Caught up in what I was reading, I turned the page, but didn’t pay enough attention to what I was doing, and was soon bombarded with the smell of scorching paper. I jumped, pulling the book back, and considered the notion that perhaps people should refrain from giving me things that they didn’t want wet, burned, or otherwise destroyed.

Even though the pages hadn’t caught on fire (yet), I blew on them for good measure and then plopped down on the floor.

What had I been looking for in the book? The question hit me as I blew. I knew how the program had started, I knew that if I kept on reading, I’d get to the part of the history where the program was disbanded in the early nineties, with the exception of a single Squad, located conveniently near a law firm that the government wanted to keep a particularly close eye on. Our Squad was operational, far more so than any of our predecessors, and when we graduated, we didn’t have to deal with more training; we got our choice of assignments.

Even though the invisible letters were once again hidden from my eyes, I glanced down at the book, as if the pages themselves should somehow provide the answers to whatever questions I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask. What was I thinking? Did I really expect the book to have anything to say about my current predicament? Like maybe a previous Squad member had written down everything she’d learned the hard way about dating the heir to an evil empire. Or maybe I subconsciously thought that the book held the secrets to making a homecoming nomination disappear, or the answer to the many questions about our case that I’d asked myself at dinner. Better yet, I might have even expected it to contain some insight on how exactly somebody could go from Son of Evil to Force of Good overnight.

At this point, I’d even settle for something that advised me on how best to procure detention.

Yeah, right.

I stared down at the picture on the page in front of me, and I couldn’t help but wonder who the smiling girls in this book, the original Squad trainees, had really been. The captions only included their initials, and the pictures made them look more or less like either Marcia Brady or Farrah Fawcett clones, depending on the angle. Same smiles, same hair, flipped out at the ends, same self-confident looks in each of their eyes.

Was “KM” really just a cheerleader? What about JP or MC or the other girls on the page? Were they the people they pretended to be?

Was anyone? Was there even such a thing as “just a cheerleader”?

“Damn,” I said under my breath. “I seriously need to chill.” It must have been the mint smell that was still assaulting my senses. The conditioner was obviously playing funky beauty-product mind games with me and making me all weepy and philosophical.

I was officially never letting the twins give me an unmarked bottle again.

I looked down at my watch and decided that I really didn’t care how long Laguna Beach was supposed to be. I was done.

I closed the book, slid it back under my bed, and stood up. I must have stood up too fast, because the blood rushed from my head, and everything went dark around the edges for a moment. Then again, maybe it had nothing to do with how fast I’d stood up and everything to do with the concussion the doctor had seemed confident I didn’t have. Or it could have been that the conditioning treatment was actually mildly hallucinogenic.

Not liking any of the choices, I stumbled into the bathroom, closed the door behind me, stripped off my clothes, and hopped into the shower. I turned the water on and let it beat against my hair. Possible concussions aside, I wanted the trippy conditioner out.

Standing there in the shower, the smell of mint slowly subsiding, it occurred to me for the first time to wonder which one of the perky girls I’d seen in the book was Brooke’s mother.

Probably whichever one was captain, I thought wryly. Like mother, like daughter.

CHAPTER 13

Code Word: Practice

When I woke up the next morning, I still hadn’t come to any brilliant conclusions about the Jacob Kann situation. Instead, I’d spent most of the night having naked dreams, half of which featured homecoming, and half of which involved exploding cars—which, FYI, were at least three times more traumatizing if your clothes disappeared mid-BOOM.

By the time five in the morning rolled around, I was thankful to be getting out of bed, which just goes to show that there really is a first time for everything. Little-known fact about cheerleaders: They keep schedules that would make grown marines cry. Between before-school practices and after-school meetings/practices, some days I felt like I spent my entire life cheering. At least this morning, I had more to look forward to than a rousing rendition of “Clap Your Hands.”

I might not have accomplished anything the night before, but when Brooke had ordered me home, she’d already been forming a course of action that involved analyzing the TCI audio and tracking data and scanning Kann’s hard drive for clues about what had brought these particular members of the watch list to Bayport to begin with. Based on previous experience, I was willing to bet that the other girls had already managed to zero in on some key piece of information. In fact, I would have wagered my combat boots on it.

There were few things besides coffee that could actually get me going before noon, but mystery and intrigue numbered among them. It took me all of two minutes to get dressed. The twins had idiot-proofed (or as they liked to call it, “Toby-proofed”) my wardrobe, so all I had to do was grab a preselected outfit off the hanger, stuff it in my duffel bag, and throw on a pair of cotton shorts and a sports bra, and then I was ready to go.

After getting dressed at warp speed, I actually managed to drive all the way to high school before I realized that I’d forgotten my morning coffee. Mystery, intrigue, and naked dreams aside, that didn’t bode well for my chances at making it through the morning without killing myself. Or someone else.

The first person I saw when I walked into the gym was Brooke, who looked distinctly miffed in her own super polished way.

“You’re late.”

I ignored Brooke’s greeting and proceeded to the locker room. She followed, and as I threw my bag into a locker, she repeated herself, and I repeated my nonresponse. I was two minutes late. For me, that pretty much meant I was early, and the only thing that kept me from snipping right back at Brooke was the conversation I’d had with Zee the day before. Of everyone in this room, our captain was probably the only one who’d actually had a more stressful night than me.

Plus, she was the one who got to decide whether or not I was going to be a part of the next stage of our mission—whatever that might be—which meant that aggravating her more than necessary probably wasn’t wise.

“Holos are on, Brooke!” Lucy was the only person I knew who spoke with an exclamation mark in her voice at the crack of dawn.

Brooke arched one eyebrow at me. “Holograms are on,” she said dryly. And then, without another word, she stalked past me to the showers, which held one of the many secret entrances to the Quad.

Five minutes later, the ten of us were seated at our conference table, and I was taking in just how much I’d missed the night before.

“In the twelve hours since we placed bugs and trackers on the TCIs, none of them have shown obviously erratic patterns of movement. Amelia Juarez spent the night at her hotel, and our bugs didn’t register any incoming or outgoing calls from either her cell or the hotel phone.”

Chloe smirked in my general direction when Brooke said the word cell, and it only took me a few seconds to figure out why. Tara and I hadn’t gotten a bug on Kann’s cell, just his hotel phone, which—had he actually lived—probably wouldn’t have proved that useful. Somehow, April and Chloe had one-upped us.

“Anthony Connors-Wright appears to have eaten dinner in Walford Park, but beyond the fact that he voluntarily chose to pick up food from the KFC drive-through on the way there, his pattern of movement wasn’t sketchy in the least. Ditto for his phones.

“Because he’s our prime suspect in the surveillance we found on the other TCIs, the Big Guys instructed us to pay special attention to Hector Hassan, and we kept a live trace on him last night.” She smiled. “Good thing, too, because Hector Hassan drove to three different pay phones between two and four in the morning.” The second the words were out of her mouth, I knew we’d hit pay dirt. Young, suave businessmen didn’t use pay phones unless they were up to something.