The Academy (22 page)

Kaileigh and Steel walked on backstreets, staying off Commonwealth, where a water main break had attracted a road crew. Steel kept watch for a motorcycle’s headlight, concerned that Lyle might be after them, but never saw one. He tried calling Penny, but got the boy’s voice mail. He and Kaileigh rode a series of city buses, keeping an eye on the moving dot on their phones that represented the Volvo. Their destination was the party at the Armstrad Hotel, made all the more urgent when Steel realized the Volvo had stopped there—at least ten minutes ahead of them.

The two shared side-by-side seats, Steel feeling a need to fill the awkward silence that had settled between them. The kiss had changed everything.

“At least we know there are kids in the building,” he said.

“Duh!” She sounded exactly the same. The same Kaileigh. But he was not the same Steel, and that seemed…unfair.

“The two guys I saw, they mentioned someone named Taddler and another named Johnny, so we’ve got two of their names. That’s something.”

“We’re supposed to have their pictures. We’re supposed to give DesConte and Reddie Long a way to spot them at the party.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the phone’s moving map.

“When we get there,” he said, “maybe we’ll be able to spot them.”

“How?”

“I got a look at the one in the front seat.”

“How does that help DesConte?”

“How should I know?” he said, turning his head to avoid looking at her.

A motorcycle pulled up alongside the bus. The bus windows were coated with one-way advertisements; Steel could see out, but no one could see in.

“Cripes!” he said. “It’s him!”

Kaileigh scrambled to lean across him. Steel leaned back, but the contact made his head spin once again.

“How could he have followed us?” she said, apparently not noticing she was lying on him.

“Not important,” he said, reverting to Randolph’s training. “We need to lose him. We can’t let him follow us to the hotel. I’ll keep the moving map going. You Google Boston hotels and find one near the Armstrad.”

“Because?” she said as she sat back up. She sounded condescending, but her fingers were already busy with her phone.

“Because I have a plan,” he said. “An
exit strategy
.”

“And do you
plan
to share it with me?”

“We need a place to change into our costumes, and we need Lyle…detained. Delayed.
Whatever
. You find me a hotel near the Armstrad and—”

“The Standish,” she said, showing him her phone. “Less than a block away.”

“Perfect.”

“Thank you.”

He accepted her phone, read the address, and then, using his recall, determined where to get off the bus.

“This is going to work,” he said.

“Note to Steel,” Kaileigh said. “The Standish is a nice hotel. Four stars, it says here. You and I look like Goodwill models.”

“We have our invitations to the Armstrad that Randolph gave us. That’s all we need.” He added, “That, and a little fast talking.”

“That would be my department.”

“That would be correct,” he said. Having counted the blocks, he reached up and tripped the cord that signaled the driver to stop at the next stop.

“It might help if I knew what we were doing.”

“We’re going to run to the front door,” he informed her. “And you’re going to be winded, and you’re going to explain that some creep has been following us. We’ve made a mistake and we’re at the wrong hotel. You’ll show him the invitations. We need a place to change, and we need someone to take care of the creep.”

The bus slowed and pulled over to the curb, half a block from The Standish Hotel.

Beneath the bus interior’s odd-colored tube lighting, Kaileigh looked at Steel with something bordering on respect. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s
real good
.”

“No charge,” he said. He pressed his face to the glass. “Lyle pulled over at the corner. He must know we’re in here.”

“I’m scared,” she said, grabbing his hand.

“Stay close,” Steel said. “We can do this.”

The bus doors swung open. Together they took off at a run, Kaileigh limping slightly. As they neared the front of the hotel, the doorman sized them up and apparently didn’t like what he saw. He stepped in front of them.

“May I help you?”

“We’re here for the Halloween party,” she said, thrusting the invitations into the doorman’s gloved hands and speaking absurdly fast. “There’s some guy following us. A creepy guy on a motorcycle. You’ve got to help us, please! We’ve got our costumes.”

“This is The Standish!” the doorman said. “You want the Armstrad.”

“There’s the guy,” Steel said, pointing back down the sidewalk.

Lyle saw him and turned around and started walking away from the hotel.

The doorman was puzzled.

Kaileigh said, “Could we maybe change into our costumes here, and you could maybe keep that creep out?”

“I don’t know, miss.”

“Please,” Steel said. “We’ll go straight to the Armstrad the minute we’re changed.”

“Thing is,” the man said, “you’re not allowed in The Standish without a key card, a reservation, or in your case, an adult. Hotels have been having trouble with kids. You want me to call our security guys, I will.” He seemed to be offering them a chance to change their minds.

