Two Lies and a Spy (12 page)

Whatever it is, it makes me want to deck him. “You are unbelievable,” I say. “You sneak and eavesdrop and blackmail your way into this, and now you want to back out?” I poke him in the chest. “Unacceptable. You said you were in.”

His eyes glint oddly as he looks down at me. “Fine. I succumb to the peer pressure. I’ll toddle along to Langley with you. I’ve never been arrested . . . there’s a first time for everything, I suppose.”

I make a noise of contempt.

Evan bursts out laughing.

“What are you laughing at, you . . . you . . . jackass?!”

“You,” he says. “You look so ridiculously ugly—” He gasps for breath.

Luke steps between us before I can hit him. “She’s a very good sport about it,” he says quietly. Soothingly.

I inhale the scent of his freshly laundered shirt and a sporty, breezy aftershave. I forget about being mad at Evan, because I could stand there and breathe in the delicious smell of Luke all day. He’s standing close enough that I can feel his body heat. I look up into his eyes, trying to keep the longing out of my own.

Then I remember what I look like—a troll from under a bridge—and I step away, pull myself together. “Charlie, you have the laser pointers? The comm units?”

He nods.

“Rita, you brought the extra Kennedy lapel pins and the little Velcro dots?”

She nods.

“Kale, you brought your A-game?”

He gives me a thumbs-up.

“And Luke . . . you’ll keep your sister under control?”

He snorts.

“I heard that!” Lacey says, coming out of her room
with her Vuitton purse slung over her arm.

Evan’s lips twitch. “Louis and his logos will come in handy at Langley, I’m sure.”

Lacey tosses her hair over her shoulder. “A girl needs her accessories.”

“And those of others,” Rita mutters under her breath.

We’re a strange and motley crew, but we’re on a mission: to find my mom and break her out.

By five p.m. we’re en route to Langley. Charlie breaks out the comm units that were in our Union Station backpacks. They’re tiny, and we attach them to the backs of gold Kennedy Prep pins that have the school crest on them. Then everyone puts one on the lapel of his or her uniform jacket.

Charlie and Rita will stay in the back of Luke’s Jeep, monitoring the situation with the laptop, which will keep track of our comm units. Rita should also be able to hack into the CCTV system and keep a lookout for us.

We pull up to the security booth, Luke at the wheel, and he shows the guard his ID and tells him that he’s bringing in a tour group. We all wave like clean-cut, preppy, plaid-accessorized angels.

Angels or not, we are all required to hand over picture IDs before Luke can move forward another inch, and the vehicle is scanned, inside and out, for possible weapons or explosives. Evan jokes that we only have Lacey the Sex Bomb with us, but the security guys do not find that funny. Lacey smiles and takes it as a compliment.

I just pray that Charlie’s fake ID and mine pass inspection. I am masquerading as Louise Snodgrass, and Charlie is Patrick McMahon. Thank God, the guards don’t have any issue with them. The interior of the car is dark, and the guards aren’t all that worried about a group of prep-school kids. Finally we are admitted to the grounds.

Langley isn’t just one building. It’s a vast, sprawling campus that encompasses the Original Headquarters Building, the New Headquarters Building, an auditorium, research facilities, memorials, parks, and training grounds.

Luke parks his Jeep in the designated area, and Charlie and Rita stay in the back cargo area, hidden by the tinted windows.

Luke, Lacey, Evan, Kale, and I get out and walk in through the doors of the New Headquarters Building,
which is huge, white, and modern, with an impressive arch of skylights. Here we have to stop to go through more security and get visitor passes.

Luke and his sister know the guards on duty, since they’ve been here to visit their dad.

“Hey, Richie,” Luke says, casually. “How’s Martha? The kids?”

“Good, good. Thanks for asking. How’re you, Luke?”

“Can’t complain.” Luke slips off his watch, empties his pockets of change, and drops all of his metal into a plastic bowl. He adds his phone and turns to the other man working at the counter by the metal detectors as he walks through. “How about you, Jake?”

“Same old, same old,” Jake says. “Had me a hot date last Saturday, though.”

“She a keeper?”

“Too early to tell, my man.” Jake hands Luke the plastic bowl and nods more formally to Lacey. “Hello, young lady.”

