The Deceivers

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Finn pushed the door farther open so he could see, too.

  He could tell right away that no one was in the office. But the office was completely destroyed. The pillows of the couch were ripped and tossed all over the place, shedding their stuffing. The desk drawers were overturned and spilling out onto the floor. The desk itself, which had seemed as huge and solid as a rock before, had been split in half, and sagged all the way down to the floor.

  Only the giant election signs had been left intact.

  No, they’re different, too, Finn realized.

  On every one of them, the outer layer calling for Judge Morales’s reelection had been peeled off. Now all of the enormous signs showed the Mayor’s confident grin and the instructions VOTE FOR ROGER MAYHEW!

  Chess fumbled for the microphone in his T-shirt pocket.

  “I’ve got to tell the Natalies,” he said.

  Emma grabbed his hand and stopped him.

  “It’ll only scare them,” she said. “They’re already afraid. Let’s figure out what this means, first.”

  “Is this how someone is fighting the evil Judge?” Chess asked dazedly. He pointed toward the row of Roger Mayhew signs. “Does this mean for sure that he’s the good guy in the house?”

  “If this is what the Judge’s office looks like, what’s going on in the rest of the house?” Emma asked.

  “Oh no, Natalie—” Chess wailed.

  Finn ran over to the broken desk. He reached under it, and . . . yes! He could still feel an angel’s wing; he could still feel the button hidden in the carved wood. He gazed around for the security camera projection on the wall, but it wasn’t there.

  “Up,” Emma said, pointing toward the ceiling.

  Finn craned his neck.

  Above them, he could see a scene of dozens—maybe hundreds—of people in fancy dresses and tuxedos. It made Finn dizzy that he had to look up but the camera was looking down; he could mostly just see the tops of people’s heads. Everything felt topsy-turvy. But the people were laughing and talking and drinking from shimmery goblets. They stood on shiny floors under glowing chandeliers; they all looked like they believed everything was fine. No—everything was wonderful. They were having the time of their lives.

  “That’s the wrong scene,” Chess gasped. “We need the basement, where Natalie went.”

  “That is the basement,” Emma said. “Or what used to be the basement. Look.”

  She reached under the broken desk to guide the camera. The viewpoint flowed backward, past the party scene into shadows. A glaring light appeared—maybe because someone had swept a curtain aside? The curtain fell back into place, except for a thin crack where it didn’t meet the wall completely. That left just enough light so Finn could see: Now the security camera showed the area of the basement by the furnace and the closet where Chess, Emma, and Finn had hidden. The whole area was now closed off from the rest of the room by a navy blue, floor-to-ceiling velvet curtain. Finn could still hear the hum of chatter and the clink of glasses from beyond the curtain, but he couldn’t actually see the party.

  “Okay, Emma, you’re right,” Finn said. “Now, back to the party—”

  Just then someone stepped out of the basement closet: a man carrying an unconscious woman. A very familiar unconscious woman.

  “There’s the bad guy again with Ms. Morales!” Finn exclaimed. “Yay! Now we can rescue everyone and find his lever and escape! We’re going home!”

  Fifty-Nine

  Emma

  But I don’t understand, Emma thought.

  How could they rescue anyone when there was still so much they didn’t know?

  Beside her, Chess muttered, “We’ve got to tell both Natalies.” He yanked the tiny microphone from his pocket, but then he dropped it to the floor. Were his hands shaking that badly?

  The man in the basement laid Ms. Morales on the floor and reached back into the closet. He pulled out something that looked like a bunch of orange frills and began wrapping it around Ms. Morales.

  “Is that a dress?” Emma asked. “Why would he put a dress over her exercise clothes?”

  Maybe there was an unusual sound out in the party-room part of the basement that was too faint for the Greystone kids to hear. Something made the man crouched over Ms. Morales raise his head and peer toward the crack in the curtain. Now, for the first time, his face was visible.

  Emma gasped. Chess froze, even as he reached for the fallen microphone.

  “That’s the cleaner guy who stole our lever!” Finn exploded. “Ace Two!”

  Emma’s brain began running a million miles a minute.

