The Dead Drop (14 page)

“Really?”

“Anyway, I think I’m done growing,” Gilda added. “Good thing I like high heels.”

“I’m sure we can get a couple more inches out of you. Here, let’s get some grapes and blueberries. Maybe some yogurt, too.”

As Gilda and Caitlin purchased their groceries at the checkout, they joked about the celebrity tabloid magazines and discovered that they both loved Junior Mints. On the way home, Caitlin became chattier than ever. In between bites of Junior Mints, she revealed how she’s a “daddy’s girl” who grew up in Virginia Beach; she explained how her father really wants her to go to law school even though she isn’t excited about it; she described how she dates all the time but just can’t find the right person. “The truth is, Gilda, I’ve never really had a serious boyfriend. If I like him, he doesn’t like me. If he likes me, I don’t like him.”

“We are so similar,” said Gilda, who had only once come close to having a real boyfriend.
This is kind of like having an older sister for the summer,
she thought.

“Anyway,” said Caitlin, “it’s been nice having you here instead of my roommate Lauren.”

“Why’s that?”

“Oh, she’s always nagging me about the dishes I left in the sink or a phone bill that’s past due or something. You’re more laid-back.”

“Oh, thanks.” Secretly, Gilda knew that she wasn’t the least bit laid-back; she simply wasn’t focused on Caitlin’s dishes.

“I think she’s at The Farm, you know.”

“You’re kidding. Your roommate’s in the CIA?!” Gilda knew that “the farm” meant the CIA training facility for new recruits. This was interesting. Why hadn’t Caitlin ever mentioned it before?

“Oh, I don’t know
for sure
that she’s there, but she says she’s training to work as a ‘foreign diplomat’ and if you ask me, that’s code for ‘spy.’ She’d be just the type, too. She
loves
keeping secrets, which drives me crazy.”

As she followed Caitlin down the sidewalk and into the elegant apartment lobby carrying bags of groceries, Gilda reflected that she herself had quite a few secrets she hadn’t yet shared with Caitlin.
Should I tell her about the message I found in the cemetery?
Gilda wondered.

The elevator doors opened to reveal a tiny, mousy woman who glared angrily at the two girls. Her iron-gray hair was pulled back in a messy knot and she wore a shapeless dress with old sneakers. She looked nothing like the other residents of Cathedral Towers, most of whom were either young professionals dressed in suits or elderly ladies wearing pearls, coral lipstick, and Sunday hats.

Gilda felt her psychic radar blast into high-alert mode:
it’s the woman who stared at me from across the courtyard,
she thought—
the woman who lives in the apartment where the lights flash in the middle of the night
. Moving to the back of the elevator where she could stare at the woman’s messy granny bun, Gilda wondered what, exactly, made this tiny woman so scary.

As Gilda exited the elevator, she glanced back for a moment. Her stomach clenched as her eyes met the woman’s hostile gaze.

“Do you know that lady?” Gilda whispered to Caitlin as they walked down the hallway toward their apartment.

“Not really,” said Caitlin. “She seems kind of weird, though. She never says hello.”

“This may sound odd, but did your roommate ever say anything about flashing lights coming from that woman’s apartment?”

“Flashing lights?” Caitlin paused to dig through her purse, searching for her apartment key.

“They’ve been waking me up in the middle of the night since I got here.”

“You’re kidding.” Caitlin opened the apartment door and abruptly dropped her grocery bags on the floor. “Let me tell you something about my roommate. Lauren could practically sleep through an earthquake; I’m not kidding.” Caitlin began hurriedly stuffing items in the cabinets and refrigerator. “Once we had this huge party, and Lauren just left right in the middle of it and went to bed. It didn’t even bother her that everyone was shouting at the top of their voices and dancing. About five people came knocking on our door, telling us to keep it down, but Lauren was out cold. She never drinks, either, so that wasn’t the problem. Anyway, I don’t think flashing lights would wake her up since she usually sets about five alarm clocks in the morning.”

Gilda couldn’t help wondering whether comatose sleeping habits might be a bad quality for an intelligence officer in training—if that was indeed what Lauren was.

After Gilda and Caitlin unloaded groceries, Gilda assembled the peanut butter, banana, and chocolate sandwiches, then heated some butter in a pan to fry them. Caitlin added a dollop of marshmallow cream to her sandwich and turned the heat dial on the stove to high. “These are either going to be really great or really gross.”

“Trust me; they’ll be great.” Now that she felt closer to Caitlin, Gilda was toying with the idea of letting her in on her discovery of the dead drop. She knew that a true spy would keep everything under wraps, but she found herself wanting to share the note she had found in Oak Hill Cemetery. What if Caitlin could offer some insights into the kind of person who had left the note?

“So,” said Gilda, “I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Can you really analyze handwriting?”

“How did you know about that?”

“I saw your book when I moved in.”

