Now You See Them, Now You Don't

  Meg snorted in disgust. Younger brother! She didn’t mind so much pretending to be a boy — even an eight-year-old.

  But I miss my hair!

  She pounded the keyboard, accessing another chunk of Louise Graham’s frequent-flier miles. Mom had more than seven hundred thousand SkyPoints — the fruit of years of worldwide travel on the lecture circuit. It would be enough to book Aiden and Meg hotel rooms for a long time.

  A wave of sadness froze the mouse in her hand. A long time. At his-and-hers maximum-security prisons in Florida, Mom and Dad were serving his-and-hers life sentences. Nothing else qualified as “a long time.”

  Meg pointed to the screen. “How about this place? The Beverly Palace Hotel and Spa.”

  Aiden was in the process of divvying up the contents of the shoe box between their pockets. “Let’s chuck the doorstop. But the opera glasses might come in handy. Like minibinoculars.”

  Meg was absorbed in her research. “Check it out — the spa has hot bubbling mud wraps. What’s a hot bubbling mud wrap?”

  “That car has passed by here before,” he said suddenly.

  “Huh?” She glanced up from the screen. Her brother’s attention was now focused out the window at the passing traffic.

  “That El Camino — you know, that old-fashioned clunker with a car front but a flatbed in back like a pickup truck. Watch, it’ll come around again.”

  Sure enough, a few minutes later, the El Camino idled into view. The paint appeared to be orange and brown — very 1970s. Although it was impossible to make out much detail, four dark silhouettes were clearly visible — two in the cab and two in the flatbed.

  Aiden and Meg huddled behind the monitor until the vehicle had traversed @leaves.net’s picture window and disappeared down the block.

  “You think it’s the cops?” Meg whispered. “In an El Camino?”

  Aiden’s brow furrowed. “Undercover agents? FBI maybe?”

  Meg couldn’t picture Emmanuel Harris in a 1970s macho mobile. On the other hand, it was hard to envision the agent’s six-foot-seven bulk in anything smaller than an aircraft carrier. “If it isn’t police, then who could it be?”

  Aiden drew in a nervous breath. “For all we know, he’s just circling the block looking for a parking space big enough for that monster. But I think it might have something to do with what happened on the beach.”

  Her eyes widened. “You mean the guy with the knife?”

  He nodded. “LA is gang country. Regular people don’t go around carving each other up with switchblades. I think I might have stuck my nose into some kind of gang war.”

  A gang war! Wasn’t there enough danger in their lives already, being pursued across the country by the police, the juvenile authorities, the FBI, and Hairless Joe, a bald nutcase with a grudge? And now an LA street gang was mad at them? It just didn’t seem fair.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked anxiously. “We can’t even call the cops!”

  “The next time they drive by,” Aiden said in a low voice, “we’ll take off in the opposite direction. At least then we’ll have a few minutes before they pass again and find out we’ve bolted.”

  Willing her fingers not to tremble, Meg shut down the Web browser. They waited, eyes riveted to the window, huddled so close that each could feel the other’s heartbeat. No El Camino appeared.

  Five minutes. Seven. Then ten.

  “Maybe we were wrong,” she suggested hopefully.

  Her brother was stubborn. “I don’t think we were wrong. And I don’t think they went away, either.”

  Another ten minutes. Meg counted off the seconds, all six hundred of them, just to keep her mind occupied. She had never been big on waiting. She would rather face something — anything — just to avoid the fear that could consume her from the inside like acid.

  Aiden was the opposite. Mr. Patience — watching his inaction was enough to drive her nuts. He’d always been that way, even about something as harmless as a game of Monopoly. He could slow the pace to a crawl agonizing over whether or not to buy Marvin Gardens.

  “Let’s go,” she urged.

  Aiden thought it over a moment, then started for the door.

  The instant they stepped onto the sidewalk they spotted it — the El Camino parked down the block. All at once, the lights came blazing on, fixing the Falconers in their blinding beams.

  The hesitation was only one beat. They were off down the sidewalk, running full tilt. The car roared to unmuffled life and peeled into traffic after them.

