“Yeah, me too.” Amanda pulled her hand away and strapped her purse over her shoulder. “You know, I’m really not hungry.”
“Please, don’t go.” He couldn’t let her leave, not until she’d at least promised to consider seeing a doctor. “I want to talk about it some more.”
“I don’t. Good-bye, Peter. Don’t call me.” She slid out of the booth without looking at him and practically ran to the door.
Peter sighed. Girls should really come equipped with some sort of instruction manual. Computers were so much easier.
“You still gonna eat?” the waitress asked, suddenly reappearing.
“Yeah, I guess,” Peter said dejectedly.
She dumped a plate in front of him: a veggie burger with wilted lettuce jutting out from the bun. In a brusque voice she announced, “She’ll get over it, honey. You’ll see.”
“Thanks,” Peter mumbled. But he knew better.
“So then I saw the oxygen tank, and figured that if I started a fire, they’d have to open the door.”
Noa shifted in the front passenger seat, irritated. Taylor had proven to be downright chatty once they got on the road. For someone who had initially been dodgy about sharing her story, she sure was laying it on thick now.
The kids crammed in the back of the van were riveted by her performance. Noa had wanted to step in when Taylor started talking, but couldn’t figure out how to do it politely. And she wasn’t sure the girl would have shut up, anyway—she clearly enjoyed having an audience.
Zeke was driving, staring moodily out the windshield. She’d offered to take the wheel, but he’d brusquely refused. They were already passing Joshua Tree, four hours into what would be a twelve-hour haul if they were lucky and didn’t hit any traffic. A barren landscape of desert brush and crooked cacti swept past the windows. The gray early morning light made everything look eerie, like they were passing through a bombed-out landscape. Noa snugged her hands into her sleeves and tucked her neck deeper into her hoodie. She was freezing, even though the heater was blasting.
It had taken longer than she would’ve liked to clear out the safe house, even though they’d only been there two days. The group was alternately groggy and punchy from fatigue. Noa had a hard time corralling them. As she’d closed the door, she worried that they’d left something important behind. No time to check, though; the sooner they got on the road, the better.
“So how did you set it off?” Teo asked, sounding awed.
“One of the doctor’s must’ve smoked,” Taylor said dismissively. “I found a pack of matches in the trash.”
“That was convenient,” Noa interjected, turning around to look at her.
Taylor gazed back levelly. “Yeah, I got lucky.”
Noa frowned. She didn’t believe in luck. And why would anyone have thrown out a pack of matches? In one of the patient’s rooms, no less?
She seemed to be the only one who doubted Taylor’s story, though. Daisy pressed, “Then what did you do?”
“I set one match burning on the outside of the pack and put it next to the canister. Then I turned the table on its side and dragged it across the room. When the rest of the pack caught and hit the oxygen, it made one hell of an explosion. Didn’t open the door, though, which was a bummer.”
I’ll bet, Noa thought, but this time kept it to herself. The whole stunt sounded like something that would only occur to a person with military training; how the hell had a street kid come up with that plan?
The fact that the others were oohing and aahing over her resourcefulness only made it worse. Noa shifted in her seat, jamming her knees against the dashboard as she slumped down. It was funny; she hadn’t had this reaction to any of the other kids they’d saved, but something about Taylor rubbed her the wrong way.
“Then the door clicked open, so I went down the hall and checked the other rooms, where I found Matt and her.” Taylor gestured toward the girl who was laid out on a makeshift mattress along one side of the van. She still hadn’t regained consciousness, so they’d kept her in the hospital gown and covered her with blankets. Noa had examined her, but couldn’t tell what was wrong, exactly. The girl didn’t have any incisions, or other marks indicating she’d been operated on. Which was puzzling. Since Noa had apparently been their first successful test subject, wouldn’t Project Persephone be trying to replicate what they’d done to her? In the other raids, every single kid had a scar in the exact same spot she did; none of them, however, had experienced the same symptoms. Which was really, truly weird. Why was she the only one who had reacted to the surgery that way? What had they done differently with her?
