Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

by Ally Carter

  "Gallagher Girls," Liz finished for her.

  The two of them smiled at each other. But Macey and I—we just stared through the shadows, a new realization dawning on both of us as I said, "But they weren't surprised."

  Chapter Fifteen

  I've told the story here; I don't want to tell it again. This is my official record—hopefully the last time I'll have to answer the question, "So what happened last summer in Boston?"

  I've told it now so many times that it comes out automatically, like a textbook I've memorized, like a song stuck in my head.

  But after that…

  After that the story changed.

  The facts were still the same—I'd remembered them correctly all along. But I understood something else then. When the film played in my mind I didn't focus on the hits or the kicks. That night I saw the eyes, the way arms were ready to parry our punches. The way no one seemed shocked as Macey performed a textbook Malinowski Maneuver on a guy twice her size.

  A spy is only as good as her cover—as her legend. The

  bad guys weren't supposed to know the truth about us.

  But they did.

  "You're sure," Bex asked me. Again. We huddled together in the nearest, quietest, safest place I could find, surrounded by the remnants of the first-ever covert carrier pigeon breeding program. Liz sat on an overturned pigeon coop. A soft wind blew through the open gaps in the wall, which looked out into the night.

  Roseville was just two miles away. And Josh. And normalcy. But somehow my first boyfriend and his perfectly ordinary life seemed like a different world entirely as I looked at Bex and then at Liz and, finally, at Macey.

  "They really weren't surprised," Macey said again, almost laughing now. She looked at me. "Why didn't we see that?"

  It was as if we'd both missed an easy question on a pop quiz and Macey couldn't help having a good laugh at our stupidity.

  "So …" Bex spoke slowly, carefully. "They know."

  She looked out the glassless windows as if they might have been out there even as we spoke, because if they knew who we were…they knew where we lived.

  "But that can't be," Liz protested. "No one knows the truth about the Gallagher Academy."

  But I just followed Bex's gaze into the darkness and thought about another night in another room, when Zach had asked me about the mystery surrounding my father's death. I found his words coming back to me as I wrapped my arms around myself and whispered, "Somebody knows."

  "So they knew Macey would have training, and they came after her and Preston anyway?" Liz asked.

  I saw my best friends looking at me—and even in the dark I couldn't hide the truth any longer.

  "Well …" I started slowly, "on the roof, Preston was with us."

  "Yeah," Bex said. I could feel her impatience building, so I spoke faster.

  "I got him out of there—got him off of that roof—and they didn't really…care."

  "What do you mean, Cam?" Liz asked.

  "She means they didn't want him," Macey said. "They didn't want us," she added, growing stronger. And then she stopped. She shrugged. "They wanted me."

  I'd been fearing that moment for days, thinking about the girl at the lake. I'd worried what the knowledge might do to her—to us. But from the time she'd stepped foot out of her parents' limousine, Macey had been a surprise, and this was no exception.

  She squinted at me. She shook her head. It was the exact same look she got when she mastered a formula for Mr. Mosckowitz's class, as if things were finally starting to make sense.

  "I'm gonna get my mom and Aunt Abby." I started for the door, but then Macey spoke.

  "You think they don't know already?"

  And it hit me—the truth. Of course they knew. They'd always known.

  "So either they came after Macey in spite of her training…" Liz started.

  "Or because of it," Bex replied.

  But the strangest thing was happening. The moon was rising, full and clear. The lights of Roseville shone in the distance. Everything felt alive again, and I could see that in Macey. It was as if she knew it wasn't random anymore—there was purpose. And that made all the difference.

  "So I guess the question is," Bex said, crossing her arms, "what are we gonna do about it?"

  Covert Operations Report

  By Cameron Morgan, Macey McHenry, Elizabeth Sutton, and Rebecca Baxter (hereafter referred to as "The Operatives")

  During a routine civilian engagement, Operatives McHenry and Morgan were attacked by figures representing an unknown organization with unknown affiliations and unknown goals.

