Vortex (31 page)

“What the hell was I supposed to do?”
Holly’s voice emerged in a muffled, breathless whisper.
“They called my number. Brian practically shoved me out there.”

The $50,000 dance. I heard Kendrick groan from the couch … She had set it up. Set
us up. The sound of running water came through the earpiece. Holly must have walked
into the restroom.

“Lewis is all ready to go. She’s been prepping for days on every detail of this kid’s
life and now it’s gonna have to be you,”
Agent Collins snapped.

“No … I’m not ready for this,”
Holly said.

“I’m not ready for a five-foot-nothing trainee to screw up my mission, but I guess
we’ll just have to deal with it
.
”

A whole lot of static followed Agent Collins’s foreboding message, then his voice
returned.
“All right, Flynn. Suspect number twenty-two has an estimated blood alcohol level
well above the legally drunk limit. You’re on … but do exactly what I tell you. Exactly.
He’s not expendable like the others … not yet. We need him.”

Expendable? They really were in this until death. Chief Marshall hadn’t been kidding
about that.

I could hear the music, feet shuffling against the dance floor. The whole scene played
itself clearly in my mind.

“He’s been shamelessly staring at your ass for twenty minutes. I’ve got the geek squad
sifting through old girlfriend photos to see if you remind him of someone, but it
really doesn’t matter. You’ve got him hooked, somehow. That’s all we need to know.”

“Or he’s playing us and we’re falling right into the trap,”
Holly mumbled.

“Exactly why we have backup for you,”
Collins said.
“Go order a drink and don’t make a big deal out of the incident earlier.”

“Right,”
Holly said.
“
’
Cause that wasn’t even a little bit creepy.”

“I don’t know, Flynn … Maybe he’s on something … opiates or whatever fancy drugs rich
kids like him can get their hands on,”
Collins said.

“What do you have on tap?”
Holly said.

“Wishful thinking, Flynn,”
Collins said with a groan.
“Now say something to him.”

The bartender replied with his sarcastic offer of “water.”

“I thought you left,”
Holly said.

Then I heard my own voice, talking the bartender into giving her a real drink and
Holly ordering her Bud Light.

“Sit down next to him and do not drink more than one beer … in fact, don’t even drink
half of it,”
Agent Collins said.

“Pretty smooth. You’ve done this before? The intimidation factor … name-dropping?”
Holly asked.

A few more exchanges of words between Holly and me, and finally Agent Collins spoke
again.
“Okay, he knows it was an awkward moment earlier, so go ahead and acknowledge it.
Maybe it’ll break the ice
.
”

“You sure know how to invade a girl’s personal space,”
Holly said.

I heard myself apologize and then the change in tone when I had decided to pursue
this one evening of guilty pleasure.

“So, where are you from, Holly Flynn?”
I asked.

“Tell him the truth,”
Collins said.
“If he’s working for Tempest, he’ll be able to find out anyway. If he’s not … he won’t
care or even remember.”

Agent Collins was quiet all through the conversation about Jersey and parties in the
woods and beer kegs. But when Holly said,
“You’ve been sitting here for an hour. Don’t you think your date might be a little
bored … or lonely?”
And then I said,
“She’s just my partner … I mean, lab partner … for med school.”

Agent Collins laughed and said,
“I love those drunken slipups, don’t you? Lab partner, my ass.”

“What about your boyfriend? Is he okay with you, flirting with strangers?”
I asked.

“Go ahead, Flynn … level the playing field, but nothing too definite,”
Collins said.

“Brian flirts better than he plays football. Besides, he can’t hear me,”
Holly said.

“Good. Very good,”
Collins said.
“Now ask him to dance … Carter and Lewis are out there. She’ll jump in when he gets
bored with you. This job is yours to keep if you want it, but just between you and
me, Lewis is dying for you to screw up. She just told me that you don’t have the balls
to get any closer to the subject.”
He laughed again, like he knew this would set Holly off. She didn’t like to be told
what she couldn’t do.