“…
trouble with kids
,” Steel heard ringing in his head. What, if anything, did that have to do with this operation? he wondered.

“Please,” Steel said. “By all means call security. Maybe they can help with this creep.”

The doorman used a radio clipped to his belt. “Randy, front. Security to the entrance, please.”

Randy the red-coated doorman led them inside. The lobby was marble and red velvet and there was a chandelier the size of a car hanging from the thirty-foot ceiling.

An older guy wearing a suit approached and conferred with the doorman.

“I’m sorry,” the man said, moving to Kaileigh. “We have established rules for the admittance of minors. I’m sure you understand?”

“And if this creep following us, gets her?” Steel said. “That’ll make some kind of news story.”

“I’d like to help you—”

“But you think it’s a scam,” Steel said.

The man’s face reflected that Steel wasn’t far from the truth.

“You can have someone guard the girls’ room. You can watch me change, for all I care. Once we’re in our costumes, we’ll leave, I promise. But if one of your guys goes outside, you will see the biker dude. We’re not making this up, I promise. Check out our backpacks—the costumes are in there.”

“I’m sure the Armstrad will accommodate your change of clothes. I’m sorry, but you have to leave.”

“That’s him!” Kaileigh whispered, spinning away from the entrance.

The security guy spotted Lyle. He reached for his radio.

Steel said, “How ’bout Randy at least lets us use a back door or something?”

The security guy eyed the kids suspiciously. He barked a code into the radio, and a man came from behind the registration desk, toward the front doors.

He nodded at Randy. “Take them out through the arcade. But make sure they’re out, and that they don’t return.”

“Thank you,” Steel said.

Lyle was stopped the moment he entered. He and Steel made eye contact across the vast lobby, and Steel felt a chill down to his toes.

“Follow me,” Randy said.

Kaileigh and Steel, wearing their Goodwill outfits, approached the entrance to the Armstrad Hotel amid a dozen other kids arriving in full Halloween costumes. They coat-checked their backpacks, presented their invitations, and were admitted into a dimly lit mezzanine ballroom decked out like a haunted mansion. There were crazy mirrors, crystal balls, projected ghosts flying across the tray ceiling, orange-and-black streamers, and a full complement of party favors on every table. Two hundred people, mostly kids, milled about the ballroom, moving between amusement booths, fortune-telling, and balloon-tying.

Steel took in every costume, committing each and the person wearing it to memory, and hoping to see past the masks in an effort to identify the boy he’d seen riding in the Volvo’s front seat. He’d had only a quick glimpse, and that glimpse a profile, so he wandered through the crowd trying to see people from the side, an effort often comical.

“Any luck?”

“Not so far.”

“You realize,” Kaileigh said, “that everyone’s staring at us, wondering why we aren’t in costume, and that if we are in costume, then we’re the lamest effort of the night and probably stand a chance at getting ‘worst dressed’ or some similar honor we really do not want given to us since it’ll only bring us attention that we also don’t want.”

“Yeah, I think I got that.”

“Hey!” she said, grabbing his arm in a death grip with one hand while pointing with the other. “Isn’t that…?” Her voice trailed off.

“Who? What?”

“Never mind. I lost her. Too far away to tell. Couldn’t possibly be anyway.”

“Who?” he repeated.

“My bad,” she said, refusing to tell him.

“A girl,” he said, knowing this would explain her refusal to discuss it.

“Find the guy, Steel. Focus on finding the guy—that’s what’s important.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he snapped defensively.

Kaileigh checked her watch, and then double-checked it against the time on her iPhone. “Our friends are going to make their grand entrance in about ten minutes.”

“Don’t do that: don’t call them
our friends
.”

“You’d prefer”—she lowered her voice—“
spies
?
Couriers
?
Operatives
?”

“
Friends
will do,” he said, hating giving in to her.

“Thank you.”

Hated her rubbing it in.

“Wait a second,” he said as they approached the food and drink corner, an area of the ballroom packed as tightly as a rush hour subway car. Steel had caught the faintest of glimpses, but a glimpse nonetheless, of a boy who looked like the guy in the Volvo. Steel had had only a fraction of a second, spotting him deep in the crowd, shoved up against the food table. But he’d caught him in profile, where he could see what was behind the hockey mask. He could now cut and paste his own mental images and lay them side by side and, having done so, could see that it had to be the same guy.

“It’s him,” he said, “The kid from the Volvo.”

“You sure?” Kaileigh sounded disappointed, or scared, or both.

