The Girl in the Wall (15 page)

Cassidy raises her eyebrows, though I can’t tell whether it’s in reaction to what Hudson said or her cards. “Got it.” She slaps down two cards, deals herself two more, and moves on to Ravi who wants one new card. “This is the deal so far. Ravi’s group is going to be in charge of staging some kind of distraction. My group will be the first line of attack, after they get the agents distracted, and Ella’s group is going to come in right after us. Franz’s group will be on the doorway to the kitchen since most of the agents seem to come in from there and they’ll try to stop as many as they can. That leaves the two of you free to figure out how we get out of here. Everybody ante up.”

I forgot we were supposed to be playing so I fumble for a moment to get my chips set and my cards fanned out. I have a bad hand but I suck at poker anyway so I don’t bother trading in any cards.

Hudson is nodding. “Okay, we’ll focus on taking out the guards at the doorway to the living room and clearing the way for you guys to follow us out to the front door.”

I drop my chips on the table. That sounds impossible. But Cassidy gives me an arch look and I gather up my chips and my wits. We’re all doing impossible things so I might as well just get past that and start thinking about the most direct route out of the Barett mansion.

“What kind of distraction are you guys going to stage?” Franz asks.

“I think Aisha will fake a seizure,” Ravi says.

Aisha has had the lead in every play since we were in middle school and has already done bit parts on Broadway. She’s perfect for that. Then I think of something.

“You know what, she should do it in the bathroom,” I say. “That way maybe you can get some agents in there, sneak her out, and lock them in.”

“I like that,” Ravi says, giving me a thumbs up. “Maybe we can grab one of their guns in the confusion.”

It’s weird to have my classmates talking to me again.

“Yeah, it’s smart,” Cassidy agrees. “You’ll just have to think it through carefully so that you get her out.”

The thought of Aisha or any of us trapped in a room with agents is awful. “Yeah, that would be essential,” I say.

“So are we just fighting them off with whatever skills we have or are we going to try and find weapons?” Ella asks. “They put away the sharp knives in the kitchen but maybe we can find some other stuff.”

Hudson looks at me.

“We have a weapons source,” I say slowly. “And we’ll have some stuff hidden for us in the bathroom.” I glance at the clock and see it’s a little after four. “It’s probably already there.”

Cassidy looks at me through slitted eyes. “A
weapons source
?” she asks, her voice drenched in sarcasm.

“I think the less everyone knows about that, the better,” Hudson says. “What matters is that we’ll have some stuff, like hair spray and letter openers, that we can use.”

Cassidy shrugs. I can tell by the crease in her forehead she’s annoyed but she’s letting it go and that’s the important thing. Then she looks at me. “So what do you say?”

For a second I have no idea what she’s talking about but then I realize it’s my turn. “Oh, um, I’ll fold.”

“You can’t fold, we have to all keep playing so the game looks real,” she snaps.

“Right, okay, then I see your ten and raise you twenty,” I say, shoving in my chips.

Hudson grins at me. “Sometime I want to play a real game with you. I’m guessing I’d take the house.”

“You should challenge her to strip poker,” Franz says.

I shoot him a look. I almost forgot Franz’s sleazy French humor since I haven’t been its target for the past nine months and four days. And I definitely haven’t missed it.

“Not a bad idea,” Hudson muses, grinning at me wickedly.

My face is on fire.

“Now that I think of it, what are we waiting for?” Franz asks. “Let’s make this game about getting naked.”

“Right, because us getting naked will totally not get the agents’ attention,” Ella says, rolling her eyes. “Only you could think of sex at a time like this.”

“Actually he’s not the only one,” Ravi says, and he and Franz exchange a high-five.

“Let’s focus,” Cassidy says, but I can tell she is amused by the way the corners of her mouth turn up the slightest bit.

I forgot how much I used to like these people.

“So who will give the signal when it’s time to start?” Hudson asks. He is grinning too.

“Ravi, since his group is making the first move,” Cassidy says. “We should all be in our places, ready to grab weapons at 4:55.”

No one is smiling now.

