The Inner Circle (49 page)

My brain kicks hard, fighting to find the right places for each new puzzle piece. What’s amazing is how quickly each one fits.

“Where are you, Beecher?” Tot asks again.

There’s a part of me that knows to stay quiet. It’s the same part that has kept Tot at arm’s length since the night I went out to Clementine’s house. But no matter how easy it is to paint him as the enemy, the one picture I can’t shake is the one from three years ago, at lunch in our dungeony cafeteria, when Tot finally trusted me enough to tell me about the first night, after fifty years, that he slept alone in his house after his wife died. He said he couldn’t bring himself to sleep under those covers as long as she wasn’t there.

I don’t care what anyone says. There are some things that can’t be lied about.

“Tot, listen to me: I think Clementine is here. With us.”

“What’re you talking about? Where’s
here
? Who’re you with besides Dallas?”

“Them. The Culper Ring.”

I hear him take a deep breath.

“You need to get out of there, Beecher.”

“We are… we’re about to,” I say as I reach the back of the room and spot Dallas down one of the rows. He’s on his knees, rummaging through a cardboard file box—a new box—that’s marked
Wallace/Hometown
in thick magic marker. “We’re just getting—”

“Forget the Culper Ring.
Get out of there!
”

“But don’t you see? You were right about them. Dallas brought me in and—”

“Dallas
isn’t in
the Culper Ring!”

Turning the corner, I hit the brakes, knocking a square file box from the shelf. As it tumbles and hits the concrete floor, it vomits sheets of paper in a wide fan.

“What’d you say?” I ask.

“Dallas isn’t in the Culper Ring. He never
was
.”

“How do you know?”

Tot takes another breath, his voice more of a grumble than a whisper. “Because
I’m
in the Culper Ring, Beecher. And I swear to you—the moment he finds what he’s looking for, Dallas is going to end your life.”

At the end of the row, down on his knees and flipping through one particular file, Dallas looks my way and peers over his scratched black reading glasses. “Y’okay, Beecher?” he calls out. “You don’t look so good.”

103

I-I’m great,” I tell Dallas, who quickly turns back to the file he’s flipping through.

“Turn around and walk away from him!” Tot barks through the phone. “Dallas has been in the Plumbers from the start—his uncle is Ronald Cobb, the President’s law school pal, who used to work at the Archives and got Dallas the job here! That’s why they picked him!”

It makes no sense. If that’s the case, why’d Dallas bring me here? But before I can ask it—

“If you think I’m lying, at least get out of there,” Tot adds. “At the very worst, I keep you alive!”

I take a few steps back, my body still in shock. It’s like staring at your reflection in the back of a spoon. In front of me, the spoon flattens—the distortion fades—and life slowly becomes crystal clear. Since the start of this, I’ve learned how good the Culper Ring was at keeping secrets… how they protect us like a big
outer ring
without ever revealing their existence… and how hard they’ve worked to shut down corrupt Presidents like Nixon or Wallace when they start their own private, self-serving
inner rings
like the Plumbers. But last night, within the first three minutes of being in that safehouse, Dallas spilled every secret, revealed his own membership, and took control of my entire search for the Plumbers, including making sure that I stopped sharing with Tot.

I thought it was for my own good.

But if what Tot says is true… if Tot’s the one in the Culper Ring and Dallas has been lying… the only ones who really benefited were Wallace… Palmiotti… and…

“This is it…!” Dallas shouts, excitedly pulling out a few sheets of paper and slapping the file folder shut. “We got it, Beech.
Here it is!
” Closing the file box, he shoves it back on the shelf and rushes right at me.

“
Get away from him, Beecher!
” Tot yells in my ear.

Dallas stops right in front of me, the hospital file clutched at his side.

“Who’re you talking to?” Dallas asks, pointing to my phone and sliding his reading glasses back into his jacket pocket.

“
He found the file? Do not let him have that!
” Tot adds as another noise—this one louder, a metal thud—erupts from this side of the stacks. Whoever’s in here, they’re getting closer.

“That noise… you think that’s Clementine?” Dallas asks, sidestepping past me and racing into the main aisle, back toward the door. What Tot said first is still my best move. I can deal with Dallas later. Right now, though, I need to get out of here.

“
Watch him, Beecher!
” Tot says in my ear as we pick up speed.

With each row we pass, I glance down each one. Empty. Empty. Empty again.

The air feels frozen as we run. It doesn’t stop the even colder sweat that’s crawling up my back.

The red doors are just a few feet away.

We pass another empty row. And another.

“Do we need a code to get out!?” Dallas asks.

“She said it opens from—”

Kuh-kunk
.

The metal door flies wide as Dallas rams it with his hip. It’s the same for the next door, the outer red door, which whips open, dumping us both back into the dusty air and poor lighting of the cave. We’re still moving, skidding, slowing down. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark.

That’s the reason we don’t see who’s standing there, waiting for us.

There’s a soft click. Like the hammer on a gun.

“Put the phone down, Beecher,” she says, and I drop it to the ground. To make sure Tot’s gone, she picks it up and hangs up the phone herself.

I was wrong. She wasn’t inside. She was out here the whole time.

“I’m sorry. I really am,” Clementine adds as she points her gun at Dallas’s face, then over to mine. “But I need to know what they did to my dad.”

104

You really think I believe a word you’re saying?” I ask, my eyes narrowing on Clementine’s gun.

“She’s a liar,” Dallas agrees. “Whatever she’s about to tell you, she’s a liar.”

