Perfect Cover

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  By the time Jack got there, I’d taken off my boots and was pretending to buff my nails.

  He looked from me back up to the veranda. “You jumped.”

  I nodded.

  “Cheater.”

  I could feel the smile spread across my face. Ah, the sweet taste of victory.

  Gallantly, he walked around to my side of the car and opened the door for me. I snorted. He ignored me.

  After he’d settled himself in the driver’s seat, he turned to me. “So,” he said. “Where are we going?”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say his dad’s office, but something stopped me. I wasn’t the first one to use Jack to get to Peyton. If I asked to go there directly, who knew what kind of memories I was going to stir up? The last thing I wanted was for him to compare me to Chloe or Brooke.

  “I don’t know where we’re going,” I said slowly, “but I know what we’re doing.”

  Jack waited.

  “Actually,” I said, divinely inspired, “I know what you’re doing.”

  “What I’m doing?”

  “It involves a Xerox machine and your butt,” I said. He blanched, and I continued. “Such is the price of defeat.”

  “You want me to xerox my butt?”

  I shrugged. “It beats this place. Where’s the nearest copy shop?”

  Jack, still unsure whether I was mentally unstable or just highly unpredictable, turned the car on and put it in drive. “I’ve got someplace else in mind,” he said.

  “Does it have a copy machine?” I asked. Translation: is it your dad’s office?

  Jack didn’t answer. Instead, he smirked and pulled onto the road. “You know, Ev,” he said, “this obsession with my butt is getting old.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Code Word: Pressure

  “Where are we?” I had a feeling we were in the underground parking complex attached to the law firm, but I asked the question anyway. “That’s like the fifth gate we’ve gone through.”

  Jack shrugged. “Security.”

  “This must be the most secured butt-copying facility of all time.”

  Jack whipped his car into a parking space. “It’s my dad’s office,” he said. “They’re kind of anal about security.” He smiled. “Pun intended.”

  We got out of the car, and Jack punched a code into a panel on the wall, and the glass doors slid open for us.

  “Evening, Jack.”

  “Evening, Mike.” Jack preempted my question. “He’s one of the night watch. We have full-time security.”

  “What are you guys securing here? Nuclear weapons?” I could practically feel Chloe (or whoever was on the listening end of my feed) groaning at that question, but it’s what I would have asked if I hadn’t known anything about Peyton at all.

  Jack shook his head. “It’s a law firm. We have some high-profile clients.” He whipped out a key, and once we were in the elevator, he used it to access the top floor of the building.

  “If it’s so secure,” I said, “why do you have a key?”

  Jack stared straight ahead as he answered. “It’s a family thing. My dad gave me one the day I turned sixteen.”

  “Does he expect you to join the biz?” I asked.

  Jack’s face hardened. “Something like that.”

  Zee could have read more into his expression than I could (and, I thought, she probably would if my necklace was catching all of this on tape), but I got the feeling that Jack wasn’t exactly anxious to take over the evil empire. Maybe that was why he used his access to bring girls to Peyton to do inappropriate things with copy machines.

  The elevator doors opened, and I was shocked that everything looked so normal. There was a large (and incredibly posh) reception desk in front of a glass wall that had the firm’s name embossed on it in scripty letters. The ceilings were high; the floors were wood. Jack immediately took a left, and I followed. I’d memorized the layout, so I knew that we were moving conveniently toward both the copy room and his father’s office.

  As we entered the copy room, Jack narrowed his eyes at me. “If you tell anyone about this,” he said, “I will kill you.”

  He sounded mockingly matter-of-fact, but given our surroundings, I couldn’t help but take his words a wee bit seriously.

  Jack bowed then, and without further ado he approached the copier, turned around, and went to work.

  My hand went automatically to my neck, covering the necklace. No one on the Squad needed to see this.

  As it turned out, though, Jack copied his butt like a professional. He hopped up on the machine, and with a little maneuvering, slid his pants down in the back.

  I averted my eyes, even though I couldn’t see anything.

  The next thing I heard was the sound of the copier. Moments later, Jack was back by my side. “The price of defeat,” he said, handing me the Xerox.

  I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “You take defeat so well,” I said, looking at him out of the corners of my eyes. “You must be used to it.”

  “Now, Ev,” Jack said. “That was almost a compliment.”

  I shrugged, letting my hand fall away from the necklace.

  “Almost is about as much as you’re going to get, Butt Boy.”

  “You know,” he said. “You’re really not very likeable.”

  “Color me heartbroken.”

  It took about two seconds for the smirk to take hold of his face, and I knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Your turn.” He looked toward the copier.

  “I won,” I said. “Winner doesn’t pay the cost of defeat.”

  I was feeling pretty cocky, but then he said the three words that put the nails in the coffin of my dignity.

  “I dare you.”

  I have this thing about dares. It is physically impossible for me to turn one down. My cheek twitched, and I glared at him.

  “I double-dog dare you.”

  “Fine,” I grumbled, overcome with the urge to punch him in the stomach. “But that means you still have to pay the cost of defeat.”

  “And what might that be?”

