Making the Grade (The Model Spy #2)

Chapter 8 - Wheels Up

“I know you know something about her, Fred.”

 Fred took a bite of pizza, filling his mouth so he could ignore my question. So far, my attempts at acquiring some of the gossip concerning the lovely Agent Lilly Rosewood were futile. Fred knew something about her. He knew something about everyone. He never wanted to admit it, but he was a major snoop. Give him access to the CIA Employee Database and he creeped like he was a teenage girl stalking her crush over Facebook.

 “Whatever you say is strictly between you and me,” I prodded. It wasn’t like I was going to sabotage her. I just wanted to know what her deal was, why she was such a snob.

Pushing my empty plate to the side of the coffee table, I pulled a package P.I.N. had expressed to me into my lap. Using my nails to rip off the tape, I opened the box. Beneath some layers of tissue paper were several outfits, folded crisply. One by one, I pulled them from the package. A sequined top. A floral skirt. A pair of black leggings. I crinkled my nose at a neon green blouse.

“Perhaps it is time for Emma Blake to stop these designers from sending her free outfits,” Fred said, standing up and carrying his empty plate to the sink.

“Then she won’t have anything to wear. Ooh!” I lifted a polka dot dress up and examined the length. “After everything Emma Blake…I…went through, I deserve every single one of these pieces.”

Fred sat next to me, sifting through the outfits. His eyes widened and with his index finger he lifted the green blouse by its collar, holding it far away from him like a bit of smelly garbage.

“So, about Lilly-”

“We aren’t going to gossip about her. You are better than that, Laura-”

“What’s her story? Tell me!” I pleaded, balling up the outfits and throwing them back into the box. “What made her so evil? Some secret experiment gone wrong?” I pulled my legs up on the sofa and turned towards Fred, grabbing his wrists tightly, begging. “If you had only heard the things she said to me!” I attempted my best, cutest, frown.

Fred’s top teeth bit his lower lip. Slowly his eyes moved to his computer on the table. I squeezed his hand, urging him on.

“What I say does not leave this room. Personal information is strictly classified.”

“I swear!”

I stared hungrily at the laptop screen as Fred keyed in his passwords. We waited eagerly as the blue screen, the CIA’s logo in the background, loaded pixel by pixel.

“Truthfully, I want to learn about this snob as much as you do.” The side of Fred’s mouth was curved up into a smile. He nudged me with his shoulder just as the screen finished loading.

“Lillian Maria Rosewood. Twenty-one years old.” Fred scrolled down the page, passing her headshot. Her photo looked more like the models’ headshots I had seen last year, not a government photograph. Her black hair was glossy, the light hitting her skin just the right way, giving it a shiny glow that didn’t need airbrushing.

“Interesting,” Fred said.

“What is?”

“Born in Brazil, in Rio.”

I swallowed hard. Rio wasn’t a place I was too fond of at the moment. The doctor my parents had went after had not been found yet. He was still out there, somewhere in Brazil. I physically shook my head, as if that would scatter away the thoughts I was having.

“But she was adopted by an American family in New York when she was a few months old.”

I leaned back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, following the delicate, swirling moldings with my eyes. They danced across the soaring ceiling until they all met in the middle at a chandelier. I could never get used to staying in fancy hotels like this.