Or was she different for some other reason? At the thought, she shuddered. Zeke glanced over and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something. Without meeting her eyes, though, he clamped it shut again and focused back on the road.
Taylor sounded like she was wrapping it up—finally, Noa couldn’t help thinking. “. . . so we were going down all these halls, and it was getting smokier and smokier. And then we found you guys.”
“Pretty smart, blowing up that tank,” Teo said admiringly.
“Well, I grew up on army bases. My dad died in Afghanistan, and my mom died of cancer,” Taylor said matter-of-factly. “Growing up like that, you learn a few things.”
“Which base?” Noa asked, swiveling to face her again.
“Why?” Taylor seemed nonplussed.
“Just curious,” Noa said, keeping her tone nonchalant.
“Fort Huachuca,” Taylor replied smoothly. “At least, that’s where I was when Dad died. But we moved all over. Are you a military brat too?”
“Nope.”
“I figured.” Judging by her tone, that was meant to be an insult.
“And you don’t remember anything they did to you?”
“You already asked me that,” Taylor said sharply. “No.”
“Huh. Because almost everyone remembers something,” Noa continued evenly. “Surgeons standing over them, bright lights . . .”
“I remember this nasty nurse who kept jabbing me with needles,” Crystal offered. “Every time I woke up.”
“Yeah, me too,” Remo chimed in.
“Guess I’m lucky I don’t remember, then,” Taylor said, with what sounded to Noa like false sympathy. “But whatever they did, Matt and I seem to be okay, right?”
“Right,” Daisy said. “Thank God.”
The rest murmured their assent.
“So these people we’re going to see. They’ll be able to help her, right?” Taylor gestured to the unconscious girl.
“Sure,” Crystal offered. “She’ll be fine. Monica and Roy—”
“We don’t share information about them,” Noa interrupted sharply.
Crystal looked startled, but she clamped her jaw shut.
“Oh,” Taylor said. “I get it. If you told me you’d have to kill me, right?” She burst into laughter.
And there it is again, Noa thought. Taylor seemed uncommonly interested in finding out more about the Forsythes. Which also wasn’t the usual reaction of kids they’d saved. They either wanted to return to wherever they’d been snatched from, or to join Persefone’s Army. But they rarely asked a lot of questions; it wasn’t something kids who’d lived on the streets were conditioned to do. They knew better.
Not Taylor, though. And the more she pushed for details, the more Noa resisted giving them to her. The Forsythes were the only reason she was still alive. If they hadn’t saved Zeke, he never would have been around to rescue her. And within days, she probably would’ve ended up back in that terrifying operating room.
She glanced sideways at him. Zeke’s jaw was set, his full lips pressed into a tight line. Like he was the one with the right to be angry. The night before last he’d tried to kiss her. It felt like forever ago.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and Noa turned to find Taylor staring squarely at her. As their eyes met, Taylor’s mouth split in a wide grin. She pointedly shifted her gaze to
Zeke and reached out, laying a hand on his forearm. He started at the contact, then relaxed. “I really have to thank you,” Taylor said in a low voice, as if it was just the two of them in the van. “You saved my life.”
“It was nothing,” Zeke said. “No problem.”
But a red flush spread out of his jacket collar, reaching all the way to his cheeks. Seeing it, Noa scowled. She sank even lower in her seat and closed her eyes. The others could think what they wanted. She’d learned to trust her gut, and she had a bad feeling about this new girl.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
It turned out that Mason wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Peter had spent hours listening to the tapes. The bugs were sound activated, clicking on whenever they detected noise. Unfortunately, 90 percent of what they’d picked up was just that: noise. Mason making coffee. Mason tapping away at a keyboard. Mason brushing his teeth for precisely two minutes, twice a day. His dentist must be so proud.
