I regret the words as soon as I say them.
“Oh, Gracie.” Jamie moves to hug me, but I don’t need his comfort or his pity. I want his trust.
So I lie.
“The phone was downstairs. In the dining room under the table. You probably turned it off for dinner, and then it fell out of your pocket, but how I found the phone doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Spence made it back to the mainland.”
“No.” Grandpa shakes his head, walks around his desk. “Impossible. The police questioned everyone, and no one admitted to giving him a ride off the island, Gracie. It’s too far to swim. There’s no way.”
“There is a way! I know because it happened.” I reach for the phone again, shove it toward my brother. “Here. Play them. Play your messages.”
When Jamie reaches for his phone, it’s almost like he’s afraid that it might bite him, so I press the buttons myself, and soon there’s a voice in my grandfather’s office. A ghost on speakerphone, calling from the grave.
“Blake! Man, you’re not going to believe this. Call me back.”
Slowly, my brother reaches down to play the next message.
“Blake! Pick up the phone, man. I’ve got to … Just call me. As soon as you get this, call me!”
At first, Spence sounds excited, intrigued. But by the next message he’s out of breath. It’s like he’s been running and is winded. His voice is barely a whisper.
“Blake. It’s me again, man. I’m trying to get back to the embassy, but if I don’t, you have to know —”
Spence never speaks again. I hear a crash, like his phone falling to the street. There are mumbles and scuffling sounds. A hit. And then there’s nothing but silence and a cold chill of dread that comes with the knowledge that we’ve just heard the last moments of John Spencer’s life.
For a long moment, my brother just stands, looking at the phone, guilt and grief spreading across his face.
His friend called him, but Jamie wasn’t there. Not for our mother. Not for Spence. And now it’s way too late to save either one.
“He made it back to the mainland,” I say again, hoping that this time they’ll believe me. “He made it back, and he saw something. And they killed him.”
No one says, There is no “they.” My grandfather and brother have already spent years telling me there is no Scarred Man. But there is. Dominic is real. His scar is real. It’s just the details of that night that my mind always managed to forget and confuse.
This time, it’s the details I don’t know.
“He made it off the island,” I say again.
“How?” Jamie asks, and for a second, I think I might do something crazy. I think I might just tell the truth. But then I hear my name.
“Grace?” Ms. Chancellor is at the door. She looks at my friends and then at me. Once upon a time I might have thought I could read her bemused expression, but not now. Now I have no idea what she’s thinking when she says, “Well, isn’t this the party?”
In a flash, I see the future. Spence’s phone is right here, not quite proof, but something. And I could tell them about the tunnel and the Society and the cryptic, nagging doubts that plague my mind. I could tell them about Spence’s search, my mother’s obsession, and maybe I could make somebody understand that this is so much bigger than two boys fighting at a party.
I could do that. And I could also end up back in a psych ward.
Or worse.
Whoever did this killed a US citizen, framed an ambassador’s son, and planted a bomb on a diplomatic vehicle.
There are things that are far, far worse.
“Did I hear that you all are going out to dance in the rain?” Ms. Chancellor says. Her smile doesn’t quite reach her brown eyes, though. I’m almost terrified of what she might mean when she says, “Do be careful. I’d hate to see anyone else get hurt.”
Where were you?”
That we make it all the way to the street before Noah spins on me is something of a miracle. It’s still raining — not a downpour, but the kind of heavy, lingering drizzle that clings to your hair and your clothes until it feels like you’ll never be truly warm or dry again.
But that doesn’t stop the festival. According to legend, when the rains came two hundred years ago, musicians filled the streets and the people danced, so now everyone who has ever played an instrument is outside in the rain, leading the nonstop procession. Tourists and natives alike are dancing in the streets now, carrying umbrellas that they don’t even hold overhead as they spin and spin, following the circle that rims the city, dancing down Embassy Row.
Noah glances in their direction then shakes his head. “Ignore them.”
