“I guess we should start by X-raying it,” Liz said slowly. “We’ll need to scan it for biohazards, of course, and—”
Abby lunged forward, cutting Liz off. She didn’t hesitate as she grabbed the package and ripped. Scraps of paper and packing material flew everywhere, but no one said a thing as Abby turned the envelope upside down and dumped the contents onto the table.
“Or we could do that,” Liz finished.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but it seemed a little anticlimactic, to tell you the truth. There were no bombs, no treasure maps where X marked the spot—just a small pile of bracelets, each with thin wires twisted into the words Bex, Liz, and Macey. I reach for each and handed them to my best friends, who gazed down at the delicate wires that spelled their names.
There were two small brown paper packets, the names Mom and Abby written across them in my familiar scrawl, and I handed them to their new owners, watched them pull out beautiful pendants hung on delicate chains.
The last package was simply labeled Me.
I could barely breathe as I tipped the tiny envelope upside down and immediately felt something cool and metal land on my palm. On the end of a very fine chain, I found a small pewter crest almost like the one from the Gallagher Academy, but different. And still it was close enough that I could see why it would catch my eye and make me choose it for myself.
“Well, Cam, I guess you were wrong that day when you came back,” Bex said slowly. She held the bracelet up. “You got us something after all.”
But I barely heard my best friend’s words. I was pushing through the scraps of paper and packing material, searching, but there was nothing else in the pile.
“It’s not here,” I said.
“What’s that, kiddo?” Mom asked me.
“Dad’s journal. I hoped maybe I’d sent it back, but it’s not here. It’s just…jewelry,” I said. Suddenly, I wanted to hurl the necklace across the room, throw it out the window, do anything but sit there holding proof that I’d been to Rome and had nothing to show for it but some trinkets. For the first time since waking up in Austria, I actually wanted to cry. “It’s just stupid souvenirs. It doesn’t tell us anything!”
I tried to get up, but Bex was already taking the seat on the arm of the couch beside me, the bracelet around her wrist.
“You didn’t just send us souvenirs, Cam,” she said, smiling.
“Yeah,” Liz agreed. “You sent us souvenirs…from Rome.”
I think every Gallagher Girl in history has fantasized about the places her job will take her. In my dreams, Bex was beside me, Liz was somewhere running comms. There was usually a prince, a count, and a rogue arms dealer of some sort. And my dream, believe it or not, had always taken place in Rome.
I was in Rome, I had to think. I racked my brain, looking for memories of the Colosseum. I swallowed hard, searching for the taste of truly authentic pizza. It was the kind of thing I shouldn’t have been able to forget. The irony was almost too much.
Macey slapped her hands together and turned to my mother. “So when do we leave? I can call Dad’s secretary and get a jet here by the end of the day.”
I watched Bex and Liz begin to mentally pack and plan as Macey talked about the advantages of private jet travel. Zach and I were the only ones who saw the look that crossed Aunt Abby’s face.
I’d only seen that look twice before. Once in my mother’s office during Abby’s first few days as Macey’s guard. Another time on a moving train outside of Philadelphia, barreling through the night. It had been almost a year since I’d seen my aunt wear that expression, and I knew it wasn’t anger. There was no rage. It was simply a mixture of guilt and regret so deep that neither word could do it justice.
The only word that came to mind was heartbreak.
“What is it, Abby?” I asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Rome…” Abby said, just as my mother said, “Abby, no—”
“She has the right to know, Rachel,” Abby snapped, but then lowered both her voice and her gaze. “Cam deserves to know that it’s all my fault.”
“You’re wrong,” Mom said, but Abby shook her head.
“Am I?”
“What does Rome mean?” Zach asked.
“Someone tell me,” I demanded.
“About a month before your father disappeared, he called me,” Abby said. “He was excited about something—more excited than I’d heard him in years. He didn’t want to tell Joe or even your mother, but he was close to something that could bring the Circle down. Those were his words: ‘Bring the Circle down.’ And he wanted me to come meet him—to help him. But I was late…” She turned to look out the window. “He was calling me from Rome. That’s what Rome means.”
“Matthew didn’t disappear for another four weeks, Abby. My husband did not disappear in Rome. It is not your fault.”