The few phone conversations he had were extraordinarily one-sided, his end consisting mainly of curt “yesses” and “nos.” One had initially excited Peter, because Mason was being unusually talkative. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lengthy discussion of seams with his tailor.
The mirrored computer still hadn’t produced anything, either. Mason basically used his desktop to check the stock market and read the Wall Street Journal. He was probably the only person on the planet who didn’t surf at all.
Obviously, Mason’s illegal business was conducted away from home. Three hours in, Peter was ready to give up and move on to the financials. At least then he’d be typing at a keyboard, which would provide the illusion that he was accomplishing something.
An alert suddenly popped up on his screen. Peter frowned: He’d set it to ping whenever Mason did anything new on his computer. He clicked over, bracing himself for more deathly boring financial articles.
His eyebrows shot up when he saw that, for the first time, a Word document was being opened. This was new. Peter took a gulp of soda from the can on his desk and crossed his arms, waiting. He’d be able to read whatever Mason was typing in real time. Hopefully Mason planned on unburdening himself, writing a lengthy confession of all the terrible things he’d done.
Instead, a message appeared across the screen in all caps. When Peter read it, his blood froze in his veins. It said, HI PETER. HOW DO YOU LIKE MY PLACE?
“Amanda! What are you doing?”
Amanda blinked, disoriented. Her legs felt cramped, and her neck was stiff. Her mind was fuzzy, too, like she was still dreaming. . . .
But she wasn’t, she suddenly realized with a jolt. She was sitting on the floor of the Runaway Coalition office, knees tucked beneath her, head propped against Mrs. Latimar’s desk chair. The files she’d dug out of the bottom drawer, the secret ones she wasn’t supposed to know about, were splayed out like a fan on the floor around her.
And Mrs. Latimar was standing in the doorway, staring down at her in horror. “Where did you find those?”
“Um, I . . . They were . . .” As her mind spun, trying to come up with a plausible explanation for how half a dozen files that had been locked in a drawer happened into her possession, Amanda frantically tried to gather them up. Papers spilled out of them, mixing all the records together. Amanda’s heart sank as she realized it must have happened again—she barely even remembered arriving at the Runaway Coalition that day, and had no memory at all of digging the files out of the drawer. And now, she’d finally been caught.
She was on the verge of stammering out an apology when suddenly something struck her: She wasn’t in the wrong here. Drawing herself up, Amanda gathered all her fury and narrowed her eyes. “I think the real question, Mrs. Latimar, is what are you doing with these?”
Mrs. Latimar reared back visibly. “What do you mean? I’m the director, I’m in charge of maintaining the files. I—”
“So why were these files specifically set aside?” Amanda demanded. “I know the filing system better than anyone; I helped design it. And none of these were in the right place.”
“That’s really none of your concern,” Mrs. Latimar said, but her voice wavered.
“Really? Because I’ll tell you what concerns me, Mrs. Latimar. It concerns me that apparently you’re selling these kids out, giving information they trust us with to people who slice them open and experiment on them!”
Amanda stood there, her shoulders heaving.
“How do you know about that?” Mrs. Latimar’s voice was just above a whisper, her face white with shock.
“Does it matter?” Amanda tossed back, but deep down she had a sinking feeling. Belatedly, she realized that she probably shouldn’t have let Mrs. Latimar know just how deep her knowledge of Project Persephone went. Sharing that put her in terrible danger.
Mrs. Latimar stumbled forward and fell into the chair behind her desk. She sank her head into trembling hands. “Oh, Amanda,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “You have no idea, child.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea,” Amanda said, but her bluster was fading.
Mrs. Latimar lifted her head and stared at her. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she suddenly looked much older. “What they’ll do to me . . . to you!”
Amanda squared her shoulders. “I don’t care,” she said. “What they’re doing is wrong. Someone has to stop them.” After a beat, she continued, “And I can’t believe you helped them!”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Mrs. Latimar said heavily. “They would hurt her. They promised not to harm her, as long as I helped them.”
