Grace glanced around as she walked. “I can’t stand it anymore,” she whispered. “I think the blue car might have followed me here.”
“You don’t say. Even with your undercover outfit and everything?”
Grace stopped. “This is serious, Sophie,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m the one reminding you.”
I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked back at the cars parked along the road. At least three or four of them were blue. I thought of Trista.
“Maybe we’re imagining that car,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Grace looked genuinely puzzled.
I kicked at a crack in the sidewalk. “Blue’s a common car color. Maybe we’re wrong.”
“I don’t think so,” Grace said before I even finished my sentence.
The breeze had kicked up now that the sun was low. I shivered a little. “Trista pointed out that there’s really no reason Agford needs to follow us.”
Grace stopped short. “Trista?” she said.
“She has a good point. I mean, I’m around Agford all day. We live across the street, for crying out loud. Why would she have us followed?”
“You told Trista?”
“I thought maybe—”
Grace’s voice flew up a register. “The girl you met, like, last week? The one who can’t whisper?”
Grace gripped her handlebars so tightly, it seemed like she was trying to keep herself from throttling me. Was it really that catastrophic if Trista knew?
I stumbled to recover. “She thinks we’re imagining things, anyway,” I said.
“Do you realize how dangerous it could be if Agford finds out we’re still investigating? Especially for you!” Grace fumed. “How’d you feel if I blabbed to Natalie and Joss?”
“Joss?” I wrinkled my nose. “Do you mean Jocelyn?”
Grace set her jaw and pushed her bike ahead. When Grace was mad, she simply pretended I didn’t exist. It hurt more than I wanted to admit.
“I thought we should get another opinion, Grace. You know, after last time. You—we—maybe get a little carried away sometimes.”
Grace balanced her bike against herself as she wound her hair into a messy bun.
“She thought we were making the same mistake twice,” I continued.
“We get carried away,” Grace repeated. She pinched her lips together.
“Yeah,” I said, mistaking Grace’s echo for agreement. “And she’s not wrong, is she? We do get a little crazy.”
“Yeah,” Grace said gently. I relaxed, thinking she finally understood. “That’s something that happens sometimes”—she leaned toward me and raised her voice—“when you’re being followed by someone who wants to kill you!” Her bun shook loose.
I stepped back.
“But I guess Trista’s the expert,” Grace continued. “And I’m just crazy.” She rolled her eyes and flung up one hand. It took me a moment to place her unfamiliar expression.
“Oh,” I said. “I get it.”
“What?” Grace asked, but it didn’t sound like a question.
“You are crazy, Grace Yang.” I nodded. “Crazy jealous.”
Grace laughed too loud and too hard, like a little kid pretending to bust up at a joke she didn’t understand. “Uh-huh. Right. I’m dying of jealousy.” Her cheeks glowed the faintest shade of red. “You know why I’m jealous? I wish I were as smart as you. It was an amazing idea to spill everything to a girl whose only friend may very well be the school counselor.”
Even Grace seemed surprised by her harshness. She looked away.
“I see,” I said.
“You said yourself that Trista doesn’t have any other friends!” Grace said. “She has therapy with Agford all the time. You don’t think it’s strange she happens to tell you to back off?”
“She didn’t say that,” I protested.
“Sure sounds like it,” Grace said, folding her arms across her chest.
How could I make her understand that, with Trista, what you saw was what you got? We strode uphill in silence, both turning to look each time a car passed. I guess Grace had a point. I was flattering myself thinking she was jealous. She was scared. Just like me.
Grace finally stopped and waited for me to catch up. She sighed. “It’s all right. I guess I’m just—”
Before she could finish her sentence, an engine leaped to life behind us. Grace jumped and grabbed my arm as we both spun around. A car pulled out from a parallel parking spot. I gasped.
It was a midnight blue four-door sedan.
Hunched over the wheel was a woman wearing dark sunglasses. The instant we saw her, she mouthed a curse, threw one arm up over her face, and slammed the gas. Her car hiccupped forward before she screeched into a U-turn and roared off.
