“Okay,” she says slowly, and they walk, single file, from the office into the kitchen.
Just in case, I sit at her computer, which she’s already logged into, and perform a search for Ava London, but there’s nothing here.
I pick up the phone and hit Redial and see the number on the display. Then I sit at her computer and type in the number in the search bar, and her contact list pulls up. Mason Alonzo.
Alonzo. The Alonzo-Carter Cybersecurity Center. Holy crap. The person she called. The person she works with.
I was right—it is easier to break a person than to break a code, but June wasn’t the one who did it. Ivory did.
His information is listed below, the number highlighted beside his name, with an e-mail and a physical address.
Mason Alonzo is currently a professor of computer science at Elson University back in the city. The address is on campus. Looks like I’m about to see my first college as well.
I stand up, my nerves on edge.
I should cover my tracks.
I should empty Ivory’s gun, sitting beside me on the desk.
I pick it up, and I point it at the computer, and, remembering what Cameron said about being able to get one shot off with nobody noticing, I fire. The computer makes a noise as the bullet hits metal, but the gun is silent, and this, I think, is the most dangerous type of weapon. I fire round after round, the smell of mechanical burning from the computer, sparks flying, wires sizzling.
And then I walk out to join them.
“Time to go,” I say, and I point to the dark stairwell beside the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Ivory’s knuckles are white as she grips the counter. Cameron gestures toward the staircase. I walk ahead of them, down the first few steps, just to make sure. But it’s just as Ivory said. A cellar full of wine. Dark and musty. Windowless and comfortless. Cold, but not deadly.
“Don’t worry,” I say, leading her inside. “Someone’s coming for you, right? In the meantime, this is just a containment.” I close the door, and she pushes back against it. But I’m stronger. I lean close to the door. “It’s for your own protection,” I say. And then I turn the deadbolt.
She’s still pounding on the door, screaming through it, as we prepare to leave the kitchen, leave the house, leave this all behind.
“I can give you something no one else can,” she calls. “It’s the same offer I made June. Your freedom. I’m in a unique position to get you out of here. I pull a lot of strings.”
It’s a tempting offer. I have my answers, but I still can’t see how to get from here to freedom on my own. If it’s even a possibility in this lifetime. And now Ivory is offering it to us.
But the price will be our silence.
Noise can be dangerous. But there’s also a danger to silence. It’s everything we discovered, still going, for seventeen years. It’s a gun firing with no sound. It’s me, on an island, with no voice.
“We’ll take our chances,” I say.
I picture June running for the woods, looking over her shoulder.
And then I realize.
June said no.
I can see her now, so clearly, running from this home, stopping at a bank, not even worried about the police picking up on it. She was terrified for her life. She left herself a message, just in case, like she promised she would. The truth will not die with me. But she never made it back to the hideaway.
I am not the danger, she had said. I am not the threat. I am the bell, tolling out its warning.
More than that, she was going to blow the whistle.
I hit my palms against the closed cellar door, and Casey sucks in a breath. “You got her killed,” I say. “You did it.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Ivory says. “I’m not a killer.”
“No,” I say, “you just pull the strings, right?”
But she doesn’t respond. I want to feel anger, for how June and I have both been wronged, some drive for revenge, but instead, I am filled with a surge of adrenaline, of appreciation, of awe. What June was willing to do for us both.
“Alina?” Cameron asks. “What next?”
“Let’s go,” I say.
Cameron gives me a look, but he doesn’t question me. Doesn’t even hesitate as he swings his bag over his shoulder. He doesn’t look back.
“Where are you going?” Ivory asks. “What do you think you’re going to do? You won’t get far, Alina. June didn’t. You won’t.”
“Let’s go,” I say again. This was the end for June, but it will not be for me.
“What do you think you’ll do?” she calls. “You have nothing.”
“Don’t you remember?” I say. “I am the bell, tolling out its warning.”
And right now, I am the threat.
I am the threat and the warning and the whistle, all rolled into one. June made mistakes, and she tried to right them, and I think how hard that must be in your own life. To admit to it, and to try to change.
I wonder if I owe her this, or if maybe I owe myself this.
June died for this, and I may yet, too.
“I’m going to the source,” I say to Cameron and Casey outside the house. “I’m going for the proof.” For June, for me, for everyone. I will not ask them to risk anything more, to come with me any farther. If I have to go it alone, I will.
I run straight for the car, in broad daylight, in the middle of the street.
They follow me.
Chapter 23
It takes two hours to arrive on campus. It’s just outside the city, but close enough to not be segregated from the community. People of all ages wander the sidewalks in front of the buildings that border the city streets, but as we drive through the entrance, the street narrows, and the people disappear. I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s summer or because it’s almost dinnertime, but this place feels like a ghost town.
Cameron navigates the winding side roads, following signs for different sections of campus. Expanses of grass extend out to either side, and old stone and brick buildings break up the landscape. Once we pass the buildings, we find ourselves on an alley street with several homes that all look alike—as if they were built as part of the school but converted to homes later. The address for Mason Alonzo is for a brick home on this alley. “Should we check it out?” Casey asks. “He’s not home, right?”
“Right,” I whisper, imagining him on his way to Ivory. Cameron backs out and retraces our path a bit. We leave the van in visitor parking and walk the rest of the way. Mason’s home is about halfway down the street. We don’t stop as we walk past it, but I take my time looking in the front window as we pass. The house is old, narrow, covered with ivy, and has turrets like a castle. Mason may not be home, but the house is not empty. I can see through the window, through the open curtains, two teenagers, or maybe a little older, and a woman I’m assuming is their mother, sitting at the dining room table. They’re mostly ignoring each other—the boy looking down at his cell phone under the table; the girl moving pieces of food around the plate; the woman bringing dishes in and out and answering the ringing telephone—but there’s still a wave of jealousy stirring inside me.
Cameron pulls me close, puts an arm around my shoulder, and I spend way too long wondering if this is part of our disguise or if he just wants to do it. Casey pauses and separates herself from us, waiting for us to walk about fifty feet before she starts moving again.
Disguise, then.
Okay, then.
We stop at the end of the alley, and Cameron puts his hands on my waist, tips his head so it rests against mine, as if we’re sharing a moment, but it’s a lie. “We can’t go in there,” I say. “We have to find his office in the school.”