Code Name Cassandra

by Meg Cabot

  “But what was I supposed to do, Mastriani?” Rob went on. “The guy pulled a gun on me. Not like I thought he’d shoot me, but it was clear nobody—most specifically you—wanted me around.”

  I said defensively, “That isn’t true. I always want you around.”

  “Yeah, but only if I’ll go along with whatever harebrained idea you’ve come up with. And let me tell you, going into a cave in the middle of the night with a killer on the loose? Not one I’d probably go for.”

  I said, “Well, it all turned out okay.”

  Rob snorted. “Oh, yeah. Shane?” He turned around and looked at the chubby-cheeked boy in the bed next door. “You agree with that? You think it all turned out okay?”

  Shane nodded vigorously. Then, when the nurse reached down and took the thermometer from his mouth, he said, “I think it turned out great.”

  Rob snorted. “You didn’t seem to think so when you first got out of that cave.”

  Well, that much was true, anyway. Shane had pretty much been in hysterics up until Special Agents Smith and Johnson arrived, along with the sheriff and his deputies, and put a still unconscious Clay Larsson under arrest. They had a hard time dragging him out of that cave, believe me, even using the wider side entrance he’d discovered.

  “Yeah,” Shane admitted. “But that was before the cops got there. I was afraid he was going to wake up and come after us again.”

  “After that whack you gave him?” Rob raised his eyebrows. “Never mind football, kid. You’ve got batting in your blood.”

  Shane flushed with pleasure at this praise. He had nothing but admiration for Rob, having recognized him as the guy from the story I’d told that first night, the one about the murdering car.

  What’s more, Rob had pretty much been the only one who’d kept his head in the wake of our crawling out of Wolf Cave. That week’s worth of counselor training hadn’t prepared Ruth, Scott, or Dave for dealing with a couple of victims of an attempted murder.

  “You know, Mastriani,” Rob went on, “you have more than just an anger-management problem. You are also the stubbornest damned person I’ve ever met. Once you get an idea into your head, nothing can make you change your mind. Not your friends. Not the FBI. And certainly not me.” He added, “I used to have a dog a lot like you.”

  This seemed to me to be neither flattering nor very romantic, but Shane found it hilarious. He giggled.

  “What happened?” Shane wanted to know. “To the dog that was like Jess?”

  “Oh,” Rob said. “He was convinced he could stop moving cars with his teeth, if he could just sink them into their tires. Eventually, he got run over.”

  “I am not,” I declared, “a car-chasing dog. Okay? There is absolutely no parallel between me and a dog that’s stupid enough to—”

  I broke off, realizing with indignation that Rob was chuckling to himself. He was in a much better mood now than he’d been earlier, when he hadn’t been sure I wasn’t seriously injured. He’d had a lot to say, let me tell you, on the subject of my insisting on staying at Camp Wawasee in order to find Shane, and thus endangering not only my life, but, as it had ended up, a lot of other people’s as well.

  And, of course, he was right. I’d screwed up. I was willing to admit it.

  But, hey, things had turned out all right in the end.

  Well, for everybody but Clay Larsson.

  “So,” I couldn’t help asking, “you’re not mad at me?”

  All he said in reply was, “I think I’ll be able to get over it.”

  But for Rob, that was like admitting—I don’t know. His undying love for me, or something. So while I lay there, waiting for the inevitable moment when the nurse was going to decide I was well enough for questioning, I perked up. Why, I thought to myself, I’m going into my junior year! Juniors at Ernie Pyle High are allowed to go to the prom. I could invite Rob, and then I’d get to see him in a tux after all … that is, if he’d go with me. It is kind of weird, I’ll admit, to go to prom with a guy who’s already graduated, and who knows, maybe if I ask him, he’ll refuse… .

  But by the time prom rolls around, I’ll finally be seventeen, so how can he refuse? I mean, really? Resist me? I don’t think so.

  These happy thoughts were somewhat dampened by the fact that Shane was in the next bed making gagging noises over what he deemed our “mushiness”—though if you ask me, there’d been nothing mushy at all going on … at least, not by Cosmo standards. Or any other standards, really, that I could see.

