The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Search for Tomorrow

Previously: "The Pop Quiz" 

"Listen, man," you tell Fiore after ducking back inside your room. "I'm sorry I took your thing. I promise I won't touch it again if we get it back for you. We cool now?" Fiore grimaces but nods. "Brah." You punch him in the shoulder. "We'll get it back, we'll nail that guy's ass to the ground, and then we'll have some fun. You know?"

You cross the room to gaze out the window at the traffic circle below, where a dozen of the Jefferson kids are milling about while Dalton searches their rooms. "That book," you muse aloud. "Abi and Vee still have it?" Your heart races in anticipation of the answer.

"Sure, I guess."

"Whaddaya mean, you guess?" You wheel from the window, to pull a fresh shirt from the cupboard. "They checked? Like, since Prescott went AWOL with our shit?"

"I guess so," Fiore repeats, but his tone is cautious.

You give him a very steady look.

"Confirm," you tell him as you button up your shirt. "We need to know where it is at all times."

"I'm sure they got it covered."

"Famous last words, man. Ask them where it is, then come tell me."

"Why do you need to know where it is?"

Damn. In your eagerness to locate the Libra, you may have pushed too hard. You cover your discomfort by pretending to concentrate on knotting your tie.

"I guess I don't," you admit. "But I also guess I'd like to know. Fucking valuable piece of property, right? Don't you wanna know where it is? Like knowing where your car is?" You cinch up your tie. "If we figure out how to do half the shit that gink figured out, that'd be fine!" You slap Chris in the chest and drop onto the bed to pull on socks and loafers.

Fiore nods unhappily, and says he'll go talk to the girls. "And while you're at it," you add as he turns to go, "ask 'em to check in on Kristen. I know we're in a panic about Prescott hiding out here, but he's probably running for home. They told us Kristen is at his house, pretending to be him, right?"

Chris nods.

"Then what's he gonna do if he goes home and finds an imposter there? Ten to one he takes her out to the river and pushes her head under the water."

Chris turns very pale. "You don't really think he'd do that, do you?"

"What would you do," you ask as you pull on your jacket, "if you went home and found a, a whatchacallit, an evil twin, living at your house?" Fiore's lips disappear. "I know what I'd do. I got a Glock back home, tucked up safe where even my dad doesn't know about. I'd take it and the fucker out to the marsh that backs onto our land and—" You mime shooting Chris in the head.

"Tell Abi we don't want Kristen taking any chances," you continue. "We need her back here anyway. Dalton's gonna start wondering how come she's dodging dorm checks."

* * * * *

You're pleased with your talk with Fiore, and especially with the brainstorm about pulling Kristen back inside Xavier's. It'll really fuck with her plans to impersonate Abi. But you want to sweep Macklin's room anyway.

You're a prefect, so you don't get so much as a second glance as you stalk into the girls wing. The room that Vee and Kristen share is at the very end, directly across from Abi's. You listen at Abi's door, then at Vee's, before rapping a knuckle on the latter.

"Oh, I thought you were Dalton," a voice gasps behind you. You look over. Tammy-Lynn Ackers has stuck her head out of the dorm next door.

Fuck! If you find only part of your shit in Vee's room, and "Tell-All Ackers" tells Vee she saw you at her door, there could be hell to pay.

"What are you still doing in your room, Ackers?" you coldly demand. "You're in Jefferson, and Reeves is doing a dorm sweep."

She flushes. "I was just leaving."

"Then get your ass downstairs and out front before I write you up. I'll see if I can roust Macklin and Double-Wide." Will that explain your presence outside Vee's room? "Now!" you bark as Tammy-Lynn hesitates. She jumps, pulls the door shut behind her, and scampers away.

Once she's gone, you test Macklin's knob. It turns, and you slip inside.

It's furnished in the usual style. Two beds, headboard to headboard. Two narrow desks against the wall opposite. A flatboard cupboard at the far end. It's one of the nicer rooms, too, with a large, north-facing window.