“Noah, I —”
“Where were you?” he says again, not teasing. And for the first time I really let myself consider today’s events from his perspective. We all went to a place where someone died and then Alexei and I disappeared without a trace. We were gone for hours, and Noah’s right to be angry. They’re all right to be terrified.
“We got stuck,” I say, as if that makes any sense.
“Stuck how?” Noah asks through gritted teeth. “And how did you get back here? We had the only boat.”
“There was a tunnel,” I say. “Or really more like catacombs or caverns or something. Anyway, there are these big ruins in the center of the island. It looks like it was some kind of temple or fortress or something once. I think Spence went in there. That night. I think he got stuck in the same room we got stuck in and then he found the same tunnel we found and took that back to the mainland.”
“I don’t understand,” Megan says. “What kind of tunnel? You mean like the ones that are under the city?”
“Yes,” I say, then reconsider. “No. I mean … I don’t know. It hooks up with the city tunnels, though. That’s how Alexei and I got out.”
“Hooks up where?” Rosie asks, and I can’t help myself. I look at Lila.
“No!” Noah yells. He points between me and his twin sister. “Don’t think I don’t see you two. Whispering and giving each other looks. You’re working together now? You two? In case you have forgotten, you don’t like each other! You barely know each other. And now you’re acting like best friends and I don’t like it. I know something is going on, and I want to know what it is. Now.”
I think about what Noah’s asking me to do — what I want to do. If Ms. Chancellor was right, the Society has existed for a thousand years; I’ve been a member for less than a week, and already I’m about to crumble.
“Grace.” I can hear the worry in Megan’s voice. “What’s wrong?”
When I start to shake, I tell myself it’s because of the rain, so I push my wet hair out of my face. Water runs down my cheeks, and I remind myself that I’m not crying — that crying is a luxury I’ll never have again.
No. It’s a luxury that Spence will never have again. And Mikhail, the Russian driver. And maybe Alexei if we can’t make this stop.
What harm would it do to tell my friends? I wonder. Then another thought cuts through me:
What harm did it do Caroline?
The words chill me like the wind, and only one thought remains: This is happening. I’m going to have to face it one way or another. The only question now is whether or not I’m going to face it alone.
“We need to go inside. Let’s go meet Alexei, and then I’ll tell you.” I look at Lila, but I can’t read her eyes. “I’ll tell you everything.”
It’s not hard to find a tunnel entrance and, from there, to make it to the north end of Embassy Row. As soon as I push open the doors into the basement of Iran it feels, shockingly, like home. This dingy basement with its hot springs–fueled swimming pool and ornately tiled ceiling is as comforting as anyplace else. For the first time since I heard the temple door closing behind us, I let myself relax.
“Where are we?” Lila asks, stepping inside.
She’s taking in the long room with its domed ceiling, the moldy lounge chairs and water-stained walls when Ro
sie says, “Iran.”
Lila almost knocks her down as she spins. “Where?” she shouts, and I remember.
“Oh. Yeah. I forgot you didn’t know. Sometimes we hang out in Iran.” I’m so matter-of-fact that it takes a moment for her to hear what I’m saying.
Lila is a blur as she whirls on her brother and starts shouting at him in a steady stream of Hebrew. But Noah throws his hands in the air — the universal signal for don’t blame me — and fires off a reply.
It might go on forever if not for the dark shadow that appears in the stairway, the deep voice that says, “Is someone going to tell me what has happened?”
And just that quickly Lila forgets all about her brother and runs to Alexei as fast as she can. He throws open his arms and practically swallows her whole.
“I was so worried,” she says as Alexei speaks softly near her ear, his voice so low that I can’t hear it. And the whole scene makes me feel … angry. And sad. And guilty.
But mostly it makes me want to pull Lila out of Alexei’s arms and toss her in the pool.
I have no right to feel this way, but that’s the thing about feelings. You never get what you deserve.