“I’ll get the weapons at 4:30,” I say. “Though we have to figure out how to get them out of the bathroom and hidden around the room.”

“Maybe you go and take stock of what we have early,” Cassidy says. “That way we know exactly what we have and we can plan for it. I call.”

We spread our cards.

“Damn,” Hudson says as Cassidy scoops up the pot. He had two aces but she had a full house.

Cassidy shuffles and deals us each a new hand. “See if you can hold your own this time, rock star,” she says to Hudson.

He acknowledges the challenge with a raised eyebrow but then he glances at the clock and his face is solemn again. “Sera, you should probably go check on the weapons, unless you want me to do it.”

“Sera does it because she knows the house best,” Cassidy says without looking up.

Hudson raises his hands in submission but I can tell he gets a kick out of how bossy she is. Guys always do, even though any other girl who gets bossy is tagged with the bitch label. Cassidy is somehow immune to that and has guys falling at her feet when she orders them around. Which has me suddenly feeling jealous until Hudson squeezes my hand.

“Be careful,” he says, his eyes intent on my face.

“She’s just going to the bathroom,” Cassidy huffs. “Save the melodrama for the actual fight.”

I would laugh if the whole going to take stock of the weapons thing didn’t have my insides wound taut. But it needs to be done so I stand up and walk over to the agent nearest the bathroom.

“Is it okay if I use the restroom?” I ask, shifting my weight from one leg to the other like I really need to go. Which is probably unnecessary but it helps me stay calm to fidget a little.

He or she nods, not even looking at me, so I walk in and close the door firmly behind me. I quietly open the grate. I peer in but don’t see anything. Did she leave them farther down? I hoist myself up into the passageway and look in both directions. There’s enough light from the grates down the narrow tunnels that I can see pretty far, and there are no weapons, not anywhere.

My insides twist into a tight coil, making it hard to breathe. There’s something wrong. Ariel was supposed to have the weapons here by now and there’s no way she’d just forget or be late, not with all that’s at stake.

I hesitate, unsure what to do. If I go look for her, I’ll be in the bathroom way too long and the agents will start knocking. But if I don’t go, we don’t have any weapons except the few things from my bag. And more than that, I’m worried about Ariel.

It goes against every instinct I have to steady the grate behind me and head off down the tunnels because I know it’s my grave I’m digging. But really what choice do I have?

I secure the grate behind me and take off at a run.

I am curled up on the sofa in the blue room, not crying, not thinking, especially not about what Marc was holding in his lifeless hand. The blue room is off at the end of the back hall and it’s the smallest room in the house. When I was little it was my favorite place to go when I was scared because it was the only place in my house you could call cozy, and the sofa and armchair in here are worn and comfortable, not sleek like the furniture in the rest of the house. I haven’t been in here for a while but it’s where I came, on autopilot, after I first saw my uncle’s body. I didn’t think any of the agents would bother coming in so I turned on a small lamp in the corner. I can’t be in a dark room right now.

“Ariel,” a voice whispers, making me leap up in the air. I fall back, half on the floor, and look around frantically but don’t see anyone. Then the grate opens and Sera steps out, a cobweb in her hair from the tunnels.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack,” she says, coming and sitting on the chair across from me.

“How did you find me here?” There are a lot of things I could ask her right now but that is the thing that comes out.

“I know you better than you think,” she says ruefully. “What’s going on?”

I don’t think I can talk about it without a meltdown so I stand up, proud to discover my shaky legs can support me. “Sorry about the weapons, I got sidetracked,” I say. “But I have a lot of stuff. We can go get it now.”

She says nothing, just tips her head and looks at me with those knowing, Sera eyes. And that’s all it takes. I am back on the sofa, tears spilling out.

“Marc is dead,” I manage to choke off before I start sobbing.

Her eyes go wide but instead of asking me what I’m talking about, she comes over, wraps her arms around me, and lets me cry. And cry I do. It must be five minutes before I’m able to pull myself together. And then I’m mortified.

“I think I’m going soft,” I say, fumbling on the side table for a tissue to mop up my face.

