I turn, see Lily standing with both hands clutched to the frame. My knees crumble.
“Wick? Oh God!” My little sister flings herself across the garage and grabs me. We slump into each other. She’s almost as tall as me these days, but somehow we still fit each other.
“I missed you,” she says into my neck.
“I missed you too.”
“Come inside, okay?” Lily drags me toward the kitchen, all chilled hands and huge eyes. Bren’s waiting inside. She pushes away from the counter, arms crossed against her chest like she’s holding herself together.
“You have to tell me what’s going on, Wick.”
I shake my head. “You have cameras in your house; probably bugs too. I need to do a sweep and then . . . we’ll talk.”
“Cameras?” Bren puts one hand on the counter, parts her lips like she’s going to argue, and then shakes her head.
“I’ll help you look,” Griff says, putting my bag on the kitchen table.
“You don’t have to.”
He doesn’t respond, just walks out of the kitchen. I hesitate for a heartbeat, then follow.
29
We start on the top floor, taking screwdrivers to all the usual targets—smoke detectors, electrical outlets—and we hit pay dirt. It should feel satisfying, but it’s not. There are cameras in each of the upstairs smoke detectors and in two of the bathroom electrical outlets. Not only has Looking Glass been watching my family, but they’ve been watching them in their most private moments.
I know how that feels.
Griff holds up the latest discovery, examining the wiring. “How did you know?”
“One of the other hackers told me. It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time.” He pauses, studying me. “Why’d he—”
“She.”
“Why’d she tell you?”
“She wanted my help. It was a . . . bargaining tool.” I sigh and rub my eyes against the painful heartbeat in my head. Migraines have the worst timing. I’m struggling to keep everything straight, and in the blur, a sudden question powers to the surface. “Did you send me those viruses? The worms with the embedded messages?”
He shakes his head. “What viruses?”
I cringe. If Griff wasn’t behind them, then that leaves . . . Michael? Michael trying to get me to leave Looking Glass, get out into the open so he could find me and get to his money? I don’t want to think about it. Can’t.
“Someone was trying to warn me about Looking Glass,” I say finally. “Whoever it was alerted me to what really happened with Bay. I just don’t know why they would.”
For a long moment, neither of us says anything.
“Okay,” Griff manages at last. “First things first. Let’s finish the cameras. We might have them all. We might not. You have any flashlights?”
“Yeah.” I walk into the hallway and check the closet. Always prepared, Bren has extra blankets, candles, and flashlights lined up in neat, little rows. It’s like if Martha Stewart decided to take up disaster planning. I grab two flashlights, turn them both on, and pass one to Griff.
It’s awkward, but he manages, sweeping the light across the walls to test himself. “This’ll work.”
I shut off the lamps, the overhead lights. The sun’s so low I don’t have to pull the shades. The rooms dip into dark and we start the sweep, moving so easily in the shadows it’s like we were born for this.
And for the briefest second, I’m in that church again, chasing down Todd and searching through the dark for Lily. Griff was with me then too.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
It feels like an eternity in the dark, tracing the flashlight beams over the walls, the picture frames, the furniture. We’re trying to detect any points of light bouncing back to us, one of the few clues that a pinhole camera’s been installed.
I take Bren’s office, her bedroom, and Lily’s bedroom. Griff sticks to the hallway, the bathrooms, and my room, eventually making his way to me. I’ve gone through Lily’s room three times now and I still can’t get myself to leave.
Looking Glass spied on my sister, my adoptive mom. When they thought they were safe and alone, they weren’t. I’ll have to tell them and I don’t want to. I don’t want to ruin what’s left of our lives before Looking Glass. Or were we even safe before Looking Glass? Not really. There was Joe. There was Carson. Before them, Michael. Maybe we were never safe. Maybe the safety was always an illusion.
Griff’s shadow stands in the doorway.
“There’s a good field of vision from this angle,” I say. I’m in the corner of Lily’s room, and from here you can easily see my sister’s bed, desk, and closet. If I were installing a camera, this is where I’d put it—maximum coverage for minimal investment. I turn around, run the flashlight along the wall. I don’t trust myself not to miss something. “Do you think we should do another walk-through?”