  Meg stumbled on the uneven concrete. Before she could fall, Aiden grabbed her arm and pushed her in front of him. No words passed between them. They just fled.

  It took only seconds for the El Camino to catch up. Without slowing, Meg glanced to her side. It was an image out of every gang movie she’d ever seen. The drive-by shooting. The windows would roll down, the gun barrels would appear …

  “This way!”

  She wheeled Aiden around a corner, and they pounded down a narrow alley that led to nothing but darkness. It was like running in deep space, a track meet in black velvet. But at least the car could not follow them here.

  A squeal of tires was followed by a series of metallic crashes as the headlights caught up with them. The El Camino was coming, bare inches from either side, bashing garbage cans out of its way. The high beams cast the Falconers’ shadows on the brick wall in front of them. They looked around frantically. No fences, no doorways, no windows.

  No escape.

  Aiden tried to pull Meg behind him, but she struggled her way out again and stood by his side. Whatever this was, they were going to face it together.

  The El Camino did not slow. Terrified and helpless, they watched it come.

  This is no drive-by, Meg realized in agony. They were going to be crushed.

  The big front grille kept hurtling toward them.

  In what she believed would be her last thought, Meg saw her parents in prison, receiving the news that both their children were dead, gruesomely murdered in a far-off city.

  And then the El Camino screeched to a halt barely eighteen inches in front of them. A tall, slim figure rose from the flatbed, stomped its way over to the cab, and glared down at them from the hood.

  “What do you want from us?” Aiden rasped, petrified.

  That was when the Falconers identified the face that hovered above them. It was indeed someone from the beach earlier that evening. But not the attacker in the Dodgers jersey.

  It was the teenager with the goatee.

  He spoke to Aiden. “I’ve been looking all over for you, man! You saved my life.”

  Aiden gawked at the boy he had rescued. “We don’t want any trouble. I just saw the knife and pushed that guy away. I wasn’t trying to mix in.”

  A grin that showed dazzling white teeth bloomed at the center of the circle formed by the goatee and mustache. The teenager hopped down into the cramped space between the El Camino’s grille and the Falconers. “Back this boat up,” he ordered. “You’re crowding my friends.”

  Growling and snarling, the El Camino reversed about ten feet, allowing Aiden and Meg to peel themselves off the wall. Meg couldn’t suppress a tremulous sigh of relief.

  “Sorry about that,” Goatee apologized. “Russian driver.” He held out his hand. “I’m Bo.”

  Aiden shook it, looking like he was grasping a live cobra. “Uh, hi — ”

  “No, no, no.” Another flash of teeth. “This is the part where you tell me your names.” He and Meg exchanged an awkward handshake.

  Aiden fumbled briefly. Who was he today? “Gary — Graham,” he managed finally, quoting his airline ticket identity. “This is my brother, Eric.”

  “Wrong again,” Bo said pleasantly. “This is your sister, Erica.” He scrutinized Meg. “If you want to pass as a boy, you’d better trim those eyelashes.”

  Aiden was struck dumb. Even Meg, who could always come up with the right lie at the right moment, had nothing to say.

&
nbsp; Bo shrugged. “That’s fine. If you want to be Gary and Erica, it works for me. My real name is Boaz. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the crew.”

  “We have to g-g-go,” Aiden stammered in a failed attempt to be casual. “We’ve got to get home.”

  “Don’t lie to a liar, Gary. You’ve got nowhere to go.”

  “We do so,” snapped Meg. “We just stopped for” — her face twisted — “tea.”

  “Listen,” Bo told them, “I’ve been on the street a long time, and I know some things. If you had a home, you’d be in it right now, being tucked in by Mommy and Daddy. Now, you don’t have to tell me what your deal is, because I’m not nosy. But if you refuse to kick back with my crew so I can thank you for saving my life — well, that would hurt my feelings.”

  Aiden and Meg exchanged an agonized glance. Exactly how dangerous this streetwise Californian might be, they could not know. But it was clear that Bo was not the sort of person who took no for an answer.

  So it was that the Falconers found themselves backing out of the alley at fifty miles an hour in the flatbed of a souped-up El Camino.

