“Fancy seeing you here.”
The voice cut through my train of thought, but I didn’t startle; I turned.
“So did you get it?” my best friend, Bex, asked. Her British accent was even thicker in her native land, and her smile was especially mischievous when she crossed her long arms. The wind blew her black hair away from her face. She looked alive and eager, so I held up the key card I had slipped out of Dr. Holt’s pocket.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
She looped her arm through mine. “Cammie, my dear, I was born ready,” she said, and then she walked up to Crawley Hall and swiped.
When the light flashed green she said, “Come on.”
Chapter Two
Crawley Hall seemed empty as Bex and I closed its doors behind us. Our footsteps echoed in the corridor. We passed heavy wooden arches and stained glass windows. It felt more like a museum than a school, and not for the first time in my life I walked down the hallowed halls of education, totally breaking the rules.
“So, what do you think, Cam? Are you a Cambridge girl? Or do you fancy yourself as more Oxonian?”
“Oxonian?” I repeated.
“It’s a word. Now, answer the question.” Bex shrugged and leaned against a door that was unlike the others we had passed—not heavy wood, but steel. Security cameras were trained on it, and it took Bex a second to finagle her way inside.
“Cambridge is nice. It could use better locks, though,” I said.
“So, no Cambridge.” Bex nodded. “How about Yale? Or you could always join me at MI6. The two of us together, out in the real world.”
“Bex,” I said, rolling my eyes. “We don’t have time for this.”
“What?” Bex asked. She put her hands on her hips and squinted at me. “It’s winter break.”
“I know.”
“And we’re seniors.”
“I know,” I said again.
“So aren’t you…curious?”
“About what?”
“About life. Out there. Life!” she said again. “Tell me, Cameron Ann Morgan, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
We’d reached another door, and I stopped, looked up at the camera that monitored the entrance, and whispered, “Alive.”
Thirty seconds later we were standing in the entrance hall of the largest library I had ever seen. Old oak tables filled the center of the room. Bookshelves thirty feet high stretched along every wall. First editions of Thackeray and Forster sat behind protective glass, and Bex and I walked alone through the empty room like a pair of extremely literate thieves.
We climbed the stairs and started through a maze of shelves and small alcoves, perfect for studying.
“We should have brought Liz,” I said, thinking about how our smallest, smartest, and…well…nerdiest roommate would have loved it there; but when Bex came to an abrupt stop, I remembered why Liz wasn’t allowed on that particular type of field trip.
I peered around Bex’s shoulder in time to see a shadow move across the floor. The lights were off and the corridor was still, yet a figure cut through the light that streamed through the stained glass windows, like a puppet in a show that only we were supposed to see.
I heard a door open and close, and slowly Bex and I eased out onto the landing and padded softly down a narrow hallway to where a door stood slightly ajar.
We paused for a moment, and Bex mouthed the words You sure?
But I didn’t answer. I’d come too far—I wanted this too much. So I didn’t hesitate. I just pushed open the door and walked into the room, my pulse quick and my hands steady, ready for whatever I might find.
“Stop!” the man cried. “Who are you? What are you doing here? I’m calling security.” He spoke rapid-fire, barely breathing in between demands, certainly not giving us enough time to answer.
“Put your hands up. Up! Put them up,” he shouted, even though he didn’t hold a weapon. His hair was overgrown and gray. He wore a dirty, wrinkled suit and looked like he hadn’t showered in days.
“Mr. Knight?” Bex asked. She inched closer. “Sir Walter Knight?”
“This area is restricted,” he shouted again. “The campus is closed. You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“I’m not supposed to be a lot of things,” I said. “My name is Cammie Morgan.” As soon as I said the words, a shadow crossed his face. It was like he was staring at a ghost.
Me.
He was staring at me.
I wasn’t supposed to be alive. But I was.
“You don’t have any bodyguards, I see,” Bex said, looking around the room. It was an office, not very big—just large enough for an old desk, a chair, and a short leather sofa that rested beneath the only window. There were a rumpled pillow and blanket, and the trash can overflowed with take-out containers and week-old newspapers.
“I guess that makes sense,” Bex added. “You’re not sure who you can trust, are you?”
“I know the feeling,” I said. When I noticed that he was shaking, I added, “Don’t worry. You don’t have to be afraid of us.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Bex laughed. “He could be a little afraid.”
Bex sidled closer, and Walter Knight backed away until he was pressed into his desk and couldn’t move any more.
When Bex spoke again, her voice was so low it was almost a whisper. “Elias Crane the sixth is dead, Sir Walter. You probably heard about his car accident.” Bex made little quote marks above her head, emphasizing the word. “Oh, I bet that drove you crazy, wondering if it really was an accident. I mean, it’s possible he’d just had too much to drink when he drove his BMW off that cliff. But when Charlene Dubois went missing while driving her kids to school…” Bex let the words draw out. She made a tsk tsk tsk sound. “That you couldn’t chalk up to coincidence. So you went on the run.” She threw her arms out wide in the small space. “And you came here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Sir Walter shouted, but Bex just shook her head.
“Yes, you do. Why else would you be sleeping on the couch in an office that’s supposed to be abandoned, instead of at your London flat? Or your French villa? Or even your Swiss chalet? I have to say, this was a pretty smart decision. Squatting in a library. Clever. I bet a lot of people don’t even know that Cambridge sees it as a feather in their cap for a former British prime minister to have an honorary office here. It’s nice. It took us a while to track you down. But we did track you down, of course. And we won’t be the only ones.”