“She’s been avoiding you.”
She lowered her hands to look at him in surprise. “Really?”
He had moved and was now leaning against his headboard, legs stretched out on his bed. “I think it’s hard for her to see you with David.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Not directly. But it’s obvious. Or it was obvious when I saw her last night.”
She considered him. His black T-shirt had a green alien in a spaceship printed on it, and she realized it was the logo for Bin 42. “Hey,” she said suddenly. “You still haven’t told me what you were really doing there.” The expression on his face told her that he had been hoping she wouldn’t bring it up again. “Why were you there?”
He bent his right knee, resting his right hand on it. “Fine. I’ll tell you, but we have to come clean with each other, okay? I know you’re not telling me stuff.”
“We were in a fight,” she pointed out. “Wait, are we done with our fight?”
He grinned. “I’m done if you’re done.”
She let out her breath in relief. “Thank God. I was getting really tired of being annoyed with you.” He threw a sock at her, and she ducked. “Gross. How old are you, three?”
He rolled his eyes. “So you promise to tell me what’s going on for real? You still haven’t given me that recording of the meeting you had with Charles Lovick.”
She hesitated. “All right, I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Reese. Everything. Am I not your best friend?”
“Of course! But I can’t, Julian. I made a promise to David. Some things I can’t tell you.” She waved her hands. “But I’ll tell you everything I didn’t promise I wouldn’t tell you.”
He finally nodded. “I guess that’s fair.”
“Good. Now tell me what the hell you were doing at Angel Island.”
He smiled. “I went there to interview Amber for Bin 42.”
She had definitely not been expecting this. “Seriously?”
Julian’s eyebrows lifted. “Yes, seriously. Do you not know what I’ve been doing for the past six months?”
“You’ve been doing some stuff for Bin 42, I know, but—”
“No, not ‘some stuff.’ This is major, Reese. I know you’ve always thought my obsession with UFOs was kind of funny, but it turns out I was
She was uncomfortable. “I didn’t think it was funny.”
He gave her a pointed look. “Well, you definitely didn’t think I was going for a Pulitzer Prize or anything with my UFO blogging. I know you only agreed to start that Black Mailbox site to humor me.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s totally true. I thought we were supposed to be honest with each other now.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, feeling like the worst friend in the world. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. The point is, this has always been what I’m interested in. And I want to break the story. Not because I’m superexcited that aliens exist—although I
She shifted in her seat. “Okay. So what did she tell you?”
“Her story, basically. Where she grew up, what happened to her after she was shot.” He saw the look on her face and raised his hands. “She didn’t say anything about you. She said you told her you hadn’t said anything to the press and she didn’t think your relationship was relevant.” He smiled. “Just like you said.”
She was relieved—and ashamed of the relief. “When are you going to post the interview?”
“Not right away. I’m working on a big feature. That’s why I need you and David to sit down for an interview too. You guys are at the center of this. You have to get your story out there.”
“We already tried with Sophia Curtis, but the government shut that down,” she reminded him.
“I know. I’ve been in touch with Sophia Curtis.”
She was dumbfounded. “You have?”
“Yeah. Through Keith—you know, ‘Jason Briggs.’ He and I have been working with Sophia; she still has the footage from your interview, and on some of it you can see Jeff Highsmith from the DOD telling you guys to stop talking. It’s a gold mine.” He leaned forward, gesturing enthusiastically with his hands. “We’re building up this story piece by piece. The Amber interview is pretty awesome, because she’s not talking to anybody else, and everybody wants to know about her.”
She studied him. “Who else is involved in this investigation?”
“Just me and Keith. Sophia’s giving us info but she’s working independently. We haven’t agreed to totally share everything.” He grinned. “Yet. When she finds out I’ve got Amber on the record and if you and David agree to talk to me, I think she’ll be all in.” He drew both his knees up, wrapping his arms around them loosely. “Okay, so now it’s your turn. Tell me what’s been going on since the Charles Lovick meeting.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the pieces of paper she had taken from Mr. Hernandez’s briefcase. She got up and walked over to Julian, handing him the temporary ID. “I found this in Mr. Hernandez’s stuff today.”
He looked at the piece of paper, puzzled. “Isn’t this our new Principles of Democracy teacher?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought his name was Hernandez, not Vargas.”
She nodded. “That’s because he’s actually not a real teacher. He’s been planted there to watch me and David.”
“Shit, really?” Julian climbed off his bed and went to grab his laptop from the floor.
As he opened it and plopped back down into the beanbag chair, Reese finally told him about the meeting with Charles Lovick, his Blue Base guards, and the Corporation for American Security and Sovereignty. Julian’s eyes widened as she explained that CASS had been in control of American policies toward the Imria since 1947.
“Why have I never heard of them?” he asked.
“I’ve looked online. There’s nothing about them.”
“Are you going to do what they want? How do you know if they’re telling the truth?”
Reese sat on the edge of his bed. “I
He looked up, giving her a conspiratorial grin. “You’re going to lie to them?”
“We’re trying to buy time. We don’t know who to trust yet. So we’re going along with what CASS wants for now.” She watched Julian typing furiously into his laptop. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for Andrew Vargas,” he said, gesturing to the ID. “Where did you get that, anyway?”
“I found it in Mr. Hernandez’s briefcase.”
“You ‘found’ it?”
She smiled. “Yep. Found it.”
He laughed. “Okay, well, look what I found.” He turned the laptop around to face her and she joined him, kneeling on the floor beside the beanbag. “Andrew Vargas was on President Randall’s reelection committee until June of this year. Looks like he left right after the June Disaster.”
She scanned the website he had found; it was a post from an anti-Randall political blog. “Do you trust this source?”
“I can do some more digging with my contacts at Bin 42. I know some guys who work in DC. I’m going to ask about CASS too. But this post combined with the White House temporary ID and even that cleaning bill—I think Vargas-slash-Hernandez was working for Randall.”
“On his own or as part of CASS?”
“He had to be part of CASS when he was working for Randall, don’t you think? There would be too many coincidences, otherwise. Besides, I don’t think they’d assign him to handle a major situation like the one you and
