Then there was the most incriminating detail of all: Ralston’s hemming and hawing about how long it might take to wrap up the case made perfect sense according to Cassie Ogden’s story. Ralston hadn’t been able to make a quick arrest because there hadn’t been an arrest to make.
Just two weeks earlier, I’d sat in the same beanbag chair as Agford lectured me on perception. Kids don’t see reality, she’d told me, holding up a picture of a frightened woman she claimed most kids thought was angry. I’d thought it was all part of Agford’s mission to make me doubt myself. But she’d been right all along. I hadn’t seen reality. I’d accepted Ralston’s story at face value. I hadn’t seen my friendship with Grace for what it was. I’d been stupid enough to imagine myself locked in a battle of wits with my school counselor, and now I’d delivered her into the hands of a madwoman.
“I’m so sorry,” I croaked. What else was there to say? This time it was at least for real.
Dr. Agford held up her hand. “Sophie, the apology is mine to make. If I’d been honest to begin with, we wouldn’t be here now.”
“But now it’ll start over. The Tilmore Eight . . . ,” I said. “All because of us.”
“It might.” She nodded. “I’ve asked the police to be discreet. Mr. Katz has known the truth from the start. He needed references before hiring me, of course.” She patted her hair absentmindedly. I thought of the stolen wig and felt my cheeks flush. We’d been awful. Truly awful.
“Either way I have to think about whether it’s time to stop living in secret, Sophie,” Agford continued. “You have no responsibility to hide my past. You understand that, right?”
I nodded, but I didn’t understand at all. If it hadn’t been for Grace and me, Cassie Ogden would still have her peaceful new start away from the Tilmore Eight media circus. Louise Ralston would be sitting at her desk in Texas, coding software. “But no one else knows. Agent—I mean, Ms. Ralston—said it was dangerous to tell our parents.”
Dr. Ogden’s eyebrows arched. “So have you told your parents?”
I shook my head.
“I see,” she replied, tucking her lips over her teeth. She didn’t have to say what she thought. I knew it myself. We should have known Ralston was crazy from the start. No reasonable adult demands secrecy.
“When was the last time you were in touch with Ms. Ralston?”
I felt like pulling the beanbag over myself and hiding. “Last night I told the guy she has working for her—I guess he’s a private detective—that we wanted to meet with her, so . . .”
“She’s hired someone to help? Oh dear. This has gone even further than I thought. But don’t you worry, Soph. If and when she contacts you, let me know immediately. Try to set up a meeting. We’ll tell the police.” She scrawled her home phone number on an apple-shaped pad that read A+ Teacher. “Now what’s the best number to reach your parents?” she asked.
“Their cells,” I said, cringing. “They’re off the coast at AmStar’s missile test station. They will be until early tomorrow.”
“That’s right. Tonight’s the big launch, isn’t it?” Agford asked.
I hesitated. “You couldn’t, by any chance . . . hold off on calling, could you?”
“Now, Sophie, that wouldn’t be responsible. I know the launch is important to them. But they need to be informed.”
Outside, Coach Knight blew sharply on his whistle. Dr. Ogden’s eyes darted to the clock on the wall. “You’d better get to your next class,” she said. “Listen. The police will find her before she does anything rash, I’m confident of that. Don’t you worry.”
I heaved myself up from the beanbag nest. My legs felt like rubber as I wobbled to the door.
“Oh, and Sophie?”
“Yes?”
“The things you have of mine? There’s a picture of my daughter. Her cheer-team photo. She’d been so proud of it. . . .”
“Yes,” I said, burning with shame. Of course that was what the newspaper had been. “I can bring them by after school. Um, Dr. Ag—Ogden?”
“Please, call me Dr. A. That’s who I am now.” She managed a small smile.
“Dr. A, I also . . .” I almost couldn’t bring myself to form the words. “I also have a yearbook from Tilmore High, and I think it might be . . .”
The woman formerly known as Cassie Ogden drew in a sharp breath. “It’s Lila’s.” She brought her hand to her mouth. “If you could bring that too, please.”
As I opened the door and turned to leave, I took one last look at Cassie Ogden. Her smile was faint, and—for the first time—I believed it.
