“This time we’re taking the new recruits to Cornerstone,” I said. “So we can likely grab Martha from her house.”
“The question is when,” said El McWilly.
“That’s one question,” I said. “The bigger question is this: Martha knows all about initiation abductions, so she not only knows we’re coming, she’ll be ready.”
“Yeah, but this is Martha,” El McWilly said. “She’s not going to fight back.”
“Yeah,” Drew said. “She’s not much of a fighter.”
While that was true, I knew better. Today, Mary would be Martha, and Mary was a fighter. “We still need to be smart,” I said.
“Martha is no dummy,” El McWilly said. “She’ll have a plan to try and beat us.”
“Then so should we,” I said. “Drew will wait in the alley by the backdoor in case she makes a run for it. Luke will wait at the front door. Grace stays with the van. I’ll go in and get her.”
We talked contingencies, in case things went wrong, and by the time I left, I felt good about our plan. We only had to grab one person, after all. It should be easy peasy.
REPORT NUMBER: 24
REPORT TITLE: I See Double and Go to a Slumber Party
SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Spencer Garmond
LOCATION: Harris Hall, The Barn, Pilot Point Christian School, Pilot Point, California
DATE AND TIME: Friday, April 19, 4:02 p.m.
Instead of driving to the front of the Stopplecamp’s house, I parked the white van in the alley. The neighbors were likely used to strange happenings at this house by now, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
Alpha Team hadn’t bothered wearing ski masks or camouflaging ourselves in any way. Since Mary and Martha already knew about the initiation abduction, I didn’t see the point. I let myself into their house without knocking and slipped into the living room, keeping my eyes peeled for Mr. S, Kerri, or the girls. I thought about calling out to see if anyone answered, but I figured the girls knew I was there. They’d probably set up cameras. But on the off-chance they hadn’t, silence might give me a small advantage.
I crept down the hall lined with portraits of the Stopplecamp family through the years. I reached the doors in the back and found all three shut. Should I knock or just barge in? If someone was indecent in there, I’d feel terrible. I knocked on the girls’ door.
“Come in,” a girl said.
Oh-kay.
I turned the knob and pushed in the door.
Mary and Martha were sitting side-by-side on the edge of the bed, facing the door. Both wore jeans, white sneakers, and a black Mission League T-shirt. Their hair was in ponytails, faces void of any make-up, and they were wearing glasses with black frames.
Correction: There sat Martha and Martha.
Figs. This looked like trouble.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”
“What’s up is that you are breaking and entering,” Martha One said.
“Who let you into our house?” Martha Two asked.
“The door was unlocked,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to just walk in,” Martha One said.
“Perhaps we should call the police,” Martha Two said.
“Listen,” I said, “I know you’re in Project Gemini. The others don’t, but I do. The truth is, I don’t care which of you I haul in, but I am taking one of you, so whose coming with?”
“Neither of us, Spencer,” Martha One said.
“Until you figure out which one of us is really Martha,” Martha Two said.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “I’ll just carry you both out.”
“You can’t carry us both at once,” Martha One said.
“Wanna bet?” When the girls didn’t respond, I added. “I really only need one of you.”
“Meanwhile, the other one of us will be calling 911.” This from Martha Two.
“Not if I tie you up,” I said.
“Samantha is watching the cameras on her Apple watch,” Martha One said. “If you touch us, she’ll call 911.”
Yeah, I doubted that very much. “Samantha is with Arianna and Lukas, failing to grab Kaitlyn Williamson for the Diakonos Team,” I said. “So how am I supposed to figure out who’s who?”
“Spencer,” Martha One said, “Mary has been prophesying for years that you’ll marry her someday. Don’t you know her well enough to tell which of us she is?”
Craziness. “So you’re Mary,” I said.
“What makes you say that?” Martha Two asked.
“Because she was talking about marrying me.” I pointed at Martha One.
