“Why are you doing this?” I asked, the question taking me by surprise. “Why are you…helping me?”
“You assume that helping you is why I’m here.” The man leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “Perhaps I have ulterior motives.”
“Oh,” I said, and then I couldn’t help it: the words of MI6 and the CIA, the trustees, and even my own mother were coming back to me in a flood. “Is it because I’m dangerous?”
“It is.” He didn’t try to soften the words, cushion the blow. He just pushed away from the wall and added, “But not in the way you think you are.”
When Townsend pulled aside the heavy curtain, the glow of the streetlights sliced across his face, highlighting dark stubble and striking blue eyes.
“Whatever is in your mind, Ms. Morgan, the Circle has devoted a great many resources to getting it—and now to making sure no one else can have it. That makes it something I would very much like to have. And that makes you someone I would very much like to protect.”
He had the quiet, confident gaze of a truly great operative, and it felt a little like I was looking at Zach…in the future. I remembered why, once upon a time, for about a second and a half, I’d thought Agent Townsend was dreamy.
“You can have it.” I couldn’t help myself; I smiled. “If we figure out what it is, I’ll totally give it to you.”
He smiled back. “Deal.”
I could hear Abby on the phone, her voice floating toward us from the other room.
“Now go to sleep, Ms. Morgan. That aunt of yours is difficult enough when things go according to plan.”
Someone had boarded up the windows of the bedroom and brought in three small mattresses. Macey and Bex were each sitting on one, and Abby paced between them, a satellite phone to her ear.
“She’s right here, Rachel,” Abby said. She rolled her eyes, then nodded. “Yes, I’m looking at her. Ha-ha.”
She sounded like a kid sister, and for about the zillionth time in my life, I regretted being an only child. But then Macey threw a pillow at Bex, and I realized that maybe “only child” was just a technicality.
“You want to talk to her?” Abby asked me, but of all the things I wanted to say to my mother, none of them would help, so I shook my head and sank onto an empty mattress.
“She’s in bed,” Abby told her sister. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Uh-huh. Of course. Yeah, well you can tell Townsend—Why is everyone forgetting about Buenos Aires?!” She threw her hand in the air, and my friends and I had to bite back a laugh. “Yeah,” Abby said, after a long time. “Don’t worry. She isn’t leaving our sight.”
Finally, Abby hung up the phone. Only then did I notice the way that Bex and Macey were sitting, straight up on their beds. Waiting, listening.
“What’s going on?” I asked, searching their eyes for some kind of clue.
“Just checking in with your mom, Squirt.” There was no worry in Abby’s voice. No fear. It was exactly how she was supposed to sound. She gave me a quick wink and closed the door, and my only thought was Aunt Abby is the Best Liar Ever.
“Tell me,” I said, turning to Bex.
“Don’t be silly, Cam. For a totally unofficial mission, this thing is going way better than—”
I turned and set my sights on Macey. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“So there is an ‘it’?” I asked.
Macey looked like I’d just kicked her in the stomach. I turned back to Bex, who shrugged and said, “It’s probably nothing.”
“You know who I was with, don’t you?” I asked, standing and moving toward her, but she was already up and meeting me halfway. “You know!”
“Shh. Do you want Townsend busting in here?” she asked, but I talked on.
“I’ve told you everything I know, and now the two of you are holding out on me?”
Interrogation tactics, I learned from Mr. Solomon. Guilt, I got from Grandma Morgan. It must have worked, too, because in the next moment, Macey was saying, “I trust Zach, Cam. I know his mom is evil and all, but I know evil parents. And I know you don’t have to end up like them, so I trust Zach.”
I stood there listening to the words, but they didn’t quite make sense.