Chapter Twenty-four
Over and Out—Forever
I sleepwalked through the remainder of my morning. In pre-algebra, as Mr. Hawkins’s lazy eye lolled around in his head during his lecture on graphing equations, I closed my own eyes and kept them shut. I had enough confusion without wondering if Mr. Hawkins was really looking at me or not.
When the lunch bell rang, I made a beeline to the outdoor patio to find Trista.
“Sophie! I’m so glad you decided to join us,” Marissa chirped. My head yanked up just as she came at me with a right jab—but she wasn’t landing a punch, she was slapping a large yellow happy-face sticker on my shoulder. She wore three of the same. The captions read: “Look on the Bright Side! S.M.I.L.E.!” Then, in smaller print: “Society for Making Improvements in Lives Everywhere.™”
“Cute, isn’t it?” Marissa grinned. “C’mon, we’re sitting in our usual spot.” She tugged at my sleeve and pointed to S.M.I.L.E.. They waved aggressively. I considered telling her I would rather eat a plate of spiders for lunch than sit anywhere within a twenty-foot radius of her and her brigade. I couldn’t believe I’d felt sorry for them.
“I’m giving Dr. Agford back her stuff, okay?” I said. “So you can stop trying to get it.”
Marissa pretended to be offended. “Sophie, this is an antidepression outreach. You of all people should open yourself to the possibility for healing.”
“Hey,” a voice interrupted. “Turn that frown upside down!” Trista flashed an exaggerated grin as she sidled up to us and clapped her hand down heavily on Marissa’s shoulder. “Look on the bright side!” she yelled so loudly, I swore it rattled the various cause ribbons pinned to Marissa’s sweater.
I smiled at Marissa. “Trista’s helping me with my science-fair project at lunch. I’m sure S.M.I.L.E. will be better off without me,” I said. As Marissa walked away in a huff, I turned to Trista. IT IS WHAT IT IS, the letters on her T-shirt announced.
Trista’s face fell when she saw my glum expression. “Let me guess. You and Grace haven’t come to your senses yet.”
“Nope,” I said.
“And I just saw Agford shimmying past the art room, so you haven’t gone to the police either?” Trista asked.
“Remember how you said there’s always more than one explanation for something?”
Trista squinted at me. “Yeah . . .”
I glanced around the lunch crowd. S.M.I.L.E. was in earshot, fluttering through on their sticker rampage. “Come with me. We’re going to need your network login.”
“All that to avoid the media?” Trista said—too loudly—as we sat down in the computer lab. Trista had kept unusually silent as I’d told the whole story, but now she shook her head. “I don’t know, Sophie.”
Trista’s fingers flew across the keyboard. A row of smiling teens materialized on the screen, shrinking under bold, black letters: REMEMBERING THE TILMORE EIGHT. Trista pointed to a pale girl with shoulder-length brown hair and a toothy smile. I shivered when I read the caption: “Lila Ogden.”
“Anyone can get a name right.” Trista shrugged, but her eyes flicked back and forth as she scrolled and clicked, scrolled and clicked. Pictures of the families and the victims filled the screen like a collage. Two parents making their way out of a cemetery and past a throng of photographers. Teenagers holding candlelight vigils. A man sitting on a curb, head in hands.
“Can
she get two names right?” I pointed to a picture that was unmistakably of Louise Ralston, though her face was even more pinched and hollow than it had been when I’d seen her. “Louise Ralston, mother of Tilmore Eight Victim Sara Frank.”
“Must be the father’s last name,” Trista said. “And then there’s this.” She tapped the display.
My eyes widened. Pictured on the screen was a brown-haired woman whose puffy perm appeared shellacked with hairspray. It was different from Agford’s, for sure, but it was so eerily reminiscent, I felt like I could smell eau de Lysol through the screen. Cassie Ogden.
“Oh man, Sophie,” Trista finally said. She leaned back in her chair and let out a long breath. “Well, in keeping with today’s theme”—she pointed to the bright yellow smiley face on my shoulder—“on the bright side, our school counselor is not a fugitive.”
Neither of us laughed.