“I can talk about Mary marrying you just as easily,” Martha Two said. She stood, walked to Mary’s bed, and removed the little stuffed goat I’d given Mary for Christmas last year. “I hid this from Mary once after she said it was proof you’d marry her. I disagreed, and we got into a fight. I was going to give it back, but she said my hair was ugly.”
“I wouldn’t tell her where it was for over a month,” Martha One said. “All she had to do to get it back was apologize for saying that about my hair.”
Okay, it was weird when they acted like clones sharing a brain. “You have the same hair,” I said. “You’re identical.”
“We are not identical,” Martha Two said, sitting back on the bed beside Martha One.
“I don’t have time for this,” I said. “It’s not like Diakonos is actually going to be able to grab Kaitlyn but I’d still like to get moving.”
Kaitlyn was El McWilly’s little sister, also a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Unlike her brother, she was a talker and a show choir kid who was bubbly and happy about everything. Still, there was no way Arianna, Lukas, and Grace would succeed against one of the Tae Kwon Do Williamsons.
“You just have to decide which of us is the real Martha,” Martha One said. “Then she will go with you. Willingly.”
Really? I sat on the edge of Mary’s bed, facing the girls. I looked from one set of eyes to the other and back again. Figs and jam. I didn’t have a clue. They both looked the same to me.
I felt like I should know Mary. I rarely spoke to Martha. I stared at Martha One until I was certain this was actually her. Yes, this was the real Mary.
But then I looked at Martha Two, and I stared into her eyes until I was certain this was the real Mary. I tried to remember if I’d ever noticed a mole or freckle or scar on Mary’s face. Then it hit me. Mary had pierced ears. Martha didn’t.
I studied Martha One’s ears. She had earing holes but was wearing no earrings. I looked to Martha Two. She had pierced ears as well. Didn’t she?
I stood. Crouched. Leaned closer to Martha One. Reached out and took Martha One’s earlobe between my thumb and forefinger. Felt the hole there. I did the same to Martha Two, who flinched under my touch. When I moved my thumb to feel for the hole, black smeared across her lobe.
“Gocha!” I said, tugging on Martha Two’s ear. “You’re Martha.” I straightened and set my hand on Martha One’s head. “Which means you’re Mary.”
She smirked. “I guess you’re smarter than my sister gave you credit for.” She looked to Martha. “I told you my husband would know me.”
“Okay, cut that out,” I said.
Martha rolled her eyes. “He didn’t know you. He knew me.”
I glanced at the digital clock on a bedside table. Too much time wasted. “The deal was you’d come willingly, right?” I asked.
“Whatever.” Martha stood and stomped out the door.
Mary jumped up and slid her arms around my waist, squeezing me tight. “Nice job, Spencer,” she said. “You’re a good spy.”
“Thanks, Mair,” I said, pulling her off me. “I’ve gotta go.”
I raced out the door after Martha, met her in the living room. I grabbed her around the waist and threw her over my shoulder. She screamed and kicked and pounded my back as I carried her out the front door.
I just laughed.
● ● ●
<
br /> That night, Isabel was having a slumber party to welcome the new girls to the League—even though she was in college now. Lukas and I went to a movie. Afterwards, we stopped by the dollar store and bought cans of silly string, then headed back to his place to harass the girls.
We burst into Isabel’s room and sprayed the girls with silly string. They screamed and beat us with pillows. Lukas got away, but I ended up on the floor in the middle of the room, pillows pummeling me. Kaitlyn stole my silly string and sprayed it into my ear, which felt creepy weird. I was laughing so hard my side hurt. I’d crawled halfway out the bedroom door, pillows still beating me, when footsteps thudded this way. Lukas’s Converse appeared in front of my face.
“Valeria Silver is dead,” he said.
The pillow abuse ceased. My cheeks tingled as I pushed up to my feet. “What? How?”
“Car accident. It’s on TV. Come on.”
We all ran to the living room. The girls piled onto the couch. I sat on the arm and watched as searchlights from a helicopter circled over the wreckage of a car upside down in the bushes. No one could have survived that.
