"New York!" Buckingham shouted and banged down a phone. "A young woman matching Macey's description purchased a bus ticket to New York last night. And someone using one of Macey's mother's business accounts reserved a private jet to Switzerland."
Abby looked at me. "Her family has a house there," I said. "It fits."
Mom turned to Buckingham. "We have alumni in Switzerland?"
"Of course," was Buckingham's reply.
"Have them sit on her until we can get a grab team in place." Professor Buckingham turned to go, but Mom called after her. "And Patricia, tell them she's a hard target. Tell them she's one of us."
I would have given anything for Macey to have heard that. Maybe then she would have believed me. Maybe then she wouldn't have run away. Maybe then things would have been very different. But Macey didn't hear, and that was the problem. She was half a world away. On her own. And one look at my mother's worried eyes told me that we probably weren't the only ones looking for her.
As Abby bolted for the door, Bex, Liz, and I rushed after
her.
"When do we leave?" Bex said.
"We aren't going anywhere," Abby snapped. Through the windows I could see that a chopper was already spinning its blades, waiting for her. She rushed toward the staircase, but then stopped short. "She'll be okay, you know." For a second, Abby was her old self as she cocked a hip. "Trust me."
I know, scientifically speaking, that all days have twenty-four hours. One thousand four hundred and forty minutes. Eighty- six thousand, four hundred seconds. But even Liz admitted that the days that followed seemed longer, as we stared out every window we passed, expecting the gates to swing open, to see Aunt Abby and Macey coming down the lane.
But the gates stayed closed. The lane stayed empty. And Macey stayed gone.
By Monday night, a feeling was resurfacing inside of me like a virus that had been dormant for years, as I thought about when my parents would go away for days or weeks on end; before the days when I knew my father wasn't coming back at all. Walking downstairs for supper, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'm really great at disappearing, but Macey might have been a whole different kind of gone.
"Oops, sorry," someone said, just as I looked up to see Tina Walters running up the stairs. The sign above the Grand Hall told me we were going to be conversing that night in Portuguese; the aromas that filled the foyer told me we were having lasagna. But something in the way Tina looked at me told me that none of the junior class was feeling very hungry.
"You okay, Cam?" she asked, and I nodded, but for some reason I couldn't move out of her way.
"Tina, have you …" I started, then paused because I honestly couldn't quite believe what I was about to ask. "Have your sources heard anything?"
I wanted her to tell me that Macey was okay. I would have settled for a crazy story about a girl matching Macey's description who had been staking out an ex-KGB hitman in Bucharest. I needed anything but the sight of Tina shaking her head and saying, "Not a word."
She smiled sympathetically. "But no news can be good news, right?" she asked. "Everyone's looking for her."
But as I looked up into the Hall of History, all I could do was stare at the sword that still stood gleaming inside its case, a sharp blade cutting through time, and whisper, "That's what I'm afraid of."
I'm an expert on hiding. Not to brag, but it's true, and as I sat staring at my plate that night, something about Macey's disappearance didn't make sense.
"Both disguises," I said.
"What?" Bex asked, leaning closer.
"Both disguises were gone when we went back—the one she wore and the one I wore."
Then Bex grinned at me. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" she asked, and in a flash we were running up the stairs, Liz trailing along behind us.
The Hall of History was dim. My mother's office door was closed, but I didn't slow down until Madame Dabney appeared out of nowhere, firmly blocking my path.
"I need to see my mom," I blurted.
"Oh, Cammie dear, I'm afraid your mother isn't here."
"But I need to see her!"
"Well, I don't doubt that, but given recent circumstances, the headmistress has gone to see Senator and Mrs. McHenry to explain why their daughter might be…delayed … in attending the campaign's watch party tomorrow night. That is, if we get her back from Switzerland in time at all,"
Madame Dabney added just as Bex and I lurched forward.