CHAPTER 38

I wake up to voices outside the door. Light barely peeks in the guest room window. I try to close my eyes and fall back asleep, but the conversation grows louder, more clear.

“If the assignment was for you to help the FBI track the drug dealer, then why do they need you purchasing from this Davey guy?”

Mrs. Beckett.

“The drug sample,” Miles says.

The sound of dishes clanking makes it impossible for me to hear his mom’s response.

“I’m not sure how many people have bought the drug off him, but probably enough to keep him from pointing a finger at me. Besides, no one is making a move on Davey or his supplier until I’m back at Marshall Academy. I’ve still got more intel to gather.”

“Intel to gather, huh?” Mrs. Beckett says. “I thought this was supposed to be a learning experience for you. Seems like the FBI is getting greedy for progress. Greedy enough to take advantage of children.”

Yeah, that’s definitely possible.

“Remember, everything goes through my handler,” Miles says. “No one in the FBI knows which of Davey’s seven or eight preferred schools I’m operating from. Or anything about me, for that matter.”

“Do they know you’re a highly trained student with security clearance? Seems like they’re treating you like some disposable informant.”

Disposable informant. Like me.

“Relax, Mom. I’m withholding most of my data until the end of the semester. And they’re too greedy to settle for simply arresting Davey. They’ll want to nail his boss, too, and the entire operation. You know the Feds love their big media shows.”

Mrs. Beckett gives a hmph of agreement.

“They might want to nail the Holden kids, too. Take down a school drug ring. And I’m the one with names. Without me, they have nothing, and they know it.”

The kids from school? Does that mean he’s turning in Bret and Dominic to the FBI? For buying weed and ecstasy from Davey? Justice and Jacob both told me they’ve bought weed and E from Davey before. Will they get turned in to the FBI, too?

God, I can’t think about this right now.

I don’t want to think about it.

I shove the covers back and leave the room. The second I step into the hall, the conversation in the kitchen ends. I glance at the microwave clock. It’s six thirty. Mrs. Beckett is wearing a robe, but Miles is dressed already, with sweat stains on his shirt. He must have gone for a run.

Miles’s mom turns to me, a big smile on her face. “Morning, Ellie. How did you sleep?”

“Good, thanks.”

Miles grabs an apple from the fruit basket and bites into it. “You mind if I shower first? Or do you need the bathroom?”

“Go ahead,” I offer. It all feels so polite and formal. I’m not used to that with Miles.

But when he brushes past me, a wicked grin on his face, he leans close to whisper, “I’ll leave the inside door unlocked. In case you need something.”

My face heats up, probably turns beet red. I give him a shove, and he retreats to the bathroom. When I look back at Mrs. Beckett, her eyebrows are lifted. She heard that. Of course she did.

“Coffee?” she asks.

I hide my face with my hair. “No, thanks.”

“Juice? Water?” she adds, anything to change the subject.

“Sure.” I take a seat at the small table in the kitchen. “Juice sounds great.”

Soon we’re seated together, me with a big glass of orange juice and Mrs. Beckett with a mug of coffee. She watches me for a minute or so and then finally speaks. “Miles and Simon were close. Did he tell you that?”

She emphasizes the word “close.” She’s feeling out the situation.

“He told me.”

“When Simon didn’t get into the honors program, Miles was devastated. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that one of them might not make it into the program. I thought he’d drop out of Marshall Academy.” She looks down at her coffee, hiding a sheepish grin. “Okay, I hoped he would leave school and come to Switzerland with us. But one day, in the middle of the summer, after moping around for weeks, he put on his sneakers, went for a run, and told me he had a lot of work to do before September.”

“That sounds like Miles,” I say, because it does. His reaction when we looked at those pictures…and then an hour later, he was back to putting clues together, thinking, analyzing.

“And then last June when he heard the news, I thought he’d never try to make friends again. Until he met you. Anyone smart enough to force Miles to blow his cover is a perfect match for my son.” She smiles at me. “And now he seems to have some balance in his life. The void that’s been around for two years seems to be filled.”

I don’t know if you could call what Miles and I have been doing anything close to finding balance. Balance between make-out sessions and homicide investigations? Balance between breaking and entering and druggie parties with the rich Holden A-listers? And it’s temporary. How is that balance? All I can offer her is a weak smile.

She reaches across the table and pats my hand. “I know, I know. You’re just friends. Miles is leaving after the semester ends. It’s not meant to be.”

Then she rolls her eyes as if to say, yeah right. And for a second, I wish with every ounce of me that her perception of us was the reality. It sounds so simple, just the distance and the separate schools being our only obstacle. Not the fact that Miles would hate me if he really knew me. And I don’t think he’s the type of guy to be with someone and not know them inside and out. It’s probably good that he’s leaving. That he doesn’t want to take anything from Holden with him, physically or emotionally.