“Hey, Jake,” she says coolly. She puts her palm flat on his chest and stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

Looking stunned, he watches her sashay through the metal detector and get her purse on the other side. He and Richie exchange a quick glance; Jake shakes his head.

Luke ignores his sister’s shenanigans and snaps his watch back around his wrist. “Guys, these are my friends Ka—ah, Louise, Evan, and Kale. We’re going to give them the grand tour after we meet up with Dad. It’s for our government class.”

The guards nod.

“This whole tour was actually his idea.” Lacey delivers this lie so easily that I’d believe it myself if I didn’t know better.

“We’ll just wait in his office, if that’s all right,” Luke says.

The guards look at each other, then shrug. “Yeah, okay.” Clearly, they know the Carson kids well.

I don’t have a purse on me, so I drop my charm bracelet, Kennedy Prep pin, phone, and watch into a plastic bowl. No problems—I’m cleared. So is Kale.

Why am I surprised when Evan sets off the alarm? Though he’s dropped his phone, change, keys, watch, and pin into the bowl, he’s evidently forgotten something in his shirt pocket. Once they wand him and pat him down, it turns out to be a stainless steel pen. They examine it and give it back to him.

After we clear security, we get our visitors’ badges.

At last we head for the elevators, Evan preoccupied with his phone now that he’s got it back.

I exhale quietly in relief. We’re through security! We’re in. Now we can focus on finding my mom.

The elevator doors slide closed behind us, and we all look at each other nervously. “Ready?” I ask.

Kale nods.

“Sure thing.” Lacey licks her lips.

Evan inclines his head, but shifts his weight from foot to foot. He swallows and loosens his tie.

And Luke . . . Luke says softly, “Good luck, Kari.”
Then he does the unbelievable. He steps forward and kisses me—on the cheek. In spite of my current appearance.

My heart rolls over while Lacey makes a rude retching noise from her corner of the elevator. And in case nobody hears that, she says, “Gaaaaag.
Seriously
?”

Luke Carson just kissed me!
I can feel the blush suffusing my face, and my pulse hammers wildly. I think I might spontaneously combust.

“How sweet,” Evan says. “How brotherly.”

Luke flushes and shoots him a glance, but doesn’t say anything.

Brotherly?
Funny how one word can make all the pleasure rush out of your body. I am left feeling exactly like waterlogged sand: flat, heavy, bereft of energy.

I hate Evan Kincaid.

But he’s probably right. Luke kissed me on the cheek, not the lips. He didn’t mean anything by it except friendship. I remind myself that we’re not here for me to fulfill my fantasies with the boy of my dreams. We’re here because my mom is caught in a nightmare and my dad is MIA.

The elevator doors open on Mr. Carson’s floor seconds later.

“Testing: one, two, three.” We hear Rita’s voice in our earbuds.

“Copy,” I say in a low voice. Everyone else does too.

“Okay, good. You guys can hear us. We
finally
patched into the network. So we have the security cameras in your area taken care of. They’re frozen on images of empty
hallways. There’s only one issue: If you go more than three or four floors below ground level, we may not be able to help you. Kari, you can use either the laser devices with the golf sights or the small jammers I gave you on individual cameras. Those will disrupt the signals, but they’ll also alert someone that the cameras aren’t functioning properly. They’ll send someone to check on them.”

“Okay. Thanks, guys.”

“Good luck.”

Luke, whose face is still a little pink, heads for his father’s office, just in case his dad does show up, or someone asks questions. The rest of us head for the maintenance stairs, but I almost have a stroke when we find that the door to them is locked.

“Crap!” I whisper.

“What’s the problem?” Lacey asks, and steps in front of me. She slides a badge into the slot under the handle and pulls the door open. “
Après vous
,” she says.

“Where did you get that?” I ask.

Evan chuckles. “I’ll wager it belongs to Jake. Doesn’t it, Lacey? You palmed it when you kissed him, you shameless little hussy.”

She smirks but doesn’t deny it.

I stare at her with unwilling admiration. “Lacey, you have the makings of a world-class criminal.”

She flashes her pearly whites at me. “Thanks.”

We start descending flights of stairs, Evan checking out Lacey’s legs as we go.

At each landing we come to we open the door and
check around, but don’t have much luck. Floors one and two are composed of long corridors: nothing but taupe tiles and office after office.

