“Grace …”
The breeze is cool, but Noah’s voice is colder. We stand close enough to touch on a sidewalk, staring across a busy street at a building that is three stories tall. A black wrought-iron fence and two guards are positioned between the front door and the sidewalk opposite us.
It’s just an ordinary street in a lot of ways. Buses pass. Café owners are busy setting up their sidewalk tables. I can smell the day’s fresh bread. It is a perfectly lovely morning in every way but one.
And that is why I stand, not moving. Now is not the time to be careless or rash or … Grace-like. Now is the time to make the exact right move at the exact right time. Now is when I have to be patient.
“Grace,” Noah tries again. “That’s the prime minister’s residence.”
I take a sip of coffee and never let my gaze leave the door. “I know.”
“And I’m pretty sure the prime minister doesn’t have a scar on his face.”
“I know.”
A bus passes, temporarily blocking my line of sight. It’s all I can do not to panic until my view is restored. But a split second later I’m looking back at the same tall, black iron fence. The same empty sidewalk. The same polished gold door knocker. I can’t help myself. Part of me just wants to cross the street and ring the bell — tell the prime minister that he is being guarded by a killer.
But then another, scarier, thought occurs to me: Maybe he already knows.
“So I’m pretty sure that the prime minister could not have killed your mother,” Noah finishes, proud of himself.
“I know the prime minister didn’t do it,” I tell him.
Noah actually sighs with relief.
“Good. Because for a second there, I thought you were going to say —”
A streetcar is coming, its bell ringing in the air. When it passes, I look across the street, stare at the man exiting the prime minister’s residence, and say, “He did.”
I know the way people look at you when they think that you’re crazy. Call it a byproduct of being me. So I know that Noah hadn’t thought I was making it up — that my mind was playing tricks on me or it was just the trauma speaking. But he still sounds surprised when he mutters, “It’s him.”
Surprised and a little terrified.
Looking for a killer from the safety of your bedroom inside a foreign embassy is one thing. It’s quite another when the killer is about to cross the street and head in your direction.
“It’s really him,” Noah says again.
“Yes,” I say. “It is.”
“We have to do something,” Noah says. “We’ve got to go tell your grandfather or … I don’t know.”
“I did tell my grandfather. He said that the Scarred Man’s name is Dominic Novak. He is the head of security for the prime minister and a generally upright dude. He says that I am crazy.”
“He didn’t say that, Grace,” Noah guesses.
Noah is sweet and nice, a little na?ve. I have to shake my head as I tell him, “They always say that.”
When the Scarred Man crosses the street, he comes within five feet of us, almost close enough for me to reach out and touch the scar on his left cheek. For a second, I’m tempted to do just that — to make sure it’s real. It was one thing to look at it through a small crack in a door. But I’m standing on a sunny street now. I can hear birds singing and the bells of the trolleys in the distance. Everything around me is alive. But as soon as I see that scar, I think of death.
“Grace,” Noah says very, very slowly, “is he still behind me?”
“Yes … no. He’s moving now.”
“Okay.” Noah draws a deep breath. “Okay. Good. Now we can go get someone or do something or —”
“There is no one to get, Noah.”
“But someone has to do something!”
“I know.” I reach into the bag I have slung across my body and pull out the walkie-talkies I got for my twelfth birthday. “That’s why we’re going to follow him.”
Noah and I stick together, trying to mimic the Scarred Man’s pace. It’s erratic, though, like he knows someone might be back here. And then I realize that, yeah, he probably does.
“Just so I’m clear,” Noah says, his voice lower than it needs to be, “this man is the head of security for the leader of a small but prominent European country.”
I might glare at him a little because Noah pulls back, wounded.
He throws up his hands. “What? I just thought someone should point out the obvious.”
“Okay,” I tell him as the Scarred Man turns onto another busy street. Noah and I wait a beat then follow him up the hill.
“The obvious,” Noah goes on, a little out of breath, “being that he is probably some super secret assassin or something. And I’m not as tough as I look.”
“That’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m way tougher than you look.”
Noah levels me with a glare. He’s not teasing as he says, “Don’t you think we might be out of our league?”
I can’t tell him that he’s wrong. Or that he’s right. I can’t tell Noah any of the things he probably has a right to know, mainly because I don’t want to lose him yet. I don’t want to skip ahead to the part where he pities or distrusts or even hates me. I like that he is different from everyone else I’ve ever known in that one essential way.
We’re passing by an antique store and for a moment I stop. Frozen.
I see my mother’s face in the glass, hear a little girl ask, “Momma, do you like that locket?”
But my mother doesn’t answer. She will never answer me again.
And that is why I turn to Noah and say, “We’re the only league there is. Right now, you and I are all we’ve got.” I mean it. I mean it so much more than he will ever know.
When the Scarred Man turns down another street, I start to follow. But this street isn’t busy like the last. It’s narrow — not much more than an alley lined with apartments and houses. Quiet and sleepy, this is the kind of street where a trained operative would know if someone were on his tail.
“We’ve got to split up.”
“What? No! I’m not leaving you.”
“That’s why I brought the walkie-talkies,” I tell him, already stepping into the street.
“Grace, wait!”
“Just go to the end of the block. Wait there. I’ll tell you where to meet up and then you can take my place and we can tag-team it — like that.”
“Grace —”
“I’ll be okay, Noah,” I tell him. I press the button on the walkie-talkie. “See?” My voice echoes in stereo. Scratchy and haunting. “I’m okay.”
Part of having the world think you’re crazy means you always have to remind yourself of the truth. Always. Especially if you don’t necessarily like what you have to say. And right now I’m alone on a street so narrow only the noonday sun can shine upon it. I’m walking thirty yards behind the man who killed my mother, pecking at my phone, trying to act like a normal, harmless, well-adjusted teenage girl.
But I am none of those things.
And I am anything but okay.