Grace and I stared at each other.
“This is real,” Grace said, as if she hadn’t yet believed it herself.
Chapter Nine
Cracking the Code
“Quick!” Grace helped me onto her handlebars. I nearly lost my balance as we lurched forward and veered sharply down a side street. Grace grabbed onto my hood to steady me. “Countersurveillance escape route,” she explained. “She might try to follow.”
“Who was that?” I held on tight as Grace pedaled madly down Luna Vista’s back streets toward home, weaving to avoid trash cans and speed bumps. Palm trees and hedges blurred by. My hair flew against my face. I pictured the blue car swerving into its U-turn. The squeal of tires. I prayed there was some way Trista could still be right. But it was one thing to see a lot of blue cars. It was another to see one rocket away the moment you spot it.
“I don’t know.” Grace panted. “But we’ve got to ID her, stat. You catch anything on that license plate?”
“Nope.”
Grace zigzagged left into an alley shortcut, slowing as we neared Via Fortuna. We both scanned for cars. Once we thought we were in the clear, Grace helped me down. She pushed her bike ahead, my short shadow bobbing next to hers as I tried to keep pace with her smooth strides.
“She’s around Agford’s age, isn’t she?” Grace asked. Her voice quavered. It unnerved me that she didn’t bother to point out she’d been right.
I pictured the driver’s hunched shoulders and messy light brown hair. “If Agford weren’t made of plastic,” I said. “There’s no way it’s her.”
“You’re right,” Grace said. “Agford can’t be at school with you and tailing me around town. It’s got to be whoever she was on the phone with that night.”
“But she was talking to a guy,” I said. “‘I’ll rip their throats out, Danny,’ she said. I’m sure,” I said. But I wasn’t sure at all.
“We might not have heard her right.” Grace checked behind us again. “Besides, women can be named Danny. Like Danielle?” She wound her scarf around her neck. “On the other hand, I find it seriously hard to believe those two women could ever be friends.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing—just—they seem like totally different types, don’t they?”
“I guess.” I kicked a twig. “So people can only be friends if they dress alike?”
“Oh, c’mon, Sophie. You’re always so sensitive. That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
It sounded like that was exactly what she’d meant, but we had other things to worry about. Besides, it was stupid to think Grace considered Jocelyn and Natalie better friends just because they could trade jeans. At least, I was pretty sure it was stupid.
We flinched at the sound of a car idling behind us, but when we whipped around to look, the road was empty except for a white pickup truck slowing to park. Shouts rose up from the soccer field two streets over. I imagined skipping over there and asking if anyone would like to trade places. I’d offer to play goalie. They could be hunted down by a maniac in a blue Crown Victoria.
“Whoever it is, she knows we saw her. Maybe she’ll lie low?” I said.
Grace hadn’t heard me. “I bet we could ta
ke her,” she said. “You could do some of your tai chi business. I could sneak up with a choke hold. My dad told me if you cut off circulation to the carotid artery, you can make someone pass out. Maybe even kill them.”
I looked at Grace like she was crazy.
“Shouldn’t we get her before she stages some freak accident to get rid of us?” she asked.
“Hi there!” a voice interrupted. My heart jumped before I looked up and saw Mrs. Dr. Yang standing near her black Lexus, waving. She wore a neatly tailored gray suit. Some doctors wore scrubs under their white surgical coats. Mrs. Dr. Yang wore Prada.
She peered into her mailbox as we approached. If I hadn’t known Mrs. Dr. Yang’s thin eyebrows had been salon tattooed on in an expression of permanent surprise, I would have thought she was delighted with what she’d found there. But she wrinkled her nose at the familiar red booklet. “Buy one measly set of fu dogs and get junk mail for life!” she said. Then she paused and glanced sideways at me, a teasing twinkle in her eye. “Sophie,” she said, “maybe you could use this?”
“Oh, Mom, please don’t,” Grace joked. “I’m still recovering from a wind-chime attack.”
“I have an excess of wood.” I grinned sheepishly as I pulled out my own crumpled copy of Feng Shui Planet from my backpack. “Metal is the best cure.”
