comm.
“What are we going to do?”
His eyes flash to me, as dark as the shadows in this car.
“You’re going to do what you always do and act like a professional.”
I straighten in my seat. The guy who taught me how to change a tire is gone, and in his place is the same scary security guard everyone on the outside must see.
Each crunching rotation of the tires grates against my raw nerves. Where is Grayson? He needs to hide. All of us are documented students, with parental consent, but he’s a fugitive. A runaway. A senator’s son.
Hiding him has to be illegal.
Parents were just here a few days ago, but this is different. This is the police. If we’re busted, we’ll be lucky to share a juvy cell while Dr. O and the adults take the pipeline to prison.
“Thirty more seconds,” Moore mutters, checking his watch.
“Until what?”
He doesn’t answer.
We pull around the fountain, but the other men have already parked and are out of their car. Moore hurries to unbuckle his seat belt, no doubt wanting to reach the door before they do.
“You are a professional,” he reminds me one more time, and then he’s jogging after them. He passes them on the front steps and keys in the door code. I am close behind.
“Don’t think we don’t know what you’re doing,” says the man in the suit. He’s agitated now, his voice rippling with tension as he grabs the graceful, S-shaped handle of the door.
“What’s that, officer?” asks Moore.
“Detective Morales,” corrects the suit. “You have a secret knock, too? We’ll be checking your cell phone records to see who you’ve called to warn.”
“Then you’ll see I didn’t call anyone,” says Moore calmly.
I’ve come through this front door dozens of times since I moved to Vale Hall, but now I’m unsure what I’ll find inside. Moore said he needed thirty more seconds. He must have been giving Ms. Maddox and the others time to prepare for our arrival. It’s been three, maybe four minutes since he keyed in that strange code on the gate box. What’s happened since then?
The lock clicks and Detective Morales shoves inside, followed by his friend, who looks harder in the bright light of the entryway, cut by deep wrinkles that line his eyes and mouth and stretch to his thin, silver hair.
They both look like they’ve been at this game for some time.
Ms. Maddox comes hobbling toward us, plump cheeks flushed, her favorite poppy dress swishing around her ankles with each labored step. She looks to Moore, eyes wide.
“Ma’am, we need to see the director,” says Detective Morales. His silent friend has already passed and is snooping his way toward the kitchen.
Ms. Maddox shakes her head.
“He’s not on the property. You’ll have to come back,” says Moore.
“I didn’t ask you. Ma’am?”
Ms. Maddox looks worried. She taps her neck and shrugs.
“She can’t speak,” says Moore. “Throat cancer.”
“Well isn’t that convenient?” mutters Morales.
“Not really,” I say.
His gaze cuts to mine. I turn and try to walk as casually as I can toward the kitchen, to where his friend is now asking Paz and Alice where the rest of the students are.
“Studying? I don’t know,” says Paz, motioning toward her homework laid out across the table. “Why? Someone in trouble?”
Sounds are coming from the pit. If Grayson’s down there, I need to warn him.
As quietly as I can, I walk toward the dining room and the basement stairs.
“That depends,” says the wrinkled detective. “Do you know a boy named Grayson Sterling?”
My heart stops.
Restarts with the force of a punch.
Alice looks to Paz, and then to me, frozen in my tracks. Paz grins. “Yeah, I know him.”
My stomach drops through the marble floor.
“He was on the Pop Store website, right? I think he was standing on a car or something.”
“Oh yeah,” says Alice, with a half smirk. “I remember that.”
“Is he here?” asks the detective.
“Why would he be here?” asks Alice. Paz looks confused.
Gold stars, all around.
I resume my walk toward the pit, but the detective is following me. How did they know Grayson was here? My mind flashes to his arm, linked with Mom’s. Did she say something? She loves gossip, and her daughter dating a senator’s son is prime material. It could have been Henry’s stepdad, too, though he didn’t seem to realize who Grayson was.
“My name is Simon,” the older man says. “What’s your name?”
My mind shoots through half a dozen aliases I’ve used in the last year. Jaime? Sarah? I don’t know which one I can use that will look the least suspicious if they do a background check.
“Am I under arrest?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then I don’t have to talk to you without the director present.”
He gives a quiet chuckle. “That’s technically true.”
