Spies and Prejudice (21 page)

When I look back at Drew, his eyes are wet. “I’m sorry,” he mouths. Then he throws the computer bag over his shoulder and disappears out the front door.

Jason collapses on the couch.

“I can’t believe he threatened Lulu.” I go over and give her a big hug and a kiss on the nose. “Who threatens a dog?”

“Do you think the gun was real?” Mary Chris opens the laptop and starts punching some keys.

“Does it matter? He got the drive. I’m sorry, Mare. I shouldn’t have included him. You did all the work. For what? So some corporate spy could get one step closer to stealing your dad’s formula?”

Mare grins up from the computer. “What he got was the script for
Hamlet, the Musical
. Not worth all that drama if you ask me, but I’m not one to judge.”

Jason sits up straight. “
Rock Opera
. And if that script gets posted online somewhere, I am a dead man.”

I glance over Mare’s shoulder. “How did you do it?”

Mare taps out a few more clicks on the keyboard. “I figured he’d try to get out of here with the file, so I erased the drive and loaded it with the script as soon as I got the files uploaded to the laptop.”

“You couldn’t have used my chemistry notes?” Jason still looks panicked.

Mare shakes her head. “Sorry. I just grabbed a file that was close to the right size. You only have like two pages of notes.”

Part of me wants to jump up and down and hug Mary Chris, but the part that’s just had a gun pointed at it for the second time today is less enthusiastic about this latest development. “He’ll come back.”

Mare looks up from the computer. “There’s nothing left for him to get. I’ve deleted the file and ran an elliptical program to scrub the machine so there are no echoes of it on the hard drive. The only copy of that file is the one in my dad’s office.”

“He won’t know that.” I hate that I’ve put Mary Chris and Jason in danger. Because there’s no question now that’s what I’ve done. “And he knows where to find the second piece of the puzzle.”

“About that.” Mare pulls the pin that holds her bun in place, letting her hair fall around her shoulders. “I might have lied.”

“What?” I have to hand to Mary Chris, she’s good at this spy stuff.

“It is kept in another computer at Moss Enterprises, but it’s nowhere near the warehouse.”

“At your house?” I guess.

“Nope. The guardian keeps it closer.”

Blue Eyes. “It’s on Dave’s computer?”

Mare nods. “That’s what it looks like. There was a firewall a mile thick, and Dave is the only one who has the kind of information that would warrant that level of security.”

“You’re not sure?”

“Won’t know for sure unless we get inside.”

Mary Chris is thinking of going back into Moss Enterprises to hack Dave’s computer? “You guys can’t help me anymore. This is getting complicated.”

“We’re already in.” Mary Chris reaches into the pocket of her jeans and hands me a folded piece of paper.

The paper is handwriting paper with one-inch lines and a dotted line in the middle like we used to use in first grade. Creases have left permanent marks in the paper. As I unfold it, I recognize the large block letters, slanted slightly to the right. The handwriting of a much younger me. “You still have this?”

She nods. “I figured it’s about time I cashed it in.”

The large handwriting at the top says “U. O. Me.” Below it is a single sentence: “I talked your mom into getting a kitten for your birthday.”

The U. O. Me was something that Mare invented in first grade after she got her mother to buy me an annual pass to Disneyland so I could go with her year-round. It blossomed into a friendly competition, each of us trying to outdo the other in breadth and scope so the other would have to come up with something as good or better in return. I helped Mare get Oscar, and the ball was in her court. But a new note never came.

“You didn’t forget.” I turn the paper over in my hand.

“I almost had your mom convinced that you should have a puppy.” She doesn’t have to say the rest. Two weeks after Mare’s eighth birthday, my mother was dead. “I didn’t know what to do …” Her voice trails. “After.”

“I know.” And I do. My heart had been ripped right out my chest and there was nothing anyone could do. Mare couldn’t bring my mom back, and for a long time that’s all I wanted. Then my dad disappeared into his bedroom, and I had to learn to shop and cook and keep what was left of our family alive. There was no time for games. “You don’t owe me anything.”

Mare smiles. “I won’t after we find out what happened to your mom. And when we do, you’re going to owe me big-time.”