  It was at that moment that the nurse went, “Well, from the sound of it, you two are well enough to take on a few more visitors. And there are a lot of them out there… .”

  And then the evening became a blur of relieved faces and pointed questions, which we answered according to the story we’d so carefully prepared, Rob and Ruth and Scott and Dave and me, while we’d been waiting for the cops to show up.

  “So,” Special Agent Johnson said, sinking into a seat close to the one Rob occupied. “Anything you’d like to add to your somewhat sketchy account of just what, exactly, happened out there tonight, Miss Mastriani?”

  I pretended to think about it. “Well,” I said. “Let me see. I remembered a ghost story I’d told about a cave, so I figured I’d check the one on the camp property for Shane, just in case, and while we were in there, that crazy Larsson guy tried to kill us, and Shane whacked him in the head with a stalactite. That’s about it, I think.”

  Special Agent Johnson didn’t look very surprised. He looked over at Shane, who was sitting up in bed, fingering a plastic sheriff’s badge one of the deputies had given him for his bravery.

  “That sound right to you?”

  Shane shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “I see.” Special Agent Johnson closed his notebook, then exchanged a significant look with his partner, who was sitting on the end of my bed. “A hero. And just how, precisely, did you happen upon the scene, Mr. Wilkins? It was my impression that you left the camp some hours ago.”

  “Well,” Rob said. “That’s true. I did. But I came back.”

  “Uh-huh,” Special Agent Johnson said. “Yes, I can see that. Any particular reason you came back?”

  Rob did something very surprising then. He reached out, took hold of my hand, and said, “Well, I couldn’t leave things the way they were with my girl, could I? I had to come back and apologize.”

  His girl? He had called me his girl! He had taken my hand and called me his girl!

  I was grinning so happily, I was afraid my lips might break. Special Agent Johnson, noticing this, looked pointedly toward the ceiling, clearly sickened by my adolescent enthusiasm. But how could I help it? Rob had called me his girl! So what if he’d done it to throw off a federal investigation into my affairs that evening? Prom had never seemed so likely a prospect as it did at that moment.

  “Um,” Special Agent Johnson said. “I see. Please forgive me if I sound unconvinced. The fact is, Special Agent Smith and I feel that it is a bit of a coincidence, Jess, that you went looking for young Master Shane in Wolf Cave. You certainly didn’t mention that he might have been in this cave to anyone when you first learned of his disappearance.”

  “Excuse me, sir.” The nurse appeared and stuck a mug of extremely hot, extremely sugary tea in my hands. “For the shock,” she said in an explanatory manner to the agents, even though they hadn’t asked, before she handed a similar mug to Shane.

  I took a sip. It was surprisingly restorative, in spite of the fact that I was trying to look like someone whose only recent shock had been finding her boyfriend’s tongue in her mouth.

  Yeah, I know. Wishful thinking, right?

  “Jess,” Special Agent Smith said. “Why don’t you tell us what really happened?”

  I sat there, enjoying the warm tea flowing down my insides, and the warm arm flung across my outsides. Talk about a happy camper.

  “I already told it,” I said, “exactly like it was.”

  At their raised eyebrows, I a
dded, “No, really. That’s it.”

  “Yes,” Shane said. “She’s telling the truth, sir.”

  We all looked over at Shane, who, like me, was downing his own mug of tea. He had, through it all, clung to his bag of Chips Ahoy cookies, and now he slipped one from the bag, and dunked it into his tea.

  Special Agent Johnson looked back at me.

  “Nice try,” he said. “But I don’t think so.”

  “I highly doubt, for instance,” Special Agent Smith said, “that that little boy was the one who set off a Molotov cocktail beneath our van.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, obviously,” I said, “that could only have been Mr. Larsson.”

  Both Special Agents Johnson and Smith stared down at me.

  “No, really,” I said. “To distract you. I mean, come on. The guy’s a real psycho. I hope they put him away for a long, long time. Going after a little kid like that? Why, it’s unconscionable.”

  “Unconscionable,” Special Agent Johnson repeated.