Grace and her mom couldn’t keep from laughing. For a moment it felt like any other afternoon. Maybe Mrs. Dr. Yang would invite me in for dumplings she claimed to make from scratch, but which, in fact, she bought in bulk from the frozen section at Costco. Afterward Grace and I would probably get bored and dress up their cat, Lucky, in a jaunty cape (he was patient that way), then I’d come back home to finish off my pre-algebra. No one was tailing us around town in blue cars, waiting to spring.
“Hang on,” said Mrs. Dr. Yang. “Did you say metal?” She traded a knowing look with Grace. They both turned to me and smiled. “Why don’t you come up a minute?” Mrs. Dr. Yang put her hand on my shoulder. “This just might be your lucky day.”
I looked back toward my house. It was already so far from my luckiest day that being late to study hall with Grandpa was the least of my worries. Besides, Grace and I had to figure out a plan.
I skipped up the steps and bent over to change from my Pumas into the red silk embroidered slippers the Yangs kept for guests in the entry hall. When I stood up again, I found myself staring into the fierce glass eyes of a bright red elephant the size of a toddler.
“A patient gave this to us.” Mrs. Dr. Yang handed it to me. It felt surprisingly light. “I think you’ll agree it’s a little . . .” She made a face as she gestured to her own simple, elegant decor.
“Much?” Grace finished.
“Red for fire.” I smiled. “And hollow.” The elephant emitted a happy little gong as I tapped his metal sides. I looked up at Mrs. Dr. Yang. “He’s perfect.”
“You realize you’re destroying your chi, don’t you?” I tripped over a stray flip-flop as I searched for a place to set the elephant down in Grace’s room. Stacks of People, Seventeen, and Teen Vogue threatened to collapse. Clothes were strewn across her unmade bed. Apart from the sliding-glass door leading to her outside patio, every surface was plastered with posters—handbills for concerts she’d never gone to, pictures of bands I’d never heard of, and FBI wanted posters she’d stolen from the post office. A life-size cardboard cutout of the shirtless lead singer of Nux Vomica sneered down over a collection of neglected stuffed animals.
Hidden behind Grace’s door were a small whiteboard and shooting-range target practice sheet. A stash of spy gear spilled from a half-open dresser drawer.
“I think once crazy people are following us around town, we can pretty much assume both of our chis are toast.” Grace swung open her closet door, kicking away shoes so she could stand in front of the satellite map mounted on her bulletin board. “Let’s see, approximate Gamma sighting was fifteen hundred twenty today.” She shifted some news clippings and Post-its, then stuck a blue pushpin into the map near school. “Then we’ve got Tuesday, oh seven hundred, near Epsilon. What else?”
“Don’t forget Saturday at Agford’s.”
“Got that one already. Eleven hundred, in front of Omega.” Grace traced her fingers over a sea of other blue pushpins and mumbled to herself. “No pattern whatsoever,” she announced. She flopped on the bed. “I got nothing, Sophie.”
“Seriously?” I wasn’t sure whether to relax or panic. Now that we were tucked safely back in Grace’s room, it did seem possible we were making too much of things. The driver had a weary look that wasn’t too different from some of the harried moms who waited in the carpool line every day. And the way Grace stood in her command central muttering over the map made it feel like we were still playing spy games. Trista’s question echoed in my head. Did I think we were being followed—or was it just Grace?
“Hey, it’s not like I’m actual FBI here!” Grace propped herself up on her elbow. “Listen, I’ll read up on countersurveillance while you’re at study hall. Let’s radio tonight and—What is that?” Grace pointed to the white paper hanging out of my hoodie pocket.
“Oh, nothing.” I pulled out Rod’s code and felt a pang as I pictured myself waving it at him like an idiot. It was nothing. But only a few hours ago it had felt like everything.
Grace snatched the paper from me and squinted at it. Her face lit up. “From Rod? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”
I reached for the code, but she had already leaped to her desk to find a pen.
