Killer Spirit
Page 47

I couldn’t miss the emphasis on the last word. Amelia had come to me. She had made me. She’d referred to the others, had alluded to our cheerleading outfits, but she hadn’t explicitly identified them.
“This isn’t a trap,” I said. “And I don’t think Amelia Juarez has ever really worked for anyone other than herself. She knows who we are. She could have gone straight to Peyton with it. She didn’t.” I looked at each person at the table. “And if we play her little game, she won’t.”
This was it. Either they believed me, or we were screwed.
“If she’s telling the truth about Connors-Wright having the nanobots—and I think she is—then we can’t afford not to go. Amelia’s playing a dangerous game, and I honestly have no idea what she’ll do with this technology, or who she’ll sell it to, if we don’t beat her to it.”
Absolute silence greeted my words. If Amelia acquired the nanobots and sold them, then virtually unstoppable assassination technology would be in the hands of terrorists. First they’d study it and attempt to replicate it, but eventually, they’d use it, and somebody important to our national security would die.
I looked around the table, willing the others to snap out of their horrified states and agree. When they all remained silent, I tried to prod them into talking. “Besides, what do we have to lose?”
Brooke snorted. “Says the girl who hacked into their system last night,” she said. The message was clear: I didn’t have much to lose. “Do you have any idea how pissed they’re going to be about that?”
She was totally missing the point. Either we trusted that Amelia would play by the rules of her own sick little game, or we didn’t, and if we didn’t, we were beyond screwed anyway. “The Big Guys are going to be mad I hacked them? Allow me to pretend that I care.” I paused.
“Not very convincing,” Tara said mildly.
I shrugged. “That hurts, Tara. Right here.” I tapped my heart, and Tara stifled a giggle.
“Tell you what, Toby.” Brooke oozed condescension.
“We’ll look into Connors-Wright’s father. I’d be surprised if he’s even stationed in Bayport right now.”
“And if he is?” I pressed.
“If he is, then we’ll see.”
At least she was saying “we” instead of “you.” That seemed to indicate that she hadn’t mentally kicked me off the Squad. Yet.
At the head of the table, Brooke typed in a few short commands and brought up the records for operative individuals currently residing in or visiting Bayport, and as the names flashed across the screen, it occurred to me that the elder Connors-Wright wasn’t the only person we should be looking for.
“Whoever stole our target out from underneath us yesterday was good,” I said. “Operative-level good, and if it’s the same person, they managed to blow up Kann’s car without leaving much of a trail. If it wasn’t one of the TCIs, what are the chances that it was another operative?”
“A rogue operative?” Brooke was nothing if not skeptical. “You really think there’s a rogue operative in Bayport? And that this rogue operative somehow knew about the weapon, piggybacked on our mission to steal it, and then, out of the goodness of his or her heart, gave it to Anthony Connors-Wright so he could waste it on his father?”
“You got a better explanation?”
Brooke stared me down. “Yes. Amelia played you like a fiddle, and for reasons we can’t wrap our minds around, she wants us at that park this afternoon.”
Her words and tone poked holes in my confidence, but as I replayed the scene with Amelia the day before, I couldn’t deny the fact that I still believed Amelia, one hundred percent. She was crazy and she seriously needed to find a hobby that didn’t involve becoming a criminal mastermind, but she hadn’t lied to me. She hadn’t needed to. Rather than making this argument again, I tried the tactic Amelia had taken with me the night before and went with incontrovertible logic. “What about the fact that Amelia couldn’t have remotely detonated the bomb, that none of the TCIs could have?”
“We can check that out, too,” Tara volunteered. “We’ll have to go back over our video and audio surveillance. There’s a chance we might not have noticed a remote-detonating mechanism.”
“We should also recheck phone records,” Chloe volunteered. “Any of the TCIs could have hired someone to detonate the bomb.”
Darn them and their logic. Why hadn’t I thought of it the night before? Why hadn’t I poked holes in Amelia’s claims the way the rest of the Squad was poking holes in mine? The only answer I could come up with was that every instinct I had told me that Amelia had been exactly what she’d seemed. Psychotic, but truthful. “Run the data all you want,” I said, “but if it checks out, then we do something about it.”
As I waited for a response, I brought my hand up to my left shoulder and scratched absentmindedly.
This really wasn’t my morning: itchy shoulder, no coffee, antagonism aplenty, and nobody believed a word I was saying. I scratched harder.
“Ummmm…are you okay, Toby?” Lucy asked, her voice tentative. “You look…uncomfortable,” she finished diplomatically.
“I’m fine,” I said. “My shoulder itches.”
Beside me, Tara leaned closer. “It’s awfully red,” she said.
“I’ve been scratching.” This had to be the most inane cheerleading operative conversation that had ever taken place. Before it could move forward at all, I suggested we turn our attention to the flat-screen, and all of us began scanning the list for Connors-Wright’s name.
Nothing.
I barely registered the I-told-you-so expression that flitted across Brooke’s face. “Ummmm…Toby?”
“Ummmm…Lucy?” I answered.
“Your shoulder is kind of, you know, pink now.”
Hadn’t we already established this?
“Like neon pink.”
I looked down. My shoulder was hot, hot pink. I might have handled that better on a day when I’d had some caffeine, but in retrospect, probably not.
“What the hell did you two put in that shower gel?” I sent the twins dart eyes.
“You actually used the shower gel?” Tiffany asked, impressed. “We thought you’d smuggled in some sucky soap or something, because your scent matrix has been kind of…”
Was she trying to say that I smelled? And, on a related note, did she want me to kill her? These were very important questions, but they weren’t nearly as important as the one I’d just asked.
“Shoulder,” I prompted. “Pink. Why?”
“It’s a security thing,” Brittany said. “The shower gel has these special chemical thingies in it, and they react and turn different colors for different things.” She turned to her twin. “What’s pink again?”
“Something electronic, I think,” Tiff said, wrinkling her nose. “Like maybe a bug?”
“No,” Brittany said. “Bug is blue, remember?”
“Oh yeah.”
“It has to be a chip of some kind then, right?”
They seemed to be approaching this whole conversation with the same solemnity with which they considered fall colors. No more, no less.
Brooke, however, snapped to attention. “Somebody get a scalpel. Now.”
If you’ve never heard a cheerleading captain speak these words, then you have never felt true terror. A scalpel? And just what was she planning on scalpeling? Because she had to know that I wasn’t letting her come anywhere near me with something of the sharp and pointy variety.
Lucy with the knives had been more than enough.
“Got one!” Somehow, I wasn’t surprised that Miss Knives-Are-Interesting had a scalpel handy. I wasn’t going to ask about that. I really didn’t want to know.
“Who do you want cutting it out?”
“Cutting what out? There will be no cutting! None. Lucy, step away from the scalpel.”
Lucy rolled her eyes and handed the scalpel to Tara.