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I am these people, I think, but his words make me fantasize for a moment about what it would be like to be a good guy, with a badge and a stainless reputation.
“We talked to your brother,” Agent Hunt says. “He was very cooperative.”
“Barron?” I say, and burst out laughing. I let myself flop down onto the leather seat with relief. “My brother is a compulsive liar. I’m sure he was cooperative. There is nothing he likes better than an audience.”
Agent Jones looks embarrassed. Agent Hunt just seems pissed. “Your brother said that we might start looking at Lila Zacharov. And he said that you’d protect her.”
“Did he?” I say, but I’m in control of this conversation now, and they both know it. “I looked over those files you gave me. Are you saying that Lila is a death worker who started killing people at the age of fourteen? Because that’s how old she was when Basso disappeared. And not only that, but she would have to have hidden the death rot really well. Really well, because I can tell you that I’ve see her with not even a stitch of—”
“We’re not saying anything.” Agent Jones puts his hand down hard on the seat, interrupting my little speech. “We’re coming to you for information. And if you don’t give us something, then we’re going to have to listen to other sources. Maybe even sources you don’t consider to be as reliable. You understand me?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“So what are you going to have next time we come to talk?” Agent Jones asks in a kind voice. He takes out a business card, reaches back, and tosses it into my lap.
I take a deep breath, let it out. “Information.”
“Good,” says Agent Hunt.
They exchange a look I can’t interpret, and Agent Hunt gets out of the car. He opens my door. “Turn around so I can take those off.”
I do. A twist, two clicks, and I’m rubbing my wrists, free.
“In case you get some idea that we can’t pick you up whenever we want,” Hunt says. “You’re a worker. You know what that means?”
I shake my head. Finding the business card Jones tossed at me, I shove it into my pocket. Jones watches me from where he’s standing.
Hunt grins. “It means you’ve already done something illegal. All workers have. Otherwise, how would you know what you are?”
I get out of the car and look him in the face. Then I spit on the hot black asphalt of the parking lot.
He starts toward me, but Agent Jones clears his throat, and Hunt stops.
“We’ll be seeing you around,” Agent Jones says, and they both get back into the car.
I walk back to Wallingford, hating both of them so much that I’m jittery with rage. The thing I hate most is that they’re right about me.
* * *
I am called into Headmistress Northcutt’s office almost immediately. She opens the door and waves me inside.
“Welcome, Mr. Sharpe. Please have a seat.”
I sit in the green leather chair opposite her wide expanse of a desk. Several tidy folders are corralled in a wooden box on one side, and a well-used planner sits beside a golden pen in a stand. Everything is organized, elegant.
Except for the cheap glass bowl of mints. I take one and unwrap it slowly.
“I understand you had some visitors today?” Northcutt asks. Her eyebrows lift, like having any visitors at all is suspect.
“Yeah,” I say.
She sighs deeply at my forcing her to ask the question directly. “Would you like to explain what two federal agents wanted with you this time?”
I lean back in the chair. “They offered to make me a narc, but I said that the workload here at Wallingford was too intensive for me to take on an after-school job.”
“Excuse me?” I didn’t think it was possible for her eyebrows to rise even higher on her forehead, but they do. It isn’t a nice thing I’m doing—selling a story that’s less ridiculous than my presentation of it. Worst thing she can do is give me a couple of detentions or a demerit for my smart mouth, though.
“A narc,” I say excessively politely. “An informant who reports on observed narcotic violations. But don’t worry, there is no way I would ever agree to rat out my fellow students. Even if they made the poor decision to use drugs, which I am sure no one here ever would.”
