Revealed (18 page)

Nia gasped. I could feel my hands shaking. For a second we were all too shocked to move, and then Nia slipped her hand into the drawer. There must have been over a hundred pieces of paper stuffed into it—she couldn't get them all at once and had to take out a bunch, then reach back in and get more.

“What is it?” Callie asked eagerly. “Let me see!”

“Chill,” Nia said sharply. There were still papers left in the drawer, but Callie and I ignored them and huddled around Nia to look at what she was holding.

“It's a map,” I said. The paper Nia was holding was an ordinary road map; there are a dozen like it in my mom's car. I let my eyes follow a thick black line until they came to . . . “It's Maryland,” I said. Sure enough, when Nia unfolded the map, it was a Rand McNally guide to Virginia and Maryland. We examined every square inch, but except for what looked like a coffee stain in one corner, there were no marks anywhere on it.

“Okay, okay, let's just . . . just look at something else,” Callie said, giving voice to the impatience we were all feeling.

Nia put the map aside and we studied the next piece of paper, a newspaper article about a scientist, Dr. Cole Tobias, who'd disappeared from his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, without leaving a trace, just days after publishing a major paper on climate change. According to the article, the authorities had concluded that there was no evidence of foul play. The article was dated five years earlier.

“Callie,” Nia whispered, “that's just like your . . .”

“Yeah, I know,” Callie snapped. Nia and I looked at her, and she shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Does the name Cole Tobias, age”—Nia glanced at the paper— “forty-five, mean anything to you?”

Callie and I shook our heads and Nia put the clipping on top of the map. “Okay, strike two.”

We all read the next page, a review of a book called
Mapping the Human Genome
by a woman named Maude Cooper.

“Wait a minute,” I said. Maude Cooper. Maude Cooper. Where had I seen that name before?

“Thornhill's computer!” I snapped my fingers.

“What?” Nia asked, jerking her head up.

Suddenly I realized that I had not told them about when Cornelia hacked into Thornhill's computer and that I got to take a longer look at the list of names until someone shut us down. I caught them up on everything I'd seen as quickly as I could.

“Amanda and Beatrice Rossiter were
friends
?” Nia's and Callie's faces wore expressions of the purest shock.

I nodded. “I know. It's crazy.”

“And you're
sure
you saw the name Maude Cooper on that list?” Nia asked.

“Positive,” I said.

Nia stared bullets at me. “Any other earth-shattering developments or secrets you'd like to share at the eleventh hour, Hal Bennett?”

“I think that about covers it.”

Nia shook her head at my attempt at understatement, then studied the pile on the table. “We need some space to put the things in this box that are significant.”

“But
everything's
significant.” Callie's voice was frustrated. “Just because some of it seems insignificant to
us
doesn't mean it's not important.”

Nia opened her mouth, and from the expression on her face, I knew she was about to bite Callie's head off. “Let's create a separate pile of stuff we
understand
the significance of,” I said quickly.

“Oh, you understand the significance of
this
?” Nia waved the article about Maude Cooper's book.

“Better than I understand the significance of
that
.” I pointed at the map of Maryland on the coffee table.

Nia looked down at the pile of papers on her lap, then glanced at her watch and groaned. “We can't spend ten minutes on every piece of paper or Cisco will be here before we get through a tenth of this.” She took a bunch of papers off the top of the pile on her lap and handed them to Callie. She handed another stack to me. Without moving from our uncomfortable positions on the floor, we all started reading.

On the top of my pile was another map—this one of greater Los Angeles. Again, there was no writing on it anywhere, and I put it on top of the article about Dr. Cole Tobias and the Maryland map—the Mysterious but Probably Really Important pile. The next piece of paper was another newspaper clipping, this one of an obituary. A man named George Chang had fallen to his death while hiking the Appalachian Trail. I skimmed the article. Mr. Chang had been an early investor in Silicon Valley, his own start-up, blah blah blah. Nothing in the article made any sense to me, and I put it on the mystery pile.

