“I’m sorry, Lil,” Scout finally said into the silence. “What can I do?”
I gave the question two seconds of deliberation. “You can get me into Foley’s office.”
Fourteen minutes later—after the brat pack had left the common suite for parts unknown—we were on our way to the administrative wing. The folder was tucked into Scout’s messenger bag,
my heart pounding as we tried to look nonchalant on our way through the study hall and back into the main building. We had two missions—first and foremost, we had to put the folder back.
If Foley found it missing, she’d only consider one likely source—me. I really wanted to avoid that conversation.
Second, since my parents’ letter assumed Foley already knew about their research—and apparently didn’t like it—I was guessing there was more information on the Sterling Research Foundation, or on my parents, in her office. We’d see what we could find.
Of course, it was just after dinner—and only a few minutes before the beginnings of study hall —so there was a chance Foley was still around. If she was, we were going to make a run for it.
But if she was gone, we were going to sneak inside and figure out what more we could learn about the life of Lily Parker.
Choir practice gave us an excuse to walk through the Great Hall and toward the main building,
even as other girls deposited books and laptops on study tables and set about their required two hours of studying. Of course, when we got to the main building, the story had to change.
“Just taking an architectural tour,” Scout explained with a smile as we passed two would- be choir girls. She blew out a breath that puffed out her cheeks after they passed, then pulled me toward the hallway to the administrative wing.
I wasn’t sure if I was happy or not to discover that the administrative wing was quiet and mostly dark. That meant we had a clear path to Foley’s office, and no excuse to avoid the breaking and entering—other than the getting-caught-and-being-severely-punished problem, of course.
“If you don’t take the folder back,” Scout said, as if sensing my fear, “we have to give it back to the brat pack. Or we have to come clean to Foley, and that means making even more of an enemy of the brat packers. And frankly, Lil, I’m full up on enemies right now.”
It was the exhaustion in her voice that solidified my bravery. “Let’s do it before I lose my nerve.”
She nodded, and we skulked down the wing, bodies pressed as closely against the wall as we could manage. In retrospect, it was probably not the least conspicuous way to get down the hall,
but what did we know?
We made it to Foley’s office, found no light beneath the wooden door. Scout knocked, the sound muffled by timely thunder. After a few seconds, when no one answered, she rolled her shoulders,
put a hand on the doorknob, and turned.
The door clicked, and opened.
We both stood in the hallway for a minute.
“Way easier than I thought that was going to be,” she whispered, then snuck a peak inside.
“Empty,” she said, then pushed open the door.
After a last glance behind me to ensure the hallway was empty, I followed her in, then pulled the door carefully shut behind us.
Foley’s office was dark. Scout rustled around in her messenger bag, then pulled out a flashlight,
which she flipped on. She cast the light around the room.
The top of Foley’s desk was empty. There weren’t any file cabinets in the room, just a bookshelf and a couple of leather chairs with those big brass tacks in the upholstery. Scout moved to the other side of Foley’s desk and began pulling open drawers.
“Rubber bands,” she announced, then pushed the drawer closed and opened another. “Paper clips and staples.” She closed that one, then moved the lefthand side of the desk and opened a drawer. “Pens and pencils. Jeez, this lady has a lot of office supplies.” She closed, then opened,
another. “Envelopes and stationery.” She closed the last one and stood straight again. “That’s it for the desk, and there’re no other drawers in here.”
That wasn’t entirely accurate. “I bet there are drawers behind the secret panel.”
“What secret panel?” she asked.
I moved to the bookshelf I’d seen Foley walk out of, pushed aside a few books, and knocked.
The resulting sound was hollow. Echoey. “It’s a pivoting bookshelf, just like in a B- rated horror flick. The panel was open when Foley called me out of class. She closed it again after she came out, but I’m not sure how.”
Scout trained her flashlight on the bookshelves. “In the movies, you pull a book and the sliding door opens.”
“Surely it’s not that easy.”
“I said the same thing about the door. Let’s see if our luck holds.” Scout tugged on a leather-
bound copy ofThe Picture of Dorian Gray . . . and jumped backward and out of the way as one side of the bookshelf began to pivot toward us. When the panel was open halfway, it stopped,
giving us a space wide enough to walk through.
“Well-done, Parker.”
“I have my moments,” I told her. “Light it up.”
My heart was thudding as Scout directed the beam of the flashlight into the space the sliding panel had revealed.
It was a storage room.
“Wow,” Scout muttered. “That was anticlimactic.”
It was a small, limestone space, just big enough to fit two rows of facing metal file cabinets. I took the flashlight from Scout’s hand and moved inside. The cabinets bore alphabetical index labels.
First things first, I thought. “Come hold this,” I told her, extending the flashlight. As she directed it at the cabinets, I skimmed the first row, then the second, until I got to theP s. I pulled open the cabinet—no lock, thankfully—and slid my folder in between PARK and PATTERSON.
Some of the tightness in my chest eased when I closed the door again, part of our mission accomplished. But then I glanced around the room. There was a little too much in here not to explore.
“Keep an eye on the door,” I said.
“Go for it, Sherlock,” Scout said, then turned her back on me, and let me get to work.
I put my hands on my hips and surveyed the room. There hadn’t been any other PARKER folders in the file drawer, which meant that my parents didn’t have files of their own—at least not under their own names.
“Maybe our luck will hold one more time,” I thought, and tucked the flashlight beneath my chin.
I checked theS drawer, then thumbed through STACK, STANHOPE, and STEBBINS.
STERLING, R. F., read the next file.
“Clever,” I muttered, “but not clever enough.” I pulled out the file and opened it. A single envelope was inside.
I wet my lips, my hands suddenly shaking, lay the file on the top of the folders in the open drawer, and lifted the envelope.
“What did you find?”
“There’s a Sterling file,” I said. “And there’s an envelope in it.” It was cream-colored, the flap unsealed, but tucked in. The outside of the envelope bore a St. Sophia’s RECEIVED BY stamp with a date on it: SEPTEMBER 21.