A few more words between me and Holly … She asked me to dance … The Journey song played,
getting louder and louder. And I remembered her carefully calculated movements. She
wanted to prove them wrong, but she wasn’t as comfortable as the character she had
played that night. Except … there
were
a few minutes when I felt like she got lost in the moment … or maybe she was just
lost in her role.

Or maybe I was lost in mine.

“I bet you get a little wild if you’re drunk,”
I heard myself say.

“I bet you won’t find out,”
Holly said.

“Get him to invite you over, Flynn. We need to search his place,”
Agent Collins said.

“Unless
…” Holly said.

“Don’t go overboard, you can always slip something in his drink. No seduction needed,”
Collins said.

“So, where did you say you lived?”
Holly asked.

I heard myself turning down her open-ended invite and then we must have started writing
on napkins at that point. I barely listened to the next couple minutes. Instead, I
thought about what Holly had written on that napkin:
Tell the wind and fire where to stop, but don’t tell me
. Was she trying to tell me something? The quote was just so …
Holly
. Inside and out. That made it a lot harder to separate that girl from the one in
the diary.

The part where I kissed her followed and then Agent Collins spoke again.
“Okay, he’s obviously not inviting you over. Let’s go with the fallback plan. Prove
he’s an agent and close the door on this interaction between the two of you, at least
for now.”

That would explain the weird questions about people’s eye color. The fallback plan
involved Senator Healy’s made-up bet,
Wicked
tickets, and me trying not to be completely crushed. After the part where I had walked
away, Holly started speaking to Agent Collins in muffled whispers.

“I don’t think it’s him. He’s just so … vulnerable, but guarded,”
Holly said.
“He can’t have anything to do with Adam … I don’t know … He just doesn’t seem like
the assassin type. This is harder than I thought it would be.”

“No one is asking you to be Freud,”
Agent Collins said in a much gentler tone than he had used all night.
“You just follow orders and let us figure out the rest. You did well tonight. For
a rookie.”

“What now?”
Holly asked.

“I don’t think it would hurt for you to make suspect number twenty-two a little jealous.
Plant a seed for future use,”
Collins said.

I could hear Holly sigh.
“Sure.”

“All right, I get it … you need a break. Grab Brian and make sure our guy sees you
leaving early … together. That’ll be good enough. And, Flynn?”

“Yeah?”

“Get some sleep … eat something … call your mother … whatever you need to do to get
your ass in gear. I want you healthy. At one hundred percent for the next mission.
We can’t change what happened to Adam, but we can keep it from happening to you and
find out who did it,”
Collins said.

There was a long moment of silence before Holly spoke again, saying,
“Okay … I’ll try
.
”

“Carter?”
Collins said after another brief pause.

Carter was the guy on the dance floor. I had already pulled up images in my mind of
that night and was nearly positive I could identify this guy. That was more info about
Eyewall than we had two days ago.

“Yeah, boss?”
Agent Carter said.

Now I had the name, face, and voice.

“Flynn’s heading out … We’ll revisit suspect twenty-two after tonight,”
Collins said.

Agent Carter laughed.
“She’s gonna have to sleep with a suspect eventually. What else is she good for? You’re
too easy on her. Lewis would have never gotten away with that
.
”

The recording stopped and I stayed there, leaning against the counter, taking deep
breaths, trying to keep myself from flinging a chair out the window. Finally, I stood
up and walked over to the couch. Kendrick sat frozen and wide-eyed, while Stewart
chewed on a fingernail, avoiding my stare.

“Did you guys have to do that?” I asked.

“What?” Kendrick asked, looking surprised by the question. “Go undercover? Flirt with
a suspect?”

“Not flirting,” I said firmly.

Stewart finally looked at me. “He’s asking if we’ve slept with someone as an assignment.”

