It took me a moment to make out Luke’s frame at the end of the bed. When he was sure I was looking at him, he released my foot and held a finger over his lips to motion to me to be quiet. He curled his other fingers to me, silently asking me to follow him.
I crept out from between Nathan and Kota. I did it softly, trying not to shake the bed. When I was close enough, Luke hooked his arms under my legs and around my back to lift me up gently from the bed.
He slipped out of the bedroom before he put me down.
“What—” I started to whisper.
Luke’s fingers wrapped around my lips, closing them. His head tilted at me, and in the dark, his face loomed close enough to tell me: Don’t ask yet.
He snagged my hand, holding it, and slowly made his way through the house. I padded behind him, trying my best to mimic his quiet movements, stepping where he did so I wouldn’t make any noise. He went for the front door, and released me to hold the door handle with both hands, smothering any sound of the knob twisting.
I followed quickly out into the night. Luke closed the door and released the handle slowly, not making a sound.
The chill in the air bit into my skin through the cami top and shorts and I started shaking right away. “Luke,” I whispered in a trembling voice.
Luke led me away from the front door, and when we were down the driveway a little, he turned around and hunched down. “Hop on my back.”
I held on to his shoulders and he picked me up under my thighs. With my body pressed to his, I was a little warmer. I squeezed myself close into his back to keep the warmth between us.
He started dashing through the yard and followed the side of the house. He stayed in the shadows until he reached the back corner of Nathan’s yard and found a small trail that went to the bridge and through the woods behind the house.
I shifted my head a little, wanting to whisper but not sure if he’d hear me. When I felt my lips near his ear, I whispered. “Where are we going?”
His fingertips around my thighs rubbed back and forth for a moment before he grasped me tighter. “You’ll see.”
It had me curious. Was he planning some prank? It was then I remembered I was supposed to be on lockdown. Kota and the others wouldn’t be happy to learn Luke was stealing me and bringing me out of the house. But this was Luke. He was part of the family. Learn to trust.
Luke followed one of the paths in the woods. I couldn’t sense which one, only the general direction. He was headed over to the diner.
He dashed across the parking lot, proceeded toward a familiar-looking black motorcycle parked behind the diner.
“We’re taking the motorcycle?”
“Just for a little while,” he said. He stopped in front of it, dropping me down so I was standing. “I’ve got a job to do.”
I wavered as my bare feet got used to the gravel. My heart leapt. Academy jobs? I wasn’t allowed to do this. “And I’m going?”
“Mr. Blackbourne said to take the quietest one with me, and that’s you.”
I sensed this might not have been what Mr. Blackbourne meant, but since he wasn’t specific, Luke was taking advantage of it.
“Here,” he said, and his fingers slipped into his pocket and pulled out a hair band. “Tie your hair back. Make it really tight.”
I started pulling my hair back. He did the same with an extra band, pulling it into a bun at the base of his neck. Seeing him in what almost resembled short hair only accentuated the finer features of his handsome face. His jaw seemed broader, more masculine and his fine lips tripped in a playful smile. It was enough to make my heart thud double-time over the excitement just from being out with him.
When I was done with my hair, he opened a hatch on the bike. He pulled out a black leather jacket and a helmet. He passed both to me.
“Don’t you need a helmet?” I asked, grateful for the jacket at least.
“I’m more worried about you. Put it on,” he said.
I did what he told me. He had to help me with the helmet by strapping it into place. It was a half helmet, so my face was exposed. When it was fastened, he beeped my nose.
He got on the bike, kicking the stand back. He started it up, and reached for my hand. I wanted to hesitate and pull back. I was nervous; I didn’t know where we were going and I thought the others would be unhappy if they found out.
But I couldn’t resist Luke’s pleading eyes and the way his face promised that we’d be okay. I dropped my hand into his and he guided me to sit on the bike. The bike vibrated between my legs, but the running engine let off a warmth I was drawn to.
Luke guided my arms around his stomach. “Pull yourself in tight,” he said. “I don’t want to lose you.”
I squeezed more, and nudged my legs in next to his. He kicked off and started out of the parking lot.
My heart thundered almost as loud as the bike was roaring in my ears. The neighborhood slipped away behind us and Luke took the on-ramp to the highway.
It was too late to ask now where he was going, but he was heading east. I thought maybe we were on our way to go fetch Victor.
It was only twenty minutes later that he pulled off the highway toward a place called Hanahan.
Luke took a straight route through the middle of the abandoned main road. We passed by closed retail outlets and grocery stores.
At some point he cut off short, tilting the bike to take a sharp turn that surprised me. I squeezed him around the middle to hang on tighter. He started weaving his way through a closed grocery store parking lot, taking a back road behind it into a residential neighborhood.
Luke’s hand found mine against his chest. He lifted my hand until he could place his hand between his chest and my palm. He started signing.
“Need to shake him,” he signed.
I signed back, “Who?”
“Kota’s tail.”
I bristled. Not good.
