Shine (27 page)

“Let’s switch to unencrypted now,” he said. “We’ll start over and discuss all our lovely false plans.”

I nodded, hiding my disappointment. We logged off, then back on with the signal unscrambled. At least I never had to pretend to be happy to see him.

After we chatted aimlessly for a few minutes, Zachary said, “Just two more weeks until you come to Glasgow. It’s all arranged—the rental car, our ferry to Orkney, the bed and breakfast. I’ve even made birthday dinner reservations.”

“Where?”

Zachary hesitated. He hadn’t invented that part yet. “It’s a surprise.”

I struggled to keep my smile from turning into a laugh. It was fun pretending I was going to Scotland instead of meeting him in Ireland. For extra serendipity, there was a megalith similar to Newgrange in Scotland’s Orkney Islands, called Maeshowe. Its inner chamber marked the winter solstice sunset instead of sunrise. So there was a plausible reason why we’d be going there.

Just to be sure the DMP believed our conversation, I turned it to a personal subject—one I needed to discuss, anyway.

“Zach, I have a slight packing issue. What do you like girls to, you know, wear?”

He angled his head, clearly confused. “Whatever they want.”

“I mean”—my face heated—“in bed.”

“Oh!” He blinked rapidly, probably imagining government guys in bad suits listening in. “Dunno. Never spent the night with anyone.”

At least our nervousness wasn’t being faked. “But what do you think is attractive?”

He paused. “Nakedness?”

“Besides that! You must have some preference.”

“Are you getting this from a magazine?”

“Of course not.” I pushed the latest issue of
Cosmo
farther back on my desk.

“Because honestly, I don’t care.” Fully himself again, he held out his hands, palms together. “I promise, it willnae matter what you wear. I willnae see it. I want you now, and I’ll want you then, more than anyone ever wanted anyone.”

I waited, unsatisfied.

“You need an answer, don’t you?” he said.

I nodded.

He glanced away, then back again. “I like red.”

I grinned. I looked hot in red.

“Listen,” he said. “Don’t think I expect us to—just because we have a room together doesn’t mean we need to—”

“Yes, we do.” Forgetting the rest of the world, I reached out to the screen to touch his lips. “
I
need to. With you.”

“Oh.” His eyelids went heavy. “Me too.”

My pulse pounded with a sudden craving. “I wish you were here right now.”

Zachary’s eyelashes flashed as he leaned in. “I am there now.” He
lifted his hand to a spot below the camera. “Guess where I’m touching you.”

I gave him a wicked smile. “Here?” I fingered the top button of my green silk pajama shirt.

He clicked his tongue. “What do you take me for, lass? I’ll no’ be groping you long-distance. Guess again.”

I swept my hand over my neck. “Here?”

“You’re getting warmer.”

It was true—literally. I hoped he couldn’t see me sweat at the thought of his hands on me. I touched my cheek. “Here?”

“A bit warmer.”

I smushed the tip of my nose. “Here.”

“Boiling hot.”

I let my fingers drift down an inch, brushing my parted lips. “Here?”

“Aye.” He pressed his fingers to his own lips, then reached for the camera. I did the same, and for a moment, our virtual touch-kiss blotted out our views of each other.

Then he whispered, “You’d best let me sleep now. Not that I’ll be able to.” For once I thought he meant for a good reason.

“I’ll see you soon.”

He nodded once. “And then ‘good night’ won’t be just another word for ‘good-bye.’ ”

Monday morning I found a note slipped into my locker, in Simon’s handwriting:

Early Christmas gifts for you. Backstage after school.

The drama class had just done five performances of
Antigone
(a holiday classic!) and was taking the day off before this week’s shows. I found Simon sitting on Creon’s throne, legs crossed and arms resting on the sides in a lordly posture.

“You look a little too comfortable there.” I glanced at the closed curtain, which blocked us from the auditorium.

“You and Zachary have done well. Our source tells us the DMP thinks you’re meeting in Scotland.”

“Thanks for buying me the extra fake ticket. Must’ve been expensive.”

“That’s not all we’ve done.” Simon pulled his backpack onto his lap and withdrew a large manila envelope. “We want you and your boyfriend to make it to Ireland and back safely. To that end, once you board your respective international flights—from Atlanta, in your case—Aura Salvatore and Zachary Moore will disappear.”

I opened the envelope. Inside was a stack of papers and what looked like a brick-red UK passport.

Simon continued, “We’ve arranged it so that your plane tickets, your rental car, and your bed-and-breakfast are now under the names Laura and John MacLean. John goes by Jack, by the way. It rhymes with Zach, so if you make a mistake, people might think they’ve misheard.”

The passport showed my photo beside
LAURA REESE MACLEAN
. “Are we supposed to be brother and sister?”

“No.” Simon opened his other hand to reveal a small, blue, velvet jewelry box. He popped it open with his thumb. “More like husband and wife.”

Inside was a gold wedding band, sitting next to a pear-cut diamond engagement ring. “Whoa.”

“Forgive me for not getting down on one knee to present them.” He held the box out to me. “Go on, see if they fit. We can have them adjusted before you leave if necessary.”

The rings fit perfectly. I quickly removed them and stuffed them back in the box.

Simon zipped up his backpack. “Put them on when you board in Atlanta. MI-X can protect you in the United States. We can protect you in the United Kingdom.” He met my gaze. “We cannot protect you in Ireland.”

“Why not?”

“We have no agreement with Irish authorities to conduct covert operations within the boundaries of the Republic. In fact, we’re expressly forbidden, as is the DMP.” His mouth twisted. “The Irish love their ghosts.”

“You let that stop you?”

