Brooke stared me down. “Yes. Amelia played you like a fiddle, and for reasons we can’t wrap our minds around, she wants us at that park this afternoon.”
Her words and tone poked holes in my confidence, but as I replayed the scene with Amelia the day before, I couldn’t deny the fact that I still believed Amelia, one hundred percent. She was crazy and she seriously needed to find a hobby that didn’t involve becoming a criminal mastermind, but she hadn’t lied to me. She hadn’t needed to. Rather than making this argument again, I tried the tactic Amelia had taken with me the night before and went with incontrovertible logic. “What about the fact that Amelia couldn’t have remotely detonated the bomb, that none of the TCIs could have?”
“We can check that out, too,” Tara volunteered. “We’ll haveto go back over our video and audio surveillance. There’s a chance we might not have noticed a remote-detonating mechanism.”
“We should also recheck phone records,” Chloe volunteered. “Any of the TCIs could have hired someone to detonate the bomb.”
Darn them and their logic. Why hadn’t I thought of it the night before? Why hadn’t I poked holes in Amelia’s claims the way the rest of the Squad was poking holes in mine? The only answer I could come up with was that every instinct I had told me that Amelia had been exactly what she’d seemed. Psychotic, but truthful. “Run the data all you want,” I said, “but if it checks out, then we do something about it.”
As I waited for a response, I brought my hand up to my left shoulder and scratched absentmindedly.
This really wasn’t my morning: itchy shoulder, no coffee, antagonism aplenty, and nobody believed a word I was saying. I scratched harder.
“Ummmm … are you okay, Toby?” Lucy asked, her voice tentative. “You look … uncomfortable,” she finished diplomatically.
“I’m fine,” I said. “My shoulder itches.”
Beside me, Tara leaned closer. “It’s awfully red,” she said.
“I’ve been scratching.” This had to be the most inane cheerleading operative conversation that had ever taken place. Before it could move forward at all, I suggested we turn our attention to the flat-screen, and all of us began scanning the list for Connors-Wright’s name.
Nothing.
I barely registered the I-told-you-so expression that flitted across Brooke’s face. “Ummmm … Toby?”
“Ummmm … Lucy?” I answered.
“Your shoulder is kind of, you know, pink now.”
Hadn’t we already established this?
“Like neon pink.”
I looked down. My shoulder was hot, hot pink. I might have handled that better on a day when I’d had some caffeine, but in retrospect, probably not.
“What the hell did you two put in that shower gel?” I sent the twins dart eyes.
“You actually used the shower gel?” Tiffany asked, impressed. “We thought you’d smuggled in some sucky soap or something, because your scent matrix has been kind of …”
Was she trying to say that I smelled? And, on a related note, did she want me to kill her? These were very important questions, but they weren’t nearly as important as the one I’d just asked.
“Shoulder,” I prompted. “Pink. Why?”
“It’s a security thing,” Brittany said. “The shower gel has these special chemical thingies in it, and they react and turn different colors for different things.” She turned to her twin. “What’s pink again?”
“Something electronic, I think,” Tiff said, wrinkling her nose. “Like maybe a bug?”
“No,” Brittany said. “Bug is blue, remember?”
“Oh yeah.”
“It has to be a chip of some kind then, right?”
They seemed to be approaching this whole conversationwith the same solemnity with which they considered fall colors. No more, no less.
Brooke, however, snapped to attention. “Somebody get a scalpel. Now.”
If you’ve never heard a cheerleading captain speak these words, then you have never felt true terror. A scalpel? And just what was she planning on scalpeling? Because she had to know that I wasn’t letting her come anywhere near me with something of the sharp and pointy variety.
