Smiley cocks an eyebrow and glances from me to Jamie, then back again. “But Alexei Volkov is not your brother, is he?” the man asks, and I sit for a moment, thinking hard about the answer.
They’re almost to the door — I’m almost free of them — when the woman stops and pulls something from her pocket.
“One more thing. We were wondering if any of you recognize this?” She’s holding a plastic bag, but it’s what’s inside that draws my attention. A piece of leather is looped through what looks like some kind of medallion. It’s the size of a quarter but the color of a penny. For a minute I think it must be some kind of European coin. But then I stand and move closer, and it’s easy to recognize the symbol that I have been seeing around Valancia for weeks, leading me down beneath the city and into the Society’s web.
It takes everything within me not to turn to Ms. Chancellor, not to gape. But it’s Jamie who breaks the silence. “That’s Spence’s.”
“What an unusual piece,” Ms. Chancellor says, her voice so calm and casual.
“Yes,” the officer says. “We found this in Mr. Spencer’s pocket.”
“In his pocket?” Jamie asks. “Not around his neck?”
“You sound surprised.” Smiley studies my brother.
“Spence always wore that. Always. He said his grandmother gave it to him — told him to come to Adria someday and it would lead him to …”
“Go on,” Smiley says.
When my brother exhales, it’s like the world’s smallest, saddest laugh. “Treasure.”
There’s a twinkle in Officer Smiley’s eye. “Did he find it?”
No one says the obvious: that John Spencer found something far, far worse.
I can feel my brother’s gaze on me long after Ms. Chancellor escorts the cops from the room.
“He’s okay, Gracie,” Jamie says. “He’s probably back in Moscow by now — was probably halfway there by the time the car exploded.”
“He was going to renounce his diplomatic immunity.”
“That’s what the Russians said, but it’s not true.”
“Of course it’s true!”
“Grandpa says the Russians did it themselves. Probably to buy time or change the headlines. Or both. The windows were tinted and no one saw a driver get into the car. It could have been driven by remote. Easy. The army can fly a drone from the other side of the world. Trust me.”
I can’t tell if Jamie believes it or if he only wants to. Which version of the truth might scare him more — that someone killed one of his friends and tried to kill another? Or that our grandfather has been right for all these years, and we never should have made friends with the boy next door?
“Either way,” Jamie says, “by the time that car blew up, Alexei was long gone.”
“No. He wasn’t.”
Something in my face must tell him that I’m serious. That I’m right.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I really did see him. Earlier yesterday. He came to tell me what his father had agreed to do. He was going to go to the police station. He was going to be in that car.”
I can actually see this wash over Jamie. One of his friends is dead, and one should be. But Jamie’s anger is a lifeboat. He’s not letting go just yet.
“He was lying.”
“No, Jamie.” My voice is soft, gentle. “He wasn’t.”
“You heard the cops. No one else on that island had reason to hurt him.”
“Maybe they didn’t talk to everyone on the island. Maybe there’s more here than meets the eye. Maybe … This is Adria, Jamie. There’s always more under the surface.”
I love my brother. And I’ve missed him. And I need him. I should stop and tell him all of that, but the officer’s words are still ringing in my ears. The sight of Spence’s pendant is still burned into my brain. Questions are swirling inside of me, about to come screaming out, and if I don’t ask them soon I may explode, so I start for the door.
“Gracie, do you …”
“Like you said” — I turn and give him a knowing look — “he’s okay.”
Then I practically run down the hall and to the center staircase. I’m going to search the embassy, the tunnels, the entire continent for Ms. Chancellor if I have to. I don’t care how loud I have to scream or how far I have to run, I’m going to get answers this time if it kills me.
Then I stop. I let myself wonder if that’s what killed Spence.
“Grace.”
She’s standing at the bottom of the stairs as if she’s been waiting for me. Of course she has, I realize. She knew I was going to give chase, cause trouble. Ms. Chancellor is no fool.
I’m almost to the bottom of the stairs when she looks me straight in the eye and says the only two words that might make me hold my tongue.
“Not here.”
When she walks through the embassy’s doors, I follow.
Spence had seen the symbol before. Of course he had. I should have realized it that night at the ruins. I should have recognized his lies when I heard them. They sounded so much like my own.
He was looking for something.
The only question now is whether or not he found it.
As soon as we step out the embassy’s doors, I smell smoke and feel tension. Two marines are stationed at the gate. Next door, Russia has a half dozen armed men guarding their high walls. Maybe more. Adrian police patrol the barricades that hold back the crowds, but I can feel a thousand eyes upon me; I can almost hear the people wondering who I am and why I’m allowed inside the fences. But Ms. Chancellor doesn’t falter, doesn’t care. She’s walking quickly in her high heels, past the end of the barricades, pushing through the crowds.