“Callie, look!” Nia read aloud from the piece of paper on top of her pile. “Orion's Dr. Ursula Leary was honored by the National Institute of Science for her work on locating the galaxy Alpha Benton-554.” Callie was leaning over Nia's shoulder and reading with her. “It's from the
Orion Herald
,” Nia explained to me, eyes still on the paper. “And it's circled.” I crawled over to where they were sitting. The article had a picture of Callie's mom, and it explained how she'd been honored at a luncheon in Washington, D.C. There was part of another article on the page, too, something about funding for a local animal shelter. But part of it was ripped off, and the bright red circle around the article about Callie's mom made it clear Amanda hadn't saved the piece of paper because of her interest in the good work being done by our local ASPCA.

“My mom got this award
two years
before Amanda came here.” Callie looked up and our eyes met. “Why would Amanda have this?”

“Yeah, and it's the
actual
newspaper, not a computer printout.” Nia touched the newsprint lightly.

“She was reading the
Orion Herald
two years before she came to Orion?” Callie asked, incredulous.

“Apparently,” Nia said, placing the article on top of the clipping about Maude Cooper.

I looked down at the top piece of paper on my lap. In my confusion, it took me a minute to focus on the words, but when I did, I saw it was an official-looking document with the words Medical Examiner's Office printed in thick black type at the top. It was a death certificate for Annie Beckendorf.

“Wait a minute, that's the woman in the article, the one who was killed in the car crash!” I said to myself out loud.

“What are you talking about?” Nia and Callie asked together.

“Um, yet another detail I forgot to mention,” I offered, wrinkling my face with guilt.

“Hal!” Nia yelled, and Callie punched me in the arm.

Hard.

“Hey,
who
wasn't talking to
whom
?” I reminded them, matching their irritation with my own. “Anyway, I didn't
know
it might be significant. How many hundreds of posts to the website do we get every
day
? You guys could have read it there yourselves, anyway!” I rubbed my arm where Callie's fist had slammed into it and told them about the article that had been sent into the website describing the woman who'd died in the car accident in California.

“California,” Callie mused. “Those movie tickets were from California.”

I pointed at the pile of mysteries. “There's also a map of L.A. there.”

“Guys,” said Nia, eyes on the paper on her lap, “listen.”

Nia started reading aloud, but the document was so thick with legalese it took me a minute to translate what she was saying. “. . . does herewith become the legal guardian of her younger sister, a minor. Robin Beckendorf's legal rights extend (but are not limited) to choosing an appropriate school for said minor; using funds from the accounts provided by their mother, the deceased Annie Beckendorf (hereinafter referred to simply as “Annie”) for any and all expenses deemed necessary by Robin; signing any necessary legal forms relating to said schooling or expenses—”

Callie interrupted. “I don't get it. Who are these people?”

“Beckendorf,” Nia said. “That's the last name of the woman who died in the car crash and her daughters.”

“Do you think they're friends of Amanda's?” I asked. “Or relatives?” I'd gotten so used to the idea of Amanda traveling solo it was weird to insert a bunch of cousins where before there had been no one.

Nia and Callie shrugged. “Anything's possible,” said Callie. She looked back down at the papers in front of her, and there was silence for a moment as we all started reading again. To my amazement, the very next piece of paper on my lap was an envelope addressed to Max and Annie Beckendorf, 451 Lilac Drive, Denver, CO, 56783. There was no return address. Inside the envelope was a card with a stork carrying a pink blanket with a baby in it. I opened the card.

I gasped. “Dr. Joy!” I shouted. “Dr. Joy wrote this Annie Beckendorf woman a card when her baby was born.”

I passed the card to Nia and Callie, but after they'd both read it, none of us had any idea what the note meant. I put it on top of the significant pile and went back to looking at the papers on my lap.

