I settled into a chair that faced the camera and patted the desk.
Samuel pulled the laptop out of his bag, and I pulled up his video-conference app. Like Skype, but where the data wasn’t stored and couldn’t be hacked. Once the conference was over, the information disappeared. Like video-conference Snapchat.
The name B9TY549w flashed an invitation. Samuel accepted, and in a blink, the upper portion of Daniel’s torso and face appeared on-screen.
The pattern of his shirt caught my eye, and everything stilled. A plaid blue-and-brown flannel. Like the one I’d worn back in Clearwater in memory of a man I’d thought was dead. Now I knew that truth could sometimes feel more complicated than lies.
“How did it go today?” Daniel asked, his voice deep and familiar. I didn’t know if I’d honestly missed him, or just the memory of what he’d once meant to me. Maybe the answer was both.
“Good. Great!” I said, acutely aware of the camera, recording every moment. Every motion. Every glance. Possibly every word, if there was sound. And if not, then the shapes of every word we mouthed. I didn’t want to look too suspicious. So I babbled on about frivolous things that filled my day. Things a normal teen might tell her dad.
Like, maybe the exact kinds of things Sarah had called home about at first.
Daniel remained perfectly still. His gaze was sharp, waiting for me to fill him in. I laced my fingers and continued. “Our computer class today was great. Professor Grassi has tons of video cameras. Everywhere.”
“Speaking of computers . . . where’s L—Larry?” I’d almost used Lucas’s real name. I needed to focus.
“He’s buying some software to work on a few new programs. He wanted to get them finished before tonight. I think you’ll be impressed.”
Code for, Lucas has some new tech for you that he wants to deliver.
My fake smile became harder to maintain when I realized I wouldn’t get to see Lucas right now. It had never occurred to me that he’d miss this meeting. Anxiety, nerves—whatever the reason, I was overcome with a fierce desire to see his face. If only for a few seconds.
I couldn’t dwell on my disappointment, though. I needed to describe the day’s events to Daniel. Safely.
“My roommate is supernice. But she seems really tired. She was so out of it in Mr. Grassi’s computer class today that she started cutting her hair off, out of the blue. She seems fine now. But at least five of the kids we talked to today seemed really tired.” I trusted that he would know these were the five grant winners.
Daniel stroked his chin. “I’m sure it takes a lot of work to keep up your grades at a prestigious school like Montford,” he finally said. “Anything else?”
I passed the laptop to Samuel. Another prospective student talking to his “teacher,” as far as Montford knew. “I made some new friends—my roommate, and a few soccer players. Nice lads. When they heard about the hair shenanigans, they told me it’s not the first time that girl has been a little cuckoo this month.”
Hunter talked about his classes, then gave a small laugh. “They must have some seriously stressed kids on this campus, because I saw some other guy—Claude?—carrying an empty cup toward a trash can, and then, bam, he did a one-eighty and slammed it on the ground. The weirdest part was that he looked like he was having a muscle spasm when it happened. A mini seizure, or something.”
Daniel interrupted my thoughts. “I’m a little concerned about some of the behavior—do I need to give you the drug talk again?”
“No,” we chorused, as if we’d really heard the drug talk one hundred times before. His message was loud and clear. Try to search all of their rooms or belongings for drugs.
“Otherwise, I’m glad your first day went well. Try to get some sleep. Oh, and one last thing. I know you were all worried about the janitor’s wife, Rita, after she was mugged.”
Hunter and Abby exchanged quizzical glances. We were all in the same boat. No clue about this code.
“She’s going to be fine. They did some scans and performed some tests—they were worried she had a detached retina. But she fooled them all. With a few alterations, her retina will work just fine.”
She fooled them all . . .
And then it clicked. There was a way to fool the retinal-scan security on the vacant building. And if I could fool the security, that meant there was