  That dress . . . That cleaner returning now, and hiding with Ms. Morales right by the party . . . Who’s planning to meet them? And why? And where’s our lever? Maybe someone will hide Mom and Joe behind that curtain, too. . . . How do we get to them?

  What if Chess was right, and Mayor Mayhew was the one they could trust? The one who might help them escape?

  Emma’s brain might have been racing faster than usual, but it was like a rat in a maze, running down one dead-end path after another, then constantly having to backtrack.

  “I don’t like that dress he’s making Ms. Morales wear,” Finn said. “She’s not even awake!”

  “No, I don’t like it either,” Emma agreed. Why couldn’t she understand anything?

  “I—” Chess began.

  But before he could say another word, Finn jumped back from the desk and cried, “What?”

  Emma whipped her gaze back to the scene on the ceiling. A muscular man in dark clothes stepped out from the closet behind the cleaner. The man seemed to be trying to tiptoe, but the cleaner turned his head, starting to look back. Muscle Man swung something that looked a little like a shorter, oddly shaped baseball bat. He knocked the cleaner to the side, then slid an arm around Ms. Morales’s shoulders and began dragging her back toward the closet. But maybe she was more alert than she’d seemed, because suddenly she reached up and grabbed the bat, trying to yank it from the muscular man’s grip.

  “No, no, stop!” the muscular man whispered. “You don’t understand! Don’t you see—”

  He glanced around frantically. Was he worried the cleaner would spring back up and attack them both? Was he afraid someone from beyond the curtain would hear them?

  Emma couldn’t make sense of anything. The man swinging his head around gave her the best view yet of his face, and . . . was she seeing double? The muscular man’s face looked exactly like the cleaner’s.

  “Oh!” she squealed. “That guy’s from the other world! He’s . . . he’s the security guard our Mr. Mayhew hired to watch over our house!”

  From the floor, Ms. Morales struggled to get control of the bat, but the security guard jerked it away from her. No—it wasn’t a bat.

  “And that’s our lever!” Finn cried.

  A split second later, Emma heard gunfire.

  Sixty

  Chess

  For a nightmarish moment, Chess thought the gunfire was from the guard shooting the cleaner or the cleaner shooting the guard—or, even worse, one of them shooting Ms. Morales. Then he saw the guard, the cleaner, and Ms. Morales all lift their heads toward the curtain, and he understood: The gunfire was on the other side of the curtain, out in the party.

  And that was even more nightmarish.

  “Natalie’s down there!” Chess cried. He crashed past Emma and Finn and ran back into the office closet, dashing toward the secret passageway.

  “Chess, wait!” Emma cried behind him. But he barely heard her.

  “Come with me!” he shouted back over his shoulder. But he didn’t turn around to make sure Emma and Finn followed. Or maybe it was safer for them to stay in the Judge’s office?

  Nowhere in this house is safe. That’s why we’ve all got to leave. . . .

  As he sped through the secret passageways—past where they’d lingered before, toward the spiral staircase down to the basement—Chess heard screams through both of the earbuds stuffed
into his ears.

  “Natalie?” he called urgently. “Tell me you didn’t get shot. Tell me you’re hiding somewhere and you’re safe. . . .”

  Then he remembered that his microphone was still on the floor in the Judge’s office—in his panic, he’d forgotten he dropped it.

  “Natalie, are you all right?” he heard one girl call to the other, but he couldn’t tell which one it was. He was too rattled to remember which ear held which girl’s earbud.

  “Natalie? Answer!”

  Left earbud, Chess thought. Right earbud, please answer. Please, please, please, please . . .

  Then he heard a crunch through one of the earbuds—the exact sound a tiny microphone might make if it fell and someone crushed it underfoot.

  He ran faster.

  A new voice emerged from the agonizing screams coming through his earbud: Mayor Mayhew on a PA system commanding, “Everyone. Please remain calm. We have the gunman in custody now. Stay flat on the ground, facedown, while we search for any accomplices. . . .”

  See? Chess told himself. This Mr. Mayhew can handle even a gunman and stay calm. If he’s the person in this house who can help us, he’ll get us out of here safely.

