“Was it one of the embassies? Did you see any signs or books in any languages that you might have recognized?” Noah tries.
“I saw a door and a shadow and the man who killed my mother telling someone he has another assignment!”
“But if we knew —” Megan starts.
“I don’t know who. I don’t know when. I just know that he is going to kill again.”
“No, he’s not,” Rosie says. She gives a wide, defiant grin.
“Yeah,” Noah says. “Because we’re going to stop him.”
It’s the right thing to say — the perfect line. They’re trying so hard to sound convincing, but I’m not convinced. I know too much. I have seen too much. I have lost too much.
And now I look at the three faces that stare back at me, praying I don’t have to lose anyone else.
When we leave that night, Rosie claims that she can walk on her hands all the way from Iran to Italy. Megan stays beside her, counting her steps, watching her tiny feet as they stay freakishly steady and straight in the air, but Noah and I walk up ahead. For a moment, we are alone.
“So,” I say, “I hear you’re a football stud.”
Noah laughs. “You would be confusing me with my father,” he says, then reconsiders. “Except, wait. No one has ever confused me with my father, so never mind.”
“Are you good?” I ask.
Noah shrugs. “I’m okay.”
“Lila says you’re good. And Lila doesn’t strike me as the type to overestimate your virtues.”
“Lila wants me to be good because that would mean I could stop being … me.”
“With you being defined as …”
“Man about town. Man of mystery. Man of many talents. Really a James Bond type with a bevy of beautiful women all eager to help me stop an international incident.”
“A bevy, huh?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Noah says. “I’m dangerous, is what I’m saying, Grace.” He gives me an oh-so-serious stare. “I have a license to kill.”
“Good to know,” I say. Noah laughs.
“Of course I usually kill through general incompetence and family disappointment.”
“I know the feeling,” I say, and then it hits me: the enormity of what I’m asking — of the risk we’re taking. “Why are you doing this, Noah?” I ask before I even know the words are coming.
Noah looks at me, stunned. “What do you mean? I’m your friend. Friends help each other when they are … you know … going up against international hit men and stuff.”
“Maybe that’s a bad idea. Maybe you don’t want to be my friend,” I tell him, but Noah just smirks.
“Too late. Besides, I know you’d never leave me alone if I was going to do something stupid.”
“Maybe I would.”
“And you’d never lie to me.” He runs a hand through his black hair, pushing it back, making it even spikier than usual. “That’s why my parents broke up. Maybe it’s because of their jobs or whatever, but they always had to keep things from each other. There were so many secrets and lies. You have no idea how much I hate it when people lie to me.”
I should tell him, I think. I should tell him about what I saw the night Mom died and what came after. About the Scarred Man and the Scarred Men. I should tell him not to trust me, not to like me, not to believe a word I say because there are moments late at night when I can’t even believe myself.
But I can’t say any of those things. I can’t bring myself to drive Noah away even though I know in my gut I probably should.
The marines are watching the street when we reach the US gates. I can see the light burning in my grandfather’s office. If he knows I’ve been gone all day, I doubt he cares. “Well, good night, Noah.”
“Good night, Grace.”
He starts toward Israel, then stops and calls, “Hey, Grace …”
“Yeah?”
His hands are in his pockets and the moonlight shines across his face. “Between you and me, I’m not as good as Lila says.”
“Okay.”
His smirk grows into an extremely cocky grin. “I’m better.”
He turns and leaves. I just smile after him, thinking, I totally knew it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Honestly, I don’t know what’s more worrisome: what Megan is saying or that she’s saying it with Barbies. But maybe the most shocking thing is how utterly un-Megan-like Megan is being in this moment.
She’s wearing a black tank top and baggy camouflage cargo pants and has a yellow highlighter stuck through her belt like a knife. Most of her glossy black hair is tucked up into a ski cap, but a few strands peek out. A decent portion of them are now a very dark shade of fuchsia.
“Is that permanent?” I ask, reaching out to touch her new pink hair before she slaps my hand away.
“I’m trying something new,” she says, undaunted. She points to Barbie’s Dream House and says, “We enter through the skylight in the master bedroom. Here.”
Rosie points to the Barbie jeep and says, “Where are we going to get our mobile observation unit?”
“Noah’s going to borrow his mom’s van,” Megan says.
Rosie nods, but Noah just says, “I am?”
“You are,” Megan says. “Now does anyone have any questions?”
“Who are you?” I ask. “And what have you done with Megan?”
But she just cuts her eyes at me.
“Now, we can’t be sure about the exact layout of Dominic’s place, but judging from the plans on file with the historical preservation society, that block of row houses was reconstructed after the war, and the following changes were allowed. The skylight is our window. Pardon the pun. So —”
“I’m not sure about this,” I say. I look through Barbie’s skylight at the friendship bracelets that are serving as rappelling cables, the unicorn stickers that represent cameras.
“The plan is solid,” Megan says. “This is our chance and we have to take it.”
“I know that, but if one of you gets hurt, I will never forgive myself.”
“If one of us gets hurt?” Megan shoots back. “Have you forgotten that you overheard him saying that he is supposed to kill somebody? What if the Scarred Man’s target is my mom? Did you think of that? Or Rosie’s dad? Or one of Noah’s parents? What if it’s your grandfather he’s after, Grace? Is it too risky then?”