16

16

Scarlett answered the door as soon as I knocked, a more relaxed smile on her face than last time I’d seen her. Maybe because I didn’t have Maddie with me this time.

She’d texted half an hour ago, saying she had information for us. Maddie was on Long Island with her mom, so I’d raced over alone, eager to hear what she’d found out.

“Come in,” she said. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” I said, shrugging out of my coat.

The bedroom door opened, and a blond man, handsome and in his early twenties, emerged from within. His hair was slightly damp, like he’d just showered.

“Dan, this is Clara,” Scarlett said.

He extended his hand to me. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

He headed to the door, kissing Scarlett quickly on the way. “I’ll see you later. Text me”—he glanced at me—“after.”

She smiled and nodded. He glanced at me again with an expression I couldn’t quite identify—suspicion? curiosity?—and then walked out of the apartment.

“Your boyfriend?” I asked stupidly. Obviously.

“Yes.”

She sat down on the couch, and I lowered into one of the chairs. I glanced back at where Dan had been. I didn’t know why I was surprised that she had a boyfriend, but I was.

“You and Maddie have gotten yourselves into some deep shit here,” she said.

I looked at her quickly. “Yeah? What did you find out?”

“I know where that facility is.”

“Seriously?”

“The city, not the precise location. Lubbock, Texas.”

I screwed up my face. “Lubbock?”

“What’s that look for? What’s wrong with Lubbock?”

“I mean, I don’t know, I’ve never been. It’s just random. There’s nothing there, except a university.”

“Well, you did mention that Julian said it was in the middle of nowhere,” she said.

“Good point. Brian got you this information?”

“Yes. Also, this is interesting—Julian told Brian that he’s no longer employed by MDG,” Scarlett said.

“Really?” I asked.

“That’s what he said. Apparently, he screamed something at Brian about MDG being a bunch of ungrateful bastards. And Brian heard from a friend about Julian stomping around the MDG offices right before Christmas, yelling at people.”

“That does sound like Julian.”

Scarlett leaned back with a snort. “It does.”

“Did you call the FBI about any of this? Maddie gave you Agent Simmons’s card, right?”

“She did, but I didn’t call them. I don’t really want to get involved with any of this. Neither of us do. Brian never invested, and he doesn’t have any information that would be useful to authorities, as far as we know. Julian told Brian that the Dust Storm facility doesn’t house scrabs. He claims it’s just a research facility, and perfectly legal.”

“We’d be happy to go confirm that.”

“My point is, we have no knowledge of any crimes being committed by Julian or MDG. Just, for the record.”

“Got it. If anyone ever asks, I will tell them that.”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention our names in the future, unless you absolutely have to. I really don’t want to have anything to do with Julian, ever again.”

“Of course,” I said. “I don’t blame you.”

She hesitated for a moment, her face softening a little. “Are you sure you want to do this? Chasing after MDG like this keeps you in his orbit. Don’t you want to just . . . stop?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted. “I thought about it, for a minute, when Julian tracked us down in London. It would have been so easy to just hop on a train and disappear. That’s what I did before, when I joined the teams. I just ran away. But it didn’t seem like the right choice this time. Back then I only needed to save myself. There’s more at stake now.”

“I guess that makes sense. I wondered if maybe you were only doing this because of Maddie and your boyfriend.”

I cocked my head, confused. “My boyfriend?”

“Edan? Aren’t you two together?”

“No, we’re just friends.”

“Oh.” She seemed skeptical. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“He sure has a lot of pictures of you on his Instagram for someone who’s only a friend.”

“He has pictures of the whole team on there.”

“You’re in, like, every other one.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

She gave me an amused look. “OK.”

There was a brief silence as I formed the question that had been building since I saw Dan. “I, uh, this is off topic, but I just . . .”

“What?” she asked gently, like she already knew what I was going to ask.

I took in a breath. “Did you find it hard to date again, after Julian?”

“Hmmm . . . somewhat. I definitely had my guard up more. I probably overanalyzed everything. I went on a date with this one guy who said something flippant about his mom—like he was annoyed by something she had done—and I immediately got nervous. Julian was always so rude about his mom, and about other girls in general, that even the slightest hint of that in a guy made me drop him immediately.”

“That makes sense,” I said softly.

“Why? Have you found it hard to date to again?”

“I just don’t do it at all.”

“So, yes, then.”

I laughed, twisting my fingers together. “Yes. I don’t know if I can trust myself not to make stupid decisions again.”

“How is Julian being an asshole your stupid decision?”

“Because I’m the one who ignored all the warning signs. A cute guy was nice to me a couple times, and I fell head over heels.”

“So did I. But I don’t want to let him . . .” She trailed off, apparently reconsidering her words. “I understand where you’re coming from, but for me, it was a huge relief to date other people after Julian. It helped me start to figure out how truly awful he was. I didn’t have enough context before that.”

I looked down at my hands. Maybe she had a point. Or maybe she just didn’t know me well enough to understand. She didn’t know about my dad, or my troubles making friends.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” she said. “I just assumed you and Edan were together.”