“If you’re just tuning in, we’re live at the scene of a fatal accident,” the female reporter said. “Celebrated Cuban actress, Valeria Silver, is presumed dead from a car crash that took place less than an hour ago. Silver, a twenty-three-year-old film veteran, lost control of her vehicle on Getty Center Drive and plunged over the edge of the elevated roadway. Silver had been attending a fundraiser at the Getty Center. It’s unclear at this time how Silver came to lose control of the vehicle, however there are reports that she might have been under the influence.
“Silver, who was born in Holguín, Cuba, first appeared in a number of Latin American telenovelas before being discovered by director Irving MacCormack at a Free Light Youth rally in Miami when Silver was seventeen. She went on to costar alongside Brittany Holmes in four Light Goddess films. She has received three nominations for Best Supporting Actress by MTV Movie Awards, two of which she won.”
I pulled out my phone and texted Brittany: Just heard about Valeria. Praying for you.
And I did. I prayed that God would comfort Brittany. She and Valeria had never seemed to get along well, but I was sure this would hit Brittany hard.
We were all still watching the news when my phone started ringing. Brittany.
I got up and jogged into the kitchen. “Hello?”
“Spencer?” Brittany, voice high-pitched and laced with tears.
“Yeah,” I said. “How you doing?”
“Can you come pick me up? I’m at the Luxe on Sunset. The Getty Center road is blocked off, so the cops shuttled us out a back way. I’m in the lounge right now, sitting with some guys from the fundraiser. I want out of here but don’t want to leave with them. Can you come?”
“I’m on my way.”
“Thank you, Spencer. Text me when you get here, and I’ll come out.”
“Will do.” I started for the door, almost ran into Grace, who was standing in the path to the living room. I maneuvered around her, then bolted outside.
“You leaving?” Grace asked.
I opened my car door and glanced at the house. Grace was standing on the porch with Isabel, Mary, and Lukas. “Brittany needs a ride. She sounds pretty scared, so I said I’d go get her. Pray for her, will you?” Before any of them could object or beg to come along, I sank into the Banana and drove away.
Forty minutes later I was parked in the lot at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel with Brittany Holmes in my passenger’s seat.
“This is seriously what you drive?” she asked.
I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. “Yep.”
“I’m sure MacCormack would loan you something more a bit more . . . modern.”
I laughed. “He offered, but I try not to make myself beholden to guys like MacCormack—if I can help it.”
“That’s smart, Spencer. Ving likes to own people.”
“Yeah, I got that impression,” I said. “So, where to?”
She shook her head, which made her long, diamond earrings sway. She was wearing a slinky black gown and silver shoes with heels like ice picks. Tears fell down her cheek, and she patted them with her hands. “I don’t know. I just . . . For all her talk of being a better spokesmodel for the Free Light Youth, she never could stand all the parties and networking that had to be done. She was high, Spencer. And bored. She and some guy were popping rose pedals. I last saw, they were heading off into another wing, probably to make out.”
“The news said she was in the car alone.”
Brittany nodded. “I saw the cops questioning the guy later. Heard him say Valeria got mad and left. Who knows why. She was always getting mad.” She broke down then, and I just sat there, feeling stupid. I found some In ‘n’ Out Burger napkins in my glovebox and gave them to Brittany. They smelled like French fries, but she used them to wipe her eyes anyway.
“I’m just so tired of all this,” she said. “People think my life is so glamorous and easy, but there’s a lot people don’t know about how stressful it all is.”
I recalled what Brittany had said to me the day we’d met, after MacCormack had sent her to work her magic on me and I’d rejected her: “I make people happy, little boy. You don’t want to be happy, fine.”
It must suck to be some creep’s she-minion. Those paparazzi guys were a pain too.
“I sometimes wish I could just be a normal girl,” she said. “Go to college and take some classes. Make some real friends. Girls who just want to talk about life while we get our nails done, you know?”
Not at all, but I said, “Sure.” Then I got an idea. I started the car and put it in drive. “How about I take you to a slumber party?”
“What?”