“Right, two people in your family dead, a third in danger, and here you are, totally overreacting,” she says.

I always love it when she brings the sarcasm. “Yeah, I guess, but falling apart doesn’t help.”

“Being human is allowed.”

I should have a retort for that but I’m kind of running on empty. Plus she might be right. I stuff the dirty tissues in my pocket and sink down into the sofa.

“So what happened to Marc?” Sera asks.

“He was shot.”

“I’m so sorry.”

I really don’t want to feel anything about Marc’s death. I’m not even sure I’m allowed to feel bad after I spent all these hours thinking he’s the one behind this hostage takeover. What kind of person suspects her uncle of something like that? Especially since he had my heart necklace in his hand when he died. Well, Bianca’s, technically, but he would have thought it was mine and that is probably how they got him to do whatever they told him to. He did it to try and save me. I close my eyes, trying to ward off the image of the necklace clutched in his fingers.

“So this probably means he wasn’t the one behind this whole thing,” Sera says.

“No, I don’t think so,” I say, guilt tearing at me with small claws.

“Then who do you think is?” she asks.

I’ve been so busy not thinking about Marc that I haven’t even started to wonder about this. But now that she says it, I can’t believe I let it go this long.

“I don’t know,” I say, my spine straightening just a bit. “It has to be someone who knew my dad pretty well.”

“And someone who was in a position to hire security for this,” Sera says.

“He could have passed that off to any assistant,” I say. “But for that person to know his safe combination… ”

Sera looks at me blankly.

“I went to his bedroom and someone had opened his safe and cleared it out.”

She rubs her thumb along her chin the way she does when she’s thinking about something. “Yeah, but maybe whoever is behind this just put a gun to Marc’s head and told him to open it.”

“That’s possible,” I say, thinking of the conversation I overheard between Marc and the agent earlier tonight. They had a gun to his head then too, I was just too stupid to realize it.

Sera has moved on to hair twisting, a sure sign she is anxious about something. “It would also be someone who was there in Mexico.”

Suddenly the elephant has walked into the room. It was one thing to mention Mexico when the guys were there but now it’s just us and the elephant, big and bulky and impossible to get around.

Sera looks at me evenly. “I’m not sorry I told,” she says. “I had to do something and that was the best I could do.”

This is so not what I expected her to say. The few times she managed to talk to me or text me after it happened, all she did was apologize.

“You needed help,” she adds.

I’m so going soft because here I am, tearing up again. “I know,” I say, gulping a little. “And you were probably right to do it.”

Now she is the one who looks surprised, shocked even. I can’t believe I’m admiting that, to her or myself, but I know it’s true.

“It was just, to have it out in the open like that, I couldn’t take it,” I say. “I’m sorry I was such a jerk about it.”

This is weak and I know it but how do you apologize for something that’s pretty unforgivable? I was angry about Mexico and I took it all out on Sera, the person least deserving of my wrath.

But Sera is just nodding. “Yeah, I get that.”

She does not tell me it’s okay because we both know it’s not. But her getting it—that is a lot and I realize that something inside me that has been locked up tight is loosening just the tiniest bit.

“It was just so awful,” I say brokenly. “I still have flashbacks about it every time I smell lemons or—”

“Wait.” Sera’s eyes widen. “Lemons?”

“Yeah, I think they used lemon-scented cleaner at the hotel in Mexico.”

She cocks her head. “Or were they lemon lozenges?”

I draw a blank but then I get it. “No, John would never do this.”

If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that John Avery could never be part of something this cruel. I was quick to think Marc was guilty and I’m not going to do the same thing here.

Sera puts her hand over mine. “Are you sure?” she asks gently. “I know John has been good to you over the years but he’s always sucking those lemon lozenges and I think he might have been the one in charge of security for the party.”

“What makes you think that?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.

Sera twirls a lock of hair around her fingers. “I just remembered it now but when I first got here, I was talking to your dad and John. Your dad was saying how all the guys in the garden with machine guns seemed like a lot of security for one singer and John said something like, well, that’s what his people said he needed. And it made me think he was the one to hire the security.”