His lips quirked. “Officially, yes. If we were caught, heads would roll. By the way, there’s no BlackBox in Ireland. Enjoy having a piss with ghosts watching.”

Great,
I thought, remembering a ghost surprising me in the woods in just such a situation.

I lifted the passport. “If we’re on our own in Ireland, how does a fake identity protect us?”

“Because no one wants to kidnap Jack and Laura MacLean. Or kill them.” Simon cocked an eyebrow and sat back in the throne. “Do you feel more comfortable wearing those rings now?”

My silence was enough of an answer.

He pointed to the envelope. “That contains your legend—your
false background. The white papers are copies of your university records and marriage certificate. Keep them with you when you travel. The blue papers form your cover story. Memorize every detail, then destroy the blue sheets. Confer with Zachary to invent stories about how you met and fell in love, et cetera, et cetera. The more detail, the better, but only if you can both remember. And of course, let me know what they are so I can find people to corroborate if necessary.”

“Can you at least tell me who might be trying to kill us?”

He sighed. “If we knew that, we’d go and get them, now, wouldn’t we?”

I didn’t answer, because I honestly didn’t know if MI-X would or not. I had a feeling they were only letting me and Zachary go to Ireland because they thought the real bad guys would follow us. Maybe MI-X was using us as bait.

We could be more valuable dead than alive.

I stared at my bedroom mirror that night, teaching myself who I was.

“My name is Laura MacLean. I’m twenty-one years old. I was born July nineteenth as Laura Reese in Liverpool, England. My parents got divorced when I was six. My mom moved to Baltimore, where I grew up but never became a citizen because I visited my father every summer and wanted to move back to my native country one day. I majored in communications at Johns Hopkins University.”

I jotted a note to study up on Liverpool, as well as the curriculum for Hopkins’s communications majors. On my packing list, I wrote
JHU swag for me and Zach
.

I turned back to the mirror. “That’s where I met John MacLean
from Glasgow. We fell in love, and when I visited the UK last summer”—I checked the latest stamp on my fake passport—“in July, Jack and I got married. I came home to settle my affairs, and now I’m returning to the UK to live with him. We’re honeymooning in Ireland for a few days, then going back to Glasgow for Christmas.”

I went to my bed, where the papers were spread across the comforter, and double-checked my information. My finger traced my college transcript, including my fake 3.97 grade point average.

If only it was the truth. If only I were finished with school and moving to another country to begin an exciting life of adventure with Zachary.

Maybe not married to him. Yet.

My million-and-one memory exercises had paid off. I knew Laura’s personal history as well as I knew my own. Zachary and I just had to flesh out our pasts.

Time to destroy the evidence.

Unfortunately, my smoke detector would go off if I burned the papers. When I’d started going out with Logan, Gina had installed the supersensitive detectors in our house. She knew he’d been kind of a stoner back in middle school.

Instead, I pulled out what must have been the world’s quietest and most expensive shredder from my bottom desk drawer. In less than a minute, Laura MacLean’s cover story was reduced to a handful of blue dust, which I flushed down the toilet.

At eight o’clock, my phone buzzed with a text message from Zachary.

HIYA LAURA, IT’S JACK. READY TO TELL SOME STORIES
?;-)

W
ith the help of an airline seat that folded out into a bed, a pair of shortbread cookies, and the perfect cup of chamomile tea—MI-X had sprung for a first-class plane ticket—I got a decent night’s sleep on my way to Ireland.

The sun rose as we passed over the center of the country. Glimpses of landscape through low clouds showed a patchwork of green fields, set off from one another by crooked rows of fuzzy brown objects I assumed were trees.

The sky cleared when we neared Dublin, and my throat lumped at the thought of my mother making this journey nineteen years ago. Had she wept at the sight of it?

My second thought was of Logan and how much he’d loved it here. As a ghost, he’d probably spent more time in Dublin than in
Baltimore. I wondered if any post-Shifters in his adopted city missed him as much as we did.

But by the time we touched down, my only thought was of Zachary. His flight from Glasgow had been scheduled to arrive three hours before mine. There was a message from him on my MI-X-issued red phone, sent just a few minutes before:

WAITING FOR YOU AT MEETING POINT
.

I sent back a quick
OK!
, then called Gina to let her know I’d landed. She sounded sniffly.

“I promise I’ll check in after I get to the B and B.” Maybe not
immediately
after. “Before dinner, at least.”

The Dublin Airport’s shiny hallways seemed to stretch for miles. I waited at baggage claim for over half an hour, and started to regret checking a suitcase. But part of me had thought that maybe I wouldn’t be going back home.

Then Immigration, where I calmed my pulse enough to recite my story. I hoped the officer would interpret my jitters as excitement to see “my husband, Jack” for the first time in months.

I got my stamp, and then it was just one more gate to get to Zachary. I glimpsed the
MEETING POINT
sign in the airport’s bright outer terminal. But only for a moment, as a swell of tall passengers got in my way—Norwegians, based on their accents and blond hair.

Crap. I’d craved this moment for six months, and I couldn’t see through the crowd of Scandinavians. Along the railing, people waved and jumped, some flashing signs with names. A woman held a toddler with a fake holly wreath on its head. A ragged chorus of “Happy Christmas” rang out in the delightful Dublin accent.

But no Zachary. He’d said he was waiting. Had someone taken him in the last half hour?

I stepped out past the gate, into the open area, then turned a slow circle to look behind me. And there he was.

Zachary stood with his back to a cylindrical silver column, still facing the gate. He hadn’t seen me pass.

I lingered a moment, watching him watch for me. He shifted his weight, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his black leather jacket—apparently he’d replaced the brown one, or the DMP had kept it.

No, only one hand was in a pocket. The other held a bouquet of red and yellow roses.