The paper had grown soft and worn, and even though I knew every word by heart, I kept it. Part of me thought I might keep it forever. Part of me couldn’t wait to watch it burn.
“Here,” I said, slamming the paper down on the table where the adults could see. “Seven names. Seven,” I practically shouted. In spite of everything, I still felt like I had to make them understand.
I looked down at Liz’s feminine cursive, at the names I’d carried in my subconscious for years.
Elias Crane
Charles Dubois
Thomas McKnight
Philip Delauhunt
William Smith
Gideon Maxwell
Samuel P. Winters
“These men formed the Circle with Iosef Cavan in 1863,” I told them.
“We know,” my mother said, but I continued as though she hadn’t spoken at all.
“These men survived him. And then their kids took up the family business. And then their grandkids. And so on. And so on. And now… Now Elias Crane the sixth is dead.” I took a marker and drew a line through the name Elias Crane at the top of the list.
“Dubois’s great-great-great-great granddaughter is probably dead,” Bex added, and I drew another line.
“And now McKnight’s heir is gone too,” I finished with one more line.
“We’ve found three heirs, girls,” Mr. Baxter told us. “Three is a good start.”
I knew what Mr. Baxter was saying. The men and women represented on that list weren’t good people. They’d sold arms to extremists and assassinated world leaders—terror for profit was what Agent Townsend always called it. And I hated them. I hated them more than almost anyone on earth. But there was one person I despised more.
I thought about the woman on the rooftop. She had kidnapped me—tortured me—to get those names, and now she was killing them off one by one, eliminating the competition in the most hostile takeover possible. And I knew that if Catherine wanted the leaders of the Circle dead, then maybe we needed at least one of them to be taken alive.
“Three of them are dead,” I said, drawing in a deep, slow breath. “But we still have four more names. Now we have to find the descendants of these men. We have to find them and stop them before they can do whatever it is they’re planning next. Because, according to Knight, it is something bad and it is something big.”
“That’s not for you to worry about, girls,” Mrs. Baxter said, and Bex threw her hands into the air.
“So who is going to worry about it? MI6? The CIA?”
We all looked at my mother, who put her hands on her hips. “You know that’s not possible.”
“Exactly!” Bex said, as if my mother had just proven her point. “The Circle has moles at every level of the CIA. MI6 too. And Interpol. Who knows where else? And that is why you need us,” Bex finished, but her father was already shaking his head.
“This was a one-time deal, girls,” Mr. Baxter told us. “Sir Walter Knight was a politician. An intellectual. A…nerd. He didn’t pose a physical threat, and for that reason and that reason alone you were allowed to come along today. That will not be the case for the others.”
“But you can’t do this on your own,” Bex protested. “There’s too much legwork. You need us.”
Bex’s mother folded her hands in front of her. “No. Actually, we don’t.”
I thought about the locked door of my mother’s office, the parade of agents and assets who had been in and out of our school in the weeks before Christmas. The task of taking down the Circle was a mission so secret that only my mother and my teachers and their most trusted friends were invited to the party. Bex and I should have known that we wouldn’t be allowed to stay.
“Where’s Mr. Solomon?” I asked. “What about Zach? They’ve been tracking his mom, haven’t they? Do they even know Catherine was here today? Have you talked to them? Are they okay?”
“Cammie,” Mom said, “Joe Solomon is the last person in the world you need to worry about. And Zach is with him.”
“What about Agent Townsend? Someone has to bring him into the loop. And Aunt Abby. She and Townsend are together, right?” I looked at Bex’s parents. “Have you—”