We’re at the edge of the dining room, the empty kitchen open behind us. I can still hear Morales talking to Moore as they make their way down the hall on the first floor. Each door opens as he looks inside the rooms where we have class.
“Who’s the guy you came in with?” He’s using the friendly voice cops use when they’re trying to trick you into spilling your secrets.
“Mr. Moore,” I say. This seems harmless enough. “He’s a security guard here.”
“Do you have many security guards here?”
“That sounds like a question for him.”
He chuckles again, and just as I’m preparing to turn back toward the kitchen and lead him back to Moore, the basement stairs creak. Someone’s coming up.
I hide the panic swelling in my chest.
I am a professional.
Henry appears, and when his eyes land on the man beside me, he scrubs a hand through his strawberry-blond hair.
“Hello,” he says. “Are you someone’s dad?”
Simon pulls open his jacket, revealing a gold police badge hanging on his hip.
“Oh God,” says Henry. “Okay, is this about the candy bar I took from that gas station? Because I was only twelve, and my mom made me return it when she found out what I did.”
“She sounds like a good mom,” says Simon, and Henry beams.
I am going to dissolve in a puddle of sweat.
“This is about Grayson Sterling, the senator’s son,” Simon continues. “Have you seen him?”
Henry shakes his head. Someone else is coming up the stairs, and when Caleb appears, he edges very carefully in front of Henry. Sam isn’t far behind, and he stands on Henry’s other side, a wall against the detective and me.
“Did you say Grayson Sterling?” asks Caleb. Despite everything, I’m glad he’s here. We’ve pulled off worse than this with the Wolves of Hellsgate.
“I did. We’re looking for him. Heard he might be here.”
“Like Senator Sterling?” asks Caleb.
“His son, actually.”
“Why would he be here?” I ask.
“Thought you don’t talk to cops,” says Simon with a smile.
I sigh, but inside, I’m dying.
“Got a tip someone saw a boy who looked like him here on parents’ weekend,” says Simon.
“Family Day,” says Henry with a scowl. “That’s only for students and their families.”
Sam puts a hand on Henry’s shoulder, lowering it a full inch. “That guy isn’t a student here, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I’m standing slightly behind Simon, at an angle so I can see Caleb blocking Henry’s clenching fist. Caleb’s gaze finds mine just long enough for me to mouth where? and his eyes to lift.
Grays
on’s upstairs.
It’s just a matter of time before these detectives go that direction.
Slowly, I back up, one step at a time, and when Simon starts to turn, Caleb moves closer to him, asking what the senator’s son has done and why they think he’s here. It’s a deliberate cover for my escape, and I take it.
“We can ask around downstairs,” I hear Caleb say, jutting a thumb toward the pit. “Some of us were just watching a movie.”
Silently, I backpedal through the kitchen, speeding toward the staircase that leads to the bedrooms. Moore, Ms. Maddox, and Detective Morales are in Dr. O’s office; I can hear the harsh opening and closing of desk drawers within.
I take the steps two at a time, heart pounding by the time I reach the first landing. The girls’ wing stretches to my right, and at the end of the hall I see a flash of red hair as Charlotte sticks her head out the door.
Motioning her back inside, I take the short hall before me to the second set of stairs, which will lead me to the third floor and the boys’ dorm. Each creak of the carpet beneath my footsteps is a bomb exploding in my ears. Every time I glance back, I’m sure the detectives will be right behind.
As I reach the first step, there’s a flash of movement above, at the turn in the stairs. I look up in time to see a figure dodge out of sight.
Grayson.
I take the steps two at a time, and when he sees me, he steps out from behind the corner. His face is pale, his brow furrowed. He’s wearing jeans, running shoes, and a Vale Hall sweatshirt with the words Vincit Omnia Veritas printed across the chest.
His eyes land on mine, and my nerves are swallowed by his fear.
He doesn’t have to say a word; I know he’s leaving.
We both jump at the sound of voices on the stairs. Detective Morales and Moore are arguing about something, though it’s hard to decipher what over the static in my ears.
“Go,” I whisper, pointing my finger up the stairs. “Go. Now.”
He’s frozen in place, staring, horrified, down the hall behind me.
Moore and the detective have reached the top of the first set of stairs, and I dodge out of sight as they turn toward the girls’ wing.
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