  Something that would get me inside his dad’s office. What would get me inside his dad’s office?

  “I’ll let you know.”

  For the sake of my own dignity, I will not go into any of the details of what came to pass in the next few minutes. Along with taking things in and out of my bra, photocopying my butt in a stealthy manner was not a skill I possessed in any abundance. It figured—tonight was the one time I wasn’t wearing a skirt.

  Eventually, however, I managed it. Jack, being the gentleman that he was, turned around completely.

  As I walked over to hand him the finished product, all I could think was The things I do for my country.

  “So what’s the price of defeat?” Jack asked, the corners of his lips twitching madly.

  My mind whirled. I needed to think of something that would (a) get me into his dad’s office, and (b) make him pay for my loss of dignity.

  The answer came to me then, and my own mouth pulled up in a smile that was nothing short of evil. “You got a scanner?”

  Five minutes later, we were in his dad’s office, and Jack was composing an email.

  “Who am I sending this to again?” he asked.

  “You know who,” I said. “And you know what to say.”

  “Claiming this is a picture of Prince William’s butt has got to be illegal.” Jack stalled for time.

  “Yeah. Butt forgery. I’m sure it’s a felony.” I was implacable, and Jack groaned as he typed in the names of his admirers from earlier that night.

  “Do I have to sign it?” he asked.

  I took pity on him. After all, I was inside his father’s office. I could afford to have some mercy. “No,” I said. “It’ll be coming from your email account. I think that will suffice.”

  He attached the scanned copy of his butt and hit send.

  “Remind me never to lose to you again,” he said.

  “My hea
rt bleeds for you,” I said. “Really.”

  While he’d been typing, I’d been messing with my gel bra. I now had the bug in my hand. It was small, nearly invisible, and equipped to cling to any surface. All I had to do was find one. As this thought raced through my head, the phone in the office began to ring, and I visibly jumped.

  “Do I make you nervous?” Jack asked.

  “No,” I said, torn between being scornful and coming up with an excuse for my jumpiness, lest I tip him off to the fact that I had ulterior motives for what had, in all truth, been one of the best nights I’d had since my family had moved to Bayport. “I have phone fear.”

  “Phone fear.” Jack repeated my words, no tone whatsoever in his voice, but his lips curled up. Reflexively, my lips mimicked the motion, and even though he didn’t move, it suddenly felt like the two of us were standing really close together.

  The phone rang again and again, and with each ring, Jack’s eyes bored deeper and deeper into mine. I silently begged the phone to stop ringing. If it didn’t, something might happen here. Something big.

  Something unexpected.

  Something new.

  Heeding my wishes, the phone stopped ringing. For a split second, there was silence, and then the answering machine picked up. “John. It’s Alan. I need to talk to you. It’s about Jack.”

  At first, I was disturbed by the fact that someone was calling the evil law firm to talk about Jack. The two of us were standing mere feet apart, my entire body felt flushed, and Jack had never averted his gaze.

  “Who was that?” I asked, my throat constricting with something I couldn’t quite describe.

  “My uncle. He and my father don’t get along.” Jack didn’t offer any more explanation, and in the back of my head, somewhere behind my mind’s acknowledgement of the way my skin was humming and the rising ball of lovely dread in my stomach, I realized that Jack’s uncle sounded very familiar.

  “So,” Jack said.

  “So,” I repeated.

  He inched toward me, and the look in his eyes made my heart jump.

  All thoughts of voices gone, I stepped backward. Slowly, he advanced on me, and I backed up until my shoulders were pressed against the paneled wall. Trying to concentrate on something other than Jack’s lips, which were moving closer to mine by the second, I pressed my hand firmly against the wall, finally slipping the bug I’d been sent here to plant into place.

  Mission complete.

  “Care to share your thoughts with the class, Ev?” Jack asked. His face was so close to mine that I could feel his breath on my cheeks.

  My thoughts were as follows.

  He was going to kiss me.

  I wanted him to kiss me.

  I hated that I wanted him to kiss me. How one of those girls could I get?

  Kissing him would be wrong. He was my mark. I was using him.

  The entire Squad would probably watch this footage on repeat as soon as April’s party was over.

  In that moment, I made three impulsive decisions.

  I grabbed the charm around my neck and twisted it, turning the camera off completely.

  I leaned forward and beat him to the punch, planting the world’s biggest, longest, hottest kiss on his mouth.

  And then I punched him in the stomach, turned, and ran. It wasn’t until I got far enough out of the office and away from Jack that my mind started working again and I realized why the voice on the answering machine had sounded so familiar. I’d heard it before. It was a voice that had told us to infiltrate and bug the building I was standing in now.

  Jack’s uncle was our Charlie.

  CHAPTER 33

  Code Word: Fire

  Despite my postrealization, postkiss stupor, I made it out the big glass doors and into the elevator before Jack realized what (or rather, who) had hit him. Thanks to my nimble fingers pressing the “close” button with great fervor, the elevator doors closed just as Jack started to come after me, and I made it out of the building and into the parking garage before I realized that I was completely and utterly screwed.