  “Sure,” I said defensively. “That’s a word. I took the PSATs. I should know.”

  “Funny how,” Special Agent Johnson said, “Clay Larsson happened to know exactly which vehicle was ours.”

  “Yeah,” I said, swallowing a sip of tea. “Well, you know. Criminal genius and all.”

  “And strange,” Special Agent Smith said, “that he would pick our vehicle, out of all the other ones parked in that lot, to set on fire, when he doesn’t even know us.”

  “One of the hardest things to accept,” Rob remarked, “about violent crime is its seeming randomness.”

  They both looked at Rob, and I felt a moment of pride that I was, as he’d so matter-of-factly put it, his girl.

  Then Dr. Alistair appeared at the end of my cot, wringing his hands.

  “Jessica,” he said, glancing worriedly from me to Special Agents Johnson and Smith and then back again. “You’re all right?”

  I looked at him like he was crazy. Which I was pretty sure he was.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” he cried, even though I hadn’t said anything in reply to his question. “Thank goodness. I do hope, Jessica, that you’ll forgive me for my outburst earlier this evening—”

  I said, “You mean when you asked me why I didn’t get my psychic friends to help me find Shane?”

  He swallowed, and darted another nervous look at the agents.

  “Yes,” he said. “About that. I didn’t mean—”

  “Yes, you did,” I said. “You meant every word.” I looked hard at Special Agents Johnson and Smith. “How much did you guys pay him, anyway, to report my every move to you?”

  Jill and Allan exchanged nervous glances.

  “Jessica,” Special Agent Smith said. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s so obvious,” I said, “that he was your narc. I mean, he scheduled that one o’clock appointment with me, and then when I didn’t show up, he called you. That’s how you knew I’d left the camp. You didn’t have to sit outside by the gates and wait to see if I’d leave. You had someone working on the inside to spare you the trouble.”

  “That,” Special Agent Johnson said, “is patently—”

  “Oh, come on.” I rolled my eyes. “When are you guys going to get it through your heads that you’re going to have to find yourselves a new Cassandra? Because the truth is, this one’s retired.”

  “Jessica,” Dr. Alistair cried. “I would never in a million years compromise the integrity of this camp by accepting money for—”

  “Aw, shut up,” Shane snapped. I could see that his campaign to be kicked out of music camp had now entered high gear. I hadn’t any doubt that the traumatic event in Wolf Cave was going to—for the time being, anyway—have a detrimental effect on his ability to play the flute.

  Dr. Alistair, looking startled, did shut up, to everyone’s surprise.

  Special Agent Johnson leaned forward and said, in a low, rapid voice, “Jessica, we know perfectly well that Jonathan Herzberg asked you to find his daughter, and that you, in fact, did so. We also know that this evening, you again used your psychic powers to find Shane Taggerty. You can’t go on with this ridiculous charade that you’ve lost your psychic powers any longer. We know it isn’t true. We know the truth.” He leaned back and regarded me menacingly.

  “And it’s only a matter of time,” Special Agent Smith added, “before you’ll be forced to admit it, Jess.”

  I digested this for a moment. And then I said, “Jill?”

  Special Agent Smith looked at me questioningly. “Yes, Jess?”

  “Are you a lesbian?”

  After that, the nurse made everyone leave, on account of the fact she was worried Shane was going to make himself sick from laughing so hard.

  C H A P T E R

  18

  “Doug,” I said, trailing one hand through the cool, silver water.

  Ruth, sprawled across an inner tube a few feet from mine, gazed through the dark lenses of her sunglasses into the clear blue sky overhead. “Do-able,” she said, after a moment.

  “Agreed,” I said. “What about Jeff?”

  Ruth adjusted a strap on her bikini. After six weeks of salads, she had finally deemed herself svelte enough for a two-piece. “Do-able,” she said.

  “Agreed.” I leaned my head back and felt the sun beat down on my throat. It was beating down on other places, as well. After several weeks of spending my afternoons floating across the mirrored surface of Lake Wawasee, I was the color of Pocahontas. I would look, I knew, exceptionally good at tonight’s all-camp concert, at which I was playing the piece Professor Le Blanc had despaired of me ever learning, except by imitation.

