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“We should tell him.”
“I know,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Just give me a minute to think about it. Luke’s in enough trouble, and if this is his way of getting back at us, things might be worse than we thought.”
In a way, suddenly I understood why North had been grumpy with Luke. If Luke was messing up like this, maybe he was trying, in the only way he knew, to straighten Luke out. Would the Academy punish him somehow if he went too far? “What should we do?” I asked.
He tugged me toward the street and over toward Nathan’s yard. “We don’t know who it was,” he said. “But I want you to do me a favor. Don’t confront Luke about this now. If you’re going out with him tonight, check his phone for evidence.”
“Steal his phone? You mean look at the pictures?”
“I’m really hoping he did this. But I also don’t want to yell at him, which I might not be able to help if I ask him directly. I don’t want to add to it if he’s feeling too much pressure and is lashing out at us. Pretend we walked quickly to the diner and didn’t even see it while leaving. We almost didn’t.”
I was never good at lying, but I had to agree with him. “Okay,” I said. “But what if it is Volto?”
“If he is back, there’s nothing to do about it now since we don’t know why or what the masks mean. Take off with Luke in my Jeep. Behave like normal but don’t run off alone anywhere. I’ll check in on you.” He sighed as he hurried around Nathan’s house, guiding the way through the woods. “God, though it’ll piss me off, I hope Luke did this. Otherwise things have gotten way more complicated.”
I understood. If Volto was around and could slip in and around Kota’s house even with Max on patrol, we were really helpless to stop him and what might he do next? I snapped my fingers. “The cameras!” I exclaimed. “What about them? Doesn’t Kota have cameras at his house?”
“They aren’t recording all the time,” he said. “There’s too many at all of our homes and they’re meant for us to check in, not record all the time. The only ones that record constantly are on Hendricks at the school. Or McCoy if his signal is in range, and they aren’t around.”
I sighed. It was too bad. It would have been easy to at least try to identify who it was if they had been recording.
“But maybe we need to start recording all the time,” North said, cutting through the woods to the path. He looked at me, reaching for my hand to assist me along. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
I followed, leaves crunching under our feet, and the shadows of trees around us cooling the air. I dipped my free hand into the hoodie’s pocket for warmth, a little worried about Kota and Gabriel alone in the house after we left. I supposed if they were together, it would be fine, especially if Luke was the one doing the pranking. I pulled my phone from where I kept it in my bra. “Should I text Kota about the one on his window?”
“Let me handle it,” North said, but nodded his head toward the path. “Let’s hurry so I can get back.”
I was worried, though. That was a very, very Volto-like threat. If Luke had done this, it was a horrible prank. If it was him, I’d be disappointed in him for doing such a thing, knowing we were already stressed about Mr. McCoy and with everything else going on.
As we walked down the path, my thoughts kept going to the masks. After several encounters, I had no clue who Volto could be. I’d gone through my own list of suspects, but even then, the clues never added up.
I thought about the day we went to get outfitted for the Halloween homecoming dance. Luke had been there. We had all been separated at one point or another. Luke had plenty of time to himself. Alone. We hadn’t been able to figure out how Volto knew we were there. It seemed Volto had stolen Kota’s car.
Luke had keys for his car. He could have moved it. Did we bother to look for it? Or did we get too spooked seeing Volto masks and ran for it too soon?
And then on the night of the dance, Volto had pranked our outfits, so they’d glowed with his masked face.
And then he’d managed to work out our radio system, and had assisted us with finding McCoy who was talking to Hendricks in secret.
I hadn’t seen a lot of Luke that night. There were times he was missing, but it was a dance, so I hadn’t thought about it.
I thought about it now. There were more instances, and I was thinking up scenarios where it might have been possible that Luke could have planned such things. Was Luke using Volto’s masks as a way to prank us all without ever owning up to it? Would he do such a thing?
Or…no. I couldn’t consider it. While I might not know who Volto was, it couldn’t be…
I pressed my lips together, and kept my eyes on the leaves at our feet, smothering the idea.
Not Luke. Not him. Couldn’t be.
ELUDED
North emerged from the woods first, checking the parking lot before letting me go on.
“No cars I recognize,” he said. “But put the hood up. Let’s not take the risk.”
We were in view of the highway as well. While further in the street, you could see any new and unidentified cars coming, the diner was a more dangerous place to try to get to, even though it was close.
I pulled the hood over my head, having to tilt to see out since it fell over my forehead. North put a palm against my scalp through the material and rubbed once, released me and then nudged me forward.
He led the way to the back door, unlocking it with a key and then holding it open to allow me to go inside ahead of him. I glanced once at the cars and the street. Nothing interesting.
We went down a narrow hallway that led to an office, what was once the minister’s office in the former church but was now where Uncle did his paperwork.
North sat down heavily in a wood and leather rolling office chair behind a desk, facing the computer. The desk was dark wood, in sharp contrast to the off-white walls and beige utility carpet. There was a faded beige and brown plaid couch along the wall, and a shelving unit behind the computer chair, similar to the ones in the pantry, only this one held paperwork and folders and a small printer. Nothing elegant, simply functional. The only decoration was a Virgin Mary painting on a very small canvas, framed in gold above the door; another leftover from the church that didn’t get removed.
I lingered near North, not wanting to stray too far. I hadn’t seen anyone on the way in, but I could hear the clank of dishes and the low murmur of customers through the walls. The diner wasn’t too busy at the moment, but there was a whole lot of clanking coming from the kitchen.
“I just want to clear his sc
hedule,” North said, typing at the computer. “I may go ahead and give him the week off. That’s a good break.”
“Are you going to have to take over the shifts?”
“Not all of them.”
I went to the couch, sitting quietly on the edge of it, pulling back the hood. My nose wrinkled at the smell of must from the couch. Couldn’t they have gotten a new one? Maybe the next time I worked here, I could bring in some cleaner. “I could help,” I said.
“No, you should focus on Luke. That’s more important.”
I agreed, but I was still feeling a bit weird. This was a little intrusive of Uncle’s business. We didn’t really have permission. “Doesn’t Uncle wonder why I seem to disappear all the time? Sometimes for a week?”
“Yeah,” he said, “but he knows there’s Academy people working here. They come and go all the time.”
“But I’m not Academy.”
North blew a breath out from between his lips and looked up at me. “Luke just tells him you’re busy with school. I vouch for you, too. Don’t worry. He’s not going to fire you.”
I shifted my feet against the carpet, but stayed quiet. It was my first real job and I couldn’t help but want to do the right thing, be a good employee. Uncle was nice enough to let me babysit the register on slow days and do small projects around the place. Not many bosses would let you disappear for a week or more and then pop in again.
North stood and stabbed a forefinger at the Enter key. “Done. I guess. I never know if this software actually works. Sometimes it deletes what I’ve done.”
I got up slowly, smoothing the hem of the hoodie down over my hips. “Should Victor upgrade it?” I asked. “Or fix it?”
“We’re lucky we’ve got it at all. Luke and I talked Uncle into it. He wanted to us a paper-based schedule. Only with our crew, the schedule gets reworked a lot. Pages got torn, it looked a mess.” He stepped around the desk and headed toward the door.
“Do you like working at the diner?” I asked, standing to follow him.
He turned at the door, taking a step back toward me and tilted his head. “What? Why are you asking?”