“Positive? No. He’s got a mask on. But if I can just…” He fumbled with the contents of his pocket, mumbling, “Camera…phone…” and, pulling out the iPhone, stepped deeper into the crowd. Kaileigh kept at his side, her phone now in hand as well, and she with the good sense to use it, taking random photographs of the various costumes. But Steel didn’t think to create a cover for himself the way Kaileigh did, instead pushing his way toward the food table, raising the phone at the last minute, and snapping a shot of a big kid with a hockey mask—supposedly Jason Voorhees from the
Friday the 13th
horror movies. The mask was up, and the kid was stuffing his face with a green brownie. It was the lifting of the mask that allowed Steel a good look at the boy’s face, and he no longer had any doubts.

Steel got off the shot, and another of the Hogwarts Quidditch kid standing with Jason. Checking both shots, and seeing they were good ones, he busied himself, head down, immediately e-mailing them to DesConte, as planned, painfully aware that he was late in doing so.

“Earth to Steel,” Kaileigh said, elbowing him.

She continued taking pictures of the crowd.

Steel lifted his head, only to see the bruiser in the hockey mask coming toward him. His Hogwarts friend didn’t stop eating for a second, unperturbed.

“What-a-ya doing?” Jason said, towering over Steel. The kid was as wide-shouldered as a doorway, tall and big-boned, reminding Steel of a lineman—Scott Tucker—from the Wynncliff football team.

“Excuse me?” Steel said.

“No pictures,” growled the kid. “Mind your own business.”

“I just like the costume,” Steel said.

“Yeah?” The boy flipped down the mask, leaning toward Steel in a menacing pitch. “How ’bout now?” came his muffled voice. He hoisted a knife—plastic, hopefully—its ten-inch blade blackened with blood. Steel backed up and stumbled, and nearly went down.

The big kid laughed in a sinister way that sounded authentic.

“Stay away from me,” he said. “And no more friggin’ pictures!”

“Hey, leave him alone!” said Kaileigh, stepping between the two. “We’re taking pictures for a school assignment.”

“Yeah? Well, take them with you on your way out,” Jason Voorhees said. “I’ll give you five minutes to get lost.”

Kaileigh hooked Steel by the arm and led him away.

“Nice costume, by the way,” the huge guy called after her. “Let me guess: Little Orphan Annie? You look more like a farm worker.”

Kaileigh had a hand gesture that came to mind, but as she lifted her arm to deliver it, Steel caught her and pulled her arm down.

“I got the shots,” he said.

“What a butt wipe,” Kaileigh said, in a rare display of temper.

Steel wrestled free, worked the phone, and declared, “There! Got them both off to DesConte and Reddie.”

“You suppose they’re here somewhere?” she asked.

“I suppose,” Steel said, looking around. “Thing is, we’d never know it.”

Many of the costumes involved masks. Others hid their faces beneath face paint or makeup or fake facial hair.

“The sooner we change into our costumes, the better,” Kaileigh said. “At least that way he won’t recognize us.”

“But not until we meet the marks,” Steel said, keeping his voice low. “You need to hear her talk, right?”

“Duh! I can’t impersonate her without hearing her. I thought that was kind of obvious.”

“What gave you the wedgie?” he asked. “Chill, dude.”

“Sorry,” she said. “That guy just bugged me.”

“That guy works with the lady. He’s the enemy. He’s supposed to bug you. But you’re not supposed—”

“
To show it
. I know.
To let it get to me
. I went through the same training as you, remember? But of course you remember, because you’re you.” She sounded disgusted with him, and he wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve it.

“Hey! Hey!” Steel said, under his breath. “Jasmine and Aladdin, two o’clock.”

She wrenched her head to the right. “Finally,” she said. “Okay, I do this alone. Give me two minutes.”

“Showtime,” he said.

She worked with her phone to activate
RECORD
. She slipped the phone into her shirt pocket but apparently didn’t like the way it sagged, and took it back in hand. Then she headed off toward the two late arrivals, but stopped and turned back to Steel at the last second.

“The person I thought I saw,” she said. “If you see her, you stay away. There’s no reason for her to be here. It can only mean trouble. Tell me you’ll stay away.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “Who was it?”

“You’ll know if you see her. Just stay away.”

His curiosity provoked, Steel raised on tiptoe and began searching the room, looking for a girl—or had Kaileigh seen the woman from the shelter? That made more sense: they would definitely not want her to see them, in case she might remember them from earlier. But why had Kaileigh been so obtuse about it? Why not just tell him? Why was she suddenly playing games with him—and did the kiss have anything to do with her change in attitude?