  After two weeks of extensive research (and some particularly fine computer hacking by agent Sutton), The Operatives learned the following:

  There are no fewer than two dozen international lawsuits filed against McHenry Cosmetics (even though the Eye

  Rejuvenation cream clearly states on the label that temporary blindness is a possible side effect).

  Much to Macey's shock, Senator McHenry does not appear to have any illegitimate children (that The Operatives know about).

  No one holding a significant amount of stock in Macey's mom's company made a significant gamble that the price of the stock would go down following the kidnapping attempt.

  The McHenry family has approximately seventy-six disgruntled former servants (of whom, Macey swears, only seventy-five have cause to be really, truly angry).

  It's easy to imagine that a family of spies would have a lot of enemies. Well, turns out we've got nothing on politicians and people who manufacture semi-dangerous cosmetics. By the time we'd run down every shady business deal and political scandal, the list of suspects was long—like, the number of digits of pi that Liz knows by heart, long—and I wasn't sleeping any easier.

  "It's impossible," I told Bex one day in P&E, but Bex, sadly, misunderstood, because instead of commiserating, she grabbed my arm and executed the most perfect Axley Maneuver I'd ever seen.

  "Ow," I said, looking up at her. But Bex just laughed.

  "Wuss," she said, then stepped back to illustrate. "It's not impossible. All you have to do is shift your weight in a counter—"

  "Not the move," I snapped as I climbed to my feet, shifted my weight, and showed her. "Macey," I whispered as she landed on the mat.

  "Oh," Bex said, staring up at me.

  Outside, the first hints of color were appearing on the trees, and the wind was growing cooler. Fall was coming soon, and yet the mysteries of summer were still alive and well.

  "I touched them, Bex," I said, my voice low against the steady din of grunts and kicks that filled the loft. My breath came harder. "I heard their voices and smelled their breath and I can't tell you anything about them except…" I trailed off. But Bex, who is excellent in both the spy and best friend departments, read my mind. "It's the ring, isn't it?"

  Beads of sweat ran from my forehead to my chin, but I didn't wipe them away. "I've seen that emblem somewhere before."

  "I believe you, Cam," Bex started slowly. "But didn't you sketch it for Liz and have her run it through the CIA database?"

  "Yes."

  "And if they are as good as you say, then do you really think that woman would wear a ring that could lead us to her? It's a mistake," Bex finished, and I just stood there, the unspoken truth settling around us: they didn't make mistakes.

  "Morgan!" our teacher called. "Baxter! Back to work, please."

  I pulled Bex to her feet.

  "You know," Bex said, "there is one resource we haven't utilized yet."

  Through the window, I saw my mother crossing the grounds.

  "No!" I snapped as Bex lunged toward me, her foot sailing far too close to my ear for comfort. "I am not spying on my mom again," I said, maybe too loudly considering that Tina Walters and Eva Alvarez were ten feet away.

  "Who said anything about your mom?" Bex whispered to me, gesturing behind us at the rock wall and Mr. Solomon.

  "No way," I whispered. "Mom was bad enough, but Mr. S
olomon would be—"

  "Look again," she whispered.

  And then I saw that Mr. Solomon was not alone. That he was with someone. That he was smiling. That they were laughing.

  And that my best friend in the world thought that I should snoop on my aunt Abby.

  I would like to point out that, despite evidence to the contrary, I don't like breaking rules. I do not enjoy violating people's privacy—especially people I love. And I try to never, ever stick my nose into other people's business. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that what was happening with Macey had become my business when I fell forty feet through a metal shaft and landed in a cart full of dirty laundry.

  So that's why we huddled in our suite that Thursday night.

  And that's why I didn't protest as Bex asked, "So, everyone clear?"

  Macey laced up her running shoes and Liz gripped her flashlight, while I just sat there telling myself that there's a big difference between spying and snooping, and espionage isn't so much about uncovering embarrassing things as it is, you know, about saving lives (and other important stuff).

