She stepped closer to Macey. "The security division noted two helicopters in the vicinity this morning— probably paparazzi looking for pictures of you—but until we're sure…" She eased between her protectee and the door. "You can't go outside. I'm sorry." She added that last part later, like an afterthought.
"Isn't that why you're here?" Macey reminded her and stepped toward the door again, but Abby casually cut her off.
"Actually, that's why I'm here." Abby pointed to her feet and leaned against the door. It might have been a casual gesture from another person, in another place. But as I looked from my aunt to Macey, I realized they were both strong. Both smart. Both used to being the prettiest girl in the room. The last time I'd had a feeling like that, it had involved Dr. Fibs's lab and two chemicals that are both potent, and volatile, and don't really like being put together under pressure.
"Rule number one, ladies," my aunt said. "Get careless…get caught."
As she walked away, Bex grabbed my arm and mouthed, "She's bloody awesome!"
Then, without turning around, Abby called, "I bloody know."
The rest of the morning was something of a blur.
Macey was in the junior level Countries of the World class, so she sat right beside me as Mr. Smith talked for forty-five minutes about the pros and cons of getting your cosmetic surgery at CIA-approved facilities. (Evidently, the work is very high quality, but since they don't technically "exist," the insurance paperwork is a nightmare!)
Madame Dabney gave a nice, relaxing refresher course on the basics: i.e. identifying every piece in a twenty-piece place setting (and the corresponding best methods in which each utensil could be used as a weapon).
Things seemed perfectly normal as we started down the
Grand Staircase and Liz headed toward Dr. Fibs's lab in the basement.
"See ya!" she called, which was okay. I'd gotten used to the idea that Liz was destined for the research-and- operations track while Bex and I were training for a life in the field.
It wasn't until I heard Macey say, "See you at lunch," that I remembered she was still behind the rest of us, academically.
As she set off for the freshman-level encryption course taught by Mr. Mosckowitz, Bex and I moved into the small passage beneath the Grand Staircase and stepped before a gilt-framed mirror. A thin laser beam scanned our faces, reading our retinal images. The eyes of the painting behind us flashed green, and a mirror slid aside, revealing the elevator to the most secret classrooms of the most secret school in the country.
But I didn't feel a rush. I wasn't thinking about pop quizzes or how Mr. Solomon looked that one time when we were doing wilderness reconnaissance exercises and he rolled up his sleeves.
Instead I just said, "Bex," and waited for my best friend's "Yeah."
"I'm worried about Macey."
"Why?" Bex asked, pressing her palm against the glass on the inside of the elevator. "She seems fine to me."
I placed my palm beside my best friend's. "That's what worries me."
Bex is black and I'm white. She's beautiful and I'm plain. She grew up in London and I spend my summers on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. She was born for fight and I was born for flight. But the way she looked at me reminded me that Bex and I are alike in all the ways that matter.
"I know something that'll make you feel better," she
said.
"What?" I asked as the elevator around us rumbled to a start. My palm burned hot and I jerked my hand from the glass. An odd light unlike anything I'd ever seen before filled the car around us, and through an eerie purple glow, my best friend smiled.
"We're about to see Sublevel Two."
Chapter Nine
When you're the first Gallagher Girl since Gilly herself to find and use the passageway behind the third-floor corridor that contained a million dollars worth of confederate coins, you might start thinking that the Gallagher mansion can't possibly surprise you anymore.
But you'd be wrong.
The car stopped. I knew the doors were about to slide open and reveal the most covert place we had ever seen. I held my breath, waiting. Then suddenly the car jerked backward, throwing us against the doors.
"Cam," Bex said as we hurtled at least a hundred feet further underground. "Is this supposed to be—" she started, but suddenly we were plunging downward again.
We halted. "PRESENT DNA, PLEASE," a mechanical voice rang through the car. A narrow slot appeared in the stainless-steel shell. It was exactly finger-size, so I reached out to touch it.