“I can’t let you do this. It’s your dad’s company. That man, Dave, might be a murderer. And Drew, well, you saw the gun.”

“You should know better than to think you can stop me. Besides, I kind of killed it tonight.”

“Kind of?” Jason sits up on the couch. “You pretty much rocked it. Except for letting the
Hamlet
script out.”

“We don’t know what we’ll find. Your dad—”

“Didn’t kill anyone,” Mare finishes. “Neither did yours. But there’s only one way to know for sure. We prove it.”

“I’m in,” Jason says. “But I want a bigger role in the next heist.”

“Fine, but no singing.” I fold the note and stick in my pocket, right next to the one from Tanner.

My phone rings, but it’s a number I don’t recognize. I pick it up. Before I can say anything Drew’s voice comes through so loud, I’m sure Mare and Jason hear every word. “Where is it?”

“Moss Enterprises. Mary Chris wiped the drive and the laptop.”

“This isn’t a game. I’m running out of time. You have one week.”

“I don’t work for you.”

“It’s not a request. Berry, if I don’t get that formula, innocent people will die.”

“Is that a threat?”

“You’re in enough danger without me threatening you. What do you think happened to your mom, Berry? They killed her before she could get the truth out. I’m not going to let that happen again. We want the same thing. To stop whoever did this.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I want to put away the man who killed my mother. I don’t care about some stupid energy drink.”

“We can do both.”

“You held a gun on me. You threatened my dog. If I ever see you again, you better run as fast as you can.”

“You think Tanner’s your friend?” Drew’s voice is uncharacteristically hard. “He’s protecting the information your mom was killed for trying to get out.”

“You think this is about Tanner?”

“Isn’t it?”

I hang up on him. I can’t believe he tries to make this about Tanner. Tanner may have been here to spy, but I’m pretty sure he’d never pull a gun on me.

“Did you hear that?”

Jason nods. “So what’s the plan? Are we going to get the second file?”

“Not for Drew.” I set the phone on the table, wanting to put as
much distance between it and me as I can. I keep seeing that gun. Pointed at me. Pointed at Lu.

“We’ll get it for Berry.” Mare reaches for my hand and squeezes it.

There’s no talking Mare out of something when she sets her mind to it, so I don’t bother trying. I take her hand and force out a smile.

M
ary Chris spends the rest of the weekend on the computer trying to break through Internet firewalls at Moss Enterprises. Jason howls and screeches his way through his death scene in the living room. Lulu stretches out on the couch and watches it all in between naps. I spend half my pathetic college fund to replace the desktop and get our software loaded. As far as I can tell, we’re left alone.

I’m left alone.

In quiet moments when no one’s looking, I try to remember Tanner’s face. His laugh. The way his fingers left a trail of fire along my skin. I should be trying to forget, but the thought of forgetting him terrifies me more than the fact that he’s somehow managed to work his way into my life. This is all wrong. I am not supposed to miss him.

At school on Monday, I go to the library. Drew’s secret study room is empty. I suspected it would be, but it’s a relief to know for sure.

The woman behind the periodical counter sets down her magazine and reaches for a box of disks. I don’t do anything to stop her.
She hands me the CD from eight years ago, and I take it to the computer in the corner.

The ancient computer whirrs and grinds itself awake. I scroll down to the day of the accident. The pictures are right there where they always are, the article telling the same story. Woman drives off Coronado Bridge. I wait for my throat to close, but it doesn’t. It’s not panic or even sadness that grips me as I read the article, it’s anger.

“I’ll find who did this to you,” I say to the woman in the picture.

And I will. I just need to find a way to do it that doesn’t involve putting Mary Chris and Jason in harm’s way.

Dad is home when I get back from school. He looks up from the monitor. “You want to explain what happened to our computer?”

“Virus.” The lie comes too easily. It must run in the family. “Even the Geek Squad couldn’t save it.”

“I told you not to download anything without talking to me first. What was it? Some new text spoofing software? You know we can’t approach marks under false pretenses.”

I let the lecture slide right over me. I watch Dad’s eyes. In his anger there’s frustration, but no trace of violence. Dad is not a killer.

“Why do the police think you killed Mom?”