“I’m not bragging or anything,” said Caitlin, licking a serving spoon coated with marshmallow cream, “but it’s scary how well I can analyze handwriting. My friends practically think I’m psychic.” Caitlin paused to flip the sandwiches that were sizzling on the stove. “The thing is, it’s kind of a problem because as soon as I see a handwriting sample from someone I’m dating, I also see all their problems. It’s like their whole personality is on paper in front of me.”

Gilda nodded. “That’s exactly the kind of skill I need. I wondered if you could take a look at something I found.”

“Is it something for the Spy Museum?”

“I’ll show you.” Gilda went to her room to retrieve the photographs she had taken of the dead-drop message. She handed them to Caitlin. “Can you just look at the handwriting here and tell me what you think?”

“Testing me, huh? Okay—fine.” Caitlin went to a drawer, took out a magnifying glass, and sat down at the dining room table. “I’m pretty serious about this stuff,” she explained. As she examined the handwriting in the note, her demeanor changed. Suddenly she seemed far more studious and scientific than she had just moments ago.

“Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that there’s no sentence structure here; in fact, the whole thing makes no sense. However, it doesn’t appear to be the writing of an insane person; it’s written this way very purposefully and with great care. I’d also say that it’s written by someone who has something to hide.”

Gilda nodded eagerly. “What else?”

“I’d say there’s evidence of some criminal tendencies here. You see how every letter is so meticulously formed? It’s almost kind of childish, like a kid who’s just learning to write and who doesn’t want to make a mistake. This is someone who’s afraid of slipping up in some way—afraid of revealing his or her true self. This person doesn’t want to be known. You can also see an antisocial tendency in the way the letters lean to the left instead of the right. I’d say this is also someone who’s angry. You see these jabs in the paper here and there where the pen is practically stabbing the paper even though the writing is so neat? You see these places where the tail ends of letters curl down sharply like little claws? Some people call those ‘felon’s claws.’ In short—I wouldn’t advise anyone to date this person.”

“Do you think it’s a man or a woman?”

Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “Usually I can tell immediately, but the only thing I can say for sure is that this person wants to disguise his or her identity.”

The shrill, metallic scream of the smoke detector combined with an acrid, smoky odor interrupted their conversation.

“Omigod!” Caitlin jumped onto a chair and struggled to deactivate the smoke alarm on the ceiling. “Shut up! Shut up!”

Gilda ran into the kitchen and seized the frying pan, from which smoke curled and billowed over two charred squares. She turned off the stove and tossed the entire pan into the sink, feeling almost grief-stricken at the loss of two perfectly yummy sandwiches.
But I guess Caitlin’s handwriting analysis was well worth the sacrifice,
she thought.

Finally, Caitlin managed to turn off the smoke alarm. “Sorry—I forgot to tell you that I burn food a lot. It drove Lauren crazy all year; we had to buy a new pan about every other week.” Caitlin poked the pan in the sink. “Yeah, this pan is toast.” She ran cold water over the pan and a cloud of steam exploded into the air.

“I can make more sandwiches,” Gilda offered.

“I think I lost my appetite.”

Maybe that’s how she stays so thin,
Gilda thought.
She makes dinner, burns it, then throws away the pan.

 

Caitlin retreated to take a shower while Gilda made another sandwich. Unable to find another pan, she decided to eat it cold while typing her investigation progress report.

17

Lincoln’s Ghost

Gilda found herself in the Spy Museum again—in the Literary Spies Room.
He’s here again,
she thought.

There was the ghost of President Lincoln surrounded by high stacks of old leather-bound books: he leaned over his desk, dipping his quill pen into an inkwell and etching letters onto the page. Gilda tried to get closer to see what he was writing, but she couldn’t make out the words.

Strangely, she also saw Mrs. Larson, her school librarian, who perched on a stool, opening the covers of books and stamping them with due dates.
What is she doing here?
Gilda wondered.

She had an unusual awareness that she was dreaming.
If this is a dream,
Gilda thought,
I should be able to wake up
. But she didn’t wake up.

Instead, she decided to ask Lincoln a question. “What does it mean?” she heard herself ask. It was hard to talk. She sounded breathless, as if she had lost her voice.

Look at my letters,
Lincoln replied without turning to look at her. He continued writing with great urgency and speed.

Gilda tried to get closer to see the letters Lincoln was writing, but the words were dense and tangled—a web of ornate lines. She sensed someone else standing very close to her—someone who watched her from behind. Mrs. Larson stopped stamping books. She grew pale, staring at something just over Gilda’s shoulder.
Someone is standing behind me,
Gilda thought. She wanted to see who it was, but at the same time, she didn’t want to know.

Something that felt like a sharp fingernail—
or was it a gun?—
pressed into her spine.

Gilda whirled around, and stared into a stranger’s masklike face—a woman’s face with skin the color of frozen snow. Her smooth forehead was marked with a bright red stain in the shape of a five-pointed star.

 

Gilda sat up in bed and closed her eyes, trying to preserve her memory of the dream. She knew she had to record the dream right away, because dreams had a way of evaporating quickly if she didn’t get them down on paper fast.