When Megan clears her voice, “Ahem!” Lila peels herself off of Alexei and turns back to us. Her mascara is smudged and her cheeks are too red.
“Now, will someone explain where the two of you went?” Noah points to Alexei and then to me. “And what the two of you” — this time he points between me and his sister — “have been keeping from us?”
“Grace,” Lila starts, my name a warning. We should talk about this, it says. We should think. We shouldn’t throw a thousand years of secret sisterhood out the window just because one of us is having a really messed-up summer.
But this isn’t my summer. It’s my life. And I don’t know how much more I can take.
“You can leave if you want to, Lila. You can go tell your mom or Ms. Chancellor what I’m doing right now. You can. It’s your right, and I won’t try to stop you. But don’t try to stop me.” I look at my friends. “They’re already involved with this, one way or another. They have the right to know.”
My mom was obsessed with something once, if Ms. Chancellor and the prime minister are to be believed. Just a few weeks ago I was obsessed with the Scarred Man and justice and proving to the world that I’m not crazy. I was wrong, of course, about so many things. And I may be wrong about this. But if there’s something worse than knowing an awful thing, it’s knowing nothing at all.
I look at my friends and then to Lila.
“Go ahead,” she says. “I won’t stop you.”
Maybe this means she believes me. Maybe she trusts me. Or maybe Lila is just smart enough to know that, given enough rope, eventually, I am bound to hang myself.
“Okay,” I say. “Get comfortable, and I’ll explain.”
It’s chilly in the basement, and we’re all still wet, but we settle on the hard tiled floor. We wrap towels around our shoulders and huddle around like there’s an old-fashioned campfire. Then it’s time for me to tell the story.
“A thousand years ago, the knights of the Crusades settled Adria.”
“Feel free to skip ahead a millennium,” Noah tells me, but I shake my head.
“No. I can’t. Because a thousand years ago men founded this country, but their wives and their daughters and their granddaughters formed a sort of … society. Or so they tell me. And that society still exists today.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Megan says.
“It’s a secret,” I say, not realizing how foolish it sounds until the words are out of my mouth.
Noah doesn’t look impressed. “What do they do?”
“I don’t know,” I say. My towel is fraying and I pick at the edges. If I pick long enough and hard enough, eventually I might find the thread that makes it all unravel. “Ms. Chancellor said that my grandmother was a part of it, and my mother, and that that might be why someone wanted to kill her.”
Noah glares at his sister. “You knew about this?”
Lila shrugs. “Mom told me a few —”
“Mom is a part of this?” Noah stands up and starts to pace.
“Yes!” Lila says. “It’s why she wanted to be posted in Adria. She wanted me raised as her grandmother was raised. She wanted me to know my birthright.”
“Your birthright?” Noah asks, indignant.
“It’s a girls-only kind of thing,” I explain, but I’m not helping.
“I don’t get it.” Rosie leans back, totally unimpressed. “So there’s a really-old-lady society. That doesn’t seem like such a big thing.”
“To be fair,” Megan corrects, “I don’t think it’s a club of old ladies, merely —”
“The Society is a thousand years old,” I blurt. “A thousand years. The Society is as old as Adria itself. It’s older than the wall.” I let that fact sink in. “In fact, they’re the ones who decided to build the wall. This thing is ancient and powerful. We don’t even know how powerful.”
“So there’s a club,” Megan says. “That’s nice. I’m sure it’s —”
“It’s not a club,” I say. “It’s bigger than that.”
“Okay. Of course. I’m sure it’s very prestigious and —”
“Ms. Chancellor shot the prime minister!”
The only sound is the steady plop, plop, plop of the rainwater that leaks through the ceiling and drops into the pool. I can’t tell if they don’t believe me or if they’re just too shocked to argue. I no longer care. I just start talking.