A second later, headlights appeared behind us. Our tail must have followed us without lights before, or had been so far behind us we hadn’t noticed until now. We didn’t need Mr. Hendricks or someone on his team following us.
I stiffened, holding on tighter. Another thought ran through me: it could be Volto. Had he followed us from the house?
When I checked back, I recognized the car. It was the same one I’d seen parked outside of Kota’s house before. A brown car. At the sight of it, I suddenly had an idea.
I signed to Luke. “Stop.”
“No,” he signed back.
“Let’s find out who it is.”
I thought I felt Luke grunting. He started to take off like he wanted to keep going. At an intersection, he did a tight circle, swerving around and heading off the car.
The car stopped short when Luke got close, not wanting to play chicken. That was good. He wasn’t willing to risk hurting us.
Luke stopped the bike. The car started to go into reverse, like it wanted to back off, but I jumped off the bike, waving at it and running toward the car.
The driver slowed and stopped, waiting. It was just like I thought. He was curious, too.
I glanced back at Luke. He nodded, seeming to understand. I wanted to approach the guy alone. This wasn’t Volto. I didn’t want to scare him off.
I approached the driver side window, and the window rolled down.
Mr. Morris was in the car. I almost choked in surprise, but caught myself. “Did Mr. Hendricks have you following us tonight?” I asked him.
Mr. Morris glanced at Luke and then back at me. He didn’t want to give up an answer. His short, curly black hair looked a little mussed in the back, like he’d been relaxing in his car before he came after us. There were heavy bags under his eyes, too.
“He asked me to check out where Mr. McCoy has been hiding out,” I said. I went with things Mr. Hendricks already knew and probably suspected. If Mr. Morris relayed his own information back to him, it wouldn’t be very useful. “Mr. Hendricks mentioned someone was following us, but he didn’t say who. We thou
ght you might have been who we were looking for.”
Mr. Morris frowned. “I told him it was a waste of time to follow a bunch of kids.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. He expects us to be detectives or something. I thought he was having Kota followed?”
“I’m supposed to follow any of those kids until I figure out where this Academy is located.”
“I’m not in the Academy,” I said. “If they’re taking me somewhere, it isn’t there. I’m not allowed to know.”
Mr. Morris nodded. “Where were you headed? It’s really late.”
I glanced back at Luke, trying to come up with something that resembled a truth since I wasn’t really sure myself. “I think he picked up a lead on Mr. McCoy,” I said. It could have been true. Luke hadn’t told me yet, so it could have been anything. The vibe I got from Mr. Morris was that this was all pointless and he didn’t understand the full measure of what was going on. I could play that game. “But I feel like we’re chasing a ghost.”
Mr. Morris rolled his eyes. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”
“So do you.”
“If he’d raise my salary, I wouldn’t have to be doing this. He’s got me by the balls right now.”
“Is he promising a raise?”
“He says he can’t afford it,” he said. “But he signed me up to be a night security guard, only his idea of security isn’t exactly just babysitting the school.”
My head tilted back. “Is anyone at the school at night?”
“Usually just me, but now there’s no one. He’s got me either tailing that Kota kid or trying to follow Mr. Blackbourne. Kota at least I can find pretty easily. Mr. Blackbourne disappears. And I kind of really don’t care. I think I’d rather go back to sitting at the school. It was quiet there and I didn’t have to run around in the middle of the night.”
That was how the faux bomb could have been planted. If it was Volto, he was able to get in easily if Mr. Morris was out running around. He didn’t have guards to worry about. “What’s your number?” I asked.
Mr. Morris raised a dark eyebrow. “Not interested in whatever you’re selling, sweetheart.”
“I’m in the same position,” I said. “He’s threatened my grades unless I help him deliver where this school is and help him get the guys out of school. But if we’re both going the same direction, it’s a waste of time. The guys are going to get rattled with someone following me all the time. They’ll wonder if I’m in on this.”
“I’ve already tried following everyone. It’s dead. They never go there. They go to that diner or shopping or to each other’s houses. Typical teenager stuff.”
“But they’re starting to trust me,” I said. I glanced at Luke, who had his hands on his hips, waiting. “If I have your number, I can call when I learn something new. You can stay home and pretend you’re checking up on me and give yourself a break. Or at least start following other leads. I’ll give you details so you won’t have to be up all night. No need for both of us to be out. If we’re working together, we might as well save our resources. And you can let me know if you pick up anything. We may be able to get out from under this fiasco sooner.”
Mr. Morris twisted his lips, glancing back out at Luke on the bike. “How do I know you’re not going to feed me a bunch of shit?”
“Because I don’t like Mr. Hendricks either, but even if he finds a way to kick the guys out of school, he’s still up to something. This may not end even if he gets the guys to leave. The fact that he’s using so many people makes me wonder why. I think it’s wrong that he can’t give you a raise good enough to live on. If he’s not going to have security in the first place, he can afford to raise your salary and not having you working so much.”
“That’s what I said.”
“So if I can just call you with updates, you won’t have to go out and you can spend time figuring out other things. And if he’s asking questions, I can feed you details when you need.”