“No,” Kendrick said right away, then she let out a breath and added, “But close.”

“Seriously?” I said. “Like you really felt like you had to do it … or was it your
idea?”

Stewart laughed and then her face turned completely serious. “Yeah, she did it because
it sounded fun … Are you on something? We do what we have to do. If Kendrick was fat
and ugly she wouldn’t have to worry about any of that. Neither would I. But power
is power in whatever form we can get it.”

My eyes bored in to Stewart’s and I had to ask. I
had
to know. “Is that what it was … with me? Did someone make you do it?”

She stared right back, waiting a long time before answering. “No. It wasn’t an assignment.
Your dad would have never … I mean … I couldn’t…”

“How did you know about Agent Collins?” I asked, changing the subject quickly while
she was being honest.

She let out a breath, shaking her head in frustration. “Agent Collins offered me a
job.”

“When?” Kendrick asked.

“Two years ago … right after I started training.”

“Does he know which division you work for?” I asked, and even though I wanted to not
think like an agent, I couldn’t help it. Stewart was offered a position by the division
trying to take us down. How did we know she hadn’t accepted that position, but stayed
in Tempest as a—

“He knows now … but then, I’m not sure,” Stewart answered, her eyes bouncing between
us, probably weighing our suspicion.

“Well, maybe you’ll remember more about the EOTs or some details to help us take them
down,” I said, thinking that might be the only way to free Holly.

Her face changed to stiff and formal. “I’m not going to
remember
anything else, so you might as well just forget about telling anyone.”

I crossed my arms and stared her down. “What’s the deal? Did you
want
to join Eyewall? You heard what they think about us.”

“Forget it,” she said, shaking her head. “I just thought you, of all people, might
understand.”

Kendrick kept her eyes on us, but stayed silent.

“Why me? I haven’t been invited to their secret society, if that’s what you think.
Agent Collins hasn’t offered me a job,” I said.

“Did you listen to anything Thomas said the other night?” Stewart asked. “He said
things none of us have ever heard before. And it didn’t really sound like they wanted
us dead. I know we should assume he’s being manipulative, but what if he’s not? We
don’t even know what the hell we’re fighting. All we know is what we’re told by Marshall
and now Healy. I’m not taking down any Eyewall people without a damn good reason.”

Both Stewart and I turned toward Kendrick, who was now staring at her hands. She took
a deep breath before looking up at us and saying, “Stewart’s right. Everything about
the other night had me shook up but I couldn’t place where my fear was coming from …
and now this thing with Holly…”

“We don’t know anything,” I conceded. The uncertainty should have made everything
feel worse, and maybe I was still in shock, but the fact that the three of us had
just agreed to doubt the people we worked for created this bond I’d never wanted to
form, and yet … it was nice. My heart sped up as an idea formed, and I let it spill
out before I could second-guess myself. “I need you guys to look up something. It’s
really important, but I can’t tell you why just yet.”

“Okay…?” both of them said together.

“Surveillance photos … from March fifteenth of this year … around five in the afternoon
until six.” I waited for them to shake their heads or show some kind of reluctance,
but neither did. “The camera on Ninety-second Street … right in front of the Y.”

Stewart grabbed the laptop from Kendrick and set it on the kitchen counter, already
typing superfast. “I think I know how to find those.”

Kendrick rushed behind her, watching over her shoulder. I glanced down at the coffee
table and saw they had Holly’s diary out, along with a few pictures of Adam and me
that Holly took and taped to various pages. I picked up the pink notebook and the
pictures and sat down on my bed, flipping through the pages.

SEPTEMBER 27, 2009

I’m so, so confused. Now would be a great time to have a parental figure truly lay
down the law. Or just tell me what to do. I made plans with Jackson tonight that started
with me meeting him at his dorm and then me breaking up with him (of course he only
knew the first part). Well, I show up a few minutes before seven and his roommates,
Jake and Danny, let me in.