“I thought you knew where the detention center was?” Kale asks Lacey.

She grimaces. “Yeah . . . it’s just that everything looks the same, and I can’t remember exactly which floor it was on. I was kind of upset the day I was here.”

On the third floor down there’s a young analyst working in an office by himself. He looks up from his desk, focuses on us, and frowns. “Can I help you?” He rises and walks toward us.

We flash our visitors’ passes. “School tour group,” Evan calls.

“Where’s your guide?”

“Uh . . .” I scramble for an answer as my pulse kicks into overdrive.

He shakes his head and picks up his phone. “We don’t give public tours, especially for this building. I’m calling security.”

Lacey steps forward. “Hi, I’m Lacey Carson. My dad’s the director of the Agency. We have a specially arranged tour.” She unclips her ID pass and hands it to him.

“Oh,” he says, uncertainly, looking from it to her boobs, which she’s thrust forward. He catches himself and checks the ID again.

She gives him a dazzling smile, and he blinks at its radiance. “But thanks for being cautious. I mean, we could be plaid-clad terrorists, bent on world destruction, right?”
She laughs—with just the right amount of mockery and friendliness combined—and tosses that all-American blond hair of hers.

He’s forced to laugh too, or look like an idiot.

She’s masterful at peer pressure, even on a man twice her age.

He folds like a cheap lawn chair. “Well, enjoy your visit. Is there anything I can show you?”

“Nah, but thanks. We’re meeting Dad in a couple of minutes. Just looking for a restroom?”

“Go back the way you came and up to the ground floor. They’ll be on the left as you come out of the elevators.”

Mr. Junior Analyst (or whatever he is) goes back to his desk and we scram.

The fourth floor down yields only empty offices. On the fifth floor we encounter a janitor in a steel blue uniform with the name
AL
stitched on his breast pocket. Unlike the analyst, Al isn’t buying our story, no matter how jiggly and giggly Lacey gets.

Al glowers at us from under bushy gray eyebrows and growls, “I don’t care who your daddy is.” He points behind him. “You’ll come into this office right here and wait while I call upstairs.”

Kale and I exchange a glance.

“Okay, sir, whatever you say.” We follow him into the deserted office, and I pull the door shut behind us. It clicks shut quietly as Al picks up a phone on the corner of the desk. As he presses the on button, Kale loops one arm around Al’s neck in a choke hold.

“Christ! What are you doing?” Evan exclaims.

I gesture at him to shut up.

It takes less than a minute to drop the poor old guy to the floor.

“Sorry, Al,” I say as we gently haul him a couple of doors down to a supply closet, and Lacey locks him in with his own keys.

“That was assault,” Evan points out. “Or battery. Or both.”

“You have a problem with those?” I ask serenely.

His mouth drops open. When he shuts it again, there’s an odd little smile playing around his lips. “I’m developing a whole new level of respect for you, Kari Andrews.”

“Louise,” I correct him.

“Right.”

“And it’s about time,” I add.

“Darling,” he says. “I’ll be damned if I’m not falling in love with you . . . especially since your hot new makeover.”

Lacey snorts.

I shoot the finger at him. “Can we get on with finding my mom, now?”

We’ve descended seven flights of stairs when we finally reach a level of the building that isn’t labeled. There’s no number and no letter designating it, even to maintenance people. Interesting. And telling. This must be the floor where they’ve got my mother, surely? The nonexistent “detainee” floor?

“Lacey?” I ask, turning to her. “Is this it?”

She’s looking into a compact mirror and applying lip gloss as we walk. “Huh?” She lifts her eyes and glances around. “Oh. Yeah. We’ve found it.”

No thanks to her. I reach for the door handle.

“Wait!” she hisses. “There are guards on the other side.”

Crap. “How many?”

“Two.”

“Armed?”

“Yup. Some kind of handguns. In holsters at the waist.”

“Bloody hell,” Evan says.

Kale shrugs. “We’ll have to take them out.”

“Are you all mad?” Evan throws up his hands.

“I’ll distract them.” Lacey unbuttons her shirt another three inches. She’s wearing a silver lace push-up bra, and it reveals her twin, uh, snowy mountains. I think a helicopter could go down between them and never be seen again.

Evan is stunned into appreciative silence.

Kale too.