Killer Spirit (The Squad 2)

Team B was following Amelia Juarez in two different cars, careful to keep the tails as subtle as they could. On Brooke’s orders, the girls fell back a mile and followed the tracker we’d planted on the car rather than the car itself. Brooke had notified the Big Guys’ of her decision, and they’d approved.

From the way Brooke was playing things, you would have thought No Engagement meant No Risks. For someone who made the rules at our high school, she was awfully hesitant about breaking them elsewhere.

“I don’t think you guys are a very good match,” Brooke said, handing my phone back. It took me a second to read the meaning in her words: the guy I’d photographed didn’t match anyone in the Big Guys’ database.

Soon thereafter, I confirmed something they don’t tell you in spy movies. Recon is boring. So boring, in fact, that I might have actually preferred to be doing toe touches. Brooke and I sat there for hours, repeating the same motions over and over again, thinking of new ways to make them look natural. We rotated locations, going from the bench, inside a lingerie store (near the window, of course), then down the street on the other side, and finally, we ended up back on the bench, eating Chinese food for dinner.

From what I’d been able to glean from Brooke, none of the other teams had noticed anything sketchy, either. Anthony Connors-Wright was still wandering around the park, which might have been a sign of mental instability, since the park wasn’t exactly a hot spot of activity, but probably wasn’t a sign of nefarious activity. He hadn’t actually talked to anyone, other than a hot-dog vendor whose background check had turned out clean when the girls ran his picture through the database.

Amelia Juarez had spent most of the night shopping, which meant that our second team had been able to camouflage themselves without much effort at all. Given the fact that the girls knew the closest mall inside and out (including all of the potential hand-off locations), they felt that they could say with high levels of certainty that Amelia wasn’t up to much other than biding her time.

My mind began to construct scenarios, as Brooke and I sat there, talking about nothing over chow mein, just to keep up the appearance of talking. We’d downgraded to talking about celebrities (most of whom I knew absolutely nothing about), their hairstyles, and their misguided relationships.

Of the scenarios I’d managed to construct, Scenario one went a little something like this: Peyton, Kaufman, and Gray wasn’t at all involved in this biological-weapons scare. Since Jacob Kann was dead and Hector Hassan was in custody, that just left Amelia and Anthony, both of whom were waiting on a call from the biological-arms dealer before moving forward with their plans, whatever those might be.

Scenario one was my favorite, mostly because it meant that my relationship, or non-relationship, or whatever-it-was with Jack wouldn’t come into spy play. If Peyton, Kaufman, and Gray wasn’t involved, I was in the clear. Scenario one also had the advantage that it would be pretty simple for us to save the day. We’d keep track of the TCIs until the Big Guys identified the seller, and then we’d take him—and the weapon—out of the picture.

Scenario two was the pessimistic one. In that one, Peyton, Kaufman, and Gray was either responsible for brokering the deal that had brought the TCIs to Bayport in the first place, or they’d noticed the influx the same as we had. Either way, they were now in the center of everything, and at any given moment, one of the most insidious, impenetrable rogue operations in the country would have access to a weapon we still knew nothing about.

Scenario two had the plus side that it might mean that Brooke and I would eventually see some action, but the Jack factor was enough to make me resign myself to discussing celebrities’ bangs and hoping that the rest of the night would be equally tame. By the time we finished dinner, I didn’t even have to think about working my camera anymore, or checking pictures or license plate numbers against our database, and I’d developed an eerie sense for reading Brooke’s reactions to the news she was getting through her communicator.

I was also bored enough that I considered using the puppy in my pocket to knock myself out.

And then, just as I was cursing my own boredom, Brooke abruptly switched topics. “So,” she said. “You and Jack.”

There was something underneath her tone that I couldn’t quite read. Jealousy? Intensity? Heartbreak? Or maybe it was just that her tone was so painfully neutral that I couldn’t help but read into it all of the above.

“There is no me and Jack,” I said.

“You’re supposed to be able to lie better than that,” she informed me blithely.

“It’s…” I was going to say that my involvement with Jack was just part of the job, but I didn’t. “It’s complicated.”

That was, quite possibly, the biggest understatement that had ever been uttered.

“Things with Jack Peyton are always complicated.”

This was my opportunity to ask her about Alan Peyton and his involvement with our organization. Unfortunately, I couldn’t risk it. Not in public. Not so close to the firm. Instead, looking at the expression on her face, I found myself wondering for the first time if Brooke or Chloe had ever really liked Jack. Chloe’s jealousy wasn’t enough to convince me that she had, and most days, Brooke didn’t even show any emotion—including jealousy—unless she wanted other people to see it. I’d always just sort of assumed that the other girls had used Jack to get to his father and the firm. Brooke was all Squad, all the time, half cheerleader/half agent, and nothing left for anything else, and Chloe was basically the wannabe Brooke. They’d dated Jack because he was popular, and because he was the easiest way to the firm.

But technically, those were the reasons I was dating Jack, too. Only I wasn’t dating Jack. I’d decided not to date him. Homecoming was simply an unavoidable fluke.

“You like him.” Brooke spoke the words carefully, enunciating each one.

“No, I don’t.” My first reaction was always to argue, especially when I didn’t want to consider the fact that Brooke was absolutely right.

“Yes,” Brooke gritted out. “You do. And you’re not supposed to, and it’s going to come back to bite you in the ass.”

So much for the two of us pretending to be friends. We couldn’t even keep up appearances for a few hours before things went to heck in a pom bag.

Then, without warning, Brooke began cursing, quietly and possibly in more than one language.