Shine (16 page)

Mickey pulled off at the exit, then into a gas station across from the on-ramp. We were in the mountains west of Hagerstown, more than an hour from home.

While Siobhan was filling the tank, Mickey stalked around the back of the station, Megan on his heels. I got out of the SUV and considered going to the bathroom, but it was one of those gas stations with the restrooms on the outside of the building. Those were always gross, and you usually had to ask some skeevy dude for the key, which always had something huge like a carburetor attached so you wouldn’t walk off with it in your pocket.

Dylan and Connor and I went to the rust-rimmed vending machines for chips and sodas. The clank of our change and the thunk of the cans couldn’t cover the shouting behind the station.

“This has nothing to do with you,” Mickey said. “I want two days to set up my apartment on my own. With no one’s help or advice or interference. Can’t you understand that?”

“I can’t understand why you’d turn down a chance for us to get
away together alone. Why does spending time with me not sound like more fun than buying a toaster?”

“It’s not about fun. It’s about getting the fuck away.”

“From me? You want to get away from me?”

Mickey groaned. “Could you try just once speaking a sentence that doesn’t use the word ‘me’? Just
once
, Logan?”

My stomach flipped. I raised my gaze to meet Dylan’s, then Connor’s. They shook their heads sadly and walked back toward the SUV. Dylan kicked an empty soda can, bouncing it off the station’s dingy concrete base.

Megan whimpered. “Did you—Mickey, what did you call me? Am I really that much like him? Is that why you—” Her next words were muffled, like she was covering her mouth. “You do need to get away from me, don’t you?”

“No.” His soft protest sounded halfhearted. “Megan, no.” Shoes scraped loose gravel. “Come here.”

“Uh-uh.” Megan sniffled hard. “I get it now. I finally get it.” Her voice turned calm and hollow. “I have to let you go.”

I stepped away quietly, but instead of returning to the car, I waited by the front of the gas station. Connor started wiping the Escalade’s windshield with the station’s squeegee.

The salt-and-vinegar chips had no taste. My tongue felt numb and my fingers cold as I contemplated our collective future. No more me & Logan, no more Siobhan & Connor, and now no more Megan & Mickey.

After paying for the gas, Siobhan came over to me. “What’s happening now?”

“I think she’s breaking up with him.”

“Whoa. I always thought it’d be the other way around.”

“Me too.” I offered her my chips.

“Thanks.” She took the bag and leaned against the building next to me. “This is gonna sound weird, but it makes me hopeful.”

“You want them to be miserable?”

“We’ve all been miserable since Logan died. We thought we had to be, to honor him. But that’s the last thing he’d want.”

She was right. Logan always wanted everyone he loved to be happy, and thought it was his own personal failure if they weren’t.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t help Zachary,” Siobhan said. “Don’t give up fighting for him. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you, like bitch-slap some dumpers.” She spat out the last word, our favorite term for DMP agents.

Mickey and Megan appeared then, shuffling like zombies toward the car. Their eyes were red and their faces, pink.

Siobhan pushed away from the wall. “I’ll drive.”

Mickey gave a shaky nod and kept moving. The rest of the way home, he sat with Dylan in the middle seat while I sat in back with Megan.

No one said anything. Mickey and Megan stared straight ahead, frozen, as if one movement would shatter them. I reached for her hand to comfort her, but she moved it, patted mine quickly, then crossed her arms so I couldn’t try again.

When we dropped her off at home, I climbed out to help get her bags. “I’ll call you,” I said.

“No. Let me call you.” She picked up her bag and gave me a limp half hug.

“Okay,” I said, but didn’t mean it. I’d let her have half an hour, tops, before I showed up at her door.

But I doubted a tub of rocky road ice cream and a stack of cheesy-movie DVDs would be enough to comfort her. Maybe that old cliché was right, and time could one day heal all the wounds Logan’s death had dealt.

Now that he’d found his peace, we each had to search for our own.

W
hat
were you thinking?” Simon stalked past the Poe House’s antique dining room table. His usual calm demeanor had dissolved into full-fledged twitchiness.

“I was thinking that Zachary was in a horrible place while you guys were doing nothing. Turns out I was right. Have you shown your boss the pictures I sent?”

“You think we didn’t already know about 3A’s security features? You really believe that you lot were able to accomplish what trained agents of Her Majesty’s Secret Service were not?”

“Were we?”

Simon didn’t answer.

I sat with my back to the narrow staircase, which I’d climbed with Zachary on our last birthday, up to the attic bedroom, where
he’d held my hand and told me he was determined to possess my heart. The memory both saddened and comforted me.

Decades ago MI-X had helped the Edgar Allan Poe Society keep this small brick home from being torn down, and in return, the society let MI-X use it as a short-term safe house. Ian had brought me and Zachary here that night to explain our sensitive security situation in private.

In other words, to yell at us, like Simon was doing now.

“In the future,” Simon said, “do nothing. No more investigating. No more spying.”

“But I thought—”

“No more thinking. Be a normal teenager.”

I scowled. Had he forgotten he’d been a teen himself three years ago? “What about Nicola? You told me to get information out of her.”

“Stop meeting with her for now, until we’re sure the DMP doesn’t suspect you were one of the trespassers.” Simon took off his glasses and squinted through them at the flickering wall sconce.

I thought of the men in midnight-blue uniforms who’d chased us. “Have you ever heard of a group called ‘Nighthawk’?”

Simon froze, staring at me, looking suddenly younger. “Of course I have. Why?”

“SecuriLab may have hired them. They might’ve been there Friday night, but I’m not sure.”