Dad’s face changes in an instant. One second, he’s stern father and the next he’s deathly pale. “What?”

“The police think you had something to do with Mom’s death. Is that why you didn’t want me to look into it?”

The color is back in his cheeks tenfold. He clenches his fists. “I told you leave your mother’s death alone. I told you that note had
nothing to do with it. How dare you go behind my back? How dare you disobey—”

“I deserve to know the truth. I’m part of this family too. She was my mother. You have no right to keep me from finding out what happened.”

“You’re a child, Berry.”

That might be the biggest lie of all. “I haven’t been a child for a very long time.”

Dad watches me, his eyes full of pity. Ah yes, the look. “I’m sorry.”

Everyone’s sorry. No one knows how to help me. I know how. The truth will set me free. “Tell me what happened. Please.”

“If I do, will you promise to drop this?”

No way am I caving to parental extortion. I shake my head. “I can’t. I think I know who killed her.”

“What?”

“A man who works for Moss paid Heather Marrone to say she saw Mom drive off the bridge.”

Dad shakes his head. “You can’t trust a paid witness. Even if it were true, it wouldn’t mean he killed her. He could have been just trying to keep the police from looking too closely at the company.”

“He hired her the night before the accident, Dad. The man knew she was going to die before it happened.”

“What?” Dad drops his head in his hands. He stays like that for at least a minute. It’s not until I see his shoulders shake that I realize he’s crying.

Even during that dark year, he never cried in front of me, but now it’s getting to be a regular thing with us. I don’t know what to do. I
kneel on the floor beside him and put my hands on his knees. “Dad?”

When he looks up his eyes are red. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“It’s okay.” It’s not. Seeing my dad cry is horrible. It tears at my insides in a way that I didn’t think was possible anymore, shredding up pieces that are buried so deep they should be untouchable.

He shakes his head. “You don’t understand. I’m the one who wrote the note.”

The note? The death threat? It’s impossible. Dad was an insurance fraud investigator. He had nothing to do with Moss Enterprises. “I don’t understand.”

“There were rumors about the security team at Moss’s company. Never confirmed, but they were known to make problems disappear. Your mom found out something that threatened the entire product line she was working on. She was a problem.”

“She found out the drink was addictive.”

“You know about that?”

“I saw Mom’s report.”

For a second I see something like pride in his eyes, but he covers it quickly. “She was just doing what they hired her to do, but her manager got upset and told her to keep the information to herself until he figured out the best way to handle it. When it looked like the product launch was going forward anyway, your mom threatened to go to the FDA herself.”

“And they threatened her?”

“No. That’s what worried me the most. I thought they might skip the threat and just wait to see if she kept their secret. Not that they would let her say anything.”

“So you threatened her yourself?”

He looks away. “I was afraid. Your mother thought I was being paranoid. She was also stubborn. Like you. I thought if she understood the threat was real, she would drop it.”

“But she didn’t?”

“I thought she did. She was terrified. She thought they were going to hurt me. She thought they were going to hurt you. You were only eight. I felt awful, but I didn’t think they would do anything as long as she kept quiet, and I thought the note would keep her quiet.” He looks down at the floor. “I had no idea what I had done until it was too late.”

“You didn’t do anything. You were trying to protect her. You couldn’t know they would still hurt her.”

“They didn’t hurt her, Berry. She killed herself. She killed herself before they could hurt one of us.”

“No.” I’ve spent the last eight years wanting to believe that her death was an accident, hating myself for not trusting that her death wasn’t a suicide the way my father did. No wonder I couldn’t believe him when he said she would never kill herself. It was all a lie.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“Stop saying that!” I stand up on shaky legs. “She didn’t leave us. If she was really like me, than she would’ve fought back.”

“Either way, it’s because I pushed her.”

“How can you say that? Moss’s chief of security knew she was going to die before it happened. He’s the one who’s responsible. He’s the one who should pay.”

“Stop.” Dad stands up so we’re back on even ground. “Revenge
won’t bring her back. And if anything happens to you, your mother will have died for nothing. I know you’re growing up and I can’t stop you from doing anything you set your mind to, but I’m asking you, Berry. Please. Leave this alone.”