Still, I couldn't stop. "Was it a mission? Did you meet when you were both working at Langley, or was it before that?" I felt myself running out of breath. "Did the Gallagher Academy do an exchange with Blackthorne then, too?"
Mom cocked her head and studied me as if I might be coming down with something. "What makes you think your father went to the Blackthorne Institute?"
I thought about the picture but lied. "I don't know. I guess I just…assumed. I mean, he did go there—didn't he?"
She looked down at the bowl and kept on stirring. "No, sweetie. He had friends who went there. He guest-lectured on occasion. But your dad grew up in Nebraska—you know that."
I did know that, but somehow in the last few months I'd started questioning everything I'd ever known.
"So how did you meet?" I asked again. "How did you know …" I said, biting back the one question I really wanted to know but couldn't ask: How could you trust him?
My stomach growled, but I didn't feel hungry.
"Someday I'll tell you the story, kiddo." My mother smiled and handed me a plate. "Just as soon as you have clearance."
I sat in the secret-room-slash-observation post for a long time that night, listening to the wire taps. Searching for some small clue.
It was well after midnight when I finally eased out of the corridor and stepped over the ashes of a fire that had gone out. I slipped through the massive opening of a stone fireplace (one of many entrances to that corridor), expecting silence, expecting darkness, expecting anything but the sound of Zach Goode saying, "So the tour is closed, huh?"
Which is why, spy training or not, I bolted upright too quickly and banged my head on the top of the fireplace.
"Ow!" I cried, clutching the back of my head. "What are you doing here?"
"Come on," he said, ignoring my question and gently feeling the back of my head where a bump was starting to form.
I tried to pull away, but he pushed harder, and even though I know he was The Subject and all, it's hard not to get a bit of a shiver down your spine when a cute boy is inches away with his hand in your hair.
"You'll live."
"You're being nice," I said, honestly shocked.
"Don't tell anyone." He crossed his arms and nodded at the stone wall from which I'd just mysteriously appeared. A smile grew on his lips as he said, "So…did your bugs hear anything interesting?"
21:00 hours: The Subject admitted to leaving some of The Operative's listening devices within the East Wing. Or he tried to trick The Operative into admitting that there were remaining devices … Or The Subject was just making covert small talk. Or …
21:01 hours: The Operative couldn't help but remember how much easier it is talking to regular boys.
"What is it, Gallagher Girl?" He asked, sliding his hands into his pockets. "No snappy comebacks? Nonexistent cat named Suzie got your tongue?"
"How do you know about Suzie?"
He pointed to himself once more and said, "Spy."
Moonlight fell through the windows, slicing between us. There were no sounds of squeaking floorboards and giggling girls, and I couldn't think of a single thing to say as I stood there drowning in the silence, struggling for breath while my head throbbed and Zach leaned closer. And closer. His hand reached toward my face, and for the second time that semester I froze.
His finger brushed a strand of my hair away from my eyes, but then he pulled back as if he'd felt a shock. His hands slid into his pockets. His gaze fell to the floor.
And it felt like we might have stood there forever, before he said, "Why don't you ask me about it? About them?" I felt my breath catch as Zach glanced back at me. "I'll tell you mine if you'll tell me yours."
I don't know what surprised me more—that someone had finally asked to hear what happened to my dad or that Zach's tough exterior was crumbling. He didn't cry or shake, but instead he stood so still that when I started to reach for him I pulled back, almost afraid to break whatever trance he'd fallen into. I remembered Grandpa Morgan's warnings that there are some wild things you're not supposed to touch.
"It was a mission."
I don't know why I said it. The words were foreign to me, and yet they slid so effortlessly from my mouth that they must have been back there, fully formed for years, waiting for that chance to slip free.
"Four years ago my dad went on a mission. He didn't come home. Nobody knows what…happened."
Then Zach looked at me and said the words I've always known but never dared to utter: "Somebody knows."
And he was right—someone somewhere knew what had happened to my father, but I couldn't say so. There was something in the way Zach stood watching me. A silence stretched out between us; and even though we were inches away from each other, it felt like a thousand miles.
"What?" I asked. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying somebody knows," Zach said, not snapping, but his voice was sharper—stronger. "I'm saying you shouldn't act like there aren't any answers just because you haven't taken the time to look for them."
"What am I supposed to do, Zach? I'm just—"
"Just a girl?" he questioned me. Then he shrugged and sighed. "I thought you were a Gallagher Girl."
Zach walked away, but I stood there for a long time, wondering if I should go to my mother; if I should go to my friends; but instead I slipped into the corridors I hadn't used in months, pushed my way through cobwebs and darkness, trying to walk away from the tears that burned hot down my cheeks, because maybe I didn't want to admit weakness; maybe I wanted to wallow in my solitude and grief.