  Chess reached the spiral staircase and sped down. But the route before him split, one door and keypad to the right, another set to the left.

  I’ll go with whichever door the Mayor’s code opens, Chess decided.

  It was the door to the left. Chess raced down a long, narrow passageway and turned a corner.

  This isn’t how we came before, is it? Chess wondered. He reached a sliding panel left half-open, and understood: No, Natalie was leading us through her mom’s passageway. This route leads to the closet Emma, Finn, and I hid in, the same closet the cleaner walked through after he stole our lever.

  Did that mean that the lever thief was connected with Mayor Mayhew?

  But Other-Natalie’s grandma knew about that closet and its lever, too. . . .

  Chess stepped past the sliding panel. The closet door before him was open only a crack, and he peeked out. He was indeed facing the area behind the velvet curtain, not the party room where the gunfire had sounded.

  And where Natalie would be . . .

  Chess tried to make out the dim shapes on the floor before him. Three people were still struggling to gain control of the lever: Ms. Morales, the cleaner in the brown uniform, and the Ace Private Security guard Mr. Mayhew had hired in the other world. The security guard was whispering, “Susanna Morales, I’m here to help you! I followed this other man who trespassed at the Greystones’ house—your ex-husband hired me to guard it, and—”

  “Where am I?” Ms. Morales moaned.

  “She doesn’t need to know,” the cleaner hissed. “She needs to go back to sleep.” Something gleamed in his hand—a needle, maybe? Was it attached to a syringe?

  “Watch out!” Chess cried.

  He meant to warn Ms. Morales, but she was so groggy that the Ace Security guard reacted first. He reached out and punched the cleaner. The cleaner fell forward, his head clunking against Ms. Morales’s.

  Silence. Both Ms. Morales and the cleaner stopped moving.

  “Oh no—I knocked them both out?” the guard muttered. He felt for a pulse on both Ms. Morales’s neck and the cleaner’s. He nodded approvingly—clearly they were both still alive. He scooped Ms. Morales’s body into his arms and kicked the syringe out of the hand of the unconscious cleaner.

  Between them, the lever slid to the ground as if the guard had completely forgotten it.

  I’ve got to grab that, Chess told himself. Before the guard sees it . . .

  But the guard was already turning back toward the closet. Did he know Chess was there? Had he heard Chess’s warning?

  Before Chess could decide what to do, someone stepped past the curtain blocking off the party room, and the guard whirled in that direction.

  “Excellent work. You’re right on time.”

  It was the Mayor.

  Chess saw the guard’s body sag with relief, even as he held on to Ms. Morales.

  “Roger, you would not believe how happy I am to see you right now,” the guard began babbling. “I don’t have a clue what’s going on, but I can tell you exactly what happened. After . . . what are all those people screaming about? Where did they come from? I thought this house was completely empty when I arrived, but—”

  “You do not address me as ‘Roger,’” Mayor Mayhew snapped. “It’s ‘Mayor.’ Or, very soon, ‘Governor.’ And, always, ‘sir.’”

  Of course the Mayor would have to act like that. Neither he nor the guard knew they were from opposite worlds. The Mayor undoubtedly thought he was talking to a rogue cleaner guy; Ace Security undoubtedly thought he was talking to Natalie’s dad. The real Mr. Mayhew.

  If only I could know for sure that the Mayor is the trustworthy person in this house, Chess thought. Then I could explain everything to both of them. And they could both help. . . .

  Chess wished so badly for someone older and wiser and more experienced than him to help. He fingered the crookedly drawn heart Finn had given him, which Chess had tucked into his jeans pocket like a talisman. Emma had said it wasn’t safe to show a heart like this to anyone, not after what had happened with Other-Natalie’s grandma. But Chess was so tired of acting cowardly, so tired of not knowing what to do.

  The paper rustled in Chess’s hand. The Mayor glanced up.

  Only then did the Mayor’s first words fully register: Excellent work. You’re right on time. If the Mayor thought the guard was the cleaner, that meant he approved of what the cleaner had been doing; he wanted Ms. Morales unconscious. Why?

