Overture (North Security, #1)

I’m simultaneously impressed and horrified at how casually my friend has broken the rules. “You realize we’re upgrading from breaking school rules to illegal activity, right?”

She scoffs. “What’s illegal about swiping a key card?”

“Theft.” I tick the words off with my fingers. “Trespassing. Oh, not to mention blackmail.”

“All for the greater good.”

Acid rises in my throat. If she weren’t right about that, I would refuse to do it. I’m not a rule breaker. Not a rebel. At least I didn’t use to be. That seems to be changing. “All I’m saying is that if we wind up in jail, I’m blaming you.”

“Please. I have about three fake passports that could get me out of the country.” At my expression, she adds, “I’m kidding, of course.”

I don’t think she’s kidding. “And leave me here to take the fall?”

Like the way she did at the club. But I know that about her. She’s the one who found the guy selling a tape that we can use for blackmail. She also set up the meeting. That’s actually a high amount of planning for someone who flew to Coachella in a hot air balloon. I’m the one with the envelope of cash in my backpack. I have to be the one to finish this.

“Nothing is going to happen,” she says. “No one is going to fall. This is exactly how my mom got into a Nicaraguan embassy and aided the rebellion.”

“Which rebellion?”

“Does it matter? We’re speaking truth to power right now. Coach Price is going down.”

Because Laney is a smart girl and because it’s the only plan we have, I manage to convince myself that everything is going to be fine.

We’ll buy the evidence we need to blackmail Coach Price. We’ll protect Cody and the other boys he coaches without breaking our vow of silence. And we’ll definitely not end up fleeing the country under an assumed name.

At least I believe that until I use the card to get to the tennis court, where the club owner is supposed to be waiting. Only, he’s not there. Principal Keller stands there instead.


SAMANTHA

Liam and I have sat in the principal’s office together before. Once when he enrolled me in the school, after an interview process where Liam drilled the teachers in both core subjects and drama and of course music. Even though it was understood that the serious music learning would happen with my tutors outside school, both Liam and the school agreed that I should participate in orchestra. For the camaraderie, Miss Harper said. If six girls hating my guts for taking first chair every year was camaraderie, then it had definitely worked.

Then again every year as we discussed my progress, my course schedule, my socialization. That’s what they called me sitting alone at the lunch table in tenth grade when Laney had volunteered in Costa Rica for a semester.

Daddy never set foot in one of my schools. He would write a note—or have one of his aides write a note. I would take the bus to school, if there was a bus. I also took a train or a rickshaw or in one singular incident in Columbia, a donkey.

And if a teacher ever demanded to see my father, if that was the price of entry, then I simply wouldn’t go. We’ll be leaving this hellhole soon enough, Sam. He called them all hellholes, even if it was a five-star hotel with crystal glasses and gold chandeliers.

Liam showing such an interest in my schooling was strange. Foreign.

And a balm to my grieving little heart.

I repaid him by being the best student St. Agnes had ever seen, forcing my brain to make sense of literature and government when all I really wanted to think about was music.

The number of times he got called to the principal’s office for bad behavior?

Zero.

Until today. His expression when he appears at the door is hard. Remote. His green eyes promise punishment. This is the Liam that enemies see when he’s in the field, and I shiver in response. I’m the enemy in this situation. I’m sitting in a chair beside the receptionist’s desk—probably the same chair where Laney was sitting when she stole that security card.

Thankfully I managed to shut the door in Laney’s face before Principal Keller saw her, which means she’s in the clear. My fate is yet to be decided.

I make a sound of dismay, of apology.

“Samantha?” he says, his voice severe. I think he wants me to have some easy explanation for what’s happening, but I don’t even know. How did Keller know I would be there?

“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling miserable. I’m not only sorry for him being called in. I’m sorry that I can’t confide in him, that as close as we are, we’re not close enough for that. Judging from the dark cloud that passes over his expression, he knows what I mean.

Principal Keller appears at the door, a tall man who seems to become more slender every year. His mouth is set in a severe line. “Mr. North. Thank you for taking the time to come today. Please come in.”

Liam looks at me. Apparently he wants me to come in with them. I follow the principal inside with my head down. I take the seat nearest the door, as if I could bolt. Liam sits in the seat beside me, reclined in a pose that’s deceptively casual. He shouldn’t even fit in the chair. Six-foot-something with lean muscles. The itchy gray fabric on top of a hard-plank of a chair is designed for teenagers. Or maybe adults from fifty years ago. Liam doesn’t look bothered by the size of the chair or its questionable stains. Discomfort can’t touch him. He looks like he could sit there for years, or that’s what it feels like, his gaze heavy on me. My face flames.

Principal Keller clears his throat. “I’m afraid that Ms. Brooks faces serious charges today. We found her with a security pass belonging to a teacher. She used it to leave the building, when she should have been in calculus.”

“Is that true?” Liam asks softly.

The principal looks affronted. “I found her outside holding the—”

“I asked her a question,” Liam says, without taking his gaze from me. He’s going to make me say it. He’s going to make me admit the shame out loud.

“Yes,” I whisper, not sure whether I’m more humiliated that I did it or that I got caught.

“I’m afraid it gets worse,” Principal Keller says, pulling out a familiar white envelope. He sets it on the desk as if it’s a proclamation of guilt—and well, I suppose it is. “She had this on her person. A rather large amount of money to be carrying around on a Monday, don’t you think? I suppose she wanted to purchase an extra snack at lunch.”

Oh great, now he’s a comedian. Of course no one laughs. Liam opens the envelope and glances inside, his thumb rifling through the hundred-dollar bills. He’s probably counted the money down to the exact amount.

“No doubt she was going to buy drugs,” Principal Keller adds.

“Leave,” Liam says, his voice low.

My stomach sinks. It’s only my worst fear for the past six years, that I would have no place to go, that the one person in the world who cared about me would have enough. Every muscle in my body knots hard enough to make me throw up. I’m clenched on the edge of the hard chair, panic thick in my throat.

Liam looks toward the principal. “We need a minute.”

“This is my office, sir.” Principal Keller’s mouth opens and closes like a fish. “Well, I can see that this is a very serious matter. Probably you want to… one minute, only.”

Then we’re alone.

I can’t relax. He wasn’t speaking to me then, but that doesn’t mean I’m off the hook. It was only a matter of time until he got tired of you. I should be grateful that he kept me around this long. At least I’ll have graduated high school, assuming St. Agnes gives me a diploma. I won’t have a violin if he kicks me out, but I know how to play.

“Stop that,” he mutters.

I swallow hard. “Stop what?”