“She just happens to be in Chicago the same day as Elise, the very next day after following her on Twitter?” Ariane shook her head, her mouth in a tight line. “It would be too suspicious. And if she thinks Brittany’s…what’s the word?” She paused, flipping through her mental dictionary. “A creeper. If Elise thinks Brittany’s a creeper, she might block me.”
It was funny sometimes, hearing slang come from Ariane. She used the words with such precision, unlike everybody else, like someone from another country who was still adapting. She’d been living outside with the rest of us humans for ten years, but she’d spent her first few years in near isolation, with only adult scientists for company. And then just her father for the years after that. Occasionally her unusual childhood showed, especially when she was stressed.
I was lost enough to notice and to find it kind of cute.
“So we’re going in?” I asked, forcing my attention back to the matter at hand.
“Not that way.” She gestured at the main entrance. “Admission for both of us will take almost half the money I have left. There has to be another way in.”
She headed off to the side of the museum with the confidence of someone for whom locked doors were no deterrent. It didn’t take long to find a loading bay and next to it a regular door, which, when opened, led into a narrow hallway with offices at the far end.
“What about cameras?” I hissed.
She nodded, a tiny motion. “I’m sure there are. Act normally, move quickly, and try to find a way onto the main floor,” she said under her breath.
“If anyone asks, you’re Jan Peterson’s son and I’m your girlfriend,” she added.
Aside from the quick burst of warmth I felt at hearing her call herself my girlfriend, that statement raised more panic in me than it allayed. “Who is Jan Peterson?”
“Hopefully someone who works here,” she said over her shoulder as she started down the hall.
“Shit,” I muttered. “You’re kidding me with this, right?”
But she wasn’t, and in this very rare instance, luck evidently decided to give us a pass. Before I could ask what would happen if we encountered someone who actually knew a Jan Peterson at the museum, she’d found a door labeled MUSEUM FLOOR.
A security badge scanner, a black plastic square with an ominous red light at the top of it, held a place of prominence on the wall next to the door. Well, that was a problem.
But Ariane ignored it, and with a quick motion of her hand by the door, the lock retracted with a loud snap.
I held my breath as she pulled the door open. The light on the scanner stayed red, but no alarms sounded.
Ariane’s enhanced skills and training were no match, though, for the sheer size of the museum and the number of visitors. As soon as we stepped into what turned out to be a small side corridor, the noise crashed over us. When we reached the main floor, it got worse. It wasn’t anything bad, just people shuffling around in every direction possible, talking and laughing.
“Can we page her?” I asked as we merged into the crowd, trying to watch for Elise and keep from getting run over. “They have to have something like that here, right? For lost kids and stuff?”
Ariane pulled her phone from her pocket, checking for Elise’s latest posted whereabouts. “Likely. But who will we say is calling?”
“I don’t know, her brother?” I asked.
“Is Adam his real name?” Ariane asked, looking up from her phone.
I paused. “Uh…”
“And what do we say when she arrives and finds that there is no phone call from her brother? Instead, there are two strangers who want her to call him for reasons that won’t make much sense.”
I made a face. Fair enough.
“Come on.” She frowned at her phone. “It looks like they’re still near the aviation exhibit, if we hurry.”
And that began the world’s worst game of hide-and-seek. First, there was no hurrying at all, anywhere. It was like trying to run underwater. Second, Elise was a freaking ghost. She’d post a picture or a status update, referencing an exhibit or display or, hell, a “cute” shirt she saw someone wearing (she wasn’t the most discriminating of posters), and we’d arrive at the designated location, out of breath and surrounded by the irritated people we’d pushed past, and never catch so much as a glimpse of her. We were always a step behind.
And Elise and her friends seemed to have the attention span of spider monkeys, leaping from one thing to another with no discernible pattern.
Under other circumstances this might have been fun, wandering the exhibits and people-watching, but with each passing moment, I could feel time slipping away and Ariane growing more and more tense.