“So you’re returning her stuff after school?”
I nodded.
Trista patted my shoulder awkwardly. “Well, if it’d take your mind off it, maybe after . . . you want to hang out?” She shrugged as if she wasn’t really sure what that would involve, exactly. “I was going to work on my solar panel after school, but I could use some help with it,” she lied.
I was genuinely touched. A few days ago, nothing short of a tsunami could have come between Trista and her solar panel. I suppose she wasn’t really offering to abandon it altogether, but still. “Thanks. But it’s my mess, right?” I smiled.
“True,” Trista said. She wasn’t joking.
“I am worried about Ralston, though,” I said.
Trista picked up her lunch bag. “Don’t worry. If the police are on it, they probably found her already. It’ll be a done deal by the end of school today.”
For Trista, the world was simple. There were problems, and there were solutions. This problem was solved. I sure hoped she was right. I pictured the woman I knew as Agford, two years ago, tucking away her daughter’s yearbook for that time when she might be ready to look at a picture of Lila again. We’d practically led Ralston right to her—maybe even given her the permission she needed to justify doing the worst. If anything happened, I would never forgive myself.
When I came home that afternoon, I went straight to my room, wrenched open the poor red elephant’s head, and took out his new innards. I’d made up my mind. If I was going to have to face Dr. Agford again and hand over her cherished possessions, I was dragging Grace along with me to apologize. Some dark part of me actually looked forward to telling her. Ms. FBI Know-It-All couldn’t even tell the difference between a grief-stricken software programmer and a real agent.
I had rehearsed what I was going to say to Grace during my bike ride home. By the time I actually stood at her door, I’d worked myself into such a state that when Mrs. Dr. Yang opened up, all I could do was stutter.
It didn’t help that Mrs. Dr. Yang didn’t greet me with her usual smile. In fact, she’d even managed to twist her eyebrows into a frown. “Grace can’t see you today.” She folded her arms across her chest.
My insides hollowed. Had Grace told her everything?
“She’s in trouble with a capital T,” she said, raising her voice. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding as she told me about Grace’s paper on internet addiction. “I let her go to the library for an hour to do research.” She softened. “But I’m sorry, Sophie, no friends. She’ll be so disappointed to miss you.”
“That’s all right.” My throat tightened. Grace hadn’t even been upset enough about the breakup of our friendship to tell her mom? I would have even told my mom had she been home, and she wasn’t much help when it came to serious things like that. I looked at Agford’s, then back at Mrs. Dr. Yang. “Could you let her know I have something really important to tell her?”
Mrs. Dr. Yang’s gaze fell to the yearbook, wig, and papers clutched in my hands.
I gave them a nervous pat. “It’s for my relationship chi?” I offered. “You know.”
Mrs. Dr. Yang didn’t chuckle like she usually would. She looked as though she was considering bringing me into the clinic for evaluation. “I’m not really sure I do, Sophie.”
“I’d better get going!” I called out, already halfway down the steps.
Mrs. Dr. Yang stared after me, mouth open, as I tromped across the street.
Figuring a quick drop-off might make it easier for both of us, I handed Dr. Agford’s things back to her as soon as she opened the door. Her hands trembled as she took the yearbook. She fought to keep her composure. Though she’d touched up her foundation, her eyes remained puffy and red.
“Thank you, Sophie,” she said quietly. “We can let bygones be bygones, hmm?” She tilted her head. A day ago her tone would have made me shudder. Now I realized how easy it was to mistake her awkwardness for creepiness. From her story I gathered that working at Luna Vista was the first time she’d counseled kids. She was fake. Just not the kind of fake we thought she’d been.
“I can, if you can,” I said.
“If you can forgive that assembly, I can forgive anything.” Dr. Agford looked genuinely embarrassed. “Oh, I almost forgot,” Dr. Agford said before she disappeared into the house.
She reemerged in the doorway, holding out my walkie-talkie. “I was afraid your parents might give it back to you,” she explained guiltily.
As I thanked Dr. Agford, I looked up at her eyes and saw my own reflection in them. All this time she’d wanted to look out for me, the girl across the street who reminded her of the daughter she would never see again. To think how I’d repaid her.