You make a fast sweep, checking the cupboard first, but it is empty of everything save clothes. (At least it's not a total waste. You put a fresh pair of panties to your nose, and sniff.) You search the desk drawers and the spaces behind the desks. (Nothing but power cords, connected to the laptops and charging stations.) Under the beds? Not even dust bunnies. You pat the coverlets and slide your hand under the pillows. Nothing.

Hands on your hips, you glare at the two footlockers. They should be open, so that Reeves can inspect the contents, but they're locked, which means that Vee and Kristen haven't been back to prepare for the sweep. That means any contraband—including your stuff—should still be in the room. Betting odds are it's inside the lockers.

But there's no point in brooding over it. You lift your eyes to study the walls and cornices. The room is bare of panelling, but Abi has a loose brick she hides her pills behind, and there are persistent rumors of secret panels and passages, leftovers from the days when Founders Hall was the mansion of a nineteenth-century robber baron. But you'll be damned if you can spot anything that looks like a loose board.

You're about to give up when a wrinkle in one of the bedspreads gives you an idea. There's nothing under the beds or under the sheets. But under the mattresses?

"Jackpot, brah," you mutter to yourself as you pull a mask from between the mattress and the box springs. The name WILLIAM MARTIN PRESCOTT floats over its inner surface, and Shelly's name floats inside the second mask you pull out. Neither one is sealed with special sauce—these are the disguises that Vee and Kristen used when visiting your golems.

But the Libra isn't with them, and you shove the masks under your jacket when you hear a hard rap on a nearby door. "Dorm sweep!" A door rattles open, but the hall is empty as you duck out and hustle away on tiptoes, the two masks inside your jacket, tucked up inside your armpits.

You don't get far, though. You've just swung into the central hallway when Scott Ricci bursts out of the south wing and falls in beside you.

"Hey man," he pants. "I, uh, got that project paper for you to look at. Back in my room?" He gives you a wet and worried look, and jerks his head back the way he came.

What project paper? you almost ask. Then you read the thought behind his desperate stare. He should be downstairs, out front, with the rest of the poor bastards whose rooms are being searched.

There must be a ton of contraband in the place, you think, if Ricci and Tell-All are risking Reeves's wrath by loitering on the second floor when they should be outside.

"Okay, let's look at it," you reply, and follow him back into the south wing.

There's a fat book bag resting on his bed, and it clinks and sloshes as he unzips it. There's at least three bottles inside, plus a carton of cigarettes, and God only knows what buried at the bottom.

"Jesus, man, you lift all that from the party?" you ask.

"No. Jared and Sean got their stash, and me and Rob got ours. We usually slip it to Chan and Knight when there's a raid, but they went into town."

He turns worried, puppy-dog eyes up at you. "Can you take it back to your room till the sweep's over? Name your price."

You hesitate. Technically, Ricci shouldn't even be subject to a sweep. He's in your house (Washington), and Reeves only has direct jurisdiction over Jefferson. But Ricci's roommate is in Jefferson, so Ricci's stuff has to get searched too. Todd typically looks out for his charges, and they reward him with loyalty. Taking Ricci's bag is exactly the kind of solid Todd would do for him.

The masks are slipping from beneath your armpits, so you end the conversation with a nod. "Thanks, man," Ricci gasps in relief. "Whatever I can do—"

"You can get out of here before Reeves catches you up here. I'll close up."

Ricci nods, tosses off a quick salute, and scurries out, mouthing a fast "Thanks again!" at you from the doorway. You let the masks slip down and clatter to the floor.

Then you scoop them up with a soft cuss word.

You now regret letting yourself be panicked into running off with them. You still need to find the Libra, and Vee and Kristen will go on high alert when they find the masks missing. But you can't sneak them back into their room, at least not yet: Reeves locks up after his searches.

You could just put them in your own footlocker, or take them back to Saratoga Falls, and deal as best you can with the paranoia you will have stoked by taking the masks.

Or, it occurs to you as you glance around Ricci's room, you could feed that paranoia, and at the same time throw a smelly red herring across the pursuers' path, if you planted and "discovered" the masks here, in Ricci's room, after ordering your own sweep of Washington dorms. That might smoke Vee and Kristen into bringing the Libra back out where you could grab it.

Next: "The Conspirators" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"