  “Hang on!” advised the flatbed’s other passenger, a petite brunette. “Teebs is a great driver, but he thinks he’s still in Moscow. I’m Viv,” she added.

  “Gary and Erica,” Bo introduced them. “They’re with us now.”

  It was not what Aiden and Meg wanted to hear.

  Bo and Viv held hands for the entire wild ride, which took them to an oceanfront parking lot, up over the curbstones, and onto the beach itself. In a blizzard of airborne sand, Teebs guided the El Camino to a secluded spot hidden behind the now-closed municipal change huts. Aiden could make out four or five figures gathered around what looked like a small bonfire.

  “Last stop,” announced Bo. “Everybody out.”

  The Falconers clung to the sides of the flatbed. Neither moved. What was about to happen to them?

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Viv asked.

  Aiden squinted into the gloom. The fire — it was glowing coals in an ancient hibachi. Someone ripped open a shrink-wrapped packet of supermarket hot dogs. They sizzled as they hit the rusty grill.

  They’re taking us to a barbecue?

  “You can lie about your names,” said Bo, “but you can’t tell me you guys have eaten in the last twelve hours.”

  “We really should get going,” Aiden began.

  Meg had a different opinion. “Oh, man, does that ever smell good!”

  It made the decision easy. With a precious and dwindling thirty-seven dollars in their pockets, the Falconers could not afford to pass up a free meal.

  Meg, who had once considered becoming a vegetarian, blasted through three hot dogs in the blink of an eye. Fugitives were not finicky eaters. They ate whatever they could manage to get, and savored every bite.

  Even Aiden had to admit that a full stomach felt great. But he almost choked on the bun when he heard his sister ask, “So are you guys, like — a gang?”

  Bo thought this was hilarious. “I think of us more as an autonomous collective.”

  Derisive laughter greeted this announcement, and Bo was pelted with sand.

  “Easy on the vocab lesson, man,” growled a surly teen everybody called Zapp.

  It was true that Bo was remarkably well-spoken for a street thug.

  “We’re the IC,” Bo went on. “International Crew. We’re all from different places. I was born in Israel, Viv’s Canadian, Teebs grew up in Russia, and Mr. Maurice Zapp is from Pocatello, Idaho.”

  “That’s not another country,” Meg pointed out.

  “You’re right,” mumbled Zapp in a flat baritone. “It’s another planet.”

  Aiden kept his mouth shut. In his opinion, there wasn’t a heck of a lot of difference between a crew and a gang. When one of the members asked Bo, “Anything on for tonight?” Aiden was pretty sure the guy wasn’t talking about going bowling.

  “Chill out,” Bo told him. “We have guests.”

  Bo was definitely the leader. And for now, he seemed like he meant the Falconers no harm. But the only difference between the International Crew and the juvenile offenders at Sunnydale Farm was the simple fact that these kids hadn’t been caught yet.

  We can’t get away from here fast enough, Aiden figured.

  Mom had a rule under the heading of good manners: You had to wait at least twenty minutes after a meal before taking off. He estimated that length of time and then stood up and stretched. “Thanks a lot, Bo, but we really should be moving on.”

  “Tell that to your sister.” Bo pointed to where Meg was collapsed against Viv’s shoulder, fast asleep.

  Aiden reached out to shake her awake, but Bo grabbed his arm. “Not necessary. You guys can crash with us tonight.”

  “No — ”

  “Listen, I don’t know what you’re hiding from. But trust me, I’ve been there. And I know how much a few hot dogs and a safe place to bunk can mean. Let me help. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be lying on that bike path, bled out.”

  Aiden drew in a long breath of salt air. Unbelievable. They were running for their lives, hunted by the law, menaced by a terrifying killer …

  … and now they were the reluctant houseguests of a Los Angeles street gang.

  The house was just a few miles from Venice Beach, but Aiden could see they had entered an alternate universe. Street after street of peeling paint — a maze of identical two-story shoe boxes that had seen better days, or maybe not. The funky and fashionable strip of real estate that hugged the coastline was now behind them.

  Bo put an arm around Aiden’s shoulders on the mostly dirt front lawn. “Welcome to our little piece of shrapnel off the American grenade.”