He frowned. “I’m not the only one he’s got on your tail, though.”
“Who else is there?”
“I don’t know. I just know there’s more than me. Hendricks doesn’t go out but he gets more information than I deliver to him. I know there’s someone watching Blackbourne all the time whenever possible. Which is usually never, because he always disappears.”
I pursed my lips. “It makes me wonder what Hendricks has going on that he doesn’t want anyone finding out.”
“He’s wasting a lot of money on this goose chase,” Mr. Morris said.
“So whatever it is,” I said, “it’s big and involves a lot of money. Money he could be using to raise your salary and everyone else’s, too. I want to find out what.”
Mr. Morris glanced once more at Luke. He opened the middle console and fished out a card, writing down a number on the back. “I want a report every week. I can’t promise I won’t follow the others, but I’ll try not to follow you if I can help it.”
“It’s harder to get them to go there, I think, if we always have someone following. And you should switch cars,” I said. “They know yours now.”
“It’d be easier if I had another one.” He handed me the card. “If you figure out what Hendricks is up to, I want to know.”
I nodded. “Ditto.”
He rolled up the window. I backed away and he put the car into reverse.
“What did you do?” Luke asked as he rolled the bike forward, watching Mr. Morris drive off.
I held up the card like a prize. “You can tell Kota that I’ve learned how to make friends.”
LUKE, THE THIEF
Twenty minutes later, Luke had pulled into a sleeping neighborhood, very similar to the one I lived in, with middle-class homes, large yards, secluded from main roads by lots of trees.
Luke pulled into the drive of a quiet house. There weren’t any other vehicles in the driveway. He stopped the bike, and tugged at me to climb off.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, looking up into the dark house. It was a small, one story ranch-style home. I stumbled on my bare feet on the concrete drive. My legs were vibrating hard from riding for so long and because I was exhausted. I unstrapped the helmet. “Where are we?”
Luke hit the kickstand into place, tilting the bike. He climbed off. He approached me, hands cupped and he planted his palms on my cheeks so I’d focus on him. “I need you to do me a favor.”
“What?”
“I need you to do that quiet thing you do and help me get something.”
My heart started thundering. “You mean steal something?”
“It belongs to us,” he said. “Only it got taken. I can’t say how or why, okay? You’ll have to trust me. I’ve been ordered to get it back.”
Was that true? “What is it?”
He twisted his lips, tilting his head. His palms massaged my cheeks. “I don’t know if I can tell you.”
“I can’t help you take something if I don’t know what it is.”
“Let’s just get through this first part,” Luke said. “I want to get out of sight right now.”
Was he serious?
Luke released me, turned and started heading to the front door.
I stood there staring after him. Was I really going to do this?
And what in the world was he thinking, heading toward the front door if he was going to break in? I dropped the helmet onto the seat of the bike, and then dropped the jacket there, too. It was too bulky if I was supposed to help him.
“Luke,” I stage whispered, jogging to catch up behind him. “We can’t just barge in.”
“We’re not,” Luke said. He fished a key out of his pocket.
My eyebrows shot up. “How is it we need to be quiet if you’ve got a key and no one’s home to see us anyway?”
“This isn’t the place we’re going in for. This is just the ruse.”
I didn’t understand, but he turned from me and unlocked the door. He stepped inside, felt for a light a
nd turned it on.
The home smelled of cinnamon and apples. The foyer was overwhelmed with handcrafted stuffed chickens hanging from the walls and photographs of an elderly woman with two adult children under each arm. This was someone’s elderly mother’s house? Where was she?
“What are we doing?” I whispered again, understanding he wasn’t being quiet, but deathly afraid of him being wrong and feeling way too creeped out just waltzing into someone’s home.
“Come on,” he said. He found my hand and led me inside. We weaved our way through to a rear kitchen. He found the light, flicking it on to reveal an old linoleum floor and matching countertops in the tiny space. “Stay here,” he said.
He was going to leave me? I stiffened. “Don’t.”
“Hang on, I’ll be right back.” He set off again toward the living room. I jumped when I heard the television turning on. Luke returned a minute later. “Let’s go.”
Luke headed toward the back door. Once we were outside, he left the big door unlocked, but closed the screen door behind it. The darkened back yard loomed in front of us.
Luke moved forward, crouching down in front of me. “Time for another ride,” he said.
I climbed onto his back. He wrapped his hands around my thighs, holding tight, and started off.
I wanted to see where we were going, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I couldn’t pick out a path. I held on around his shoulders, trying to be careful about how tightly I was hanging on.
Luke dashed toward a wooded area behind the house. Soon we were engulfed by trees.
At a certain point, the path opened up, and I could see the stars and the moon through an opening in the trees. Luke stopped, turned left, right, then tilted his head.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
“I’m not sure which way.”
“You haven’t been here before?”
“No.”
I whispered, “Where are we supposed to be going?”
“It’s about two hundred feet east and five hundred feet south. I thought I was heading east, but there’s two paths here and that wasn’t mentioned. It was supposed to just bend south. And now I’m kind of turned around.”