“It’s fine,” I said with a smile, and got to my feet. “Thank you so much for finding out about Dust Storm. We really appreciate it.”

“Sure.” She stood and walked me to the door. “Text me and let me know how it turns out.” She paused. “Vague texts. Or maybe just call.”

I laughed. “OK.”

“And if you ever want to talk about Julian or . . . anything, you can feel free to reach out. I don’t mind talking about him.”

“Thanks,” I said, surprised.

She smiled at me, and I shrugged on my coat and said goodbye, wondering if I’d just made another friend without even trying. I was getting good at the friend thing.

Outside, I took out my phone and pulled up Edan’s Instagram. It was an exaggeration to say that every other picture was of me, but there really were a lot, now that I looked at them all together. I was often with other members of the team, or in a selfie with Edan, but I was the constant in his feed.

I was in the last photo he’d posted, on Christmas Eve. We’d gone to Bryant Park with Maddie and her mom, and Edan and I had taken a selfie with the Christmas tree in the background, hot chocolates in hand. He’d simply written My favorite as the caption. I’d assumed he meant the hot chocolate, because when we bought it, he’d said he loved it when they put a giant marshmallow on top. Though it seemed like he would have just taken a picture of his cup if he’d meant that. It was very Instagrammable hot chocolate, and our cups were barely visible in the photo.

Or he could have meant Christmas in general. Or Bryant Park, though that seemed strange since he’d mentioned once that he didn’t really like Manhattan.

Or he could have meant me. My cheeks went hot, despite the bitter wind whipping across my face. The thought of being Edan’s favorite anything was . . . Well, it was sort of unbelievable. It was such a nice thought that I immediately dismissed it. He had to have meant the hot chocolate.

---

“Texas Tech is in Lubbock,” Hannah said to her laptop screen. She and Victor had rushed over as soon as Maddie and Edan got home, and we were all in the media room, trying to narrow down possible spots in Lubbock where the facility might be.

“Do you think that’s why they chose it?” Edan asked. He was lying on his back on the carpet, his gaze on his phone. Hannah was on the couch, alone, which I couldn’t help but notice. There was plenty of room for him to go sit next to her.

“Texas A&M is the big scrab research facility in Texas,” Victor said. “But it’s possible, I guess.”

“I’ve got another spot that might be worth checking out,” Hannah said. “An old research lab. It’s been around since, like, 2005, but could still be something.”

“Yeah, put it on the list,” Maddie said. “Put it all on the list. I’ll check out everything.”

“Apparently Julian wasn’t lying when he said he was no longer employed by MDG,” Edan said, still looking at his phone.

“What do you mean?” I asked, reaching for my own phone.

“He told a reporter that MDG was reckless and dangerous. Look at the news.”

I clicked on a news site and found the breaking story about Julian at the top. The headline read Julian Montgomery cuts ties with MDG, criticizes their methods.

“Sounds like he’s scared that we’re onto something,” Maddie said with a grin. “I’m buying these plane tickets now. Edan, Clara, you’re in?”

“In,” Edan said.

“Of course,” I said.

“What are you going to do there? Just look for the facility?” Victor asked.

“Yep, exactly,” Maddie said.

“All of these spots are just guesses,” he said skeptically. “We’ve only narrowed it down to the entire city, which could pose a problem.”

“It’s not that big of a city,” Maddie said. “And I think we have some pretty good leads. Plus, Julian just ran scared after we found out that Dust Storm is in Lubbock. I am definitely going.” She hammered at her keyboard. “I’ll let the rest of the team know what we’re doing. They can join us if they want.”

“They’ll want to,” I said.

Maddie nodded approvingly. “Good. Then we can all drive to Dallas together for the conference. Actually, we should just fly to Germany from Dallas when we’re done. That’s a big airport. We can probably get good flights.”

“Wait, what?” I traded a confused glance with Edan. “We’re going to Germany?”

“Yes! Sorry.” She typed as she talked. “I meant to tell you that I’ve been in contact with some people there. I think it’s the best place to get the teams going again. The police in London aren’t being particularly cooperative, so I think we should probably cool it in the UK for a while.”

“But . . . that would mean we’d be in Germany in, like . . . a week? Two, maybe, if we have to go back to Lubbock after the conference?”

“Yeah, exactly. We can get going again right away.”

“We can’t do that.”

“Sure we can. I’ll just fly all the recruits who are still in London over once we’re there. I’m excited. I’ve never been to Germany.”

“But, Maddie, I haven’t finished our new training program, or recruitment strategies, or talked about some changes in the teams. We could—”

“We don’t need to change anything,” she said, glancing up at me from her laptop.

“We haven’t even discussed—”

“I have it handled, promise. If you want to help, maybe look at where we could stay in Berlin. I haven’t decided if we should go the hostel route again. I’ll send you some rough recruit numbers.”

I let out an annoyed breath. Edan looked from me to her, clearly picking up on the tension, but Maddie was staring at her screen, oblivious.

“Yep, lots of good flights out of Dallas to Germany,” she murmured. “It’ll work out perfectly.”