Chapter Sixteen

Exhibit (Dr.) A

A hiss of whispers rose up as I walked into science fifteen minutes late. Before class I had sneaked across the soccer field to the trail that led down to the beach and stashed Agford’s wig and papers in a hole under a sage plant. No way that evidence would be safe in my locker.

Ms. Gant looked up for only a second before she resumed passing back the quizzes from the week before. Her mouth was tight and small like a hyphen. “You’ll have to check in with the attendance office first, Sophie,” she said. “I’ve already marked you absent.” Handing me my quiz seemed to disappoint her as much as me. C plus. I wondered if this was what Trent Spinner felt like all the time. I’d start flinging pudding at people, too.

As I meandered back from the attendance office and down the empty outdoor halls, I spotted Marissa Pritchard standing in the courtyard locker area. Her back to me, she gestured to her head as she spoke. What was she doing out of class?

When Marissa turned, I had my answer. She was talking to Dr. Agford, who appeared to have retrieved her backup wig from home. (It seemed even poufier and more bulletproof than the other, if that was possible.) Marissa pointed to the front of the school and shrugged. Agford stiffened. No doubt they were discussing Agford’s little morning mishap. I quickened my pace and rounded the corner to the science room.

Groups were scattered around the classroom with magnets and batteries working on a lab when I entered. I’d have to face Ms. Gant to retrieve the handout and be partnered up.

“Hey,” a voice whispered behind me.

I turned around. My heart skipped a beat. It was Rod.

He smiled and hinged his hands apart, miming Agford’s faulty convertible top. “You got her back for the assembly, didn’t you?”

I grinned mischievously. “Whatever would have given you that idea?”

Rod flashed back a knowing smile. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because it was awesome?”

My skin tingled. Who needed a science lab? I’d just transformed into a walking electromagnet. “In that case . . . maybe it was me.”

Ms. Gant’s voice rose above the din of the classroom as she circulated among the tables. “I’d better be hearing the sound of hard work! I expect your write-ups by tomorrow, don’t forget.”

“Hey,” Rod said quietly. He looked down and shifted his weight in almost exactly the same way he had in the lunch line on Friday. “Have you gotten any of my texts?”

“Texts?” I felt my breath catch. He had used the plural, hadn’t he? As in, not just one, but multiple texts. Possibly streams of texts. Somewhere there was an inbox filled with texts from Rod. “Oh, gosh. My parents took my phone away. You know.” I gestured, as if that could begin to explain the past week.

“Oh, right.” Rod shoved his hand into his pocket. Was it me, or had he blushed just a bit?

“But they wouldn’t read them,” I lied as I imagined my parents poring over them. Thank goodness they were probably too preoccupied with work. “I mean, not that you texted anything, you know . . .”

“It’s cool,” he said. “With everything that’s going on, I just wanted to make sure . . . if you need anything . . .”

Want to help me catch a fugitive? I was tempted to ask. But I didn’t. I knew better. When it was all over—and it would be all over—I’d tell him everything.

“Just let me know,” he whispered quickly, swinging back around just as Ms. Gant approached his group’s table.

I floated through the rest of the morning. When I was supposed to be multiplying polynomials, I was imagining the headline in the Luna Vista News-Press: “Local Sleuths Foil Fugitive.” My fantasies moved quickly from there to my future beach wedding with Rod. Except then Grace couldn’t be my maid of honor, since she hates the ocean. Maybe a mountain meadow location? By third period I’d just accepted a professorship at Oxford. Asian Studies, of course. Rod wouldn’t mind staying home to be a house husband and care for our identical twin girls.

I forgot all my fantasies the instant I discovered Charlotte Agford standing at my open locker during break, arms folded as she watched Mr. Hiller, the head of maintenance, empty its contents. He pulled off my schedule from my inside locker door to peer behind it. It ripped in half.

“Oopsy-daisy,” Agford said in her falsetto, her eyes meeting mine. She pretended to consult her notebook and turned to Mr. Hiller. “Next is two eighty-three. Bottoms, Trista.” She flashed me a grin. “We’re conducting random locker searches,” she said, before clip-clopping down the outdoor hall.

Trista was too smart to keep anything incriminating in her locker. I didn’t even worry much until lunch. However, when I brought my UFO burger and ETTs (Extraterrestrial Tater Tots) out to the patio and steeled myself for Trista’s rant against Space Day’s unhealthy fare, she wasn’t there. I pictured her sitting opposite Agford in a bare interrogation room with a spotlight and an overflowing ashtray as Agford tried to get at the truth. It was more likely Trista was locked behind Mr. Katz’s door, staring at a poster of an eagle exhorting her to excellence.

S.M.I.L.E. sat down at the table next to me as I ate lunch alone, not even giving me so much as one of their usual Agford sympathy pouts. Marissa turned to another -issa—Clarissa, I think—and said very loudly, “Someone needs to do something about her passive-aggressive behavior patterns, don’t you think?”

I turned around. “Someone missed the English class on irony,” I said. They ignored me. Eventually they rose, put on homemade plastic yellow aprons that read DON’T MESS AROUND! (Jenn’s was cream-colored), and formed an unsolicited litter patrol, making a grand show of avoiding my table. I wolfed down my last bites and went on a mission to find Trista.

I found her, all right—bursting out of Katz’s Den of Inspiration, grinning. When she saw me, she slapped me a high five. “Guess who’s suspended?

“Nah. Not me,” she said, when she saw my expression. “Trent Spinner,” she shouted. “After I reported him messing around in the parking lot yesterday, it so happened a search of his locker turned up evidence that he tampered with Dr. Agford’s car. Crazy coincidence, isn’t it?” She beamed.

