She started to laugh at the joke, but Liz was already tearing open her backpack. “The CoveOps report! Cam, they came for you after you wrote this!” We all looked down at the book. “Summer You must have known that, so you took the report to re-read it and try to figure out what or why or…what.”
“Liz, I don’t know,” Macey said, turning back. “It was just boy stuff. I mean, Cam was goo-goo for Josh and all, but he wasn’t exactly international-incident-worthy.” I saw Zach tense a little, but no one acknowledged his discomfort. “What does the Circle of Cavan care about Cam’s first boyfriend?”
“I don’t know, Macey.” In the back of my mind, I heard the music, lower than before. “But Liz is right. I wrote that over Christmas break. It went through channels that spring. And then a few months later, Zach heard that there was a Gallagher Girl the Circle was after. Now, maybe it’s a coincidence but…”
“Maybe it’s not.” Zach’s voice was cold.
Bex nodded. “Maybe there are no coincidences.”
If there was ever any doubt that Joe Solomon was a better operative than I was, it totally went away that Saturday evening.
“Hello, Ms. Morgan.”
The voice came to me from the dark shadows of my suite, and, spy skills or not, I totally jumped. (And I might have squealed a little too.)
The light flickered on, and there he was, sitting in the chair next to Liz’s desk. There were no crutches, no cane—just one of the world’s greatest living spies…living.
“You’re. .. up?”
I didn’t know what was more troubling, that recently-outof-a-coma Joe Solomon could sneak up on me, or that supposed-to-be-dead Joe Solomon was out roaming the halls on his own.
“Where are your roommates?”
“I…” I glanced around the suite as if to make sure they weren’t there too. “I don’t know,” I said as evenly as I could with Mr. Solomon sitting there like a ghost.
“That’s okay, Cammie,” Mr. Solomon said. “It’s you I really wanted to see. So, how was your day?”
“Fine, I guess,” I said, because Saturdays were always crazy—between P&E and makeup tests, Dr. Steve’s therapy sessions and general weekendness, they always flew by in a blur.
“Good.” His voice had grown clearer. Stronger. He sounded almost like himself. “It’s good to see you, Cammie.”
“It’s good to see you too. How…are you?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said.
“How are you now?” I asked, stronger this time, and my teacher smiled, proud of me for recognizing that he hadn’t actually answered my question.
“I’m better,” he said. “I like the short hair.”
I brought my hand up and touched the ends. To tell you the truth, I’d almost forgotten it had changed. I guess I’d gotten used to it. I wondered what else I would eventually forget to miss.
“He’s really gone, isn’t he, Mr. Solomon?” I said, staring at the books on Liz’s desk. I couldn’t meet his eyes when I whispered, “My dad is really dead.”
“I know, Cammie.” Mr. Solomon didn’t sound like he’d been crying. He didn’t sound any different at all, and he must have read my eyes, because he hurried to add, “I have always known.”
“How?”
“Because death is the only thing that could have ever kept him from you.”
I didn’t want to think about my father. Not his life. Not his death. And most of all, not about the mission that had killed him—the mission that I had tried, and failed, to follow. I’d spent years on that path, searching for the truth. But I didn’t want the truth, I realized. What I wanted was my dad. And all that was left was a cold trail and an empty box.
I reached up and touched the necklace that hung around my neck, my hands eager for something to do.
“I should get you back downstairs,” I told my teacher. “You’re going to need your rest and—”
“Cammie—” Mr. Solomon was easing slowly toward me, his voice calm and strong and even. “Cammie, where did you get that necklace?”
Chapter Thirty-four