“Probably isn’t meant to be…” I look down at the table. “I’m pretty good at disappointing Miles. I’ve done it quite a few times.”

“Just because he has high expectations doesn’t mean you’re not important to him. If you don’t believe me, just compare his relationship with you to how it is between him and the other Holden kids,” she says. “He’s different with you. He’s real with you, right?”

I don’t know what to say. He is different with me. He accepts Dominic’s and Bret’s screwups because they’re part of his job and he has to. But with me, he calls me out on it. That makes me a real friend?

The bathroom door opens, and Mrs. Beckett pushes her chair back and stands. “Time for me to make breakfast.”

Miles reappears in the kitchen and leans on the back of my chair. “I wanna show you something outside.”

“Out there?” I point at the window. “In the cold? And the snow?”

He laughs. “Don’t be a baby.”

I look down at my pajama pants and thermal. “I’m not dressed. Or showered.”

“You can do that later.”

Miles produces a pair of wool socks, some winter boots that are only a little big on me, and a ski jacket. I have no excuse but to follow him outside. Soon we’re tramping through the snow, the sun now higher in the sky, brighter.

“Miles Beckett, the wilderness guide,” I say as we move through the woods, far from the house. “You look good out here.”

He flashes me a grin but doesn’t protest or give one of his smooth replies. Instead he picks up his pace, and I have to practically jog to keep up with him.

Just before my fingers and toes are frozen, we reach a creek that flows through the woods. In front of the creek is a wooden fort.

Miles gestures for me to enter first. I duck down and soon I’m free of the cold wind. Miles heads straight for a large wooden box, built into the fort. He punches the code on the outside and flings the top open. I look in and survey the contents—pillows, a propane heater, a camp stove, a container of marshmallows, and several books.

“These are probably stale.” Miles lifts the marshmallows from the box. Before I can stop him he rips the lid off the container and shoves one in my mouth. “But you can test them out.”

I chew the marshmallow slowly. It’s hard to tell if it’s stale or just cold. “I’ve had worse.” Miles sets up the heater and soon I’m warming my hands over it. “Did your dad build this for you?”

“I built it,” he says. “While my parents were working on the big house, I wanted to make my own. Took me a whole summer.”

Not hard to imagine eleven-year-old Miles out here, hammering wood pieces together, mimicking whatever his dad was doing.

“So…” He leans against one of the pillows from the box and looks at me. “What did my dad talk to you about last night?”

Guess I wasn’t the only one thinking Mr. Beckett lacked subtlety. Still I feel obligated to keep it a secret. Most of it, anyway. “He wants me to let you teach me some self-defense, and I told him I would.”

“Really?” he asks, and I nod. “Good.”

“Good,” I repeat, staring at his mouth. It’s right here. So close. Before we arrived yesterday, I still longed for another time-out from our non-relationship, another moment of enjoyment like we’d had that night at the dance. After getting this window into Miles’s life through his family, I want it even more. But at the same time, it feels more dangerous, more risky. More real.

I scoot away from him and head for the wood box. “Let’s see these genius books young Miles read.”

...

“Smart move,” I tell Mr. Beckett after he lifts his rook, hovering it over a black square.

He looks up at me, narrows his eyes. “You’ve got quite a game, young lady.”

Mrs. Beckett laughs from her spot on the couch. “And not just her chess game.”

“Well, she did manage to plant a tracker on a big drug dealer,” Mr. Beckett says. “I should have known what I was getting into.”

Jesus. He really does tell his parents everything. Weird.

“Wait…” I say. “He actually admitted I did the job for him? Miles…is this true?” I glance over my shoulder at the empty chair where he’d been seated, watching the chess match.

“He went out for more firewood,” Mrs. Beckett says. She glances at the clock above the fireplace. “That was seventeen minutes ago.”

“Maybe he decided to chop some of the larger pieces,” Mr. Beckett says.

“I haven’t heard any chopping.”

Both parents spring to their feet and head straight for the living room window. Mr. Beckett sighs with relief. “The lights are on in the guesthouse.”

“You have a guest house?” I join them at the window.

“We use it mostly as a training room,” Mrs. Beckett explains. She looks more closely at the small building behind the house, and her forehead creases. She turns to her husband. “Maybe you should go talk to him.”

My stomach twists with knots. It’s been such a relaxing day, but I’ve noticed a cloud beginning to drift over Miles the past few hours. I reach for the borrowed coat on the back of my chair. I might have a better idea what’s bothering him.

“Let me go,” I offer. I’m sliding on boots before either of them can object.