I had no clue what to make of a form letter dated September fifth of this school year, signed by Mr. Thornhill and addressed to the parents of Endeavor students. The first page was a schedule of home and away games, and the second was a printout of the statement about the school's zero tolerance on drinking at school-related events whether or not they took place on school grounds. At the bottom of the page, in handwriting that was definitely Amanda's, was the word,

MayBe?

Maybe
what
? Why had she saved this particular letter from Thornhill, written over a month before she even came to Orion? How had she even
gotten
it, since as far as I knew, she wasn't living in Orion when the letter was sent. Had someone showed it to her once she moved here? Was she planning to use it in a future article in the
Spirit
?

Before I could voice my confusion, Callie shouted, “Hey, look at this!”

She gestured for us to come over to where she was sitting, and I found myself looking at a photo of Amanda at the age of eleven or twelve standing next to an older girl whose face was hard to see under the brim of the baseball cap she was wearing. Amanda looked more regular than I'd ever seen her—no strange costume or hairstyle, no weird accessories. She wore a pair of jean shorts and a red T-shirt with something I couldn't read written on it, looking like a totally average twelve-year-old. Next to the two girls stood a woman who was shading her eyes against the sun as she gazed down at them.

Suddenly I thought of how my mom keeps track of everything on all our family photos. “Flip it over. Maybe it says something on the back.”

Nia did. There, on the back of the picture, it said:
The Beckendorf Girls
.

“But . . .” Callie turned the picture over and looked at the threesome again. No doubt about it, the girl in the middle was
definitely
Amanda. Which meant . . .

“Oh my god,” Nia breathed. She looked up at me. “Hal, you were right.”

“Amanda Valentino is this Beckendorf girl,” Callie whispered.

“Her mom, Annie, died in that car crash,” Nia added.

“Which means . . .” My heart pounding, I thought back to the paper Nia had read from earlier. “She's got a sister named Robin.”

“Who's her guardian,” Nia finished.

“But what about her dad?” I asked. “What about . . .” I remembered Dr. Joy's card. “Max Beckendorf?”

“Do you think he's dead, too?” asked Callie.

“Or missing?” offered Nia.

Nia and Callie and I looked at one another, but none of us knew the answer.

Nia dropped her eyes and picked up the next item on her lap. It was a small card that said amanda in bright red letters. Underneath the name, in smaller type, the card read: she who must be loved. Nia flipped over the card. The back was blank except for a small line of print that said the whatsyournamemean company.

“She made up her name,” Nia said quietly, holding the card. “She picked it because of what it means. Nothing she told us was true.” Her voice was sharp as she tossed the card onto the table, where it slid along the glass surface almost to the edge. “Not a word.”

“Yes it was,” I said.

Nia turned to me, her face awash in the deep betrayal she was feeling. “Her mother is
dead
, Hal, not traveling in Africa or dealing with a divorce. Dead. It was a lie. All of it. Even her name.” She pushed angrily at the papers on her lap as if just touching them was enough to sully her.

I put my hand on Nia's arm. Callie didn't say anything, but when I looked over at her, I could see the pain on her face, too.

“She brought us together, and that wasn't a lie,” I said. “That's real. And it's more important than whether her name's Hayes or Stone or Valentino or who
cares
what.” I realized I was squeezing Nia's arm too hard—as if I was going to force her to believe me. I let go.

There was a pause as I contemplated the stupidity of defending this crazy, lying girl I'd thought we all loved.

And then Callie said, “She's in trouble. Serious trouble. That's not a lie, either.”

Nia was silent for what seemed like a long, long time. Finally, she, too, spoke. “Something really, really big is going on. Really big and really bad.”

I thought of the doctor at the hospital, the names on Thornhill's list. “And somehow it involves us.”

When Nia spoke again, I knew she didn't care anymore that Amanda had lied about her mother or her name. “We have to post this stuff on the site. Maybe whoever sent you the article about her mom knows more.”