  “How many of you live here?” asked Aiden, watching the procession of IC members from three cars file up the cracked concrete walk. He couldn’t help noticing Viv shuffling the half-asleep Meg along with an almost motherly air.

  “It’s more like our headquarters, but anybody’s welcome to crash,” Bo said, then added meaningfully, “especially if you’ve got nowhere else to go.”

  A notice posted on the front door declared: THESE PREMISES THE PROPERTY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS.

  “Some guy bought the place on the GI bill,” Bo explained, “and when he couldn’t make the payments, he took off. Left everything — furniture, the works.”

  The front lock was broken. Bo swung the door wide and ushered the group inside.

  The interior was somewhat more impressive than Aiden had expected. At least it was reasonably clean. The decor reminded him of the dorm rooms at the small college where his parents used to teach — beanbag chairs, obnoxious posters, cheap blankets tacked up as curtains.

  It still beats jail, Aiden thought, fighting a wave of sorrow. He and Meg could only imagine the horrific conditions Mom and Dad were forced to endure in prison.

  And speaking of jail …

  “Aren’t you afraid Veterans Affairs will send the police over to keep an eye on the place?”

  Bo shrugged. “They haven’t yet.” He fixed Aiden with a piercing gaze. “You and your sister look like a couple of clean-cut kids. Why are the cops after you? What have you done?”

  “The cops aren’t after us,” Aiden countered far too quickly.

  “Oh, sure. On the bike path, you two got out of there twice as fast as I did when we heard the sirens.”

  “I don’t like to get involved,” Aiden offered lamely.

  Bo raised his expressive eyebrows. “You put yourself into a guy with an open switchblade — I think that counts as getting involved.”

  Aiden was growing nervous under the pressure of this questioning. He certainly wasn’t going to come clean to a total stranger.

  But how long can I keep putting him off before he gets angry?

  Bo had been good to them so far, but he was a gang leader. There was no question he was dangerous.

  Aiden summoned his courage. “You said you weren’t nosy.”

&
nbsp; Bo looked shocked for a moment and then burst out laughing. “Come on, Gary, you’d better get some rest. You’re not thinking like a prudent man.”

  He led Aiden upstairs to a tiny spare room where Meg was wrapped in a blanket, snoring softly on a couch. A sleeping bag was spread out on the floor for Aiden.

  It wasn’t the five-star hotel Meg had almost booked on the Internet. But suddenly, that bedroll seemed like the most sumptuous accommodations in any palace on the planet.

  I can’t remember the last time I had a chance to lie down….

  Aiden collapsed gratefully onto the threadbare fabric.

  “If you need anything, just holler,” Bo tossed over his shoulder.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Aiden rolled over on his stomach. All at once, a sharp pain in his thigh brought him back up to a sitting position.

  What the —

  He reached into his pocket. It was the key — the locker key from the shoe box of Frank Lindenauer’s knickknacks, pressing up against his skin.

  “Bo?” he called.

  The door opened, and the boy with the goatee leaned in questioningly.

  “Do you know what SMRC stands for?”

  Bo thought it over. “Not off the top of my head. Where’d you see it?”

  “On a billboard,” Aiden said with a yawn. “Good night.”

  He felt a twinge of guilt for all the lying but quickly pushed it aside. Lies were small potatoes compared with what an LA gang was probably capable of.

  He ran his finger across the jagged teeth of the key. Did the mysterious locker 347 — wherever it was — hold the evidence that would prove the Doctors Falconer were innocent —

  If they were innocent …

  Aiden’s entire body jerked in the sleeping bag as if he’d been racked with a sudden intense pain. It was his deepest secret fear — greater, even, than his fear of capture.

  What if John and Louise Falconer were guilty?

  How could they be guilty? They’re patriots! That’s why they were helping the CIA in the first place.

  And yet the doubts would not entirely disappear. If Mom and Dad were innocent, why wasn’t the evidence more obvious? The FBI had put dozens of investigators on this case. Okay, maybe they hadn’t been looking very hard after the arrests had been made. But what about the Falconers’ lawyers? They had moved heaven and earth for their clients and had still come up empty.