“Of course,” I whispered back, then kissed him again. “So, Claire,” I said after we separated a few minutes later. “Tell me about her. What does she look like? Where does she live? Does she have any fears? Phobias? Is she afraid of death?”
Jesse looped his arm around my neck and kissed the top of my head. “Sometimes you scare me.” He grinned. “It’s kind of hot.”
Chapter 17
On Monday morning, I woke up earlier than normal, which put my nerves on edge. And by the time I showered, dressed, and made my way into the kitchen, I realized that I was right to be edgy: both my parents were seated at the table. So was Angelo.
I hesitated in the doorway. “Let me guess,” I said. “You didn’t get together this early in the morning because there’s good news.”
My mom gestured toward an empty seat at the table. “Here, come sit down. We need to talk.”
This day was already off with a bang, I could tell.
After I poured myself some coffee and settled myself at the table across from them, Angelo threaded his fingers together, then rested his chin on top of them. “That flash drive,” he began, “definitely had some things on it.”
“Well, I hope so,” I said, then took a sip of coffee and immediately burned my tongue. “Ow!”
“Maggie,” my dad said. “You need to focus right now.”
“I am focused. I’m focused on the searing pain, ow.”
Angelo passed me an iPad. “This is what we found once we hacked the password.”
I took the tablet, almost scared of what I would see, but when I looked at the first images, I realized that they were baby photos of Jesse. Dressed up for Halloween as Batman; grinning on what looked like the first day of school; posed with a bat over his shoulder in a Little League uniform.
My first thought? Oh shit, these aren’t the documents.
My second thought? How cute was Jesse when he was a little kid!
“This?” I said. “This is what was on there?”
My mom, dad, and Angelo all nodded silently. I could hear everything they weren’t saying: You messed up. The information is still out there. The article will be run and our family will be exposed.
“Well, I mean, it was hidden! It was in a hidden safe with a hidden key, and do you know what I went through to find it? It wasn’t easy! There was a party and a ninja and then this karao—!”
“Maggie.” My dad interrupted me again, but I interrupted him right back.
“Look,” I said. “You trained me to open safes. You didn’t train me to know what was in the safes before I opened them. I saw a safe, I opened it, there was a flash drive, and here we are.”
“We need to find the information,” my mother said. “If you don’t think you can do this, then—”
“But I thought I did do it!” I protested. But I knew I sounded childish, exactly what a spy isn’t supposed to be. Even I was annoyed with myself.
You know how sometimes you realize you’re doing or saying the wrong thing, but you just can’t stop yourself? You can literally hear the words coming out of your mouth and you just want to shove them back in because the real you, the good you, would never want to be this way, but you just keep going?
Yeah. That was me. Because instead of agreeing to try harder, be better, I got whiny.
“Is this a trial?” I asked.
“It’s not a trial,” my mom said. “It’s just—”
“Because it sure looks like a trial. I mean, you’re all lined up here and looking at me. The only thing missing is that clackety-clackety person. You know, the one where …” I mimed typing away on a tiny keyboard. “What do they call that?”
“Clackety-clackety person?” my dad said.
“Are you biting your nails again?” my mom asked.
“Stenographer,” Angelo answered.
“Stenographer, yes!” I said. “And yes, I’m also biting my nails again because that’s what I do when I’m stressed. My cuticles are just going to have to ride it out until this trial is done.”
Angelo laughed, though not unkindly. “I assure you, darling, this is not a trial. And if it were, we would be a very flawed jury, don’t you agree?”
It was a hard point to argue.
“Look,” I said. “None of you have ever made a mistake on a case before? Ever?”
“The point is not the mistake,” my mom reassured me. “And I know it looks like we’re ganging up on you, but that’s just the way we’re all sitting at the table. We need to get a round table.” She was trying to make me smile, but I didn’t take the bait, and that only made me feel worse.
“The point,” she continued, “is that this magazine article is probably going to name names. Our names. Your name.”
“I know,” I said, but hearing it out loud gave me a weird shiver down my back. “I’m trying. It’s not easy going to high school and trying to find time-sensitive documents, okay? It’s really hard. I’m probably going to fail my French quiz today.”
“Comme si on pouvait apprendre le français à l’école,” Angelo muttered, and now I was really sure I was going to fail my French quiz because I had no idea what he was saying.
“Ridicule, non?” my father started to stay, but my mom cut him off.
“We don’t have time to debate the merits of classroom education,” my mom told them. “Can we focus, please?”