"I have the right to know!"
She grew harder, still the boss of me and not about to let me forget it. "Cameron, there is a time and a place for—"
"They weren't after Macey," I said. "They were never after Macey. And…you knew."
"Cameron, this—" But Mom didn't get the chance to finish, because Mr. Solomon was easing onto the corner of her desk, crossing his arms as he said, "We didn't know anything more than you, Ms. Morgan. Not for a long time."
"But…" I started, my mind spinning, "Philadelphia." I thought about the closed door of my mother's office that next day, my aunt's newfound terror on the train. A chill like none I'd ever felt ran through me as I said, "What did Zach tell you in that tunnel, Mr. Solomon?"
My teacher nodded. He almost smiled. "He'd heard Macey wasn't the target. That was a possibility all along—we knew that, but Zach has sources—"
"What kind of sources? Who are they? Where are they? What—"
"That's all you get, Cammie," Joe Solomon said, and I hated him a little. But then he shrugged, defeated. "Because that's pretty much all there is."
Mr. Solomon is a good liar—the best. And I hated him for that too.
"Joe," my mom said calmly, as if I weren't ranting and bruised. As if everything in my life weren't suddenly different. And over. "Could you give us a minute?"
A moment later, I heard the door open and close. I knew we were alone.
"Sweetheart, don't…" She trailed off, unable to finish, until the Gallagher Girl in her overruled the mother, and she found the strength to carry on. "You're going to be okay, Cammie. The Gallagher trustees have been notified. The full strength of the school and The Agency are behind us. You're going to be okay."
I love my mother's office. It's the closest thing to home I've had in years. I sat there for a long time that morning looking at the pictures that used to sit on her dresser in our apartment in Arlington. Before she was a headmistress. Before I was a Gallagher Girl. Before we lost Dad.
Before we lost a lot of things.
"What happens now?" I heard my voice crack and knew that I was almost crying, almost pleading. My anger was gone, and in its wake rushed a wave of grief and terror so powerful that I could hardly breathe. I thought of Abby bleeding. I thought of Macey and Preston. And finally, I saw Zach as he hovered over me, as my mind whirled down a laundry chute, plummeting in a free fall that I feared might never end. "It's just…Mom…why?"
My mother held me. My headmistress smoothed my hair. And the greatest spy I've ever known whispered, "We'll find out. I promise we will find out."
Chapter Twenty-nine
Classes should have ended, but they didn't. Finals week should have been over, but it was still weeks away. And yet every girl at my school knew that my roommates and I had already been tested. I thought about Aunt Abby, and I knew we'd barely passed.
It took three weeks for it to happen, for Mr. Solomon to knock on the door of Madame Dabney's tearoom, for my roommates and me to get called downstairs.
Following our teacher through the hall that day, I didn't let my mind wander—I knew too many dark places where it might go, so I kept my focus on the footsteps, on the stairs and on the walls. Until Mr. Solomon opened my mother's office door—
And someone said, "Hey, squirt."
"Abby!" Bex and Liz called at the same time, rushing toward her, throwing their arms around her.
"Girls," my mother said, as if to remind them that (at
least in Bex's case) they don't know their own strength.
My aunt was paler than I remembered. And thinner, almost frail. Her right arm was held in a sling. But her eyes were the same—so that's where I looked as I stepped closer.
"How are you?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer, but asking the question anyway.
My aunt smiled. "Never better." I wondered if she might be lying—or if I would be a good enough operative to know. "Evidently, Langley needs someone with a recent gunshot wound to impersonate a known arms dealer in…well…somewhere." She looked up at the sky and cocked her hip, then held her sling out for us to see. "Is this the ultimate cover or what?"
But, amazingly, the four of us didn't agree.
"Do you really have to go?" Liz glanced at Abby's suitcase. "You could stay here, couldn't you? You could teach?"
"Awesome!" Bex exclaimed, but Abby was already shaking her head, pulling her bag onto her good shoulder. But that didn't stop Bex from saying, "Ooh, you could come home with me for Christmas. Cam's coming. Mom and Dad would love to see you."