“Good. I wouldn’t know what to do with a kid. Now, what do you think? Totally altered, yes?”
Alex looked at Daniel again, and her shoulders slumped. He was thicker around the middle, too; she hadn’t noticed that before. It all looked so real.
“You don’t think it’s good enough, do you?” Daniel asked.
“It’s good enough,” Val answered for her. “And she knows it. That’s why she looks so glum. She’d much rather risk my life than yours.”
Daniel looked at Alex, waiting for her answer.
“Val’s right. Except for the part about risking her life. I don’t want to risk anyone’s.”
Val snorted.
Daniel grabbed Alex’s hand and pulled her against his chest. “It’s going to be fine,” he murmured. “We can do this together. Your plans always work. I will follow your instructions to the letter, and we’ll make it through. I promise.”
Alex squeezed her eyes tight, trying to force the tears back into their ducts.
“I don’t know, Daniel. What am I doing?”
He kissed the top of her head.
“Cut it out,” Val interrupted. “You two are making me jealous, and that’s never a safe thing to do.”
Alex opened her eyes and pulled away, brushing at Daniel’s suit to make sure she hadn’t left any makeup on it.
“I see you had time to get the things I needed from the Batcave. This toolbox is perfect.”
“More than perfect—check the fifth drawer down. I packed the rest how you asked,” Daniel told her. “Do you want to go through it before I put it in the car?”
“That’s a good idea.”
The silver toolbox—one of the props from Kevin’s stash, she assumed—had wheels and a pull-up handle, like a suitcase, but unlike a suitcase, many locking drawers that pulled forward out of its face. She went swiftly through the top drawers, identifying the location of the different drugs by the color rings on the syringes. The syringes were stacked in the rubber trays she usually stored them in. The next drawer down had a variety of scalpels and razor blades. She wouldn’t need so many; the point was to make the drawer look full. Saline bags and tubing were next, along with needles and catheters in different sizes. The next compartment was deeper. It held her pressurized canisters and several random chemicals from Kevin’s stores.
The second-to-last drawer was key. It held another tray of syringes—these empty—and seemed shallower than the last. She traced the edges of the bottom of the drawer—of course Kevin would have something like this. She could fit her fingernails around and lift up the false bottom. She peeked at what was underneath.
“Let’s hope Carston’s up for some Oscar-level acting,” she murmured to herself.
She went through the final, deepest drawer, where Daniel had stowed her more ostentatious props—the blowtorch, the wire snips, the pliers, along with several arbitrary tools Daniel had added from the items available in Kevin’s hoard.
There was one more useful thing she needed—just a tiny configuration of wires that she’d picked up the first time they’d visited the local Batcave. She pulled it from her backpack now and hid it in the third tray of the first drawer, under a syringe. She would want easy access to that one.
Alex straightened. “Perfect. Thank you.”
“You,” Val said, pointing to Daniel. “Get to the rendezvous point. You,” she continued, moving her index finger toward Alex’s face. “Let’s fix you up and get going. The clock is ticking.” She motioned to a set of double doors across the room.
“I’ll be there in thirty seconds,” Alex promised.
Val rolled her eyes. “Fine, have your little good-bye scene.” She turned and walked through the doors.
“Alex—” Daniel began.
“Wait.”
She took his hand again and led him out the front door, pulling the toolbox with her free hand. He had the big first-aid bag slung over his shoulder. Einstein tried to follow and then whined when she shut the door on him.
They walked down the quiet hall to the elevator. Alex pressed the button. When the doors slid apart, Daniel walked in and she followed, putting one foot across the breach to hold it open. She dropped the toolbox’s handle and reached up to hold Daniel’s face between her hands.
“Listen to me,” she said quietly. “In the glove compartment of the sedan there’s a manila envelope. There are two sets of IDs—passports, driver’s licenses, and a bunch of cash.”
“I don’t look that much like Kevin now.”
“I know, but people age, lose hair. You can toss the glasses, shave, dye your hair back to brown. And if things go badly, you’ll need to do all of that. Then get to the nearest airport. Get on any plane that’s leaving North America, okay?”
“I won’t leave you behind.”
“When I say go badly, I mean that I won’t be around for you to wait for.”
He stared at her with that odd new version of his troubled face.
“Okay?” she repeated insistently.