Brooke and I came immediately to the same conclusion. “Amelia.”

We’d underestimated her once, and she’d reconfigured our tracking chip. Then a figure in black showed up here and stole the biotechnology Peyton had hired her to acquire. The aforementioned figure wasn’t nearly big enough to be Anthony, the only other TCI at large, and I had serious doubts that Anthony could have pulled something like this off in the first place.

The math was simple. Amelia Juarez had DNA-wiping technology, and for all we knew, she was on her way to Peyton, Kaufman, and Gray as we spoke.

This time, Brooke was the one who swore—long, hard, and in ways that struck even me as disturbingly creative.

When the backup team arrived to clean up the mess and take Ross and his guards into custody, Brooke and I disappeared back into the building, which, because of the layout and thickness of the walls of these offices, remained blissfully unaware of the chaos in Ross’s lab.

As hard as it was for either of us to act even the least bit normal, Brooke and I did the only thing we could to maintain our cover and exculpate ourselves from any and all suspicion in the Ross affair.

“Hi! We’re members of the Bayport Varsity Spirit Squad, and we’re selling Cheer Scout cookies!”

“The Go, Fight, Cinnamon are to die for.”

CHAPTER 24

Code Word: Mommy Dearest

“That’s it,” Brooke said finally. It was the first thing one of us had said that wasn’t (a) something that would have had to be bleeped out on most major broadcasting networks, or (b) a pitch for our cookies.

Shortly after we’d returned to “selling” our cookies, the police had arrived and ushered out all of the occupants of the building. We told them we didn’t know anything, and either because they took one look at our faces and were apt to believe that we indeed knew nothing at all or because the Feds were secretly pulling their strings, we were quickly and quietly allowed to leave. Now the two of us were in Brooke’s car, presumably driving back to the school to lick our wounds and further obsess over our failure.

“That’s it.” I repeated Brooke’s words.

“We lost the one object we couldn’t afford to lose. We caused a huge disturbance. If you’d detonated your right sock instead of your left one, we might have taken down part of the building.”

So now she tells me that one grenade had more firepower than the other.

Brooke, oblivious to my train of thought, continued emotionlessly recapping our experience. “Shots were fired, and we both could have been killed.”

I considered her words. “Yup. That about sums it up.”

“You don’t get it,” Brooke said, heat entering her tone for the first time. “We were supposed to try to avoid actual danger. The weapons were for the worst-case scenario, and that scenario happened. They sent us in to get a weapon without being noticed, and we almost blew up the building and lost the weapon to the one person we were trying to keep it away from.”

“That’s bad.”

“There are no words for how bad this is.”

“Okay, so we do damage control,” I said. “We find Amelia and take her down before she can give the weapon to the firm.”

Brooke actually laughed then, and it was a brittle, brutal sound. “You think they’re going to let us do that?” she snorted.

I’m not sure what gave her the impression that I intended on asking.

“This isn’t just an over-eighteen case now, Toby. This isn’t just a Do Not Engage. I can guarantee you that this is no longer a Squad operation. Now it’s up to the professionals, and we’ll be lucky to see action again before I graduate.”

“We could—” I started to say, but Brooke cut me off.

“We can’t do anything. They won’t let us. God, talk about disasters. I’m never going to hear the end of this.” Sensing that I was going to interrupt her the way she’d interrupted me, Brooke plowed on, not giving me the chance. “They didn’t even want us on this case after the explosion. They had to be talked into it, but I told them I could handle it. I promised them I could handle it. I even told them you could handle it.”

“And you were going to share this with me when?”

“Puh-lease, Toby, no whining right now. I can’t deal with it. I really can’t. We have much bigger problems than this right now.”

Hey! I was not whining.

“What problems might these be?” I asked. “And where are you going?” I hadn’t noticed, because I’d been too busy trying to process Brooke’s rant, but she’d pulled off the highway, and now we were driving through a residential area.

“Home,” Brooke said tersely.

“Home as in your home?” I asked.

Brooke nodded.

“And why are we going there?”

Brooke took a deep breath. “Because that’s where the Big Guys live.”

“Excuse me?” I felt an undying need to start swearing again.

“If you want to get technical,” Brooke said, “that’s where one of the Big Guys lives. She’s one of the smaller Big Guys actually, not based in Washington, not on active duty, but she still calls her share of shots, and right now, all of those are aimed at me.”

Brooke pulled into a driveway and ran a hand angrily through her hair. “Not good,” she muttered. “So not good.”

A second later, someone tapped gently on the driver’s side window, and Brooke, pushing all signs of aggravation off her face, rolled it down.

A woman stood there. She was probably about my mom’s age, maybe a few years younger, but she’d aged well. She was trim and fit, her hair was dark and every bit as thick as Brooke’s, and her eyes were wide set, her lashes long, and her face almost wrinkle-free.

In fact, the only reason that I guessed she was near my mom’s age was the fact that I had a deep and abiding suspicion that this was, in fact, Brooke’s mother.

“Hello, Brookie,” the woman said, a tight nonsmile on her face. “I see you brought a friend.”

“Mom, Toby. Toby, Mom.” Brooke made the introductions, her smiling matching her mother’s exactly.

“Hello, Toby,” Mrs. Camden said. “Won’t you two join me inside?”

She sounded like your average PTA mom—chipper and faux sweet and like she’d have cookies waiting for us in a jar on the counter, but I knew better. Brooke’s mom was one of the Big Guys, and, quite frankly, she scared the hell out of me.

Where were Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail when you needed them?

Brooke rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she told me under her breath. “She’s not going to kill you.” The emphasis on the last word did not escape me, and as I slipped out of the car, I couldn’t help but think of everything Zee had told me about Brooke’s relationship with her mom. I’d known Mrs. Camden was a former Squad member herself, known that she’d groomed Brooke for this and that (according to Zee’s latest spiel), she put a lot of pressure on her, but I’d never realized that Brooke’s mother was actually in on our operation.

First Jack’s uncle and now this. Who was going to be next? The twins’ little sister?

With happy-homemaker efficiency, Mrs. Camden got us settled on the couch in her living room, and she actually did bring us cookies. Neither of us ate them.

“Tell me what happened,” she said simply.

I couldn’t read anything in her tone, but Brooke looked like she’d been slapped.

“We entered the premises on the mark’s invitation and immediately identified the locations of all three nonmark hostiles. We convinced all of them of our cover, and I played decoy while Toby exited the room under the guise of going to the bathroom. The first hostile followed her, but she managed to escape the bathroom through the air duct as planned. The mission progressed accordingly for approximately four and a half minutes…”

“That long?” Brooke’s mother mused. She arched an eyebrow at me. “He didn’t break down the door for four and a half minutes? Impressive.”

I made the executive decision not to illuminate Mrs. Camden on the method I’d used to procure as much time as possible. Somehow, I didn’t think this particular desperate housewife would appreciate it.