He said nothing as he cleaned his glasses with the tail of his brick-red polo shirt.

“You didn’t know that, did you?” I asked him.

“Not personally.” He examined his glasses, then put them back on. “I’m sure my superiors know.”

“It would’ve been nice if they’d told you, so you could tell me what I’m up against.”

“Aura, listen!” He jerked out the chair across from me and sat down. “Isn’t it enough to know we’re up against something big? Why must you question?”

“Because I’m not paid to take orders like you are. How big is this ‘something’?”

“Big enough to scare both our governments.”

“Shit.” I remembered something he’d said a couple of weeks ago when I’d asked why MI-X couldn’t demand Zachary’s release. “Does this have to do with those ‘other interests’ you mentioned?” I dug my nails against the rough wooden tabletop. “Is SecuriLab the ‘other interest’? If they make BlackBox, they must be superrich.”

“True.” He drew his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. “A company that size would have both our countries by the bollocks.” He glanced at me. “Sorry.”

My nose wrinkled at the gross but convincing image. “So it’s SecuriLab we should be worried about? Not the DMP? Or do they want the same thing?”

“They both have an interest in the dead. But the DMP would like to end the Shift and get rid of ghosts.”

“Which would mean no more need for BlackBox.”

“And no more money for SecuriLab.”

I looked out into the Poe House living room, filled with the author’s possessions from his early twenties, when he fell in love with
the girl he would someday marry. The museum’s caretaker had told me and Zachary that Poe had never gotten over her early death. At the time, I’d wondered if I would ever recover from losing Logan.

Poe came back to Baltimore years later, but not to this house. He was found wandering the streets, incoherent or maybe drunk, and died a few days later. No one knew the cause of death, but some conspiracy theories said he’d been murdered because he’d pissed off someone powerful.

I sat up straight, glimpsing a new possibility, like someone had ripped aside a curtain to let in the afternoon sun.

“Simon, that’s why the DMP hasn’t killed me yet.”

“Sorry?”

“Because my death might end the Shift. No more ghosts, no more BlackBox, no more humongous profits.” I forced out the ugliest truth. “SecuriLab might be all that’s keeping me alive.”

Simon had told me to stay away from Nicola, but of course he didn’t tell
her
to stay away from
me
.

“Aura!”

I looked up from my desk to see Nicola parading across my aunt’s law office toward me. At a nearby file cabinet, our paralegal, Terrence, gave me a “Should I get rid of her?” look.

I shook my head and tried to smile. “Hey, Nicola.”

“Told you I’d come through for you!” She held out a blank, white, letter-size envelope at either end with her fingertips, displaying it like a game-show hostess with the grand prize.

I leaped out of my chair to grab the envelope. I tore it open, glad it wasn’t sealed, or I would’ve gotten a nasty paper cut.

I unfolded the single sheet of notebook paper. The handwriting was definitely Zachary’s, though shakier than usual.

July 10
Dear Aura,
I needed you to know that I
am alive, and that I love you.
Don’t give up hope.
Zachary

My knees wobbled as I sat slowly, brushing my fingers over the words.

Which were way too few. I flipped the page over. “This is all they’d let him write?”

She peered over my shoulder. “Ooh, that is brief. Is he usually more verbose than that?”

I shook the paper at her. “Does this sound like a letter from a boyfriend or a letter from a hostage?”

Nicola crossed her arms and tapped her French-manicured nails against her biceps. “Hmm. They probably told him what he could and couldn’t say, for security reasons. So do you have a response for him?”

“I do.” Still holding the letter Zachary had sent, I pulled my memo pad from my bag. I tore out the back page and handed it to Nicola.

I hoped the DMP would think my message was harmless enough to give to Zachary unedited. Even if he couldn’t guess my exact meaning, maybe he’d take the hint that he shouldn’t try to escape. The
thought of him running full speed into that invisible electric fence made me shudder as if my own body had been shocked.

Dear Zachary,
I love you and miss you so much. I’d give
anything to bust down your door and be in
your arms again. But the world doesn’t
work that way right now. Please stay
strong, stay safe, and stay there.
Love, Aura

“What’s going on?”

Gina’s sharp voice made me and Nicola jump.

“Aura was—”

“Give me that.” Gina snatched the note from Nicola and held it at arm’s length so she could read it without her glasses. “Aura, why didn’t you tell me about this?”

I crammed the letter from Zachary between my skirt and the chair I was sitting in. “I was about to do that when you walked up and stole it.”

“Is there a problem?” Nicola asked her. “I don’t want to cause trouble.”

“You’re with the DMP, so by definition, you
are
trouble. Please leave my office.”

Nicola reached for the letter. “Of course, but can I—”

“No!” Gina put her hands on her hips and took a step toward her. Though Nicola had five inches of height on my aunt, she backed away quickly, her face crumpling.

“I’m so sorry. I wanted to help.” She hurried out, her steps unsteady, like she couldn’t quite see where she was going.

“Can I please have my note back?” I asked Gina.

Her face softened. “Hon, I know it’s hard not be able to communicate with him. But your letters won’t get through, and they’ll only expose you to the DMP.” Though we usually didn’t hug at the office, she put her arm around my shoulders and squeezed me tight. “We’ll get through this together.”

When she went back to her office, I rewrote my letter to Zachary and slipped it into the blank envelope. Hiding it in my lap, I copied the address off Nicola’s business card.

My cell phone buzzed with a text message:

Nicola:
MAIL IT TO ME
.

I smiled.
ALREADY DONE
. :)

Nicola:
MEANT TO TELL YOU, THERE WAS A SECURITY BREACH @3A LAST WKD.