I tell them about Spence and his grandmother, about the rebellion and the treasure. I tell them everything from the moment the former prime minister cornered me in the shadows and Ms. Chancellor picked up a gun. Never before have I felt so many secrets tumble out of me. I can’t stop. I might as well try to hold back the tide.
But as fast as I spill the Society’s secrets, I still can’t bear to tell my own. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite. But I’m a hypocrite who doesn’t want her friends to know she shot and killed her own mother. And, honestly, I’m okay with that.
“And that’s it,” I say when I’m finished. I sit back and wait for them to laugh, to tell me I must be joking. Or — worse — that I must be hearing things, misremembering things. Crazy.
But before anyone can argue, Alexei says, “It’s true. We saw Ms. Chancellor. She was with the new prime minister. They spoke of the cadet and of Grace.” Alexei cuts his gaze toward me, as if asking permission. “And of Grace’s mother.”
I shiver beneath the towel I have thrown over my shoulders. But none of my friends move to comfort me. It’s like they already know me too well.
“Wait. No. This is Ms. Chancellor we’re talking about?” Even Megan sounds confused. “Eleanor Chancellor?”
“Yes,” I say.
“She shot the prime minister and this society or whatever covered it up?” Megan says.
“Yes! I know how it sounds, okay? And I know how it looks, but it’s true. This time, I swear that I’m not wrong.” I’d give anything to be wrong. “It’s true, and …”
My voice cracks. My vision blurs.
“Say it,” Noah demands. “Come on, Grace — say whatever it is you’re afraid to say.”
“I think Spence got stuck in that tunnel on the island and then came out the other side. I think he ended up inside the Society — someplace he was never meant to be.”
“And what else?” Noah prompts.
There are truths you think and truths you feel and truths that, deep down, you know but pray you’ll never have to bring to the surface. So I dig deep and look Noah in the eye and whisper the words I’ve been too afraid to voice for days.
“And I think they killed him.”
It’s not hard to make a to-do list. We’ve been here before and we know how this goes. It’s just that, this time, I hope it goes better.
“Check every camera you can find,” I tell Megan. “I don’t think the police ever considered the possi
bility he wasn’t murdered on the island. It’s possible they missed something big.”
“On it!” she says.
“We need to find some other suspect. Any other suspect,” I say.
Lila considers this a moment, then asks, “What about that creepy guy? He seems like he could break somebody’s neck.”
“What creepy guy?”
“Scar Guy. You know, the one who was following you,” Lila says, and I can feel the room shift.
“The Scarred Man is following you?” Noah asks me.
“No. Yes. I mean, I’ve seen him around.”
“He’s following you?”
“It’s nothing, Noah,” I say.
“Do I need to remind you that two weeks ago you swore that the Scarred Man killed your mother?”
“And do I have to remind you that I just told the story of how Dominic saved my life?”
“But what if he did kill your mom?” Rosie asks.
“He didn’t. I know for a fact he didn’t.” I don’t even try to tell them why I am so certain.
“And yet you’re convinced that Ms. Chancellor and my mom are criminal masterminds now?”
Noah has a point, but I don’t say so. “I think they’re hiding something. I think we need to find out what. Now, do you have a problem with that?”
Noah shakes his head and backs away. I know he wants to fix this — fix me. He doesn’t yet know that his best friend was broken long before he met her — that I’ll never really be okay again.
“Can I follow the new prime minister?” Rosie asks. “Please. I’m really good at following prime ministers.”
Megan and I share a look before I cautiously say, “Okay. But be careful. And … take Noah with you.” Noah looks less than excited about this prospect, but he doesn’t bother to protest. “Don’t approach her. And don’t follow her anywhere that isn’t totally public. Okay?” I ask, but Rosie says nothing. “Rosie, okay?”
“Okay.” She sulks like I never let her have any fun.
“You almost act as if you’ve done this before.” Lila laughs, but Noah shrugs. Instantly, Lila registers the truth. “You’ve done this before?”