“Grace and some of her friends are having a sleepover tonight. I was there when you called, and I could smell the nail polish.”
“You were at a girl’s slumber party?”
“It’s at my friend Lukas’s house. It’s his sister’s party, so we were just there to harass the girls a bit. You know, normal teenage guy stuff.”
She laughed, then dabbed her eyes with the wadded-up napkin.
I pulled onto Sunset and drove over the 405 freeway. I skipped the onramp—the freeway would be backed up because of the accident—and instead I took Sunset north through the city. All through Beverly Hills Brittany tried to talk me out of this, but by the time I reached Hollywood, she had resigned herself to my plan. I took the 101 north to Barham and cut through Burbank. By the time I got back to the Rodriguez house, it was almost midnight.
I helped Brittany out of the Banana. I wasn’t trying to be a gentleman or anything. It was just that her dress was so slinky, assistance was necessary. I led her up to the porch. Music was coming from inside. Sounded like Toby Mac. I rang the bell and waited. Footsteps thudded inside. Lukas opened the door.
“Caramba.” Lukas, starring, opened the door wider. “Hey, come on in. I was just . . .” He glanced toward the living room and ran off.
Oh-kay. I went in, and Brittany followed. I saw the news on TV a moment before Lukas reached the living room and shut it off. Thankfully, Brittany was studying some Cuban artwork on the wall.
“That looks like something Valeria had in her house,” she said.
“The Rodriguezes are from Cuba,” I said.
Lukas was back, hands in the pockets of his skinny jeans, eyes fixed on Brittany. She did look amazing in that dress, even if she could barely walk.
“Stop drooling and go get your sister,” I told him.
He shook his head. “Oh no. I’m not to disturb. Mama yelled at me when you were gone. This is your show, man. You know where her room is.”
“Fine.” I took Brittany’s hand, elbowed past Lukas, and pulled her down the narrow hallway. I knocked on Isabel’s door.
“Lukas, you tonto!” Isabel yelled. “I told you to go away!”
Girls inside the room giggled.
“I shouldn
’t intrude,” Brittany said.
“Shh,” I said and knocked again. “Isabel, it’s Spencer. Sorry to break up your party, but I need to talk to you for a second. Please? It’s important.”
Footsteps inside, approaching the door. “You going to come to Venezuela with me?”
“I’m not talking about that,” I said. “This is something else.”
The door opened a crack, revealing one Isabel eyeball. “If you think I’m going to fall for anymore pranks, Es-pensor, you are just as stupid as my brother.”
“I brought a guest to your party. Do you have room for one more?” I tugged Brittany into the place where I’d been standing.
The door opened, and Isabel stood there in a pink tank top and baggy pink and green flannel pajama bottoms. She looked just as good as Brittany did in that gown. I glanced past her and saw Arianna, Sam, Martha, Kaitlyn, and Grace, all in various types of girly PJs. Grace was wearing one of my T-shirts. I didn’t remember giving her that.
“Brittany, right?” Isabel asked.
Kaitlyn stumbled over to the doorway. “You’re so pretty!”
Brittany tugged on one of her diamond earrings. “I don’t think I’m dressed right for this party. Maybe Spencer shouldn’t be inviting strangers over here.”
“Not at all,” Isabel said. “The more, the merrier, right girls?”
Various shouts of “Yeah!” and “Right!” came from inside the room.
I released Brittany’s hand and pushed her through the door, walking inside behind her.
“Want a Coke or a Sprite?” Kaitlyn asked, waving at a table covered in junk food.
“Oh, I can’t,” Brittany said. “I have a contract. If I get caught drinking anything but Pepsi products, I’ll lose my endorsement deal.”
This silenced the girls.
I tried to fix it. “Brittany was telling me that she sometimes wishes she could just be one of the girls,” I said, “so I knew this was the place to bring her.”
“I have some extra pajamas if you’d like to change,” Isabel said.
“That would be nice, thank you,” Brittany said.
So Isabel dug out some PJs, then took Brittany out to the bathroom. I followed them as far as the hallway.
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