“Is this one of Joe’s houses?” I waited, but Zach was speechless. “If it’s Joe’s house, Zach, we probably shouldn’t stay. Someone may track us here.”
“Not Joe.” Zach shook his head.
“But you know it.” It wasn’t really a question, not a guess. I inched slowly closer. “Whose house is it, Zach?”
“It’s safe.” He turned. “We’ll be safe.”
“Zach…” I reached for him, but he pulled away and walked to the corner of the room, measuring his footsteps carefully, listening until one step sounded slightly different from the others. Then he knelt to the floor and removed one of the boards and reached inside to pull out six birthday candles and a G.I. Joe, a rumpled five-dollar bill and an assortment of broken crayons—and only then did I know where Zach had brought us. After all, that wasn’t the covert stash of an operative; it was the hiding place of a child.
“This was your mother’s safe house,” I whispered.
But Zach just looked around the big, dusty rooms that must have been so grand, once upon a time. “No. It was her house,” he said.
Spies aren’t like normal people. No one expects us to have houses and mortgages, tire swings and barbecues on the Fourth of July. But every spy is somebody’s child, and I stepped across those dusty floorboards, wondering what kind of place had given birth to the woman we called Catherine.
“This was my room.” He looked into the small space. “There were bedrooms upstairs, of course, but I didn’t like being alone. I was scared of the dark and the wind and the storms.… There were such bad storms.”
“Can it be traced to you, Zach? To her?”
“There’s natural gas on the property, and the rooms are still lit with gaslight. I think there might be a generator. A water well, but no phone. The whole house is off the grid.” Zach gave a gruff laugh. “It doesn’t even know there is a grid.”
“When was the last time you were here?”
“I don’t know. Ten years ago? Maybe longer. She used to talk about fixing it up—making it like it was in its prime. But I don’t know how it was. I just know this.”
He motioned around the derelict rooms, and I don’t know if he meant it or not, but it sounded like he was saying he didn’t know anything other than a vagabond way of life. “This is all I know.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t stay here, Zach,” I tried. “We could keep driving.”
“You don’t get it, Gallagher Girl.” He shook his head slowly. “The king is dead. There’s nowhere else to go.”
I grew up in an old mansion. I know the chill that creeps through stone walls, the sounds a roof can make in a hard wind. But that night was different. Everything creaked and moaned. When the rain started, it fell in heavy waves, beating against the house and dripping through the ceiling. There was a steady, even ping as fat drops fell on the keys of the old piano. And the longer the storm pounded outside, the more I expected the house might blow right off its foundation and out into the waves.
There must have been debris in the chimney, because when we built a fire, smoke backed into the house, filling it with an eerie haze. We propped open the front door, and for a while the smoke mixed with the wet wind while Preston and Macey surveyed the contents of the kitchen. Liz was unpacking equipment, and Zach stoked the fire.
But I just sat at the bottom of the stairs, rubbing my palms against my jeans, dried blood smearing onto dark denim, wondering, Is that it? Is it really over?
“What happens now?” I looked up to find Bex leaning against the banister, looming over me. It was like she’d read my mind.
“You should get some sleep, Bex. We’ll probably need to change your bandages and—”
“I’m not talking about my bloody bandages,” she said, then grinned. “No pun intended.”
“Look, Bex…” I started. Suddenly, I felt so tired, so worn.
“No, you look. This isn’t the end,” she told me. “You think I got shot…for this?” Bex snapped. “I’m a spy, Cam. I was born to do this—to be this. It’s in my blood. And I will do it until the day I die. It’s who I am,” my best friend said, then leveled a glare at me. “The thing I don’t think you realize is…it’s who you are too.”
“I know.”
“No.” Bex shook her head. “You don’t. If you did, you never would have spent half of our sophomore year dating Josh. You wouldn’t be freaked out at the thought of graduation. You would know what life after spy school means. It means this, Cam. This. And you are better at it than anyone that I have ever known. Now, get up. And tell us what comes next.”
But I didn’t move.
“Okay. Let’s have it.” She held out her hand, waggled her fingers.
“What?”
“You know what,” my best friend told me. “Hand it over.”
I didn’t ask again. I just reached into my pocket and pulled out the list I’d been carrying around for weeks.
“There.” Bex pointed at the paper. “William Smith. Gideon Maxwell. Two names, Cam. There are only two names left!”
“I know, but…”
“But what?” Bex demanded.
“But the king is dead, Bex.” I felt silly pointing it out, almost disrespectful saying the words aloud. “We didn’t stop the assassination. We couldn’t—”
But Bex didn’t wait for me to finish. She spun and yelled across the room.
“Liz, has it started yet?” Bex asked. “Have the Iranians invaded Caspia?”
Liz sat at her computers. She didn’t say a word; she just shook her head. No.
“Then there’s time to bloody well stop it!”
I knew she was right. Of course she was. Bex was always right. She knew me better than I knew myself. But then again, isn’t that a best friend’s job?
“So tell me what comes next,” Bex demanded.
I looked up at her for a long time, thinking, praying. My voice was scratchy and distant. It wasn’t like my own when I stood and started to speak.
“Liz, when we get a secure line let me know. I’ve got to try to contact Mom and Abby.” Macey and Preston came in from the kitchen, and I looked around the group. “As for the rest of us, we’re going to try to get some sleep. Regroup. And first thing tomorrow morning, we’re going to figure out what happens next.”