“Hurt who?” Amanda’s mind spun. She’d heard rumors that Mrs. Latimar had started the Runaway Coalition because her daughter had ended up on the streets as a teenager. But those same rumors all claimed that the daughter had died some sort of horrible death; losing her had inspired Mrs. Latimar to try and prevent other kids from falling victim to the same fate.
“My granddaughter.” Mrs. Latimar managed a weak smile. “She’s a little younger than you.”
“I didn’t know you had a granddaughter,” Amanda said, surprised.
“I don’t tell many people about her,” Mrs. Latimar said softly. “My daughter . . . Well, we weren’t close, not at the end, at least.” Her voice lowered further as she continued, “Clementine is the last link I have to her.”
“And they threatened her?” Amanda said. She was still angry, but the woman looked so bereft, she almost felt sorry for her. “Why didn’t you go to the police?” she demanded.
“I did,” Mrs. Latimar said defensively. “Of course that’s the very first thing I did. But you can imagine how they reacted when I told them that my granddaughter was being threatened by some strange man who seemed to know everything about me.”
“They thought you were crazy,” Amanda said thoughtfully.
“Of course they did,” Mrs. Latimar scoffed. “And I can’t say I blame them.”
“So where is she now?” Amanda asked. “Clementine, I mean?”
“She’s in a private boarding school in New Hampshire,” Mrs. Latimar replied after a moment.
“And how do you know for sure that she’s in danger?”
“They send me photos. All the time, at least one a week.” Mrs. Latimar shuddered. “And other things—copies of her class schedule, her progress reports . . . last week I even received a lock of her hair in the mail!” As she spoke, she became increasingly agitated. “I wanted to tell the authorities, but Mr. Mason convinced me they wouldn’t be able to help. These people can get to her, no matter what I do. And the police would be powerless to stop them!”
Amanda opened her mouth to argue, but she remembered what Peter had told her. About how he and Noa had managed to summon the FBI to a secret lab in southeastern Rhode Island. How they’d found victims of Project Persephone’s experiments there, their bodies horribly mutilated and stuffed in coolers. And yet, in the end, it had all been covered up. Mrs. Latimar was right, she realized; however t
hey’d managed it, Pike & Dolan appeared able to operate above the law. “So you started giving them files,” Amanda said slowly. “When?”
Mrs. Latimar focused on the floor in front of her, as if afraid to meet Amanda’s eyes. She said heavily, “Two years ago. I thought . . . At first, they only wanted one or two names. I thought that would be all. But then, they kept pushing for more and more. And every time I threatened to stop, they sent me another photo of Clementine. And the money—”
“What money?”
“We had started receiving large donations from an anonymous donor. I thought that maybe all my fundraising efforts had finally paid off. We were in bad shape. I was almost forced to close our doors. But the money saved us . . . and then I found out it was coming from them. Mr. Mason said that if I told anyone, revealed anything . . . they’d say I was part of it. I would go to jail, and never see Clementine again.”
“You are part of it,” Amanda snapped, her rage flaring again. “You know what they’re doing to those kids, don’t you? You traded in dozens of lives, maybe more, to save your granddaughter.”
“I know,” Mrs. Latimar said wretchedly. “God, Amanda, don’t you think this is tearing me up? I barely sleep nights.” Her face crumpled. Tears slipped out of her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “So sorry. I was just terrified for Clementine.”
Amanda battled conflicting emotions. In spite of everything, she had a nearly overpowering urge to wrap her arms around the woman and comfort her. Mrs. Latimar had been scared for her granddaughter’s life, and rightly so. A man like Mason wouldn’t blink at dragging her off to one of P&D’s illegal labs. But still, all those other kids whose lives she’d traded in exchange . . . It was unforgivable.
Still, if it had been her brother, Marcus, whose life was threatened . . . would she have done the same?
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