  Macey was safe. The Secret Service and Aunt Abby were on the case. But if someone was hunting Gallagher Girls, then none of us would rest until we knew who. And why.

  Covert Operations Report PHASE ONE 1830 hours

  On the night of October 1, Operative McHenry announced to the entire post-dinner crowd in the Grand Hall that she was going for a run in the woods.

  Agent Abigail Cameron announced that the protectee wasn't allowed in the woods alone, and that Agent Cameron had a headache, so therefore, the proctectee wasn't going anywhere.

  Operative McHenry (a.k.a., the proctectee) announced that she was going for a run and if Agent Cameron didn't like it she could … (Well, let's just say it was in Arabic. And it wasn't very ladylike.)

  Agent Cameron announced (louder, and in Farsi) that the protectee was not to leave the mansion.

  Operative McHenry replied (even louder) that she WAS.

  And then she fled the Grand Hall. Fast.

  Agent Cameron had no choice but to follow.

  Walking through the mansion with Bex that night, I felt a little sick to my stomach—not because of what we were about to do, but because I was afraid it might actually work. I might learn something I couldn't unlearn. And every spy knows that we live our lives on a need-to-know basis for a reason.

  I glanced out the window and saw a blur as Macey dashed through the woods, Abby following closely behind her. From behind a tree, a flashlight clicked off and on twice, Liz's way of telling us the coast was clear. Everything was going according to plan, and yet a nervous feeling settled in as I walked toward my aunt's room and knocked, knowing full well that no one would answer.

  It took ten full minutes to break into Aunt Abby's room. Yes, ten minutes. Not necessarily because my aunt had used every surveillance detection known to man, but because we couldn't be sure she hadn't, and Bex and I weren't taking any chances. (We were juniors, after all!)

  When we finally stepped into Abby's room, for some reason I held my breath. Our flashlights played over a closetful of clothes I'd never seen my aunt wear. There was a dresser covered with knickknacks, trinkets from other worlds and other times, and there wasn't a doubt in my mind that each one held a story that I'd never heard. I'd been listening to her wild tales for weeks, but every spy learns early on that the stories that matter most are the ones that you don't tell.

  Abby had come back to us—but one look around her room told me that a part of her was still long gone.

  The beam of my flashlight nearly blinded me as it shone against the mirror. A tiny black-and-white photo was tacked to the bottom corner of the glass. I stood there for a long time staring at the image of my aunt, my favorite teacher, and my father—all three laughing at a joke that was long since over.

  For a second I almost forgot what we were searching for. Someone was after Macey, but right then my aunt was the mystery I most wanted to solve.

  "Cam."

  Bex's voice cut through the darkness as the beam of her flashlight fell upon—an image I'd hoped I'd never see again.

  "That's it," I muttered, stepping closer to look at the grainy black-and-white photograph—a close-up of a hand. It was pretty good considering it had been taken with an NSA satellite a few hundred miles above the earth. It didn't show the faces. If I hadn't known, I wouldn't have even recognized my own shoulder and neck. But the hand was fully in focus, the ring as clear as day.

  "Do you recognize it?" I asked, feeling my heart beat faster, seeing the proof at last that I wasn't chasing a phantom image from my mind.

  Bex stared harder. "Maybe," she said, then shook her head. "I don't know."

  1830 hours

  Agent Cameron succeeded in dragging Operative McHenry back to the primary mansion.

  Unfortunately, Operatives Morgan and Baxter had no way of knowing that.

  "Oh, Joe!" Abby's voice echoed down the hallway. "You are going to get me into so much trouble."

  I froze, totally unsure what was more terrifying: the look on Bex's face or the flirty tone of my aunt's laugh or the sound of a key being inserted into the lock on Abby's door.

  I didn't have a clue what to do. I mean, as a rule, hiding is never a very good idea. When in doubt, get out, Mr. Solomon always says. But I wasn't exactly sure what he'd say when he is the person who is about to catch you.

  "Bed!" I snapped, grabbing Bex by the back of the neck. "Now!"

