“You said you were backpacking through Europe and missed a train, got separated from your parents. That’s what you said, at least.”
“But you saw through me?” I asked, genuinely embarrassed.
“Really, Cam…you didn’t even have a backpack.” He laughed and shrugged. “At first I thought…well, I don’t know what I thought. You were sick or something. You totally charmed Mom and Dad, though. They insisted you take the guest room across the hall from mine, and it felt like you slept for a week. You were so—”
“And you didn’t call me!” Macey shouted. I saw Townsend shift, annoyed, but Macey couldn’t be held back. “My friend shows up on your doorstep in a foreign country, exhausted and alone, and you didn’t think ‘Hey, maybe I should drop Macey a line’?”
“Macey,” Abby said, but Macey pushed her aside.
“She was alone!” Six months’ worth of worry and grief was pouring out of her. “She was sick and she was alone…all summer. She was alone,” Macey said one final time and backed away.
Everyone—Bex and Abby, even Townsend and Zach—stood staring. It seemed to take forever for Preston to drop into a chair. “Do you ever think about Boston, Macey?” he asked. “About what happened on the roof? I do. I think about it all the time.”
He ran his hands through his hair, then placed them on the table.
“I still dream about it sometimes.” He made a slow circular motion in the air with one finger. “I see the helicopter—the way the shadow spun on the roof. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that spinning shadow. And the way the two of you didn’t seem afraid. And that woman—” At the mention of his mother, Zach went horribly still. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget that woman.” Preston shook his head and looked at Macey. “I think about it all the time.”
“I know—”
“No,” he snapped, cutting her off. “You don’t. Because, if you did, then you’d know that when the girl who saved your life shows up on your doorstep hungry and exhausted, you take her in, and you bring her some food, and you wait for her to wake up. You want to know why I didn’t call you? Because when that girl shows up on your doorstep, you do exactly what she says to do, and she said not to call anyone.”
Preston pointed to me, then stood and paced to the windows that overlooked the front of the embassy where tourists and expatriates stood waiting for access to that small piece of American soil.
“Everyone comes here when they’re lost.”
It made sense, why I’d come there. The only question that remained was why I’d had to leave.
“Preston,” I said, “was I…dangerous?”
“What?” he asked and shook his head. “You were sleepy. That’s it. I thought you were just exhausted and needed a place to rest.” He wheeled on me. “Now it’s your turn to explain. What brings you back?”
“Preston, it’s sort of…complicated. You know what happened on election night and in Boston, but you don’t know about—”
“The Circle of Cavan,” Preston filled in.
“Yeah, I—”
“Ms. Morgan,” Townsend warned.
“It’s okay,” Preston told him. “These rooms are swept for bugs every day, and my dad doesn’t allow regular surveillance in the family quarters. We can talk here.” He looked at me. “You really don’t remember?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Don’t remember…what, specifically?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “Summer.”
I expected him to ask questions, to give me the Cammie’s-lost-her-marbles or someone-is-playing-tricks-on-me looks, but they didn’t come. Instead, he reached into his pockets and pulled out a passport and a small book bound in the Gallagher Academy’s own library.
“I knew something was wrong,” he said. “I thought you would call or something after you left, but—”
“She left?” Bex asked.
“Yeah. I came home one day and your stuff was gone. I found a stained towel and an empty box of hair dye…and these.”
Zach reached for the passport and smiled. “I know this name. It’s one of Joe’s. You must have gotten it from his stash.”
He handed the passport to Abby, but it was the book I was afraid to touch, not because it was unknown to me, but because I could recite every word and knew it had no place within those walls.