  I hadn’t driven here. Jack had. Jack, whose father was the head of the evil law firm. Jack, whose uncle was apparently the voice behind our orders. I shook my head to clear it. What was with me and forgetting about Jack driving? And I called myself a secret agent. I ran out of the garage, knowing that Jack wouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes behind me.

  Jack, who was quite possibly the best kisser known to womankind.

  “Need a ride?”

  If you’d told me that I would ever, ever, under any circumstances be glad to see Chloe Larson’s little red car, complete with an eye-rolling Chloe in the driver’s seat, I would have suggested you get your head checked. But there she was, and I wasn’t about to look a gift cheerleader in the mouth. I ran to the car like a madwoman, flung open the door, and jumped in.

  “Go,” I said. “Go, go, go!”

  Thrill Driver that she was, Chloe needed no more encouragement, and seconds later, we were flying down the street. Fearing for my life, I grabbed for the seat belt.

  “How’d you know?” I asked. Forget what I said about the whole looking the gift cheerleader in the mouth thing. My mind was doing some quick mental additions, and the fact that Chloe was Cheerleader Ex Number Two on the Jack front had me more than a little suspicious. Had she been planning on crashing our nondate? Or had she heard what I’d heard on the answering machine and thought to get me out of there fast? “And what were you doing so close to Peyton?”

  Chloe was silent for a moment, and then she fessed up. “When your video feed went dead, I got a little worried.”

  Back up there, Cheer-Girl, I thought. Chloe? Worried about me? Was this supposed to be one of those “what’s wrong with this picture?” quizzes I used to do in the waiting room at the dentist’s office? What had happened to Chloe Your-Mere-Presence-Offends-Me Larson? What had happened to all of her issues?

  “And besides,” Chloe continued. “You alone at Peyton with Jack?” She rolled her eyes. “You couldn’t even handle standing next to him at the party. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re kind of new to the whole boy thing, and I thought someone needed to be here to do damage control when you had the big meltdown.”

  I read between the lines: ninety percent of Chloe had been here for the Toby-Makes-a-Fool-Out-of-Herself show (and possibly to pick up the Jack pieces after it all went down), and ten percent of her had been vaguely concerned that I might be dead or something because I’d turned off my necklace cam.

  At this point, a ninety-ten split with Chloe was about as much as I could possibly ask for.

  “I did not have a meltdown,” I grumbled.

  Chloe didn’t say anything.

  “I didn’t!” I insisted. Sharing an incredibly impassioned kiss with someone and then belting them in the stomach and pulling a runaway bride (minus the bride part) was not a meltdown.

  “Did he kiss you?” Chloe’s voice was matter-of-fact, but her eyes were just a little bit lethal.

  “Ummm…no.” Technically, I had kissed him.

  Chloe let out a breath. “Maybe the twins are slipping,” she said. “They were positive that he was going in for the kiss before the feed died.”

  I stuck as close to the truth as possible. “I sort of…errr…” I took a deep breath of my own. “I punched him in the stomach.”

  “Are you demented?”

  I took stock of the situation. I’d just kissed my mark, who happened to be the most eligible bachelor at my high school, the son of an evil lawyer whose name was constantly on the top of CIA watch lists, the nephew of the voice behind our operation, and the ex-boyfriend of not one, but two blood-thirsty varsity cheerleaders. And then I’d punched him in the stomach and run.

  I had to face the facts. For once, Chloe’s insult was right on target: I was obviously completely demented.

  To distract her from that oh-so-apparent fact, I turned to the portion of this twisted equation that didn’t have me s
till going disgustedly weak at the knees.

  “Jack’s uncle.” That was all I got out, all I was able to say.

  “What about him?”

  If Chloe knew something, she wasn’t telling, but that didn’t enlighten me at all as to whether or not she knew, because even if she did, Chloe would make me dig for it.

  “His voice.” Why was it I could only manage two-word sentences? Was this some kind of postkiss affliction?

  “What about it?” Chloe wasn’t giving an inch.

  This time, I tried for three words. “I recognized it.”

  I half expected her to say “what about it?” but she didn’t. Instead, without even looking at me, she said, “No, you didn’t.”

  The way she said it made me even more convinced that I had.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “No.” Chloe’s voice was sharper this time. “You didn’t.”

  Sure, I thought. I didn’t recognize the voice, just like I didn’t kiss Jack. A lie for a lie. When Chloe turned off the highway a second later, I realized that we weren’t headed back to the party, or toward my house. I couldn’t quite imagine her being all gung ho on girl bonding time given the mounting tension in the car, so I was pretty sure we weren’t going back to her house for a sleepover. That didn’t leave too many options.

  “Where are we going?”

  Chloe didn’t answer. Now that I’d told her that Jack hadn’t kissed me, and she’d refused to offer me any real answers to the questions I wanted to ask about Jack’s uncle, I had ceased to matter and was more or less invisible.

  “Chloe!”

  “Where do you think we’re going?” Chloe asked. “While you were flirting—badly, I might add—with Jack Peyton, I was at the party, monitoring your mission and tying up ends on the Infotech case.”