She smiled warmly as she said good-bye and shut the door.
I looked down at the walkie-talkie. A few days ago, it had been my only lifeline. Now it was just a useless piece of plastic. I was about to dump it into Agford’s trash bin on the street when, on a whim, I clicked it on and raised it to my lips. Hidden Dragon should announce her retirement, once and for all.
“Breaker, breaker, this is Hidden Dragon,” I said. “Over and out. Forever.”
I gazed up at Grace’s and my houses side by side and listened to the lonely hiss of static. Behind them the bold colors of the fall leaves burned against the bright blue sky. Anyone else would have called it a beautiful day.
My walkie-talkie crackled, startling me.
“Sophie?” came Grace’s hesitant voice. It sounded as though she were trapped in a glass jar. “Is that you?”
Chapter Twenty-five
The Nightmare Begins
The murmur and clatter of the after-school crowd washed over me as I entered the Seashell. If it had been any other day, I would have looked for Rod. Instead I made my way directly to Grace, who was sipping a Diet Coke at our usual corner booth.
She crossed her arms as I made my way to her. I was surprised to see she wore her hair down. It hung over her uncharacteristically plain long-sleeved blue T-shirt.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“Listen—” I didn’t even know where to begin.
“I’m not going to say I’m sorry,” she announced.
“Who said you had to say you were sorry? I’m not even the one who asked to meet down here—wait, why was your walkie-talkie even on?”
Grace shrugged and nodded toward the server. “She was all, ‘Your backpack’s trying to talk to you,’ and I thought she was crazy until I realized I’d left the walkie-talkie in my bag. It must have been on standby.” She cast a glance at the groups of Luna Vista middle schoolers clustered around the other booths. “I don’t know. I guess I came to find you.”
“Really?” I said. I tried to act casual. I hadn’t dared hope that was why she’d come. My heart soared. I felt light—elated almost. “Aw, Grace—”
“I figured you needed my help,” she interrupted flatly. She shrugged again and tightened her arms around her chest.
Anger uncoiled in me like a spring. “Right,” I scoffed. “I couldn’t possibly handle anything witho
ut you.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Grace said quietly. The chatter in the café subsided for a moment. It felt like a wave pulling back to gather power before it crashed to the shore.
“Well, I don’t need your help,” I said. “I took care of it.”
Grace pressed her lips together tightly. “Yeah? I saw Agford drive by half an hour ago, so if it’s all over, you might want to tell her about it.”
“Oh, she knows.”
“She knows? Then, why . . . ?”
“She’s not Deborah Bain,” I said.
Grace sputtered out Diet Coke all over her shirt. It fizzed and settled into a stain as she sat, her mouth agape. I wasn’t even sure she could hear me as I ran down all the matching details—Ralston’s daughter, her software programming, and the alert the “bureau’s system” had triggered. “Even Agford’s phone call,” I added. “Think about it. She must have said, ‘If they fine us, we’ll take care of it.’ Not find. Agford said she was talking to her ex-husband about IRS fines for back taxes.”
Grace looked pale. She rested her forehead in both hands. “It’s like the beets all over again,” she said. “We should have seen it. But it made sense at the time, didn’t it?” she asked.
“It made sense at the time,” I repeated.
Grace ran her fingers through her hair. The fluorescent polish was flaking off, and she hadn’t bothered to retouch her nails. The night before, I had imagined her at home, carefree, flipping through magazines. But her tired eyes told a different story. She’d lied about the library and come to the Seashell. She’d been looking for me. That meant she cared.
Or did it? Ms. Gant would probably call that an assumption. Maybe Grace was just worried that I’d rat her out to her parents now that we weren’t friends. I looked out the window onto the square. The wind had kicked up, setting the entire landscape in motion. Pepper trees swayed. Brown hills rippled in the distance. Colors and textures melted together, and I couldn’t see where one thing ended and another began. That’s how it had been all along, hadn’t it? Everything had jumbled together in my “tender preteen brain,” as Agford had called it. Beet juice was blood. A knife meant murder. A school counselor was a fugitive.
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