“At the next building,” he said breathlessly, “you keep going toward the running path. I’m going to peel off.”
“No.”
“Do it! Trust me.”
They reached a line of big old trees, leaves crunching beneath their shoes.
“I’ll catch up,” he said, sliding like a baseball player into home plate directly behind the next tree trunk. He listened carefully, awaiting the crush of leaves as his signal.
One…Two…
He dove out from behind the tree, caught the approaching boy’s legs, and tackled him. The two rolled, and Steel recovered, immediately springing to his feet and taking off. The tackled boy was not nearly as fast getting up—stunned by the surprise of the attack, and sprawled out on the lawn. Steel took off at a sprint, hoping he’d bought himself and Kaileigh a few extra seconds.
“Over here! This way!” he heard the fallen boy call out.
Steel reached the path, and a quick glance told him he’d succeeded—no one was behind him. He ran down the path, dodging his way between the late-evening strollers, amazed by the number of people. Thirty seconds later he caught up to Kaileigh.
Up the path, another boathouse was all lit up, its barnlike doors hanging open. There were people gathered outside—a team of oarsmen tidying up.
“There!” he said. “Past that boathouse we’ll cut back up the hill.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“We won’t make it,” she said. “They’ll see us.”
“And you have a better idea?”
“I do,” she said. “Where’s the best place to hide?”
“Out in the open,” he replied.
“I’ve been telling you this for…like…forever. The next bench. Right up there.”
“What about it?”
She reached down and took his hand, slowed—the limp more apparent—and pulled him to the open bench with her. She pulled him close to her, pressing her body against his and directing his arm around her shoulder, and behind her neck.
“There’s no faking this,” she whispered, panting from the running.
She placed her lips to his and she kissed him, the two of them gasping for breath in between the soft contact.
He’d passed other couples on benches, and some on the grass in the gray light of evening, wrapped up in a lovers’ embrace. He hadn’t given it a second thought. But he also hadn’t seen himself as one of them.
The stampede of pursuing boys approached. Three of them, and a fourth trailing. Kaileigh tensed and clung to him even tighter, continuing the kiss.
Steel wanted to focus, wanted to remember things about the boys for Randolph, but the only thing he was going to remember was the light-headed feeling and warm sensation that overwhelmed him, the tingling of his lips and the sweet smell of Kaileigh’s breath.
The boys ran past. Kaileigh kept kissing him, but began to laugh as the boys passed, and soon the two of them were hugging and laughing aloud, no one giving them a second thought—boyfriend and girlfriend on a park bench in Boston.
“You’re…that was…” He pulled away, though reluctantly. His heart was about to explode.
Her eyes sparkled in the light off the water. Her lips twisted into a grin. He’d never seen her smile like that—like there was something amusing she wasn’t about to share. She chuckled, but it was self-amusement, not meant for him. He had no tools with which to interpret it.
“You don’t get it, do you?” she asked.
He stared at her, not knowing what to say.
“You really don’t get it?” she said, amused all the more.
“Get what?”
She stood from the bench.
“We’d better hurry,” she said. “Before they figure out they’ve lost us.”
“Get what?” he repeated, still sitting on the bench.
She reached out her hand and pulled him off the bench. “Come on,” she said.
They walked up the hill, hand in hand. He didn’t know if they were still acting or not.
“What was I supposed to get?” he said. “Back there? What was so funny?”
“Forget it,” she said.
No way, he thought. He would never forget that. “As if,” he said. “But what am I supposed to forget?”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot that you don’t forget.” She chuckled to herself again and hung her head, her chin to her chest. “Don’t worry: you’ll figure it out.”
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 m
ade 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.
The Academy Page 21