  And the Mayor sounded so calm after we heard gunfire. . . . What if that doesn’t mean he’s just a good leader? What if it means he knew the gunfire was coming? Or . . . that he was the one who planned it?

  It was too late for Chess to ask these questions. It was too late for him to have these doubts.

  Because Chess wasn’t hidden anymore.

  The Mayor was looking right at him.

  Sixty-One

  Natalie, a Few Moments Earlier, Before the Gunfire

  Just as Natalie turned to stand with the Judge, the Mayor, and Almost-Grandma, she heard the clank of chains. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw guards shoving Mrs. Greystone and Joe into the scapegoat cages on either side of the front of the room, right by a huge velvet curtain.

  Natalie had to pretend not to know them. She couldn’t even turn her head and look at them directly, because if she did, she might start wailing, I’m so sorry! I thought I was helping—I was trying to! But it’s my fault you’re here; it’s my fault if we can’t stop everything and rescue you from being eliminated. . . .

  She knew how much the Greystone kids loved their mother; she knew how much they’d risked trying to save her. How could Natalie be the person sending Mrs. Greystone to her death?

  And Joe . . . Oh, Joe, you saved all of us kids the last time we were in this world, and I didn’t even know your last name. . . .

  The Mayor tucked an arm around Natalie’s shoulders, pulling her closer to him and farther from Almost-Grandma and the Judge.

  “Stand by me, sweetie—you’ll guarantee me the teenage-boy vote!” he whispered.

  Natalie pushed him away.

  “Ugh, Dad—that’s just gross!” she complained.

  The Mayor wrapped his arms completely around Natalie and leaned his face even closer to her ear to warn in a more threatening tone, “No scenes.”

  Natalie knew the exact moment he realized she was wearing earbuds. His lips must have brushed the hard plastic. His hug turned stiff, and under the cover of gripping her head lovingly and leaning his forehead against hers, he yanked out both earbuds and slid them into his tuxedo pocket.

  “We’ll deal with this later,” he muttered under his breath. “Earbuds at a political rally? That’s so disrespectful, so . . .”

  “Whatever,” Natalie whispered back. Wasn’t that what Other-
Natalie would say?

  But her heart thudded with panic, because now she couldn’t hear anything from Chess, Emma, Finn, or Other-Natalie. And what was the deal with the Mayor and his weird hug? It felt like the most fake thing in this messed-up world. Almost-Grandma’s hug had felt real. So had the Judge’s, even with all her scoldings. (Mom scolded Natalie a lot, too.)

  Why was the Mayor’s hug so different?

  The Mayor spun her around to face the crowd again. Natalie made herself focus on plastering a fake smile on her face. Her vision blurred. Beneath the shimmering crystal peaks of the additional section, the crowd in its silks and satins seemed less like people and more like another type of carpet, spilling down across all the tiered levels below. And dotted throughout the crowd were soldiers in darker uniforms, looking grim and ready.

  Natalie barely managed to hold back a shiver.

  “Welcome to all of my supporters!” the Mayor crowed into the microphone. “Together, we will defeat our enemies!”

  The crowd cheered so loudly that Natalie barely heard an odd crackling noise—what was that? But she saw the Judge jerk her head suddenly to the side, and then Almost-Grandma was diving toward the floor, dragging the Judge and Natalie with her.

  “Get down!” Almost-Grandma screamed. “Let me . . .”

  Were her last words “. . . protect you”? Natalie couldn’t be sure. But she finally made sense of the sound she’d heard before: gunfire. She heard more gunshots and screams, but she didn’t feel scared; she had Grandma holding her and Mom together, keeping them safe.

  Almost-Grandma, Natalie reminded herself. Other-Mom . . . But that wasn’t how it felt.

  And then Mayor Mayhew’s voice echoed above her: “Everyone. Please remain calm. We have the gunman in custody now. Stay flat on the ground, facedown, while we search for any accomplices. . . .”

  Natalie turned her face to the side, peeking up and out. Mayor Mayhew stood at the microphone, seeming completely unharmed, completely unruffled. A line of soldiers now stood between him and the still-shrieking crowd; the soldiers faced outward and stood with their shoulders so close together that Natalie couldn’t see past them.