His breath caught as a long aisle suddenly opened in the crowd, like the Red Sea parting for Moses. And there at the end of the aisle, in the midst of all the guests, on the far side of the room, appeared a pair of red-and-black running shoes—Wynncliff’s colors—and white ankle socks that, when combined, added up to only one person:
Penny
. Never mind he wore some Zorro mask and a black cape, and was therefore difficult to recognize. Never mind the bandana tied over his head, hiding his hair, making it all the more difficult to identify him. The shoes gave him away. Steel knew they were Penny’s, and the discovery caused a flood of questions: What was he doing here? How had he gotten an invitation? How had he known about the party? Had he followed Steel and Kaileigh, or was he looking for them? Did Steel dare reveal himself to Penny, or should he hide? How to warn Kaileigh, who, with every step toward Jasmine and Aladdin, was now a step closer to Pennington Cardwell III?

Kaileigh reached the marks—the boy and girl dressed in Disney outfits—and started talking. Steel was glad to see this part of the operation progressing in spite of his discovery of Penny. He kept his head down and moved back into the tangle of guests to screen himself from Penny; maybe Penny hadn’t spotted him or Kaileigh yet. That might work to my advantage, he thought.

Kaileigh turned and worked through the crowd to find him. Before he had a chance to speak, she was already talking.

“We got interrupted. I didn’t get enough time.”

“Penny’s here,” he said.

Kaileigh looked stunned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means Penny’s here.”

“Duh! But
why
?”

“No clue.”

“You think he followed us?”

“And just happened to have a Zorro costume in his backpack? No, I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

“So what do we do?” she asked.

“I think this is what Randolph meant by ‘a fluid situation.’ I think it’s like that: random.”

“First Nell, then Penny.”

“Nell!?” Steel barked too loudly.

“Hush! Yes, that’s who I saw. Nell Campbell. She’s dressed like Hope Solo, and she has an American flag painted on her face, but I’m pretty sure it’s her.”

“This is getting weirder by the minute. Has to be Randolph, right? His spies.”

“Penny?”

“No, not Penny, but Nell for sure. She did everything but tell me she was part of all this.” He thought it through. “Penny…I’ve got a feeling he’s just tagging along thinking he might get invited into our secret society.”

“Jason—Mr. Hockey Mask—gave us five minutes,” Kaileigh reminded. “Time’s running out. And somehow, a guy like that? I think he meant it.”

“Of course he did,” Steel said. “He’s here to steal the…you know,” he said, aware of people all around them. “He doesn’t want anyone like me around, who saw him with his mask up, saw his face.”

“Have you seen DesConte or Reddie?”

“No, but if Nell and Penny are here, they can’t be far away.”

“This is a lot more crazy than Randolph said it would be,” she complained.

“No kidding.”

“Listen, if I’m going to imitate the girl, impersonate her, I need to hear her talk more. The guy did most of the talking. We need to go back together, and you’ve got to keep the guy busy while I talk to her.”

“Ah…I’m not exactly the best talker.”

“Yes you are.”

“I am?”

“What’s with you?” she said.

The kiss
, he wanted to answer. One stupid kiss had totally messed him up, and he found himself double-thinking everything she said and did.

“Okay, so let’s go talk to those two before we lose them,” Steel said. “Then we can change into our costumes and head upstairs, and we’ll be off the big dude’s radar.”

“Yeah, but think about it,” she said. “He’s here to steal the thumb drive, so he’s watching those two, same as we are.”

“But there’s no choice,” Steel said. “So we might as well get going before he screws everything up.”

“I suppose.”

Together they headed back toward Jasmine and Aladdin. As they drew closer, it was obvious Randolph had chosen them both in part for their height. Kaileigh matched evenly with the girl; Steel was only slightly shorter than the Russian boy.

Steel introduced himself to the boy and asked if he was from Boston. Kaileigh went to work on the girl, starting up a conversation about how much she loved Disney. The Iranian girl spoke with a thick accent but had a good command of English. She told Kaileigh she’d always wanted to go to Walt Disney World, and then peppered Kaileigh with questions when she found out Kaileigh had been there several times.

The Russian boy didn’t speak as well. He asked if Steel followed the World Cup, and said he was bugging his father to take him to the competition in South Africa this summer. Steel tried to describe ga-ga, but he failed miserably. The boy evidently thought he was talking about babies.

Everything seemed to be going fairly well until Steel caught sight of Victor DesConte and Reddie Long—both choirboys, wearing the deep red robes from the chapel, and carrying choir books under their arms. No two boys could look any less like choirboys than these two.