I smiled back. Leave it to Trista to get back at Agford and Trent all in one prank. The sixth graders Trent gave wedgies to all the time would have lined up to ask for autographs if they’d known Trista had gotten him suspended. I couldn’t help thinking of Rod, though. Would Trent earn congratulations on his “awesome” prank instead?

Before we shuttled off to class, I managed to tell Trista I’d picked up the wig. “If the FBI can link anything in that car to their suspect, by tomorrow I think it’ll all be over,” I said.

“They’d better arrest her at school,” Trista said. “I’ve got to see it for myself.”

I raced out of pre-algebra last period and made a beeline toward the field, darting a glance behind me to check for S.M.I.L.E. spies. One or the other of them had seemed to be tailing me all day. I’d even caught Marissa trying to peer into my open backpack in French. It was obvious she and Agford had been talking about the wig. No doubt Marissa was operating under orders.

I’d just passed the bike racks when a sound made me nearly jump out of my Pumas.

“Psst!” Grace peered behind a pillar. She was dressed in a drab T-shirt and jeans, actually blending in for a change.

My hand flew to my heart. “You’ve perfected the sneak attack, haven’t you?”

“You think?” Grace looked proud. “Thought I’d come report for duty, General. You know, in case you need school backup.”

“Did you see Ralston on the way over?”

Grace shook her head. “Didn’t see her yesterday either.” She frowned. “But that meaty guy with the eyebrow drove right past me in his truck on his way down here, so the backup is definitely around.”

“I think I’ve finally got some evidence,” I said. After a quick check to be sure the coast was clear, I led Grace across the soccer field to the beach trail. When she saw where we were going, Grace stopped short. The surf was practically nonexistent, the only sound a tiny static hiss as the waves lapped at the shore far below. Still, Grace refused to take a step closer.

I looked back at the school. Agford’s office window was on the second floor, overlooking the field and trailhead. “I stashed it all just a few steps down the trail. Nowhere near the beach. I promise,” I said.

Grace eyed me suspiciously but followed. I held her arm and coached her along as lizards hopped for cover. It didn’t matter that the bluff trail ran at least a quarter mile above the beach. To her, the damp salt air must have felt like waves closing around her. She breathed deeply and took a few wobbly steps before finding a surer footing. When we reached my hiding place, she sat with her back to the ocean.

I dug out the papers and wig and held them up.

“Oh my God, how did you . . . ?” Grace’s mouth turned into a perfect O. She let out a little laugh, seeming to forget the waves below.

“Long story,” I said, handing her the wig. She took it from me as if it were a wad of used toilet paper.

“Tell me on the way home,” Grace said, reaching for her backpack. “We shouldn’t be handling evidence. I’ve got a full kit at the house.”

“Across the street from Agford? No way. It’s safer here.”

“Hard to believe,” Grace said as she cast a look at the ocean behind us and shivered. She didn’t argue, though.

As much as I wanted to tell Grace all about Agford’s total humiliation, I hesitated to bring up Trista. But I shouldn’t have worried at all. Grace bent over in silent, shaking laughter, and tears ran down her cheeks when I described the look on Agford’s face when her convertible ripped open. “I can’t believe I ever doubted Trista,” she said. “How’d she do it?”

“She knew they sell remotes for convertible tops and made it work with the Mustang wiring. She’s good, isn’t she?” I said.

Grace nodded. She wrinkled her nose and peered at the wig more closely. “One hundred percent acrylic,” she announced, reading a label inside the wig.

“That describes Agford, all right,” I said. “You think there can be something in all this?” I began sifting through the various scraps Agford’s convertible had liberated: some grocery store coupons, receipts, a letter from Mr. Katz about changes to the academic calendar.

“I can’t believe it!” Grace exclaimed.

“What?” My breath quickened. I realized how close we were. If we found just one link, tomorrow Agford could be modeling her orange jumpsuit in jail.

“She bought underwear at Victoria’s Secret,” Grace said, using her fingernails like tweezers to hold up a receipt. “Never let me set foot in that place again.”

“Grace, this is serious!”

“I know, I know, but so is buying anything at the same place Agford shops!”

I shook my head, absentmindedly sliding my yin pendant back and forth on its chain. I noticed a tiny mileage logbook among the papers and picked it up. A folded piece of newspaper fluttered down. “This is weird,” I said, turning it over. It was a ripped-out photo of a girls’ cheerleading squad, dressed in orange and white. I almost tossed it back in the pile, thinking it was from our local paper, until I remembered. “Luna Vista is the Lightning, right?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The high school’s mascot. It’s not a cat. It’s a yellow lightning bolt.”

“Soph. I’m homeschooled. I’ve no idea.”

We squinted at the logo on the girls’ jerseys. “It’s definitely a cat of some sort,” I said.

“The Luna Vista Tabbies,” Grace joked. “I’m not wrong, am I? That does look like a T next to the cat.”

“T for Texas?”

Grace nodded slowly. “Well, it’s sure not T for Luna Vista.”

Two gulls glided together across the horizon, silhouetted by the sun. Above us on the field, Coach Knight blew his whistle and counted in rhythmic shouts.

“This could be it, Grace. We have to get this to Agent Ralston,” I said. “Wherever she’s been hiding.”

We made our way up the trail, agreeing to ride our bikes home separately. Each of us would keep a lookout for Ralston’s blue car or the white pickup. If we weren’t able to spot either, Grace would secure the evidence in a secret drop location and email Ralston the location from home. Thank God one of us still had email access. Until next quarter, I wasn’t even allowed to go on the computers at school.

“When you see her, ask Ralston if the FBI has any other cold cases we can wrap up for them,” I said with a smirk as we reached the top of the trail.

“Roger. Ten-four,” Grace replied. “Over and outta here—” She pumped her fist and jogged off across the soccer field. In the late afternoon sun her shadow loomed before her like a giant.