  Crawling underneath Aunt Abby's bed, I couldn't help but think about the thousands of times in the past four and a half years when I'd wondered where she was and what she was doing. (Note to self: be very, very careful what you wish for.)

  "Oh, Joe, stop!" my aunt cried as the door creaked open. "What if Rachel found out? She'd never forgive me."

  In the darkness under the bed, Bex looked at me, her eyes as wide and bright as the moon, as she mouthed the word, "Solomon!"

  I wanted to put my hands in my ears and sing. I wanted to wish myself into another room—another galaxy—but instead I just squeezed my eyes together.

  And that's probably why I didn't see the bedskirt fly up and two hands grab my ankles.

  My back skidded on the hardwood floors as a great force jerked me from my hiding place.

  My aunt stared down and said, "Hey, squirt."

  The good news was that Mr. Solomon was nowhere to be found. The bad news was that my aunt had had absolutely no trouble finding us.

  "Bex, darling, could you give us a minute?" Bex looked at me. One of the cardinal rules of being a Gallagher Girl was simple: never leave your sister behind. But this was different, and we both knew it.

  "See you upstairs," I said as she walked away. The door closed behind her, and Abby turned to me. "You really have grown up."

  "Aunt Abby," I hurried with the words, "I'm—" I had intended to say "sorry" but Abby finished for me. "Busted."

  She dropped onto the bed and pulled off a black (standard Secret Service-issue) loafer that was covered with mud. I looked around the room. "Uh… where's Mr. Solomon?"

  "Heck if I know." Abby shrugged. She must have read my confused expression because then she added, "Oh, Joe," mimicking her earlier tone. She laughed. "Squirt, you should have seen the look on your face."

  "Was I that obvious?" I asked.

  "Oh, no way," Abby said, and as crazy as it might sound, I felt a little proud. "But the bed thing is kind of a Morgan family tradition."

  "Why? Did my mom—"

  "Oh, not your mom." Abby stopped me. She cocked an eyebrow. "Your dad."

  Your dad, she'd said. She'd just…volunteered it. My father was always with my mother and me, and yet neither of us ever said his name. I realized then that Dad was like a ghost that only Aunt Abby didn't fear. She walked to the dresser and pulled out a bag of M&M's.

  "Want one?" she asked, offering me the bag. For a second I thought about the first time I'd met Zach, but the thought quickly vanished.
/>   "Gosh, your dad loved sweets!" she exclaimed as she sank onto the bed. "You get that from him, you know. I remember this one time, we were trailing this double agent through a bazaar in Athens, and there was this lady selling chocolates. And they looked so good. And I could see your dad, and it was all he could do to keep his eye on the subject. But your dad was a pavement artist—you know that, right? So he's following this guy, while I'm up on this second-story balcony getting the whole thing on surveillance and routing it back to Langley. And your dad's a pro, but I could tell that he wanted something sweet so bad he could hardly stand it. The only problem was…"

  I watched my aunt carry on. There was a light in her eyes, an easiness to her words that I don't think I'd ever heard before. It was just another funny story, an entertaining tale. I mean, sure it was classified and dangerous and she might have been violating about a dozen CIA bylaws by telling me, but still she talked, and I listened.

  "Here's the thing you've got to know," she said as she leaned closer. "Everything's so crowded that if you blinked at the wrong time you could lose someone, so it's a tough tail, you know? And I'm up on this balcony, but housekeeping wants to come in and clean the room. This maid is yelling, and I'm calling back, and I look away for—I don't know— two seconds. Seriously. No way was it longer than that. And when I look back, your dad's got chocolate on one side of his face and he's smiling at me."

  Abby threw her head back, and a part of me wanted to laugh alongside her. I tried to imagine my father alive and half a world away. But the other part of me wanted to cry.

  "To this day I don't know how he did it. I went back and looked at the tapes, too." She wiped her hands together as if shaking off the dust of some old mystery she'd given up on solving. "Not a sign of it." Then she looked at me anew. "He was that good."