“Don’t let Dallas confuse you,” Clementine says. “You know what’s true… you met Nico yourself. They ruined him, Beecher. They ruined my dad’s life.”

“You think that excuses everything you did? You killed Orlando! And then that lying… exploiting our friendship…!” I shout, hoping it’s loud enough for someone to hear.

There’s a small group of employees all the way down by the cave’s cafeteria. They don’t even turn. They’re too far.

She points with her gun, motioning us around the corner as we duck under the yellow police tape with the word
Caution
written across it. Back here, the lights are dimmer than those in the main cavity. From the piles of metal shelving on our right, and the rolls of cable wire piled up on our left, it looks like this section of the cave is mostly used for maintenance and storage. No one’s hearing us back here.

My brain whips back to our old schoolyard and when she tied that jump rope around Vincent Paglinni’s neck. Two days ago, when Clementine saw her father, I thought the girl who was always prepared was finally undone. But I was wrong. As always, she was prepared for everything.

“Beecher, before you judge,” she says. “I swear to you… I tried telling you the truth.”

“When was that? Before or after you hired someone to play your dead grandmother?”

“I didn’t hire anyone! Nan’s the woman I live with—the landlord’s mother-in-law. Instead of paying rent, I take care of her!”

“Then why’d you say she’s your grandmother?”

“I didn’t, Beecher! That’s what
you
said! And then—You cared so much about it, and I just wanted—You have no idea what’s at stake.”

“That’s your response!? You’re not even pregnant, are you? That was just to suck my sympathy and lead me along!”

“I didn’t tell her to blurt that! She saw me throwing up and that’s what she thought! The woman hates me!”

“You still let me believe some old woman was your dead grandmother! You understand how sick that is?”

“Don’t say that.”

“You’re sick just like Nico!”

“
Don’t say that!
” she erupts.

“
You killed my friend!
” I erupt right back. “You murdered Orlando! You’re a murderer just like your crazy-ass father!”

She shakes her head over and over, but it’s not in anger. The way her chin is tucked down to her chest, she can’t look up at me. “I-I didn’t mean to,” she pleads. “I didn’t think he would die.”

“Then why’d you bring that chemo with you!? I know how you did it—don’t say it’s an accident, Clementine! You came in the building with that chemo in your pocket—or was the real plan to use that on me?”

“It wasn’t meant for anyone,” she says, her voice lower than ever.

“Then why’d you bring it!?”

Her nostrils flare.

“Clementine…”

“Why do you think I brought it? Why does anyone carry around oral chemo? It’s mine, Beecher. The medicine is for me!”

My eyebrows knot. Dallas shakes his head.

“What’re you talking about?” I ask.

“Orlando… He wasn’t supposed to be there,” Clementine stutters. “When Orlando opened that SCIF and handed me his coffee… I thought the chemo would just… I thought he was in the Plumbers—that he was watching me for the President… that they’d found out about me. I thought it would knock him out… but I never thought it’d…”

“What do you mean,
the medicine’s for you
?” I ask.

“Ask yourself the real question, Beecher: After all these years, why now? Why’d I pick
now
to track down my father?” Her chin is still down, but she finally looks up at me. “They diagnosed me eight months ago,” she says, her hands—and the gun—now shaking. “I’m dying, Beecher. I’m dying from… back when Nico was in the army… I’m dying from whatever they did to my father.”

105

She’s a liar,” Dallas insists.

“They changed him!” Clementine shouts. “Whatever the army put in Nico… that’s what made him insane!”

“You see that, Beecher? It’s pure delusion,” Dallas says.

“It’s not delusion,” Clementine says. “Ask him, Beecher. He’s in the Plumbers, isn’t he?”

“I’m not in the Plumbers,” Dallas insists.

“Don’t let him confuse you,” Clementine says. “I knew it when I saw him at the cemetery. But when I first found out about Eight-ball… ask him what I was blackmailing Wallace for. It wasn’t money. Even when they nibbled and replied to my message in that rock at the graveyard—I never once asked for money.”

“Is that true?” I say to Dallas.

He doesn’t answer.

“
Tell him!
” Clementine growls, her hand suddenly steady as her finger tightens around the trigger. “He knows you’re working with the President and the barber and all the rest of his ass-kissers who’ve been hiding the truth for years!”

Dallas turns my way, but never takes his eyes off Clementine’s gun.

“She asked for a file,” Dallas finally says. “She wanted Nico’s army file.”

“His
real
file,” Clementine clarifies. “Not the fake one they dismissed him with.” Reading my confusion, Clementine explains, “My mother told me the stories. She told me how Nico… she told me how he was
before
he entered the army. How when they were younger… how she used to keep the phone on her pillow and he’d sing her to sleep. But when he finally came home… when he left the army—”

“He didn’t
leave
the army. They
kicked him out—
for trying to use a staple remover to take out one of his superiors’ eyes,” Dallas says.

“No—they kicked him out because of what they put inside him… what they turned him into,” Clementine shoots back. “Have you even bothered to read his fake file? It says he got transferred from army sniper school in Fort Benning, Georgia, to the one in Tennessee. But I checked. The address in Tennessee was for an old army medical center. Nico wasn’t just a sniper! He was a patient—and he wasn’t the only one!” she adds, looking right at me. “You know another one! You know him personally!”

“What’re you talking about?” I stutter.

“My mother—before she died—she told me, okay. You think they came to our tiny town and just took one person? They took a group of them—a bunch of them. So you can think I’m as crazy as you want, but I’m not the only one with the results of their experiments in me, Beecher. You have it in you too! You have it from what they did to
your
father!”