Then he pauses, just for a moment, and calls back toward the room.
“Hello, Grant.”
Deny, deny, deny, my brain says, but before I can, there’s a rustle of surrender behind me and the distinct sound of my comforter saying, “Hi.”
Lesley ambles away, leaving Lissa standing by the doorway. Her eyes bulge and her jaw drops so dramatically I wonder if it’s even still attached.
“Oh, shut up,” I say, closing the door on her just as she emits an earsplitting squeal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Fully clothed and sitting a respectable butt’s width away from each other on the couch, Grant and I listen quietly as Lesley regales us with the story of their night. Lissa buzzes merrily around the room, serving up tea and chiming in to emphasize all the best parts.
They nabbed Alistair with relative ease, although he was tight-lipped once in the safekeeping of the Fake House. Lesley and Lissa spent all night trying every interrogation method they could think of, short of physical torture. Hours and hours of nothing, and finally they had a breakthrough.
“All thanks to this lunatic,” says Lesley, shaking Lissa by the shoulders. “Somewhere around the thirtieth time I tried to call you two, she finally cracked him.”
“Turns out, I’m amazing at psychological warfare,” Lissa says gleefully. “Who knew?”
I snort, struggling to imagine Lissa intimidating information out of anyone. “What did you do, sing ‘The Song That Never Ends’ until he begged for mercy?”
She casts a chiding look my way. “Please, Roxie. I’m an adult. It was ‘My Humps.’”
Ultimately, he was only annoyed enough to give away a single piece of information: the email address for his Facebook log-in.He insisted he doesn’t know who Mr. Page is, but has received a few private messages from him regarding details of the competition. There may be something useful in there.
“Okay,” Grant says. “So we have an email. What are we supposed to do, guess his password?”
Lissa and Lesley exchange aGrant’s not going to like thisglance.
“Thing is, Double Grantendre,” says Lesley, “he’ll give us his password. On one condition.”
I can guess from Lesley’s tone that the condition isn’t that we donate one million dollars to UNICEF.
“He wants us to bring you two to the Fake House to talk to him,” says Lissa.
Grant sags back on the couch. I cross my arms. “What makes you think he’s not just angling for a second chance to kill us?”
“Oh,” says Lesley, chuckling. “He almost definitely is.”
“But he won’t be able to,” assures Lissa. “He’s well secured. Also, you beat him once; you could beat him again if you had to. Which reminds me: Howdidyou manage that?”
There’s silence from the other side of the couch, so I have to clear my throat and stare at Grant until he realizes I won’t let him downplay his big win.
“I, um. Fought him,” he says dismissively, as if telling us that he went to the grocery store.
“In aduel,” I add, unable to suppress my grin as the thrill rushes back. “Withswords. Even Alistair said he was like a sexy musketeer.”
“He didn’t say sexy,” Grant says.
“Hehadto have been thinking it.”
Lissa claps her hands, exploding with praise and sparkly-eyed delight. Lesley says nothing, but takes a step toward Grant and briskly raises his palm for a high five with all the gravitas of a Nobel Prize. Grant is going vaguely pink, but I can tell he’s trying to keep a grin at bay.
“So,” says Lesley, returning to his tea. “Who’s up for a chitchat with the Mangler?”
Grant and I each raise a hand—Grant a bit more reluctantly—while Lissa raises both of hers and yells, “Me, me, me!” before jumping up and running from the room as though someone lit a firecracker under her.
Lesley looks after her fondly, quietly downing the rest of his tea. When she’s out of view, he narrows his eyes, running his tongue over his teeth, and tilts his head in curiosity.