“He totally likes you, Soph. I mean, texting is one thing, but a note?” Grace clapped her hands together. “It’s so romantic.”
When she finally stopped gushing long enough for me to tell her about Rod’s snub at lunch, Grace dismissed me with a wave. “He’s just shy,” she said. “If he was embarrassed to be seen with you, he wouldn’t have helped you with your French books in the first place!” Grace ripped off a long, thin strip from the bottom of the note and handed it to me along with a fine-point silver Sharpie. “C’mon, I’ll prove it to you.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I guessed a little distraction would be okay. I leaned over and looked at the code again, trying to count out a letter pattern as Trista had explained:
GET SMART AND ANNOY THE ASKEW TREASURY. ASK FOR FREE HONEYMOON AT PAGODA. FOUR OR MORE ADDRESSES SHARE EMPTINESS OF IDEAS. ASIAN DRAGON, REST FROM YOUR QUESTS.
“Oh my God. A pagoda honeymoon. I love it,” Grace said. “This is a tough one though.”
“Trista said that—” I caught myself.
“Yeah?” Grace said encouragingly. “Listen, I’m sorry about what I said earlier.” She tugged a strand of hair over her mouth. “If you trust Trista, so do I.”
I was surprised. Grace usually only apologized for things that had happened a minute earlier. It wasn’t as if she acted like she was always right or anything like that. It was more like she’d just move on and forget.
“Well, she said . . .” I looked back to Grace. “Thanks. And if you want to tell Natalie and Jocelyn . . .”
“Are you insane? We can’t trust those two!” She threw up her hands. We both laughed.
“Anyway, she said it’s a null cipher,” I said. “Only certain letters really mean anything. Like the first letter of every word, the third letter of every word. That kind of thing.”
Grace’s cat, Lucky, jumped up on her desktop to lend us his sharp intellect.
“Okay, I’ll read you the first letters of each word,” she said. “G-S-A-A-T-A,” she began.
“G-S-A-A-T-A?” I read back.
“Yeah, you’re right. That’s not it,” Grace said. She ran her finger across the paper. Lucky yawned and rolled on his back on top of an open notebook, his code-breaking career over before it had even started.
I leaned over her shoulder. “The second letter of every word doesn’t work. Neither does the third. Maybe Trista’s wrong.” I smiled at the thought of Rod coming up with something even more clever.
“S-T-A . . . every fourth letter looks good.” Grace called out the rest of the letters as I hurriedly scrawled them in a column on the sliver of paper she’d torn off. When I was finished, Grace held up the tiny scrap and squinted. Her hand flew to her mouth, the fluorescent colors of her fingernails clashing with the horror on her face.
My stomach fluttered. What could Rod have said that was so awful? I read it for myself:
STA
YAWA
YFRO
MAGF
ORD
SHEIS
DANGER
OUS
“Stay away from Agford. She is dangerous,” I whispered. My mouth ran dry.
A shadow flickered behind me. I flinched. Grace shrieked, and we both flung ourselves on the floor alongside Grace’s bed. An avalanche of magazines cascaded over us.
Lucky gazed at us from his perch on the bed, wide-eyed. One last Teen Vogue slid down and flopped across my face.
“Grace?” I said, my voice muffled.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think Rod sent that code.”
Chapter Ten
Awkward Encounter
“That’s it,” I said, pulling myself up from the magazine rubble. “We’re telling our parents.”
“After the beets? You’ll be in twenty-four/seven Agford care,” Grace said. “And Monday and Janice will kill me. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?” She slid a metal box from under her bed. As she hinged it open, multiple levels of trays holding various sizes of tweezers, bottles, swabs, and fingerprint dusters unfolded. She plucked out a quart-sized plastic bag, carefully grasped the code between the tweezers, and dropped it in. “Evidence,” she said, swinging open her closet door so her whiteboard faced the room. “So you said Trent dumped your books off your desk, Rod helped you pick them up, and at the end of class Marissa handed you this code. Three possible messengers.” Her marker squeaked as she listed their names in bullet points.
The Wig in the Window Page 7