  I didn’t have to imitate anyone, though. I could read each and every note.

  A shout wasn’t enough to break the trance-like daze the sun had sent Ruth and me into, but it got our attention. We lifted our heads and looked toward shore. Scott and Dave were playing Frisbee with some of the campers. Scott waved at us, and Dave, distracted, missed a catch, and landed in the sand.

  “Dave,” I said.

  “Do-able,” Ruth said.

  “Agreed. Scott,” I said, watching as he dove to make a catch.

  “Hottie,” Ruth said. “Of course.”

  I raised my sunglasses and looked at her from beneath the lenses in surprise.

  “Really? He used to be Do-able.”

  “He’s my summer fling,” she informed me. “If I say he’s hot, he’s hot.”

  I lowered my sunglasses. “Okay,” I said.

  “Besides,” she said. “That whole thing with lighting the Feds’ van on fire? That was kind of cool. You might have something with the whole dangerous-guy thing.”

  “Rob,” I said, “is not dangerous.”

  “Please,” Ruth said. “Any guy who drives a motorcycle as his main form of transportation is dangerous.”

  “Really? Is that better than a guy with a convertible?”

  Ruth shrugged. “Sure.”

  Wow. I leaned back, digesting this. My dangerous boyfriend was driving up to watch me perform at the concert that night. So was my family. I wondered what would happen if I introduced Rob to my mother. Frankly, I couldn’t picture my mother and Rob in the same room. It was going to be very—

  I felt something brush against the hand I was trailing in the water. I screamed and yanked my fingers away, just as Ruth did the same thing.

  Two snorkel-fitted heads popped up from beneath the water and promptly began laughing at us.

  “Ha-ha,” Arthur cried, pointing at me as he treaded water. “You screamed just like a girl!”

  “Like a girl,” Lionel echoed incoherently. He was laughing too hysterically to speak.

  “Very funny,” I said to them. “Why don’t you two swim over to the deep area and get a cramp?”

  “Yeah,” Ruth said. “And don’t bother calling for us, because we won’t come fish you out.”

  “Come on, Lionel,” Arthur said. “Let’s go. These two are n
o fun.”

  The two heads promptly disappeared. I watched the ends of their snorkels slice the water’s surface as they headed back to shore. The two had become fast friends, once Shane was out of the picture and Lionel no longer spent every waking moment in fear of being tortured.

  As I’d predicted, Shane’s ability to play the flute had mysteriously disappeared shortly after the Wolf Cave incident, and though it was too late to get him into any self-respecting football camp, several had offered him scholarships, based on his size alone, for the following summer. Mr. and Mrs. Taggerty were not, it was rumored, happy about this, but what could they do? The boy was, according to more than one coach, a natural.

  Off over in the direction of Wolf Cave, a cicada began its shrill call—one of the last ones I’d hear, I knew, before they all sank back into the ground to hibernate until next summer.

  “So did Dr. Alistair ask you to come back next year?” Ruth wanted to know.

  “Yeah,” I said, with some disgust. “I suppose so he can supplement his income again by ratting me out to the Feds.”

  “How’d you know it was him, anyway?” Ruth asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just did. Same way I know they’re still monitoring me.”

  Ruth nearly lost her balance in the inner tube. “They are?” she sputtered. “How do you know?”

  I pointed out toward the trees on the side of the lake closest to us. “See that thing over there, glinting in the sun?”

  Ruth looked where I was pointing. “No. Wait. Yeah. I guess. What is that?”

  “Telephoto lens,” I said, lowering my arm. “Watch. Now that he knows we spotted him, he’ll drive to some other spot and try again.”

  Sure enough, the glint disappeared, and far off, we heard the sound of a car engine.

  “Ew,” Ruth cried. “How creepy! Jess, how can you stand it?”

  I shrugged. “What can I do? That’s just the way it is, I guess.”

  Ruth chewed her lower lip. “But aren’t you … I mean, aren’t you worried they’re going to catch you one of these days? In a lie, I mean?”